Final scenarios

Hello again.  It’s been a frantic 2 weeks of basketball, so I was happy to have a week off before the last 3 games of the season.  There is a lot at stake in these games, but there are precious few left that can actually win anything.  It’s almost like we are down to the final 3 tables of a poker table.  The difference is that instead of poker chips, everyone has percent chances of winning.  As people get knocked out, those percentages go to one or more of the people left, but they always add up to 100%.

The good news is that with the last batch of checks showing up, it looks like everyone that entered the pool has paid, so I can take off my accounts receivable hat for this year.  That’s probably the worst part of running something like this.  Thank you to everyone for making sure this pool is fully funded.

There are only 8 ways the pool can play out, but there are still 19 people that can win something.  Here are the payouts for the 8 different scenarios.  I find they way this shakes out even this late in the pool fascinating.  Even this late, it’s not immediately obvious looking at the points standings and picks who will win what.  It really does take doing the math to figure out who will win what place.  Often I look at the standings and one person or another is still alive and I ask myself, “How is (person X) still alive?”  It’s not always clear.

Michigan State Beats Virginia

Jim W. wins 1st place.

Todd K. #1 wins 2nd place.

Stephen H. wins 3rd place.

Todd K. #3 wins 4th place.

Michigan State beats Auburn

Jim W. wins 1st place.

Brent E. #4 wins 2nd place.

Winner of tie breaker between Jay K. / Joel B. #1 / Washington Post wins 3rd place.

2nd place in tie breaker between Jay K. / Joel B. #1 / Washington Post wins 4th place.

Texas Tech beats Virginia

Ben S. #2 wins 1st place.

Ben J. #4 wins 2nd place.

Jay H. #1 wins 3rd place.

Klei R. #2 wins 4th place.

Texas Tech beats Auburn

Ben S. #2 wins 1st place.

Ben J. #4 wins 2nd place.

Klei R. #2 wins 3rd place.

Josh D. #3 wins 4th place.

Auburn beats Michigan State

Alex P. wins 1st place.

Klei R. #1 wins 2nd place.

Stefon K. wins 3rd place.

Jim W. wins 4th place.

Auburn beats Texas Tech

Alex P. wins 1st place.

Josh D. #3 wins 2nd place.

David W. wins 3rd place.

Jay H. #1 wins 4th place.

Virginia beats Texas Tech

Jay H. #1 wins 1st place.

Klei R. #1 wins 2nd place.

Stefon K. wins 3rd place.

Michelle L. #2 wins 4th place.

Virginia beats Michigan State

Klei R. #1 wins 1st place.

Stefon K. wins 2nd place.

Michelle L. #2 wins 3rd place.

Joel B. #7 wins 4th place.

I am obviously pulling for Virginia to beat Michigan State, although I have some other options if that doesn’t happen.

A few things I found strange in these outcomes.  First, if MSU beats Virginia, MSU super-fan Todd K. will win both 2^nd and 4^th.  This has happened a few times in the bowl pool, and I put a rule in place there where no one could win more than one place.  I didn’t do that here because I didn’t think it would ever really happen.  In the bowl pool, you could enter 2 sheets with the same picks and different weights, but in the basketball pool, it seems strange to enter 2 brackets with the exact same championship game.  That’s what Todd has done.  Outside of that, though, his two brackets are pretty drastically different.  I think this proves how important getting the championship game is.  It almost eclipses anything else you may have picked throughout the rest of the tournament.  It’s like I say every year in the first 2 rounds.  The games are really interesting and people sweat all 48 games, but they are really just tie-breakers that only come into play at this point.  Anyway, if MSU beats Virginia, I’ll still pay out the 2 places to Todd K.

The other strange thing left is the MSU over Auburn outcome.  Notice that there is a 3 way tiebreaker.  I feel like this is like the prizes in Glengarry Glen Ross.  Win the tie-breaker, you get 3^rd place.  2^nd place in the tie-breaker gets 4^th place.  3^rd place in the tie-breaker, and you’ve won exactly $0.  Congratulations.  That really sucks.  That’s soooo close.  Then again, 2 of those brackets were copied straight out of a newspaper, so I don’t feel too bad.

Anyway, enjoy the games.  We’ll be down to 2 scenarios after tonight.  I’m sure a lot of people will be disappointed and some people will just have more anxiety.  Fun, huh?