March Madness 2021 Rules

 Hello again everyone.  It’s March again, so that means another March Madness tournament.  I naively thought we were going to have a tournament last year, but COVID made quick work of that.  The only plus side of that was that it hit before I collected any money or any brackets from anyone.  That would have been a nightmare to get everyone their money back.  It’s bad enough just keeping entries and payments straight when I don’t have to issue refunds.  Sadly, we’ll never know if San Diego State could have made the Final 4.  I was pretty sure I was going to pick them.  Luckily, they are pretty good this year too, so I may feel inspired to anyway.  We’ll see.  It also means that the defending national champion is Virginia.  I’m guessing most people outside of some real die-hards remember that.  It was soooo long ago.

There are some real changes to this years tournament.  For one thing, all the games are going to happen in and around Indianapolis.  That’s kinda cool.  I’m hoping that means that I get to watch more games.  It won’t be the same without fans, but it’s better than no games at all, so I’ll take what I can get.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that the schedule is totally messed up from the way they usually run the tournament.  Usually, they play the “First Four” games on Tuesday and Wednesday after Selection Sunday.  This year, they are playing those games on Thursday.  The first-round games will be Fr/Sat, and the second round is on Sun/Mon.  That means everyone has an extra day to submit entries.

One thing they are saying, which I hope doesn’t happen is that if a team has to quarantine because of some positive COVID tests, I think they will forfeit their next games.  They aren’t doing anything to account for an incident like that.  I’m not sure how you can account for that when picking teams, but it can certainly make for some interesting scoring.

For those that are getting into the pool for the first time, let me give you a little introduction.  I’ve been running this pool since 2006.  In 2005, I put together a spreadsheet so that I could tell if my entry in a pool had any chance of winning (or what had to happen to keep me from being eliminated).   After that, I figured I could provide that type of information to anyone in a pool, as well as provide some rough probabilities of winning at various stages of the tournament.  Every year, I spend the first Thursday and Friday at my brother’s place in front of 4 screens watching a ton of basketball, eating bad food and scoring all of the entries.  After the opening weekend, I am able to generate preliminary probabilities of getting all of the payouts.  I can also tell if and when entries are eliminated from contention for the various payouts.  It makes it much more interesting than just figuring out who has the most points at any particular time.

Tracking Entries

I continue to keep a blog where I am writing all of the information that I would have been emailing in years past.  This is easier and more convenient for me.  There is an icon on the site if you want email updates whenever I post anything if you still like the email notification.  The site is located at: http://kleisports.blogspot.com/.  There is no password required.

Who can Enter

Basketball fans…  Fans of pools….  Anyone with five bucks…..  Anyone can enter.  Feel free to forward this on to anyone that wants to enter.  All are welcome as long as they follow the instructions laid out here.  You can enter as many times as you want.  There is no limit to the number of entries.

How to Enter

There are a few ways to enter.  I will send out a spreadsheet that has the bracket in it.  I have to put everyone’s picks into one master spreadsheet for scoring purposes, and the spreadsheet I send out automatically formats the picks in a way that means I can just copy and paste it.  That’s the most convenient way for me, but I’ll accept entries however you can get them to me.

You can fill out a sheet and send me a scanned version.  You can do this via Yahoo or ESPN, or any other place that allows you to print out brackets.  Just make sure that you let me know how you are going to pay for it when you send me the sheet.  You can send me a picture of your completed bracket.  You can write out your picks in some kind of column format.  So long as I can decipher what you did, you should be good.  My only request is this….  If you aren’t using the spreadsheet that I send out, don’t get cute with the names when filling out a bracket.  I have to transcribe the picks, so when someone puts “Zags” or “Cuse” for Gonzaga or Syracuse I have to break my rhythm to figure out what those teams are.  Also, don’t just put in the seed numbers.  That’s the worst.

Play-in Games

I think this is a hidden value and as these pools get bigger they may make a bigger difference to who wins.  There are 4 play-in games that go off on Thursday.

The NCAA finally succumbed a few years ago and stopped calling them “1^st round games”.  Whatever you call them, if you want to pick one of those teams to advance, you essentially get whoever wins that game.  For instance, a few years ago, if you liked Iowa to advance to the Sweet 16, you still got points for Tennessee advancing because Tennessee beat Iowa in the play-in game.  I think that at least one team from the play-in game makes the Sweet 16 most years and VCU made it to the Final 4 as a play-in winner.  That’s a lot of points to leave on the table.

Tiebreaker

I never like deciding places via a tiebreaker, but sometimes 63 games aren’t enough to determine who gets what, so I need one.  The tiebreaker is the total points scored in the championship game.  The winner of the tiebreaker is the entry that is closest to the actual number of points, regardless of whether or not it is higher or lower.

How to pay

The cost is $5 per entry.  There are no volume discounts or anything like that.

There are a few ways to pay, but I’ll accept most types of payment except for PayPal.  I had everyone use that a few years back and it got flagged for “suspicious activity”.  That seems so strange since I never use my Paypal account except for about a week where I would receive a ton of activity in $5 increments.  I can probably get away with PayPal, but it’s not my preferred method.

Venmo seems to work great.  My address is bj_nittmo@yahoo.com or b_nittmo@yahoo.com.  They both link to the same account.

You can pay in cash. Cash always works.

If you want to mail me payments or set up a payment from your bank, here’s my address:

Klei Richards

1882 Black Mustard Lane

Carlsbad, CA 92011

I personally prefer if you set me up as a payee if you use on-line banking.  The bank consolidates all the checks that I get that way.  It makes it slightly easier for me.

As I mentioned above, you MUST send me an email with your entry and how you intend to pay for it.

Deadlines

The deadline for entry is tip off of the first game on Friday, March 19th.  Brackets will be released on Sunday, March 14th. 

Scoring

The scoring is the same as it’s been in years past.  There will be 32 points available in each round for a total of 192 points in all.  That means that every game you get right on the opening Thursday and Friday will be worth 1 point, every game on the opening Saturday and Sunday will be worth 2 pts.  It also means that picking the Champion gets you 32 points.  With a pool as big as mine has turned into, you almost certainly need to get the winner right to have any chance at the money.

Payouts

Two years ago, I paid out 4 places.  I said that if I managed to get 250 entries, I would pay out 5 places.  I pay out everything that I take in, so this whole escapade is charity work on my behalf.  If I pay out 4 places, the breakdown will be: 1^st – 50%, 2^nd – 25%, 3^rd – 15%, 4^th – 10%.  If it turns out to be 5 places, the breakdown will be: 1^st – 45%, 2^nd – 25%, 3^rd – 15%, 4^th – 10%, 5^th – 5%.  I won’t know what the actual dollar amounts will be until I know how many entries I have. 

I think that more or less covers everything.  If you’ve read all the way through this, congratulations!!!  It’s a bit of a long-winded message, but there’s a lot of information in there that people have asked about in the past as well as things that have caused me grief in the past.  I hope everyone can join.  It promises to be a fun tournament.  I’ll be hoping for a ton of upsets.  I don’t like it so much when all the higher seeds win.  I actively discourage people from entering a bracket only by the seeds.  My favorite day of the tournament is selection Sunday, and my second favorite day is the day all gutless brackets are mathematically eliminated from any money.  I really can’t stand those types of picks.

Good luck to everyone!!!!

 Klei