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.
No comments:
Post a Comment