Final Wrap Up - Bowl Pool 2019-2020

Back in the day, I know I said that I kind of liked when they played one game a day for a while at the end of the season.  I’m not so sure I’m all that jazzed about having a week-long delay between the Lending Tree Bowl and the National Championship game.  Honestly, college football more or less fell off the radar for me in that time.  They need to keep the momentum.  My proposal is to have one game a day for 41 straight days.  They can make the semi-final games on one day to cut it down to 40, but we would be I think that would be really fun.  It will never happen, but I can dream.

Anyway, LSU won.  In the grand scheme of things, the last game didn’t matter.  The top 9 places were going to be the same regardless of the outcome of this game.  It turned out that the top 17 places all took LSU, so it seems like there was a correlation, but that doesn’t imply causation.  There was a positive correlation between picking LSU and finishing near the top (.55), but just picking games right regardless of points was a stronger correlation (.88).  If I had more time, I’d figure out picking what game’s winner had the highest correlation with the final results (My bet is Texas in the Alamo Bowl, but I’m not sure 100% on that.  I could be surprised.

I mentioned a few weeks back that this year was crushing previous years in terms of the number of points won by not just the top pickers, but really everyone.  Last year, Mike S. won with 565 points.  That would have been good enough for 40^th this season.  So, more than half of the field would have scored more points.  That’s a huge difference, especially considering there was the same number of points at stake in both years.  I can’t really explain that.  Maybe everyone is getting better, or there were fewer upsets, or the games are more predictable (obviously).  I really can’t pin in it down.  Watch, next year you’ll need 475 points to win.  Strange indeed.

So, here is the final elimination matrix, complete with final points.

Total	1st Place	2nd Place	3rd Place
1. Jim W.: 713 (-137)	1st Place	Nevada	Indiana
2. Harrell R. #2: 691 (-159)	Utah	2nd Place	So. Miss
3. Pete J. #1: 683 (-167)	Utah	So. Miss	3rd Place
4. Harrell R. #1: 682 (-168)	Initial	Utah	So. Miss
5. Grant F.: 677 (-173)	Nevada	Nevada	Indiana
6. Ben W.: 670 (-180)	Initial	Initial	Va. Tech
7. Mike S.: 669 (-181)	Utah	Utah	BC
8. Jonathan J.: 668 (-182)	Kan. St.	Wisconsin	Wisconsin
9. Josiah T. #1: 666 (-184)	Auburn	Baylor	Indiana
10. Pete J. #2: 665 (-185)	Initial	Kan. St.	Auburn
11. Hutch H.: 652 (-198)	Kan. St.	Kan. St.	Kan. St.
11. Scott Herd. #2: 652 (-198)	Initial	Initial	Kan. St.
13. Dave M.: 641 (-209)	Kan. St.	Kan. St.	Kan. St.
14. Brett W.: 640 (-210)	Indiana	Nevada	Nevada
15. Michelle L. #1: 628 (-222)	Fla. St.	Fla. St.	Baylor
16. Emily T.: 625 (-225)	Initial	Initial	Va. Tech
17. Brian K.: 624 (-226)	Initial	Va. Tech	Va. Tech
18. Mason A.: 620 (-230)	Initial	Initial	Initial
19. James P.: 619 (-231)	Utah	Baylor	Baylor
20. Mike N.: 612 (-238)	Nevada	So. Miss	Nevada
21. Peter F.: 607 (-243)	Wisconsin	Wisconsin	Wisconsin
21. Brent S.: 607 (-243)	Baylor	Nevada	Nevada
23. Klei R.: 604 (-246)	Baylor	Baylor	Baylor
24. Andrzej #1: 603 (-247)	Initial	Initial	Va. Tech
25. Dylan B.: 601 (-249)	Initial	Initial	Utah
26. Andrzej #2: 600 (-250)	Initial	Initial	Kan. St.
27. Mike W.: 597 (-253)	Initial	Initial	Initial
28. Pete J. #3: 596 (-254)	Michigan	Michigan	Michigan
28. Scott Herd. #1: 596 (-254)	Ga. St.	Utah	Utah
30. Matt N.: 595 (-255)	Va. Tech	Fla. St.	Indiana
30. Josiah T. #2: 595 (-255)	Ga. St.	Wisconsin	Wisconsin
32. Scott Has. #1: 594 (-256)	Initial	Initial	Initial
33. Marc R.: 587 (-263)	BC	Indiana	Indiana
34. Josiah T. #3: 581 (-269)	Initial	Initial	Initial
35. Adam E.: 575 (-275)	Baylor	Baylor	Nevada
36. Greg McE. - ESPN: 574 (-276)	Initial	Initial	Utah
36. Damien R. #2: 574 (-276)	Initial	Initial	Initial
38. Jay H. #1: 572 (-278)	Initial	Initial	Initial
39. Scott Has. #2: 566 (-284)	Michigan	Michigan	Michigan
40. Dustin B.: 565 (-285)	Utah	Michigan	Michigan
41. Shawn M.: 555 (-295)	Initial	Initial	Initial
42. Ryan G.: 554 (-296)	Initial	Initial	Initial
43. Jay H. #2: 552 (-298)	Initial	Fla. St.	Fla. St.
44. Ryan W.: 551 (-299)	Ga. St.	Utah	Utah
45. Dan Du.: 544 (-306)	Initial	Initial	Initial
45. Michelle L. #2: 544 (-306)	Baylor	Baylor	Baylor
47. Jaxon S.: 542 (-308)	Va. Tech	Kan. St.	Kan. St.
48. Cory R.: 541 (-309)	Initial	Initial	Initial
49. Max W. #2: 533 (-317)	Va. Tech	Initial	Utah
50. Nick B.: 531 (-319)	Michigan	Auburn	Michigan
51. Mike Smith: 530 (-320)	BC	BC	BC
51. Max A. #2: 530 (-320)	Kan. St.	Michigan	BC
53. Matt M.: 526 (-324)	Kan. St.	Kan. St.	Ga. St.
54. Nikki W.: 523 (-327)	Initial	Va. Tech	Va. Tech
55. Max W. #1: 520 (-330)	Initial	Initial	Initial
56. Andrew D.: 512 (-338)	Initial	Initial	Initial
57. Tim N.: 510 (-340)	Initial	Initial	Initial
57. Brad R.: 510 (-340)	Va. Tech	Va. Tech	Va. Tech
59. Becky H.: 507 (-343)	Va. Tech	Va. Tech	Va. Tech
60. Bryan G.: 501 (-349)	Baylor	BC	Indiana
61. Max A. #1: 495 (-355)	Va. Tech	Va. Tech	Va. Tech
62. Steve Dz.: 464 (-386)	Initial	Initial	Initial
62. Nichole W.: 464 (-386)	Initial	Initial	Initial
64. Jason S.: 462 (-388)	Initial	Initial	Initial
65. Ally H.: 460 (-390)	Initial	Initial	Initial
66. Kirt R.: 454 (-396)	Fla. St.	Kan. St.	Kan. St.
67. Damien R. #1: 430 (-420)	Initial	Initial	Va. Tech
68. Rich P.: 415 (-435)	Initial	Initial	Initial

Feel free to brag amongst your friends if you wound up beating them, even if you didn’t finish in the top 3.

Turns out we didn’t need the “only one payout per player” rule after all, as Harrell finished 2^nd and 4^th this year.  That’s a good thing.

So, we had 6 people pick >=30 games right this season.  That’s a little misleading, because Harrell was 2 of them and Pete J. was another 2.  The other 2 people were Jim W. (obviously) and Scott Herd. #2.  Jim W. was the clear winner here with a whopping 35/41 games right.  2^nd was Harrell R. #2 with 33.  I’ve seen bowl pools where they don’t even bother with the points, they just pick winners that person with the most wins wins the pool.  That would be easier to administer, and the results (as far as the payout go) would have been exactly the same – or at least to the same people.  Not sure I like that since the points make the commentary a little more interesting to write, even if don’t often make a difference.

Speaking of which , the annual award for person that made the most of their picks was Dustin B.  He only picked 22 games right, but averaged 25.68 points per win, so he was the person that maxed out their points best.  The flip side of that was Damien R. #1, who also picked 22 games right, but only averaged 19.55 points per win, and finished in 67^th.  So, that’s a 27 position swing for two entries that picked the same number of games right, so maybe the points matter after all.

That’s it for this year’s pool.  I’ll be back in a few months for March Madness.  I’m already excited about that.  I’ve been following the season pretty close, so hopefully I’ll be able to repeat my success from last year.  Finger’s crossed.  Until then, enjoy the college basketball season!!!!