Final and REgional Final distributions

I was looking at the brackets overall, and there seems to be some conventional wisdom of how this tournament is going to play out.  It seems to go like this: 

Gonzaga and Illinois will meet in the finals.  Baylor or Ohio State will probably make the Final 4 from the South bracket, and nobody has any idea who will come out of the East bracket.

The data backs that up.

Here’s the breakdown for the West bracket:

Gonzaga	131
Iowa	23
Kansas	13
Virginia	4
Oregon	4
USC	2
Oklahoma	2
UC Santa Barbara	1
Creighton	1

So, yeah….  Everyone likes Gonzaga.  I think Kansas might be a sneaky good pick.  They aren’t a typically good Kansas team, and they had to miss some recent games because of COVID, so I’m sure people weren’t all that high on them, but they are probably better than a 7% chance to win this region.  Oh, and the defending National Champion is in this bracket – and 4 people picked them to make the Final 4.  Times have really changed.

Here’s the breakdown of the Midwest Bracket:

Illinois	109
Houston	27
Oklahoma State	18
West Virginia	12
San Diego State	7
Tennessee	3
Loyola-Chicago	2
Syracuse	2
Clemson	1

Kind of the same circumstance as the West region.  Illinois is the clear favorite to come out of this region.  I also think that people aren’t in love with Houston because they come from the American Athletic Conference and not one of the Power 5.  That being said, more people took them than did Iowa, so things are pretty standard.

Things get a little more interesting in the South:

Baylor	86
Ohio State	56
Arkansas	15
Texas Tech	7
Purdue	6
North Carolina	3
Wisconsin	3
Villanova	2
Florida	2
Oral Roberts	1

People seem more inclined to take Ohio State than the other #2 seeds.  I think there is a feeling that the Big 10 weas super tough this year.  I am of the opinion that the Big 10 is about 5 teams deep with good teams (Illinois, Ohio State, Michigan, Iowa & Purdue).  After that, the teams get into mediocre territory.  Teams like Maryland and Rutgers I would rather see replaced in the tournament with Colorado State or even Toledo or Belmont.  Then again, I’m always partial to smaller conference teams over mid-table Big conference teams.

The East region is everyone’s wacky bracket:

Michigan	62
Alabama	47
Texas	33
Florida State	20
Connecticut	9
Colorado	4
Maryland	1
BYU	1
St. Bonaventure	1
UCLA	1
LSU	1
Georgetown	1

It looks like Michigan is the favorite, but there’s a lot of people picking other teams, and not just the #2 seed.  Texas as the 3 and Florida State as the 4 seed are getting a lot of love as well.  I think losing Isiah Livers could really cost them.  At one point, I had them as #2 in the country.  I don’t really know what to make of them right now.  Apparently, I’m not alone.

Before the tournament started, I predicted that 80% of the picks to win it would be either Gonzaga, Illinois or Baylor.  I was a little off.  It was 68%.  Here are the picks:

Gonzaga	65
Illinois	36
Baylor	22
Michigan	14
Ohio State	8
Oklahoma State	5
Iowa	5
Kansas	4
Texas	4
Houston	4
Alabama	3
Connecticut	2
Florida State	2
Arkansas	1
Virginia	1
UC Santa Barbara	1
Georgetown	1
West Virginia	1
Oregon	1
Florida	1

Here are the matchups in the Finals 

Gonzaga-Illinois	46
Gonzaga-Baylor	30
Gonzaga-Ohio State	12
Iowa-Illinois	7
Michigan-Illinois	7
Michigan-Ohio State	7
Iowa-Baylor	6
Gonzaga-Oklahoma State	6
Kansas-Baylor	4
Gonzaga-Houston	3
Gonzaga-San Diego State	3
Michigan-Baylor	3
Alabama-Oklahoma State	2
Iowa-Houston	2
Alabama-Ohio State	2
Texas-Houston	2
Alabama-Baylor	2
Alabama-Illinois	2
Michigan-Arkansas	2

So, if you picked Gonzaga and Illinois in the finals, you need to do well in these opening rounds.  There’s a lot of people in the same boat as you, and you need to separate yourself.

Back to the games.  Colgate is running Arkansas out of the gym right now.  We may have an upset special!!!!!

March Madness 2021 - First 4 games

 Welcome everyone to the 2021 March Madness pool!!!  So far this year we have 181 entries, which is fewer than the most I’ve ever had, but, as my wife likes to tell me, more than last year.  This year has already been a strange one for a whole bunch of reasons – but they all boil down to one reason, COVID.  As most of you have already figured out, the tournament dates are jumbled up, there are really few fans in the arenas, all the arenas are in one area, everyone is wearing masks, etc.  Despite all that, if you are watching on TV, it sometimes looks like a regular tournament game.  One thing I think I will miss from not having fans in the arenas is that moment when the crowd realizes that a lower-seeded team might pull off the upset of the higher-seeded team.  It’s then that all the people that were there to watch other teams instantly become fans of the lower-seeded teams.  I’m sure there were a ton of UMBC converts when they beat Virginia a few years ago.  For some reason, I’m always reminded of Weber State and Harold “The Show” Arceneaux who beat North Carolina in 1999 when I think of an underdog winning over a crowd.  That reference makes me feel really old.  I’m guessing most of you don’t remember that guy.  He was a two-game version of Linsanity on the college level.  I hope we get something like that this year.  I hope we get that every year.  It’s fantastic.

OK, on to the games.  There are 4 in the early rounds.  The schedulers were especially nice to me this year – at least to start.  If I had to rank the games I care about from most to least, I think this opening game would be right near the bottom:

Florida / Virginia Tech:

Picks for Florida: 74

Picks for Virginia Tech: 107

Vegas Line: Florida -1

Hmmm…  It’s the first game and we already have our first upset alert – at least based on the pick distribution.  People are more enthusiastic about Virginia Tech to win this game than Florida.  Oddly, the people that like Virginia Tech love only extends one round.  11 people have Florida going to the Sweet 16 vs only 7 for Virginia Tech.  2 people have Florida in the Final 4.  No one has Virginia Tech further out than the Elite 8.  One person (Jace D.) has Florida winning it all, so this one is super important for him.  Still, for most of us, this is one point out of 192.

Arkansas / Colgate:

Picks for Arkansas: 161

Picks for Colgate: 20

Vegas Line: Arkansas -9

Damn you, NCAA bracketologists!!!!  You may not know this about me, but every day during the college basketball season, I update a spreadsheet with all the games being played, their point spreads and final scores.  Being that close to the data lets me see some trends a little easier.  Prior to the brackets being announced, I was pretty convinced I was going to take Arkansas and Colgate to both go further than whatever seed they were going to get.  Then, the NCAA puts them up against each other in the first round.  That stinks for me.  Now I’ve got to choose between two teams I really like.  It’s like the bizarro-Florida/Virginia Tech game.

I think my favorite stat of the season so far that I read in getting ready for this is this:  Colgate has only played 5 teams all season.  If you take out the 2 games thy played in their conference tournament, they played a grand total of 3 teams during the regular season.  That is all COVID-driven.  They played Holy Cross 4 times.  They played Boston University 5 times and Army 4 times.  That’s it.  That was the regular season.  No non-conference games.  No one has any idea how good Colgate is.  The NET ratings that the NCAA partially uses had them in the top 10.  It’s crazy.  I’m really looking forward to this game.  I have Arkansas at 60-1 to win the whole tournament, so I’m going to be happy whoever wins.

Picks for Illinois: 179

Picks for Drexel: 2

Vegas Line: Illinois -22.5

I was tempted to wear my Drexel t-shirt this morning, but this isn’t even the biggest point spread of the morning session (more on that later).  I really like the Drexel t-shirt I have.  It has a Dragon on it.  Dragons are cool as a mascot.  Illinois is really a popular pick this season.  Not for this game.  Everyone is picking Illinois in this game.  This is the first chance we will get to see a National Championship favorite.  I’ll get more into this later, but there is a real consensus opinion of how this tournament will go.  I’m convinced that that wisdom is wrong, because tournaments almost never go the way people think they will go.  Regardless, this is probably the game people will not watch as they flip around.  Unless Drexel can shock the world.  I would love that…..

Picks for Texas Tech: 120

Picks for Utah State: 61

Vegas Line: Texas Tech -5

This was an easy one for me.  As I mentioned above, I track all the teams through the season.  I thought Texas Tech was overrated all season.  On the flip side, I thought Utah State was underrated all season.  Mix them together and voila!  Upset special for me.  I was glad to see Utah State make the tournament, and not just as a play-in team.  They beat San Diego State once this year, so I know they are pretty good.  For those that remember, Texas Tech is the defending Championship Runner-Up.  Remember that?  It seems like 10,000 years ago.  Anyway, I’m hoping for an upset here.

So, I’ll have more on scoring and more picks later.  For now, I am going to watch a little of the Florida / Virginia Tech game and bide my time until the Arkansas / Colgate game starts.

Good luck to everyone!!!!!

Excel Template

Excel Template 

If you happen to know how to download from Google docs, the link above takes you to the Excel Template.  It is the same one I sent out in the introductory email.

Klei

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

 

 

March Madness 2021

Hey everyone, it’s March Madness time again.  All the details about the pool are in the attached document (how to enter, how to pay, deadlines, etc.), but there were some things that make this years pool quite a bit different from other years.  I wanted to go over those:

First, the games start on Friday this year instead of Thursday.  That means you have an extra day to get picks in.  As usual, the cutoff for entries is the tipoff of the first Round of 64 games.  Remember that there are “First 4” games that will go off on Thursday this year (as opposed to Tues/Wed in normal years).  You don’t have to pick those games.  You will get the winner of those games, regardless of who wins if you pick them to advance (details in the instructions).

There’s some fluidity in the bracket as well this year.  If, for some reason, a team from a multi-bid league becomes ineligible to play because of COVID, there are 4 teams waiting to take their place.  If the NCAA needs to do this, they will do it regardless of seeding.  So, if it turns out that there is an outbreak of COVID and Kansas can’t play, they will be replaced in the field by Louisville, but Louisville will still be playing Eastern Washington in the first round.  They aren’t re-seeding.

If a team from a one-bid league has an outbreak of COVID and can’t play, the league commissioner gets to pick a team from the conference to play.  So, if Eastern Washington can’t play, the commissioner of the Big Sky conference can tap Southern Utah to play instead.  Again, they won’t re-seed.

All of this is in motion until Tuesday.  After Tuesday, they are locking the bracket and no other changes will be allowed.  If a team gets an outbreak after Tuesday, they are just tossed out and the team they were supposed to be playing gets a bye.

So, that’s complicated, but it’s probably best to remember a few things:

-          Picks are due prior to tipoff on Friday.

-          The bracket is locked on Tuesday.

-          I’ll allow any changes to picks prior to Friday tipoff

So, if you want to enter right now and then change your entry if a team has to be swapped out or DQ’d, I can work with that.

I’m also attaching an Excel spreadsheet of the bracket to fill in.  I’ll accept entries in any format, but I transcribe the picks into one master spreadsheet for scoring, so it’s 1000X easier for me to do if you use the attached spreadsheet.  There are drop down picks and everything.

Like I said before, all the pertinent information is in the attached Word doc.  Feel free to forward this on to anyone that would like to play.  Enter as many times as you’d like and I hope to hear from all of you before Friday!!!

Good luck!  Go Aztecs!  Go Jackets!

Klei