Sunday Elite 8 Pick Form

I suppose there are like 4 of you left...

Sunday Elite 8 Pick Form

Survivor Pool Day 5 Recap

It's not how fast you mow, it's how well you mow fast. Words as true in life as they are in the Survivor Pool. You know what, this tournament has been really, really tough. You might have thought that you made it through the tough part, that things would get easier. Well, just like a 22 year old Liberal Arts major that thought college was tough and life would get easier in the "real world" you're now realizing that things only get harder and more terrible. It's the way of life, and it's the way of the Survivor Pool.

I have to admit I was surprised by how popular the two main picks tonight were...the most popular being....

Michigan, with their great shooting, one point favoritism, and seven tie-breaker points sat upon the shore singing a sweet and beautiful song like sirens of lore. For 35 of our entrants that song was too much to ignore. How could something so lovely possibly be dangerous? Just ask Elizabeth Bathory I guess, right? Haha, right you guys? Oh, you don't know who Elizabeth Bathory is? The Hungarian countess who would bathe in the blood of young peasant girls to stay youthful and beautiful? Yeah...I didn't know her either, until I Googled beautiful serial killer for this joke. Pretty sure it landed. Unlike 35 of our entries picks! Boom, brought it full circle.

The night certainly didn't start with a whisper. And, the second game promised at least a bit more mayhem as West Virginia and Gonzaga guaranteed some eliminations as there were 12 picks on the former and eight more on the latter. I'm not sure what was more painful, the offense, or lack thereof, of these two teams or listening to Chris Webber. The Zags ended up winning a rock fight, and ensured that both early games would advance teams with fewer picks upon them.

In game 3 chalk finally got a win...Rock Chalk that is. Kansas utterly destroyed Purdue. Apparently the Big Ten remembered it is supposed to suck. Your fair author of these recaps was the only one with the balls to pick the Boilermakers.

The final game of the evening featured the other team most of our entrants rested their hopes and dreams upon...Arizona. The Wildcats came into the game with 30 picks upon them....They were the safe pick of the day right? Favored by 7.5, facing an 11 seed, this was a gimme. They had a nice lead late...and then....BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE! Xavier has had just a miserable year, they got beat on a crazy buzzer beater last season in the tournament, they lost one of their best players, they lost 6 freaking games in a row at the end of the season. And, now they make the Elite 8 and send 30 entries packing. I guess that's why they call it March Madness...right guys!? Really though just an unreal turnaround for those dudes.

Last year we entered Day 6 with 99 entries alive, having lost just 23 in Thursday games....this year's entrants didn't fare quite so well...

Coming into the day we had 102 living entries. Heading into Friday we are down to a mere 24. Good luck to the very few of you still standing.

Friday Sweet 16 Pick Form

Well, if you made it through, congrats.  Michigan?!  Really!??  That many of us?

Friday Pick Form
Leaderboard

Thursday Sweet 16 Pick Form

Welcome back!  Did ya miss us?!  Thursday Sweet 16 pick form can be found here!

Leaderboard, if you somehow lost that link in the past 72 hrs.

Survivor Pool Day 4 Recap

Well guys, this is going to be kind of short for two reasons...

1. Not all that many people got eliminated today

2. Life is stupid and meaningless

Sure, Day 1 wasn't that crazy...but, Days 2 & 3 were possibly the toughest opening round days in the last few years of the Survivor Pool. People in this Pool were picking about as well as ACC team's play basketball...It was that terrible.

But Day 4, for all of it's relative insanity in the actual games, was pretty uneventful as far as losing entries went.

Most people decided to "play it safe" today opting for either 3 seed Baylor or 3 seed Oregon, both facing 11 seeds. They both won, but neither won easy. Still, Baylor advanced 44 entries by taking the game over late against USC, and Oregon moved another 27 entries into the second week.

The five entries that decided to "play it safe" with Duke were not so lucky. Sorry Grayson, no tournament run for you. Or, really, for any teams from the ACC.  Duke was the top eliminator on Day 4. Outside of Duke, a few people lost on Rhode Island, a few more lost on USC, and Krafty4 went home when Cincinnati couldn't keep up with UCLA.

Oh, and of course, Kentucky won again, I hate everything.

Overall, we lost 13 entries today, which means we will have just 102 entries left going in to week 2.

REMEMBER, IN WEEK 2 ALL PICKS MUST BE IN BEFORE TIP OFF OF THE FIRST GAME THAT DAY.

That's it, week one is over, I'll just let Donovan Mitchell sum up how I feel about today.

2017 Survivor Pool Day 3 Recap

DAY 4 PICK FORM (We've tried to make it even more idiot proof...we're sure you'll still screw it up)

LEADERBOARD

So, I was trying to think of the best way to describe Day 3...it's hard to come up with the proper words to describe the mayhem...I think THIS VIDEO sums it up better than words ever could.

It wasn't an easy day. There weren't any gimme picks after a pretty chalky opening round. Of the eight games played today, four of them had a significant number of picks on both sides. None more so than Middle Tennessee State vs Butler. It was a small spread in Vegas, and a lot of people couldn't pass up the allure of 12 possible tie-breaker points with MTSU. But, those entries flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami, and came crashing to the cold hard ground below. Meanwhile, Butler sent 33 entries on to Day 4.

The biggest game of the day, for the Survival Pool that is, was the match-up between Florida State and Xavier. Leonard Hamilton (FSU's coach) came into the tournament with something to prove. People used to think of him as a guy that got great recruits, but that doesn't win when it matters. People who used to think that....probably still think that. Fifty-one of us believed in Leonard. We thought he could prove his critics wrong. He couldn't. But, he did take over the title of coach that knocked out the most entries in this year's Survivor Pool. So suck it whoever replaced Larry Brown at SMU!

Behind FSU, the most popular pick on the day was Gonzaga with 36 selections, despite a late scare, they were able to move on with the help of 3 referrees. Apparently people didn't mind burning the Zags, but only a few people were willing to burn Villanova to move safely to Day 4...and that plan went really well.

A few people lost picking St. Mary's. A few more lost picking Virginia. I'm not sure why anyone wasted a pick on Virginia, since obviously Tony Bennett is not concerned with something as trivial as the NCAA Tournament right now. He has bigger things to worry about and is definitely spending most of his free time updating his resume and job interview skills to try to beat out Brad Stevens, Billy Donovan, Phil Jackson, Jesus, and Greg Poppovich for the highly coveted Indiana head coaching position.

We came into Day 3 with 220 entries alive, we ended Day 3 with just 115 entries moving on. Yes, we lost ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE entries today. In three days we've lost a total of 243 entries. Last year just 42 of 186 live entries perished. Overall we had 144 of the original 260 entries move on to Sunday last year. So, after three days last year we had lost about 46% of the entries. This year we have lost 68% of our original entrants. In fact, we now have less entries alive heading into Sunday than we did last year despite starting with almost 100 more entries. This truly is March Madness.

Congratulations if you're one of the minority that are still alive. I wish I could say it gets easier. But, it doesn't. It just gets more challenging from here.

Day 4 Pick Form

The Day 4 Pick Form can be found here.  One change to the form - everyone's entry name is in a drop down box now.  About 80% of you can follow instructions, make my life semi-easier, and fill out your name based on how it's listed on the scoreboard.  20% of you subliminally hate me and cannot do this.  So the form is loaded with everyone who was alive at the start of Saturday, and I'll try to update the list in the morning with just those alive at the start of Sunday. Yes, I am doing all sorts of extra work, to run a contest I don't make any money on, because a percentage of you are incompetent.

You're welcome.

2017 Survivor Pool Day 2 Recap

Day 3 Pick Form

Leaderboard

Well fellow travelers on the journey known as the survivor pool, Day 2 is now in the books. The day began with all of you bright eyed and excited for what was to come. But, as Charles Darwin once said, "Some of you are too slow or stupid to survive!" It's just science, we can't all be apex predators, some of us are gazelles, or llamas, or squirrels or something. And, some of us were devoured today.

Day 1 was kind of a slow drip of eliminations. There were a few here and a few there, but no real shocking defeat that sent a lot of entries packing. Day 2 would not be so kind. Sure, Michigan survived early as a semi-popular pick. Oregon advanced 33 chalk players who just wanted to survive. And, while Seton Hall's loss knocked out a few entries, all in all the early games didn't affect things too dramatically.

But then SMU v USC happened. SMU kind of seemed like a safe pick to advance with wile also gaining some solid tie-breaker points . Some 45 entries thought this was a smart play...45 entries that were horribly, horribly wrong. After leading almost every second of the game, karma finally caught up to the Pony Excess. They had a shot to win the game, but their final possession wasn't quite good enough...

The second biggest elimination game of the day ended up being the 13 entries that were lost by people that thought Tom Izzo would lose to Miami in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. In hindsight, it sounds like a really bad gameplan, doesn't it?

The most popular pick of the day was Wichita State with 64 picks. I'm definitely way too lazy to look this up, but I am going to go ahead and guarantee that more Survivor Pool points have been made by Wichita State picks than picks on any other team over the last 7 years. They are always underseeded, and they always win games. They're basically just free points. But, I do feel bad for all you people that burned the Shockers a round or two too early.

The wisdom of crowds prevailed once more when 29 entries moved on as 11 seed Rhode Island smoked 6 seed Creighton. This is huge for the state of Rhode Island as it is a state known for passionate sports fans, and great athletics.

Louisville also won. It didn't matter much for the pool, but it mattered a lot to me. Some 7' guy named Giga went 5/5 on three's for Jacksonville St. in the game...ok, so what? Well, he was 7/30 on the season. So, his shooting today was almost as stupid as Ray Harper's nose. If anyone cared about Jacksonville St. basketball, his nose would definitely have a parody Twitter account.

Kentucky won. No one cares.

All in all the herd was thinned out a bit more today. We dropped 87 entries in total, which now leaves 220 entries moving on to Saturday. That means that 38.55% of the entries have gone up in flames in just two days. As a point of reference last year we had lost 74 out of 260 entries at this point, just 28.46%. In other words, you guys are getting worse at this.

Good luck tomorrow!

Day 3 Pick Form

Here's the link to the Saturday Round 2 Pick Form.  We've been hearing issues with the embedded forms, so we're just going with links for now.

(Link has been updated and should be working.)

2017 Survivor Pool Day 1 Wrap Up

LEADERBOARD LINK

DAY 2 PICK SHEET

Well, we came into this wondering if the 260 entries we got last year would be topped. We thought we would get close, maybe beat it by a few if we were lucky. Instead, we ended up with 357 entries today. THREE HUNDRED FIFTY SEVEN. And, we did it without a crazy upset sending everyone scrambling to re-buy. We're Making America Great you guys!

And now, day one is in the books. It was an interesting day of basketball, but not really that crazy by survivor pool standards. We didn't lose any of our most popular picks as Notre Dame, Middle Tennessee, and Wisconsin all advanced. Out of 357 entries 51 failed to advance to Day 2. For the nerds out there, that means 14.3% of the entries are now out.

The closest our popular picks came to losing was the first game of the day. Notre Dame was our co-most popular pick with 35 entries (just under 10% of the total pool) riding on their Irish backs. Last year, Notre Dame pulled off some amazing escapes, and some things never change. Princeton blew a lot of late chances and sent Wildturkeygd7 packing. This was a HUGE win for Irish fans....now they can get black out drunk on St. Patrick's Day in celebration of the win....you know, instead of getting black out drunk on St. Patrick's Day to forget a painful loss. Irish people like to drink.

The co-favorite pick, also with 35 entries, was Middle Tennessee State. Look, I'm not an expert on the Middle of Tennessee. I don't know a lot about it. But, I do know that their main source of jobs and income comes from owning the Big Ten. Eight entries were sent home when Minnesota lost, including The Winning Kraft1 who tempted fate with such arrogance in naming.

Of course, we all know the Middle of Tennessee is nicer than Eastern Tennessee...and ETSU proved it today getting handled by Florida. This moved on 16 entries while knocking out just three.

Wisconsin proved the haters wrong and showed the world that the second best team in the Big Ten can beat the eighth best team in the ACC....if that team has a main player sit much of the game with a foot injury. Five unfortunate entries got knocked out.

In celebrity news, Northwestern got a win in their first NCAA Tournament game and made Julia Louis Dreyfus happy. It was an...interesting...finish. That dude at Vanderbilt decided to take an interesting tact and foul intentionally while up 1 with 14 seconds left...unfortunately, his brilliant plan backfired and allowing Northwestern to take the lead late wasn't a sound gameplan after all. Still, this wasn't a huge swing either way in the pool as nine (lucky, lucky, lucky) people advanced after picking Northwestern and nine (what did you do to piss off the universe) people had their Survivor Pool entry crushed into oblivion.

In other celebrity news, Xavier knocked off Maryland and made Bill Murray happy (I mean, I guess he's happy...he never REALLY looks happy). This was the biggest upset of the day according to Las Vegas books as Xavier was given virtually no chance as a massive two point underdog. Yet, they overcame the odds, they overcame nature itself, and they emerged victorious. Not bad for a team that ended their season like THIS. Maryland took seven entries down with them, while 17 brave souls advanced with the underdog win.

Meanwhile, UNC Wilmington gave six entry holders some excitement early, but folded late to let 22 Virginia entries advance. Butler also advanced 22 entries and knocked out no one...that's really kind of amazing. Not a single person took a shot on Winthrop. I would've expected at least a couple. St. Mary's advanced 19 while knocking out five VCU entries. And, West Virginia allowed 23 more to advance, while Gamblers Anonymous2 was sent home for picking Bucknell...the good news, you get specifically named in this famous blog!

In other news Gonzaga and Villanova easily separated in the second half and got wins. Purdue proved the best team in the Big Ten is a little better than Vermont. In the late games, Florida State advanced ten entries while knocking out four FGCU entries and Iowa State advanced 22 entries while knocking out just two. In the day's final game, Arizona beat North Dakota (probably...I posted before it was technically over, so this is fake news). Who knows, some other stuff probably happened too.

Best of luck tomorrow everyone. Oh, and Rest In Peace Tom Crean, we hardly knew ye.

2017 NCAA Tournament Survivor Pool Day 2 Form

First off a reminder - Entries to the pool are still OPEN. You can complete more entries HERE.

For those of us who have already advanced, like the geniuses who picked Notre Dame or Virginia, in games that were never ever EVER in doubt, here's the form for Day 2 picks:

2017 Survivor Pool - Thursday Tip

The first game has tipped off and the tournament has officially begun! The tip sheet is already live, but here is a quick visualization of how the picks are distributed so far.

The biggest upset of the day may have already occurred...

The happiest fan base in America? INDIANA!!!

Congratulations Hoosiers. You did it! Your most successful March in 15 years!

Notre Dame is the most popular pick. Not sure if that's because people think they are a good play today that they won't want to use again later.....or, if people just want to get a pick in early so they can decide if they need to buy a few more entries later? Either way, I approve of both strategies.

The good news is we have a pick on Princeton as well...so SOMEONE IS LOSING IN GAME ONE! Exciting.

Middle Tennessee is the popular pick among people playing for the tie-breaker score. 

We'll be updating everything throughout the day. If there's other cool graphs to post we will. The leaderboard will continue to be updated. Witty comments will be added. Fun will be had.

2017 Survivor Pool Update (2 1/2 Hours Prior to First Tip)

Hey everyone,

Couple things...

First, Here's the Leaderboard.  Bookmark it, and it'll be updated right around tip of the first game with all entries.

Second, we're already at 179 entries!  Before games started last year, I think we were at 125.  So expect another record payout this year!  The Leaderboard will have a payouts tab, so check there for payout information, which I'll add sometime today.

Third, speaking of those entries, I may have to start making the following changes...

1) If your display name is vulgar, I'll be censoring.  You know who you are.
2) If you're planning on making your display name some form of "Fire Tom Crean," you're going to have a hard time distinguishing your entry from the other seven or eight people who did the same thing.  So if you got that team name locked-and-loaded, let me offer some other suggestions, such as...

"We Miss You Mike Davis"
"No, AJ Moye SHOULD be in the NBA"
"Maybe IPFW Wasn't a Fluke"
"The Coverdale Social Drinking Club"
"Brad Stevens Truthers"
"Tony Bennett Truthers"
"Screw it, Bring On the Archie Miller Era"
"Hey NC State, you done with Mark Gottfried?  We'll take him I guess"

etc.
etc.
etc.

Good luck all!  And keep sending the original post with the rules and entry form to your friends/family/hairdresser/enemies!

2017 NCAA Tournament Survivor Pool

"Every rose has its thorn, just like every night has its dawn, just like every cowboy sings his sad, sad song. Every rose has its thorn."

You might be wondering why I chose to open this post with a famous quote from Shaekspeare's masterpiece "Othello." Well, I used it because I think those words, written almost 2,000 years ago, still hold true today. It stands to reason that Shakespeare, like Nostrdamus before him, held some level of prescience, that he could foretell the future. And, the future he saw held in it a glorious season known as College Basketball Season. He anticipated a beautiful conclusion to this annual season, decided by the greatest post-season in all of sports. Yes, the NCAA Tournament is a rose in every sense of the word, literally and figuratively, but this rose carries upon it the sharpest of thorns...the cost of this brilliant tournament is that when it's over, so is the season that precedes it. It's like every dawn having its night...or something.

But, for all his brilliance old Bill Shakespeare did miss one thing. In all of his visions and ramblings he discussed bracket contests ad nauseum. But, he never figured out how to create the greatest way to celebrate college basketball's annual final stanza. He never figured out that instead of filling out brackets people should make one selection each day in an NCAA TOURNAMENT SURVIVOR SHOWDOWN!

And, that's why, seven years ago, we hastily threw together the greatest pool ever - The NCAA Tournament Survivor Pool!  We thought we maxed out in year three when we had over 100 entries. Then in year four we blew past that number. And, two year's ago we ended up with 222 entries and a winner walking away with $2,000. Surely it had maxed out, right?! Nope, last year we ended up with 260 entries and Bryan H walked away with $2,300. 

Will the entry count go up even more this year?? For the sakes of my chances I almost hope it doesn't, but let's see how high this baby can fly! Tell your friends, tell your dog (especially if it's a terrier, notorious for a propensity to gamble), tell your neighbors, or your mom. As always 100% of the entry money is paid out...we just run this thing because no one else has ever come up with anything this awesome for us to enter!  

SOME OF THE MOST IMPORTANT RULES:

1. You are allowed UNLIMITED entries 
2. Entries are open until the tip of the last game on day one. Even if you have 50 entries already you can buy more until that game tips off  

Without further ado, all the rules:

First, remind me of all the links and stuff I need.  I’m going to ask about it, so just put it up here.

Good call.  Here’s a quick reference for all the links you should need:

Entry Fee: $20/entry (no limit on entries per person, buy 2, buy 10, hell, buy 20, I might.)

• Website: tourneypools.blogspot.com – the leaderboard and all updates will be posted here.  If you have a question where ANYTHING is, go here before asking, because odds are it’s here.
• Entry Form: Embedded in the bottom
• Email: tourneypools@gmail.com – I’m constantly monitoring this and can get back to you fairly quickly.  I ask that you do not send questions asking if I got your pick or payment.  If you see an error, then send me a question - 99% of the time it's something I screwed up.
• Paypal ID: tourneypools@gmail.com – yep, finally linked ‘em all up.  BRANDING!
• Venmo ID: tourneypools@gmail.com - Venmo is basically Paypal for people who are somehow to slow on the uptake to figure out Paypal.  You really have no excuse anymore.  It's an app you can get on your fancy smartphone.

Wait wait wait, before you start into your convoluted rules, did you change anything?  I played this stupid game last year, so just give me the changes so I can get on with my day!

Ok ok no need to yell here.   There's nothing new here other than bad jokes.  Just scroll to the bottom and enjoy the show!

As usual, do not email, text, call, direct message, or facebook message me picks.  I will ignore them.

And with that, now to the rules proper…

Rules

• Choose one team each day that you think will win for that particular day.
• If your team wins, congrats, you move on to the next day of picks (assuming you can still pick a team.  If not, see next rule).  If not, you are out.  If you forget to pick one day, you will receive the “best” team available to you in the last set of games.  The “best” team will be determined by whatever spread I find first, probably Bovada.
• Once you have a chosen a team, you cannot choose that team again for the rest of the contest.  If you use Louisville to beat Jacksonville St. in round one, Louisville will not be an available option if they are still alive in the Elite 8.  If you ever get to a point where you cannot pick a team b/c you have used all the teams playing that day, then your entry will be treated like an entry who could pick that day and lost.
• This comes up every year as a point of contention, but just to reiterate – even if someone does not have a pick, you still have to pick correctly for that day to finish ahead of them.  Picking to the point where you run out of teams is an acceptable strategy.
• Multiple entries are allowed – buy early, buy often
• How to submit picks:
•  Every day, I will create a Google form that will be used by participants to choose their team for that day.  The first day will ask for a handful of information.  Subsequent days will not ask for as much info.  Trust me when I say all info is necessary.
•  Subsequent days will only ask for your entry name, email address, and your pick.  Please enter your entry name as I have entered it on the Leaderboard.  If you know anything about excel, you know how finicky computers are with matching things up if you don’t spell things the same way
• If you want to change your pick for a day, just use the same form and pick again.  I can see timestamps on my end, and I’ll just take the latest one.

Deadlines

• Day One purchase and pick deadline is prior to tip for the last set of games of the evening, which usually occurs around 10:30 PM EDT.  If you lose at noon, go ahead and rebuy on day one - you will not be alone. AGAIN YOU CAN RE-BUY UNTIL THE LAST GAME TIPS OFF ON DAY ONE!!!
• Daily pick deadlines for rounds 1 and 2 are prior to tip for the last set of games for that day.  For the Sweet 16 and later, the deadline is prior to tip of the first game of the day.  Each form will have the deadline on there.

Winner/Tiebreaker 

The order of finish is first determined by the total number of winning picks made.  In the event of a tie, the tie will be broken in the following manner…

• Highest combined total of all seeds selected
• Ex: You and I get knocked out on Day 6.  Because I’m awesome, I had that 12 seed that won in round one.  My combined seed picking total is 28, and yours is 26.  I win.
• Highest individual seed selected, and then second highest individual seed, etc.
• Ex. You and I get knocked out Day 6, but both of our combined seed totals are 28.  I had my 12 seed, but your highest seed you picked was a 10 seed.  I win again.  (This was the tie-breaker we had to get to in 2012, so make sure you UNDERSTAND THIS RULE.)
• Highest individual seed selected by round, and then second highest individual seed by round, etc.
• Ex. You and I get knocked out Day 6, both of our combined seed totals are 28, and we have happened to have every seed we’ve chosen be the exact same.  However, you picked a 10 seed to win in round 1 (which they did), but I had my 10 seed to win in round 2 (which they did).  Once again you lose.  You’re really bad at this.  (If you don’t understand this rule, that’s fine.  Odds are it will not come in to play.)
• If this does not result in a tie being broken, the pot will be split evenly.

Payment

• Entry cost: $20
• Money must be in my grubby hands in some form before you make your pick.  The pool was big enough last year that I feel like I can big-time you all like this.  You can do this one of three ways:
• Venmo - Venmo is a nifty app that lets you quickly send payments to people.  You don't even have to worry about commissions.  It's basically Paypal for dummies.  My Venmo ID is above.
• PayPal – Still the easiest to track and you don’t have to track me down.  The paypal ID is above.  In addition, when paying on PayPal, CHOOSE THAT IT IS A PERSONAL PAYMENT!  Otherwise, PayPal will take a commission.  If you do not have a PayPal account, sign up now so it can check your bank account.  Again, this is the preferred method of payment.  Not only does it guarantee I get the money, it also GETS YOU PAID FASTER IF YOU WIN!!!
• Find me or one of my designated trusted goons (whoever told you about this pool is probably one of them) and physically hand one of us cash or a check.  I literally have to have the payment in my hand.  Do not call me and say “I’ll get you Sunday.”  Not happening.  Unless that Sunday is the Sunday before the tournament starts.
• Payouts will be determined at the end based on number of entries.  We will not pay out beyond 7 spots.

Conference Tourney Popular Picks

Here's a quick glance at the most popular picks, AKA who you should be rooting against (that is, if you weren't a chalk eating weasel, and you didn't just pick the most popular team at every seed slot....)

Most Popular Picks By Seed:

1. Villanova with 13 picks. No real surprise here. Villanova is the defending National Champion, have been a top 3 team all year, and the Big East has been ravaged by injuries. They seem like a safe use of your number 1 seed.

2. Cincinnati with 14 picks. Again, no real surprise. The AAC has been a two headed monster with SMU and Cincy going a combined 33-3 in conference. Cincy and SMU split their head to head match-ups, but Cincy dropped a game at Central Florida to drop them to the 2 seed. SMU, despite dominating, attracted just 5 picks. UConn also attracted 5 picks as people look for them to make their typical miracle run through March.

3. UCLA with 19 picks. A runaway leader on the 3 line. UCLA has been a hype team all year. They have an amazing offense, and lately their defense has been OK...a major step up from early in the year. Cal attracted 5 picks as the 5 seed. Not a single person had any faith in Oregon as the 1 seed.

4. Rhode Island with 15 picks. I am basically convinced no one knew what the hell to do in the A-10, and just were left with Rhode Island. I don't think most people made this choice willingly. It's like when your kid is losing their damn mind about going to McDonald's so you suck it up for the night and have a Big Mac for dinner. You didn't want to. But, sometimes your hand is forced.

5. Duke....with....7 picks. The 5 seed was a complete mess. It's hard to have real faith in any of these teams. Duke held a very narrow edge of Michigan State (6 picks) and Cal (5 picks). Duke likely would've been more popular if EVERYONE didn't want to use Virginia as their 6...which brings us to...

6. Virginia with 23 picks. The most popular pick in the pool. There were actually 39 picks on 6 seeds, because a few people just didn't find any 5 that appetizing apparently. The ACC was basically all Duke and Virginia. Fellow ACC teams Virginia Tech, Louisville, FSU, North Carolina, and Notre Dame each were only picked ONCE.

7. Vanderbilt with 14 picks. The second most popular 7 was Xavier, selected 10 times. Vandy was the tepid pick in the SEC with UK the second most popular at 8 picks. 

8. Michigan with 17 picks. Apparently, a lot of our participants don't mind that their plane went careening off the runway last night and they had to leave at 6 am this morning to play a noon game...that's how little everyone thinks of the Big 10. They think an 8 seed is still their best option even after the universe saw fit to crash their plane the day before the start of the tournament. Good job Big 10.

The most wide open conference based on our picks is clearly the Big 12. Baylor and Kansas each attracted 7 picks, to make them the most popular choices. After that, Texas Tech and Iowa State each had 5 selections and Oklahoma State and West Virginia were each picked 4 times. That basically makes the Big 12 the most important conference in this thing.

Good luck everybody!

2017 Conference Tournament Leaderboard!

Have at it!

Leaderboard

Entries Will Be Updated Shortly

Hey Everybody,

Just a quick FYI - We will be posting everyone's picks soon. Just have to get everything built.

You have until 6 to enter!

2017 Conference Tournament PIck'em!

Ah championship week.... So many memories.  I'm sure we can all rattle off the past five Big Ten tournament champions or that great ACC quarterfinal game in 2015.  You know, the one.. with the guy doing the thing.  It was awesome!

Ok, championship week is fun but pretty forgettable.  You know what makes things more fun, every time, all the time?  CONTESTS!  Yes, it's our sixth annual NCAA Tournament Pick'em Pool!

First, remind me of all the links and stuff I need.  I’m going to ask about it, so just put it up here.

Good call.  Here’s a quick reference for all the links you should need:

• Buy-in: $20/entry
• Entry Form – Embedded at the bottom.  You're welcome.  Do not email, text, call, direct message, or facebook message me picks.  I will ignore them.
• Website: tourneypools.blogspot.com – the leaderboard and all updates will be posted here.  If you have a question where ANYTHING is, go here before asking, b/c odds are it’s here.
• Email: tourneypools@gmail.com – I’m constantly monitoring this and can get back to you fairly quickly.
• Paypal ID: tourneypools@gmail.com
• Venmo ID: tourneypools@gmail.com
• Tournament Bracket Links:
• A-10
• AAC 
• ACC 
• Big Ten 
• Big 12
• Big East 
• Pac 12
• SEC

Wait wait wait, before you start into your convoluted rules, did you change anything?  I played this stupid game last year, so just give me the changes so I can get on with my day!

For the first time ever, no changes this year.  Just head on down to the bottom and make your picks!

The Rules

• Participants each pick one team from each of the 8 conference tournaments specified below.  Who you can pick will be based on seed in the tournament.  Participants can pick only one 1 seed, 1 2 seed, 1 3 seed, 1… you get the idea.  Here’s the conference tourneys we will be choosing from:
• A-10 (which has 14 teams now – how does this conference keep growing?)
• AAC
• ACC (Which may have its full 15 teams for the first time since expanding to 15)
• Big Ten (which also has 14 teams – in conference logic, 10=14)
• Big 12 (which has 10 teams; counting is hard)
• Big East (Where X is NOT gonna give it to you)
• Pac-12 (The only conference that knows how to count for the third or fourth year running)
• SEC (Mid-major wildcard as per usual)
• You may replace a better seeded team w/ a worse seeded team in your 8 team entry if you so choose.  For example, if you do not like any 3 seeds in any conference tournament, you can replace your “3 seed” slot with any other team seeded 4 or higher.  Likewise, this also means that teams higher than an 8 seed are eligible to be used in any slots.
• Scoring will be as follows:
• Championship win – 4 points
• Semifinal win – 3 points
• Quarterfinal win – 2 points
• “Quarterquarterfinal”? win – 1 point
• This scoring means that only four games maximum will be counted.  Teams playing in a fifth game will not have those wins counted.

Entry Fees & Payouts

• Buy-in price is $20
• Multiple entries are allowed
• Pool will be paid out 100%.  The only way the moderators make money is if we are smart enough to beat you fools down. Which happened last year.  Win your pride back dammit!
• The number of places to be paid out and the allocation of the prize pool in those paid out places will be determined by the moderators once numbers are final and published before the end of the first day of the contest.
• In the event of a tie, participants will split any winnings evenly.  I know I’m famous for my obtrusive tiebreaker rules – I’m taking the lazy way out until someone complains and I fix it next year.

Deadlines

• All entries & $$$ must be submitted by Wednesday, March 8th, 2017 at 6 PM EDT – There are a handful of games before that, so if you want those games counted, get your entry in!  Here's the games that you could miss out on getting a point in...
• Davidson v La Salle
• St. Joe's/UMASS v St. Bonaventure
• Syracuse v Miami
• NC St./Clemson v Duke

• $$$ can be sent in one of two ways
• You hand it to a moderator in cash or check form
• Send it via paypal/venmo to the account listed above – this is by far the easiest method for all involved.  If you don’t have a paypal account, sign up for one.  I set up an experiment where I asked a dimwitted chimpanzee to sign up for a paypal account, and it took the chimp 2 minutes and 28 seconds.  I bet you can easily finish under 3 minutes.  Or are you dumber than a dimwitted chimpanzee?  I don’t know, I guess it’s possible.
• No IOU’s will be accepted.  This isn’t a charity.  Maybe when UNICEF gets into the tournament pool business, you can go there and give them your IOU.  Until then, we’re the guys to talk to.

Congrats on making it to the end!  Your prize?  An entry form!