Tourney Pick'em

i think i'm in about 9th in our yahoo group... but in the pool i did for money, i'm currently first with essentially the same brackets. how, you ask? because the scoring is slightly different. same scheme with points per round (first=1, second=2, third=4, fourth=8, fifth=16, champion=32) but it incorporates upsets as well. If a 14 were to upset a 3, you'd get 14-3=11 points in addition to the one point for the correct pick in the first round. if a 10 were to upset a 2 in the second round you'd get the 2 points for the pick and 8 for the upset differential. since i picked siena, vanderbilt, western kentucky and wvu (over duke) i'm sitting in decent shape... despite only have 5 elite 8 teams remaining.

Yeah, I have far more red than black and green combined :D And soon I will overtake andrew for last.

Doubtful..... but we shall see :)

what is your username?

waka_waka_13@yahoo.com
bracket name: picking randomly )

yes. I am dead last in Alex's Pickum thing.

the funny thing is that each of you still have a fairly high 'possible points' value. 135 for andrew, 145 for ben... if you look, mine isn't much ahead (149) of that and i'm currently tied for 9th.

for andrew: there are a number of scenarios in which you could still win. they are unlikely and require all the rest of your picks to be correct... but that scenario still exists.

for ben: if you get all of your remaining picks correct, i think you are guaranteed to win. apparently you have a unique enough bracket that no one else could surpass you even with the picks you already have wrong. of course, it's a long shot... but it still exists.

if you want to know how i figured it out, there is a little button on the upper right corner on the main group page that says 'scenario generator.' cool little thing to mess around with and see what would happen depending on which teams win in the different rounds.

lol...but if you look at my pick ratio so far...the probability of my being correct on my remaining picks, is..well, non-existant

haha, yep... pretty much.

i'm pretty sure that's how it goes with me too...... i haven't looked recently, but i'm sure i can only go down from here.

lol....1 more spot and I'll be dead last...then victory will be mine :D Sorry andrew, your time is done.

Looks like Davidson is the team that'll make or (mostly) break most people's bracket this year.

I was hoping Michigan State would screw up my bracket (by winning a lot more). They were talented enough and should reach the second weekend, which they did. Being unable to watch games (except for the occasional 30 second recaps), and only reading about it (recaps and boxscore), it seems that Kalin Lucas was quite a productive freshman. How did he look? I also remember when Isiah Dalman (sp?) came in the same year as Raymar Morgan. He had some hype around him, not as much as Morgan's though. He hasn't seem to have done much. I think there was one other guy who came in with those two, forgot who, but am under the impression that he is a solid contributor. Was it Travis Walton?

Hmm .. If North Carolina reaches the championship game, I'll plummet to (at worst) 11 place. That many people picked North Carolina eh? I hope I didn't miss the boat on this one.

MSU should be solid in the years to come. Obviously they lose the Drews (Neitzel and Naymick), but in theory they'll still be loaded.

Seniors for next year include Goran Suton, Travis Walton, Marquise Gray and Idong Ibok. Suton and Walton have been the best two of this group, but Gray has a lot of potential. Ibok is mostly there to block shots and pick up stupid fouls. If he could get better at rebounding, he'd be a much bigger asset.

Juniors for next year include Raymar Morgan and Isaiah Dahlman. Morgan can be a beast, but something is up with him recently. I don't know if it's mental or what, but he has been in kind of a scoring/shooting funk since about the beginning of the Big Ten season. Dahlman doesn't play much, but could be expected to contribute more. He was a somewhat highly touted recruit, but has kind of been buried on the bench due to the other talent around him.

Sophomores for next year include Kalin Lucas, Chris Allen, Durrell Summers, and Tom Herzog. Lucas was a stud this year and will hopefully continue his productivity. At times he showed he was a freshman, but I think he could be special in the next few years. Izzo has said that Lucas is the quickest player he has ever coached. Chris Allen is a huge three-point threat. He is a great shooter and looks like he could become a double threat if he can improve his dribble-drive just a little bit. He just went for 20 against Memphis and had a good game against Pitt as well. Hopefully this will give him confidence going into next year. Summers didn't play as much as the first two listed, mostly because of the amount of other big men on this team. When I watched him play, it was obvious he had some work to do with positioning and rebounding, but I'm confident he'll become a great player under Izzo. Herzog is tall (7'0"), but very skinny. He has had trouble bulking up (he redshirted last year, so this was actually his second year with MSU), but hopefully he'll be able to put on some muscle so he can bang around in the paint. He would be a major asset to this team as they haven't had a 7 footer in a while.

Incoming freshmen for next year include Delvon Roe, Korie Lucious and Draymond Green. Roe and Green are both power-forward type players measuring in at 6'7" each. Roe is ranked as the 4th best PF in this incoming class and 14th overall in the class. The only downside is that he injured his foot and had to undergo microfracture surgery earlier this year, though, he should be 100% by the time the season starts. Green played for the Saginaw team that just won the Div 2 basketball championship in Michigan. Furthermore, he has been actively recruiting his friends (and opponents) to come to MSU. I dont' know as much about Lucious, but he should be able to develop nicely his first year behind Walton and Lucas.

dude, you are lights out in your bracket. 14 of 16 in the sweet sixteen, 7 of 8 in the elite 8... jeez. and the craziest thing is that you could still finish pretty far back if things go poorly over the next two days. it just goes to show that if you pick the champion correctly you are always in the hunt. Even if you get every other single pick incorrect, choosing the right champion is worth 63 points. with 63 points that would put one squarely in 3rd place currently... but the odds of picking every other team wrong is pretty slim, so you can see how much of a difference it can make. i still have a shot at winning, but i would need for Kansas to lose to Davidson and for UNC to beat Tex in the final. I'm not holding out too much hope, but after a disastrous second round, my bracket has regrouped and gotten every game right that it could. should be some good games today and tomorrow!

yeah..... unless kansas wins it all, i am le fu.cked.

Lol, thats my pick for the win but I can't get last place anymore...whoever is in last place didn't pick a champion so their high score is lower than my current score That makes me sad.

duuuurrrrr I'm kind of confused as to wtf you're talking about. I've been in last place since the beginning. It isn't going to change any time soon. And by fact that you also have kansas going all the way makes me screwed.

Oh, and ps. Does anyone else find it lame that the teams in the final 4 are all the number 1 seeds? that's just not fun at all.

actually you guys are in 17th (ben) and 18th (andrew) of 20. there are two people lower than the two of you.

I didn't expect all four number 1 seeds to make it. Thus the Louisville and Texas pick. Maybe that shows that the committee has somehow improved in their selection and placement of teams. Or at least the number 1 seeds. Hmm ... after doing well in the sweet sixteen and elite eight, I got 50% in the final four. However, both my championship game teams are still in. Hopefully I can "regain" whatever and have UCLA beat KU in the championship game.

oh..... ha, i didn't even realize that everyone wasn't showing. woops

and to snaphin: GO KU!

yeah... if texas had made the final four i would've been in good shape to win the pool i'm in for money. would've been $600 in my pocket if UNC would've won and Tex had made the final four.... sigh...

oh well. i'm hoping for KU as well.

watch, KU will choke.

Screw you david...... KU FTW! (honestly, i'm already gonna lose, i really don't care)

dude... UNC is favored. they are expected to lose... so a choke would just be losing worse...

i take it you want kansas to win?