2019 March Madness - Zero games in

Whew….  I finally finished entering all the picks into the master scoring spreadsheet.  There are a few entries that have blanks or incorrect picks (winners where you didn’t have the team in the game).  I have notified people where I found that.

Here are the brackets that have errors in them:

Max A.#2: Winner of Marquette/Vermont as Florida State

Janahan A.: Blank winner of Mississippi State / Virginia Tech

Craig McG.: Winner of St, Mary’s / Purdue as Villanova

Jacob A.: Blank winner of LSU / Minnesota

Hutch H. #2: Winner of St. Mary’s / Purdue as Villanova

Scott K. #1: Winner of Arizona State / Nevada as Texas Tech

Let me know how you want me to correct these, and I will make the changes.

Thanks to everyone that got in this year.  Barring some really compelling reason, we are going to finish with 227 entries this year.  That’s about as many as we’ve had the last two years.

For those that aren’t familiar with how all this works, I generate a master scoring spreadsheet, which is the only way I’m keeping score.  I am putting this on the google drive, so I would encourage everyone to look at your entries and make sure they are correct.  Especially if you didn’t use the Excel file I provided.  If the you used that file, I just copied and pasted the data into the master file, but for all other options, I had to transcribe the data, and it’s entirely possible that I fat-fingered something.  Look especially at the Marquette/Murray State game, the Michigan/Montana game and if you had Minnesota vs. Michigan State in the second round.  Actually, anywhere two teams could play each other where both teams start with the same letter are places I could’ve screwed up (Kansas / Kentucky, Virginia / Villanova, etc).  If you find something wrong, let me know.  I’ll check your original submission and make the change if it looks like I screwed it up.

I’ll posting results on this blog after each set of 2 games, but you can go to the google doc to see the standings whenever a game finishes.

For those wondering about the color coding on the entry names.  If it’s green, that means I have actually received payment for the entry.  If it’s yellow, it just means I haven’t received actual money yet.  There is a column called Payment that outlines how you told me you were going to pay.  Some people pay by check, and I’ll leave your name in yellow until I get it in the mail.

All right, games have already started.  Here are the particulars of the first 4 games:

Here are the particulars:

Picks for Louisville: 144

Picks for Minnesota: 83

Vegas Line: Louisville -5

This looks like a typical 10/7 game.  Not many people have the winner of this game going beyond this game.  That makes this is more or less a tie-breaker game, where if you are competing against someone else that picked the same champion as you, you can get 1 point ahead if you get this one right.  Seems like a good game to start things off, since it’s relatively low stakes but should be pretty close.  I obviously have watched exactly zero minutes of this game as I was wrapping up the entry process, so it may be a blowout for all I know.  Only 21 people have the winner of this game going to the Sweet 16.  12 have the winner going to the Elite 8.  One person has Louisville in the Final 4.  No one has Minnesota going that far.

Picks for LSU: 182

Picks for Yale: 45

Vegas Line: LSU -7

For those that aren’t familiar, I have a gigantic college t-shirt collection.  Of the 350 Division-1 schools, I probably have a t-shirt for 315 of them.  Every year, I wear the t-shirt for the lowest seeded team that I want to win.  This morning, that team in Yale.  I watched them play a few times this year, and I kind of like them.  I’ve also seen LSU play a few times, and thy are good, but don’t currently have a head coach.  That seems like a recipe for an upset to me.  You all know how much I love upsets.  LSU is easily the #3 seed most people think will lose in the opening round.  The most picks against any of the others is 17.  Yikes.

Picks for Auburn: 184

New Mexico State: 43

Vegas Line: Auburn -6

If you liked Yale to upset LSU, you might be tempted to take New Mexico State to beat Auburn.  The Vegas line virtually the same.  New Mexico State pretty much crushed the entire WAC this season.  I think they are on something like a 15 game win streak.  I really don’t understand why they stay in the WAC.  They win that conference every year.  They used to be in the Big West with UNLV back in the day.  Seems like the Mountain West could make room for them.  As for Auburn, they’ve had an up and down season.  My best guess for them is that they should enjoy it while it lasts, since I think they are tied up in the recruitment scandal that is effecting Kansas and Arizona now.  Bruce Pearl doesn’t have a sterling record on that front.

Picks for Florida State: 208

Picks for Vermont: 19

Vegas Line: Florida State -8.5

Vermont is in the same conference as UMBC, so who knows what’s possible.  I don’t really know much about them.  I’m hoping for an upset, but I’ve watched a lot of Florida State this season, and it seems unlikely.  Then again, last year, there was one game where every one in the pool picked the same team, and that game was Virginia / UMBC in the first round.  Yikes!!!

Here is the link with the document with all the picks in it.  It will be updated every time a game goes final:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1zi_wTuDwtk0gz5CvmhywrD7PyELvzCHM

Good luck to everyone!!!!!