2024 NCAA Survivor Pool Central

 Ok, here should be everything you need for the rest of the tournament! Bookmark this forever (or until, like, 3 weeks from now) to see anything and everything you need!

Survivor Pool Leaderboard

Day 2+ Pick Form (This form will be the only form you'll need for the remainder of the tournament)

rules

Daily Recaps

Day 1 Recap

Day 2 Recap

Day 3 Recap

2024 Survivor Pool Day 3 Recap

Well, well, well, after two days of contest mayhem and, dare I say, madness, Day 3 was as calm as a placid lake on a cool spring morning. 

We entered Day 3 with just 253 of our original 1078 entries still alive. By day's end only 19 of those 253 entrants failed to pick a winner. So after halving our field on Days 1 and 2, less than 10% of our contestants lost on Day 3. This tells me one of two things...

    1. Yesterday was easy for everyone

OR

    2. All the dumb people already lost

There's really not even much to talk about today. Oakland knocked out some people who took a shot at a bunch of tie breaker points, and Oregon knocked out some people, but, really, it was pretty uneventful. And, it was pretty chalky. That makes it easy yesterday, but it's setting up to be tough for the people that survive today. Next week we'll have Illinois v Iowa State and Creighton v Tennessee in very evenly matched games. 

It's not really very fun to make jokes when no one lost yesterday. Yup, we all just had a nice, pleasant, and fun day. Definitely nothing to worry about from yesterday. I, for one, am just going to have a great day today after such an uneventful day yesterday!

2024 Survivor Pool Day 2 Recap

Day 2 is in the books and everything went great yesterday. It was easy, and everyone was happy and carefree as they.....wait....oh yeah, it was another bloodbath, what a surprise!

We went into Day 2 with the field already cut in half. With only 508 brave warriors still battling into the second day. And, once again, that number was cut in half yesterday (literally exactly half, which is pretty cool) leaving just 254 combatants on the field heading to day 3. Yeah, just 254 out of 1,072 entrants are still around for the weekend. 

The day started with 32 entrants throwing in their lot with Louisville Head Coach, Dusty May, as he was kind enough to guest coach the Florida Atlantic Owls against Northwestern who had a mere two picks placed upon their heads. Johnell Davis, tired of playing for a small school in Florida and ready to move to Derby City, decided to waste the final possession of regular time, and then Florida Atlantic decided to collectively just take a nap instead of play overtime basketball. Our pool once again proving that James Surowiecki is an idiot, and, at least among this crowd, wisdom is sparse.

Despite that major setback to start the day, the Survivors found some solace in the next few games, with 44 Baylor, 59 San Diego State, and 19 Marquette selectors moving on to Day 3.

And then....Boom went the dynamite.

The biggest shock to the system yesterday came when New Mexico went home as the most popular pick of the day. The Tourney gods laid out an 11 seed that was the betting favorite and it was too much for our contestants to ignore. The entries were drawn to Richard Pitino's Lobos like the proverbial moths to flames, but like Icarus before them, these combatants found that flying too close to the sun often ends with you on the ground in tears. 

But at least there were more safe picks coming up. Like Auburn. Auburn was 4th on KenPom and a 4 seed? There were 49 entries on Auburn and ZERO on Yale. This pick would be safe, I swear. Except for the fact that it wasn't safe at all! (that's one of my favorite movie clips ever, enjoy that mom!) Bruce Pearl, overrated basketball coach and generally pretty scummy dude, got sent home in round 1 as Yale, one of those academic schools, advances and takes zero entrants along with them.

The losses of Florida and Nebraska sent home 18 and 13 pickers respectively. While their conquerors, Colorado and Texas A&M moved 8 and 11 on to Saturday. The Purdue, Bama, and Houston chalk burners also advance. Houston knocked out a team that's coached Griff Aldrich, who was a private equity executive that left a super lucrative career for basketball coaching, he will likely now sell off all his players, the equipment, and uniforms for any profit he can get while forcing three interns to be the basketball team next season and then complaining if they just play harder they should be able to improve on the last financial year's results. (This was a joke about private equity companies and how they suck)

And the night games, which I once again slept through, saw 31 dummies losing on TCU and another 22 losing when the 6 man rotation of St. Mary's ran out of steam against GCU. Nine entries moved on with 12 seed GCU including 5 entries from the worrisome name PigLips. Mr./Ms. Lips has 23 tie breaker points on 5 entries and sits in a very nice spot after that Grand Canyon win.

So, we move on to Day 3. A day sure to be kinder and gentler to us all.....right?

2024 Survivor Pool Day 1 Recap

LEADERBOARD

Pick Form

Well you crazy bastards, we did it, we got over 1,000 entries for this year's Survivor Pool (1,072 to be exact). That means a prize pool in excess of $20,000. We'll work up payouts soon, but plan on expanding it a bit from last year to pay a few more places.

It is absolutely insane how this thing has grown over the years and it really shows that if you create something cool, and you know enough stupid people, that you really can accomplish anything....or something like that.

And hey, while you're dumping money into longshot ventures that are a whole lot of fun and full of great people and camaraderie, may I remind you to buy some horses with us by checking out:

THOROUGH CROWD

With all that said, let's get to today's recap...sometimes these are long. But, I now have a 6 month old daughter and I don't have time to recap every game and what it did to the Pool, so I'll get in a lot of UK jabs today, and I'll still try to kick out recaps for all my fan (hi mom!).

Every year I come into the Tournament thinking, "Wow, last year was crazy, this year will probably be more normal though." And every year this is me at the end of the first day of the Tournament. 

Today started calm, Michigan State was a nice popular pick but 30 people still lost on Mississippi State kicking off a banner day for the SEC.

But the peace couldn't last.

Former UK player (theme of the day) Mark Pope and his merry band of 30 year old BYU players were crushed by little ole Duquesne. You really have to feel for BYU's team and their 12 year old kids that won't get to see their dad's play in the 2nd round of the Tournament. At least they all have wives and families to help them through this trying time.

Creighton, Arizona, North Carolina, and Illinois were all chalk.Oregon advanced 88 while only crushing a few souls. We had 65 suckers fall for Steve Alford's plastered on hair as he showed why he was fired at UCLA and Iowa and never managed to get that IU job that comes open every 3 years. Dayton advanced just 14 participants as the A-10 moved to 2-0.

Texas was lucky to beat UofL this season, but knocked out 34 losers that picked against them yesterday as Colorado State scored 44 points...in the whole game. 

Then of course was a simple Kentucky game where 43 contestants decided to just survive and advance with the Big Blue Nation. But, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. Kentucky and their team of NBA players was sent home by a dude that started his career in D2. You love to see it.

And, after we all celebrated UK's loss and the world felt happy. Some other games happened. These were like how Team USA had to beat some other team AFTER The Miracle On Ice to win the gold medals. 

Gonzaga crushed McNeese State. The McNeese State that was a popular underdog pick by fans and media alike. The McNeese State who's non-conference wins included games against Mississippi University for Women (who oddly enough does have a men's basketball team), Biblical Studies (yeah, that's the school's whole name, just Biblical Studies), and Champion Christian. Shocking that McNeese State turned out to actually suck.

Iowa State rolled South Dakota State. Tennessee did what no other SEC team could do and won a game...it's something when Rick Barnes is clearly the best Tournament coach in your conference. NC State and our hero DJ Burns kept up the ACC dominance and rolled Texas Tech. Washington State beat Drake knocking out a bunch of entries, but I was in bed. And, Kansas and Samford may have been the best of the day on Day 1....and I say it may have been because I was asleep and didn't see it, but it sounds pretty great.

So we move on to Day 2. We lost a staggering 564 entries on Day 1. So, less than 50% of the initial pool survives to the second day. To the 508 entrants still alive I wish you the best of luck....we will all need it.

2024 NCAA Tournament Survivor Pool

The most wonderful time of year is upon us once again. And this year a special weight has been lifted off of our souls and minds. While some villains have been vanquished, we are anxiously awaiting the arrival of new heroes.

And where better to crown a hero than in the one pool to rule them all, our annual NCAA Survivor Pool!

This is year, I've lost count, maybe 12 or something, of us running this pool. And we are expecting another big year filled with joy and despair, laughter and fear, beauty and horror. Perhaps this is the year we hit a total prize pool of $20,000. And of course, we make nothing running this, (other than what you're willing to give us through incompetence of filling out forms) the only way we get paid is if we're smart enough to win this thing...like a certain D$ThoroughCrowdRules entry happened to do (well split) in the Conference Tourneys.

Last year we ended up with 887 entries and a total prize pool of $17,400 with the $10,000 top prize taken down by prodski3. The Queen ran second nabbing a cool $3,500.

Also, once again, this year's pool is sponsored by Thorough Crowd! And by sponsored, I mean that throughout March Madness I will be intermittently begging people to check out the horses we have available to buy in on!

If you want a horse that will be racing soon, we have those. If you want a 2YO that has never raced and is all about potential, you're in luck there too. Or, maybe you want shares in a broodmare and her first foal, well we once again have you covered! Thorough Crowd is in its sixth year and we've now had earnings of nearly $1M over that span. We're always looking for new partners who want to get involved in racing. As you may or may not know that is basically our family obsession and something that is built into our DNA. 

We started running this survivor pool because it was something we thought sounded awesome that no one else was already doing...and our impetus for starting Thorough Crowd was the same thing. Horse racing is full of partnerships marking up costs and taking advantage of customers. We wanted an honest partnership where choices are driven by data and there's no price gouging...so we started our own.

Hopefully Thorough Crowd sounds like something you want to check out. Hopefully this Survivor Pool is something that you have a ton of fun with. And, if you've got friends/relatives/pets/enemies that you think would want to partake in this pool or in Thorough Crowd, please do us a favor and send it their way!

Now, without further ado, onto the rules and regulations of the one pool to rule them all:

I've done this for over a decade; are there any big changes?!

Just for one year, I'm messing with payment options. This is thanks to personal stuff (home loan nonsense). So, the following changes are enacted: (1) Zelle is OUT for one year - PLEASE DO NOT SEND ME A ZELLE PAYMENT. (2) I added a check mailing option mainly for you seven weirdos that like Zelle. Find those details at the bottom. If you're worried about missing the deadline thanks to mail, just email me that the check is in the mail. I'm a trusting individual.

Additionally, I'm paying out top 12 this year. I used to say I wouldn't go beyond 10, but we're on track for like 1000 entries this year, so I should probably spread the love a little bit more.

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 for Day 1. The Day 2+ form will be linked to the scoreboard post on Thursday. 
• Email: tourneypools@gmail.com – I’m constantly monitoring this and can get back to you fairly quickly.  All forms this year ask for email addresses so you can receive a receipt of your pick.  If you got that receipt back, then I have your pick.
• Paypal ID: paypal.me/philipcrone (MAKE SURE TO CHOOSE PERSONAL PAYMENT)
• Venmo ID: https://www.venmo.com/u/Philip-Crone
• Zelle - NOT THIS YEAR
• Mail - I brought mail back after dropping Zelle! Send checks to 974 Breckenridge Ln, #133, Louisville, KY 40207 and make them payable to ThoroughCrowd. 

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 or try to pick the same team again, you're out. I'll try to chase you down best I can, but I've made this thing as automated as possible; I can't hold your hand on everything.
• Once you have a chosen a team, you cannot choose that team again for the rest of the contest.  If you use Baylor to beat Hartford in round 1, you cannot use Baylor again for the remainder of the tournament.  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 release 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, and your pick.  Entry names will be in a drop-down list, so simply find your remaining entry (or entries) name(s) and then make your selection.
• 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 re-buy 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.  

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.  (You'd be surprised how often we get this granular, 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.  You can do this one of five (ok really 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, which I will not kick back into the pool. Additionally, if you win and you cost me a commission, I'll make sure your prize is the one that eats that commission. If you do not have a PayPal account, sign up now so it can check your bank account. 
• Zelle - I'm still not totally sure what Zelle is, but people asked for it, so here ya go.
• Mail - I brought mail back after dropping Zelle! Send checks to 974 Breckenridge Ln, #133, Louisville, KY 40207 and make them payable to ThoroughCrowd. 
  
• Crypto/NFT - HAHAHAHAHAHAHA that shit ain't real.
• 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.  Top 12 will be paid out with a 1% minimum going to 12th. We will payout the entirety of the pool save what I like to call the "unnecessary effort rake" that I am instituting starting this year. See, I started running this pool b/c I wanted to be in a pool like this and it didn't exist - I know, some real "Field of Dreams" shit. Anywho, I'd continue running it for free if people just followed the rules and did everything as laid out. But, they don't. They never do. So, I now take a rake depending on effort I need to expend to fix your all's mistakes, which is as follows:
• $1/back end fix - you put in a trailing space, you didn't use the numbering system properly, etc. Who knows, these happen a ton day 1.
• $2/"Did you read the rules" email - any questions I get that are either clearly spelled out or heavily implied that I respond to in this way will pocket me a good ol' Paper Tommy J.
• $5/effort email - I had to chase someone down for a pick/payment, someone emailed begging me to change a pick, etc etc etc. - special requests and just general stuff any well-functioning adult in 2023 should be able to do will net me a Hey Blinken.

2024 NCAA Conference Tournament Leaderboard

 Hey everyone,

Here's the leaderboard! I'll add pick distributions to the leaderboard in a separate tab for the real nerds. good luck!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14Ch5JJwfawhgqlKcT2JM-chJ7TlRYcK7byTFQppeJps/edit#gid=2019358757

2024 NCAA Tournament Conference Pool!

My wife has been having a bear of a time at work dealing with a group project, so I sent her this meme...

Well, when "we" do these pools over here at TourneyPools, the division of labor is pretty clear - I run the email, form setup, leaderboard management, background scoring, payment collection, & payouts, while my brother writes the blog post intros. Totally 50/50, right? Well, here's what I sent him on Friday...

And here's what I got this morning...

Thanks again bro. See ya at the cemetery; don't be late.

 

Now, let's get all the usual links out of the way for the regulars...

• 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
• Zelle: steelcard30@gmail.com
• Checks: 974 Breckenridge Lane, Box #133, Louisville, KY 40207
• Credit Cards: DON'T TEMPT ME FRODO!
• Tournament Bracket Links:
• A-10
  
• ACC
  
• B12
  
• BE
  
• B1G
  
• MWC
  
• P12
  
• SEC

This is my umpteenth year of this nonsense. Anything new?

The number of games tipping before my old deadline is starting to get untenable, so the deadline has been moved to 11:30 AM Wednesday. This coincides with the first tip of a scored game in the A-10.

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
• ACC 
• Big 12 
• Big East 
• Big Ten 
• Mountain West
• Pac-12
• SEC

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 13th, 2024 at 11:30 AM EDT

$$$ can be sent in one of three ways

• You hand it to a moderator in cash or check form
• Send it via paypal/venmo/zelle to the account listed above - seriously, it's 2024 and by now, you should have an account on one of these services
• Mail a check to the address listed above - don't go looking for me weirdos, you're just gonna find a UPS store

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!