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I’m sure you all have heard it. The conventional wisdom for these brackets is to pick a #1 to win it all, or at least make the Final 4. It’s also considered smart to pick a 12 to beat a 5. 12s are usually the best of the small conference schools, and the 5s are often times fading major conference schools. This year could not have gone any more against conventional wisdom.
Two #5 seeds and 0 #1, #2 or #3 seeds made the Final 4. Other than Connecticut, none of the other 3
teams had EVER made a Final 4. I’d like
to think it’s a bit of a changing of the guard in college basketball. I mean, blue blood teams like North Carolina,
Villanova, Michigan and Wisconsin didn’t even make the field. Other teams like Kentucky, Duke, Purdue and
Kansas were long gone by the time the Sweet 16 rolled around. It’s just a strange set of teams this Final 4,
and having gone to at least 2 Final 4s when they were held in Houston, I had to
pick this year to NOT go. D’oh!
3 of the 4 teams in the Final 4 made it there as underdogs
if you go by the seeds. The only
non-underdog: SDSU. I also see that they
are installed as a 1.5 point favorite. Seeing
them make the Championship game would be amazing. I think San Diego will be a pretty fun place
to be in the next week or so (I mean, it usually is, but you know what I mean).
If you look at the South region, the far away winner was
Charlotte N. She wound up getting 28/32
points out of this region. The second
best was 22. The only 3 games she missed
were Virginia over Furman, and Arizona winning 2 games. That’s it.
She had SDSU beating Creighton in the Regional final. The average number of points won in this
region was 9.05, so if you are wondering why she’s so high up in the standings,
there are 2 things going for her: she still has options going forward and she
racked up a lot of points up until now.
Impressive.
As for the Midwest bracket, there was another clear
winner. Alyssa B. finished with 27/32
points. She was 3 clear of the #2 bracket
in this region. The only games she
missed were Iowa State over Pitt in the 1st round, and Xavier over
Texas in the Sweet 16. That’s it. Unfortunately for her, she was totally
knocked out of the pool with the UCLA loss, so probably has no idea she did
that.
I’m getting the idea that it might be fun to offer some prizes
for people that win these regions. Maybe
something like $50 if you win a region.
I could run numbers from the opening weekend if I did that. The overall prize money would be lower, but
it might keep more people interested. I’ll
give it some thought. It’s more work for
me, but it would also be really fun. I’ll
think about it.
We are down to 12 people that are still alive for something. Only 4 people can win it all, which shouldn’t
be all that surprising given the last game counts for 32 points. What is amazing is that 2 of those 4 people
that can still win had Purdue winning it all.
Just goes to show that you should never give up on your bracket until
you are officially eliminated. A big
chunk of that reason is because no one picked Miami-Florida or Florida Atlantic
to win the whole thing. If they win, it goes
to whoever had the most points going into the finals. No one had Florida Atlantic in the Final 4,
much less the finals. Only one person
had Miami-Florida in the Finals, but he only has 56 points right now, and 16
extra points would not vault him into the lead (Hack a Zach has 77). That’s pretty rough.
There are 3 people that can finish in the money, including Hack
a Zach, who can still win that can not get any more points. They need chaos to happen, but given the
tournament so far, chaos seems totally possible.
Charlotte N. solidified her hold on finishing in the money,
and is now sitting at 75% and is still the only person that get all remaining
points. Hack a Zach is kind of the
opposite. He has a 62.5% chance to
finish in the money, but he can’t get any more points. Everyone else falls in between.
I was also hoping that tie-breakers wouldn’t be needed, but we
have not been able to eliminate them entirely.
As a matter of fact, in 5 of the 8 remaining scenarios, 4th
place ends in some kind of tie. There is
still a scenario where 4th place ends in a 3-way tie, and 2 of the 3
places will get nothing. I hope that
doesn’t happen, but that’s why the percentages look a little weird. If there were no ties, all the odds would be
multiples of 12.5%.
Here is the Matrix:
|
Name |
1st Place |
2nd Place |
3rd Place |
4th Place |
|
Charlotte N. -
Connecticut |
31.2500% |
16.6667% |
16.6667% |
10.4167% |
|
Hack a Zach (Dave
F.) - Purdue |
31.2500% |
10.4167% |
10.4167% |
10.4167% |
|
Steve D. #1 -
Purdue |
Creighton |
25.0000% |
12.5000% |
Kansas St. |
|
Rob I. #1 - San
Diego State |
25.0000% |
Gonzaga |
Princeton |
4.1667% |
|
Chun W. #3 -
Texas |
Texas |
Texas |
12.5000% |
16.6667% |
|
Noah N. - Alabama |
Creighton |
Texas |
12.5000% |
16.6667% |
|
CAAT #4 (Adam O.)
- Connecticut |
Texas |
Texas |
25.0000% |
Creighton |
|
Harrell R. #2 -
Connecticut |
UCLA |
Texas |
Texas |
25.0000% |
|
Mustard (Nikolajs
B.) - San Diego State |
Xavier |
18.7500% |
6.2500% |
Gonzaga |
|
Pete J. #4 -
Connecticut |
Creighton |
25.0000% |
Creighton |
Texas |
|
Ryan W. - Purdue |
12.5000% |
Creighton |
Kansas St. |
12.5000% |
|
Emily T. -
Alabama |
Houston |
4.1667% |
4.1667% |
4.1667% |
Good luck to everyone that is left. It’s been really fun, and I hope you can
contain your excitement for another week.
I’ll be back later with a breakdown of the first semi-final game.
Good Luck!!!!!
