Saturday, March 31, 2018

Championship Weekend Begins

The championship weekend starts back up today around 5:00 Central. We have #3 Michigan vs #11 Loyola Chicago, can't wait for this one to tip off. Lastly we have #1 Kansas vs #1 Villanova, the battle of the remaining number one seeds. As usual, the final matchup between the winning teams shifts to Monday night, but this time airing on TBS. I would suspect there are multi broadcasts for each home team as they've done in the past.

I wasn't able to watch much of the games last weekend as my son was home on leave from the Air Force. His time here was short, but it was great seeing him before reporting to his new base on the East Coast.

With just three games to go, here are the final eight scenarios and where you will finish in the standings depending on the outcome:

If Loyola Chi beats Villanova
If Villanova beats Loyola Chi
If Loyola Chi beats Kansas
If Kansas beats Loyola Chi
If Michigan beats Villanova
If Villanova beats Michigan
If Michigan beats Kansas
If Kansas beats Michigan

Thursday, March 22, 2018

Round Three Is Underway

With only sixteens teams remaining in the 2018 Tournament, we are down to about a third of the pick sheets who can still win the Championship. The games start back up today with four games tonight and four games Friday night. That will complete our third round in the office pool bracket contest.

There are only two #1 seeds and two #2 seeds, two #3 seeds and one #4 seed. The South Region was on fire last weekend with #5 Kentucky the highest seed remaining. It's been anything but predictable to this point. I hope it stays that way.

Looking into the numbers. Out of the 320 pick sheets, who is picked to win between some of the match ups in round three:

Kansas State- 3 (picked to win)
Kentucky - 20

Loyola Chicago - 3
Nevada - 6

Texas Tech - 62
Purdue - 212

Kansas - 266
Clemson - 13

Each correctly picked game is worth 5 points.

That's all I have right now. Enjoy the games and be sure to check out the Player Scenarios to see what your best place finish, worst place finish and which teams you need to root for in your field of eight teams.

Saturday, March 17, 2018

UMBC Makes Tournament History

For those of you who went to bed early, and have Virginia as your championship team, pinch yourself, your not dreaming. There isn't a coding error with my bracket software. You do not need to get your eyes checked. It really happened. UMBC, the number 16 seeded team, 63 ranked overall beat the number 1 seeded Virginia. Never in my lifetime did I expect to see a 16 defeat a #1. I really hope you also watched that historic game, it was quite the bracket buster! I did hear someone from UMBC say their goal was to make the One Shining Moment video, mission accomplished!

So, for those of you who have Virginia as your champion, welcome to my club as I have Arizona as my champion. Both teams, oddly enough, are in the same quarter of the bracket. This will make for some unusual standings perhaps as the tournament plays out. I'm making a habit out of losing my championship team during the first weekend of games.

There are 320 brackets that were submitted to this years bracket challenge. 81 of those pick sheets have Virginia as their champion. That's roughly 25% of all brackets lost their champ with one dominating performance. Taking a closer look, there are two pick sheets that correctly selected UMBC as the winner. I would have guessed that number would have been zero, but I was wrong. Well done Quincy and Randy!

Well, round two of the games have begun. When this round is over on Sunday, we will be down to 16 teams. If a few more number one seeds lose, this tournament is anyone's to win.

I was having an issue with the standings updating. My software that I use has an option to automatically updating the standings and updating them on my website. as of 9:30 PM on Friday, I finally got it working correctly. It turns out, the author of the software for got to clear out the schedule for his computer before compiling the coding. So, when I was trying to run the schedule on my computer, it was really trying to run the schedule on the author's computer. He compiled a correction to his software and we are in business. So, you should see updates happening every thirty minutes, but only after games have completed.

If you're new to the OfficePool64 Bracket Challenge, the current standings can always be found in the right column menu of the main web site under 'Current Standings'. From there, the menu of everything else office pool related can be found.

I will create blog posts on the main website, including the contents of this email, but will not bombard you with emails after each post. I'll only send one email, or two at the most, per week. However, feel free to check on the website for any new blog posts.

Sunday, March 11, 2018

2018 OfficePool64 Bracket Challenge Begins

Entries are now being accepted into the 22nd OfficePool64 Bracket Challenge. If you would like to participate in this year's contest, kindly have your pick sheets submitted by tip-off of the first game on Thursday.

Deadline: Tip-Off, March 15 @ 12:30 PM [EST]
Entry Fee: None



Make sure you hit the SUBMIT PICKS button at the bottom of the page or your picks will not be entered into the pool.

NOTE: When entering multiple times, please place a number after your name to make it unique [or it will over write you last submitted picks] For example: Timmy 1, Timmy 2, Timmy 3

Tuesday, March 6, 2018

2018 Tournament Schedule

Pre-Tournament Events
March 11: Teams Announced @ 6:00 PM [EST] on TBS
March 13-14: Four Play-In Games
March 15: Entry Deadline @ 12:30 PM [EST]

First Week Of The Tournament
March 15-16: Round One - 64 Teams
March 17-18: Round Two - 32 Teams

Second Weekend Of Games
March 22-23: Round Three - 16 Teams
March 24-25: Round Four - 8 Teams

Championship Weekend
March 31: Round Five - Semi-Finals - 4 Teams
April 2: Round Six - Championship - 2 Teams

NCAA Division I Men's Tournament Dates (2018).
Retrieved from http://www.ncaa.com/march-madness/schedule