March is here and the hellish icy grip of winter is beginning to recede. Sure, there's a plague attacking the world and killing everyone, the stock market is in free fall, and Goop is a thing....but, hey, we've got Baby Yoda now...and people don't seem to be eating Tide Pods that often anymore...and it's time for the annual Crone Brother Conference Tournament Pool! So, things aren't ALL bad!
Now, sure, the Conference Tournament Pool isn't AS fun as the NCAA Tournament Survivor Pool. Yes, some see it simply as the little brother to our award winning pool that follows it. But, every great meal must start with a perfect amuse bouche. Wait...my audience here is more of an Applebee's crowd....every great meal must start with a perfect chilli cheese fry platter! And, that is what our Conference Tournament Pool is! A perfect foray into the college basketball world to whet your appetite and sharpen your focus before the NCAA Tournament fires up next week.
Look, you're quarantined in your house for the next six months anyway, so you might as well have some fun. Plus, all of our tournament pools pay out 100% of the money collected, so they're an infinitely better investment right now than the silly stock market and insane financial instruments like 401Ks (more like 4-0-no-ways!...got em).
None of the major rules have changed from last year, but in case you didn't love them so much that you memorized them, 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: paypal.me/PhilipCrone
- Venmo ID: @Philip-Crone
- Tournament Bracket Links:
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!
Nah, I've perfected this finally. 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 (Remember when this conference was ok?)
- AAC (UConn: Look AAC, it's not you, it's me.)
- ACC (You can use your 8+ seed on UNC!)
- Big 12 (which has 10 teams; counting is hard)
- Big East (Best conference in basketball?)
- Big Ten (Everyone already beat everyone, good luck!)
- Pac-12 (Still a thing!)
- SEC (Big Money if you pick a winner here!)
- 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 & $$$ must be submitted by Wednesday, March 11th, 2019 at 6 PM EDT – There are a handful of games before that, so if you want those games counted, get your entry in! You may use these teams after they tip and before the deadline, but their points in these games will NOT count toward your total! Also, the Tuesday ACC games don't get any points. So, you can pick UNC (for instance), but you get nothing unless they beat Syracuse.
- The first Wednesday game tips off at Noon EDT, so if you want to be 100% sure, just get entries in by then. All entries are time stamped when submitted, so don't whine that it was on time.
- $$$ can be sent in one of three ways
- You hand it to a moderator in cash or check form\
- Mail a check/cash to 1601 Beechwood Ave., New Albany, IN 47150
- 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.
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