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!
No comments:
Post a Comment