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Hello again everyone. It’s March again, so that means another March Madness tournament. I more or less recycle these intros every year, but I’m changing some stuff this year, so read through. I’m hoping to keep the tournament a little more interesting for a few more people.
For those that forgot about last year, Connecticut went back-to-back. I kind of doubt they will go 3 for 3. As of right now, I am not 100% certain they are even going to make the tournament. They probably will though because somehow, the committee will want to draw a big TV audience. That’s why teams like Connecticut, North Carolina, Indiana and Ohio State will probably make it in despite not having resumes that warrant it and teams like North Texas, UC Irvine and George Mason probably won’t.
I managed to win the pool last year, but not through any great insight. I essentially stole a ranking from one of the on-line analysts. I strictly went by KenPom.com’s ranking of teams by offensive efficiency. I guess last year was a good year to be offensively efficient. Feel free to do the same this year. I doubt it will work 2 years in a row – although I will also be trying that, so picka good tie-breaker if you do.
Also last year, I started giving out prizes for people getting the most points in a given region. That let me do eliminations from the first game on. That’s kind of fun and keeps more people alive for longer. I’ll be doing that again this year.
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 the entries. After the opening weekend, I can 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 time.
Tracking Entries
I continue to keep a blog to post commentary, standings updates and potential eliminations. There is an icon on the site if you want email updates whenever I post anything if you want an 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 once the brackets are released. 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. 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.
Also, don’t forget to let me know how you are paying when you enter. That will allow me to match up what’s coming in on the money side with what is coming in on the pick side.
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 “1st 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, last year, if you liked Rutgers to advance to the Sweet 16, you still got points for Notre Dame advancing because Notre Dame beat Rutgers 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. I’ll know pretty early on if we are going to need this or not. I will reach out to you if it looks like you need a tie-breaker and don’t have one.
How to pay
The cost is $5 per entry. There are no volume discounts or anything like that.
PayPal: bj_nittmo@yahoo.com
Venmo seems to work great. My address is bj_nittmo@yahoo.com or b_nittmo@yahoo.com or just @Klei-Richards They both link to the same account.
If you want to use Zelle, my address is: kleiarichards@gmail.com
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
Any of these options work. I honestly don’t have a preference as to which one you use..
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 Thursday, March 20th. Brackets will be released on Sunday, March 16th.
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
Last year, I paid out 5 places. If I manage to get 250 entries again, I will pay out 5 places. If I somehow get 400 entries (extremely unlikely – but who knows), I’ll pay put 6 spots. 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: 1st – 50%, 2nd – 25%, 3rd – 15%, 4th – 10%. If it turns out to be 5 places, the breakdown will be: 1st – 45%, 2nd – 25%, 3rd – 15%, 4th – 10%, 5th – 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
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