Welcome to the Loser Challenge. We have 11 entrants, for a split of $35 and $20 to first and second. (Apparently I had to compete against a bunch of bracket pools and suffered losses as a few regulars jetted off to give their money to Las Vegas instead of here.)
In any case, picks in general were more aggressive than I thought they would be. Daniel of the Sun is our pre-tip leader. That is, if his picks all lose, he wins. Granted Dan the Man picked 41 teams (out of a maximum of 48). In fact, as a group we picked 45% of all the teams in the tournament even though just 1 slip up would kick us out. On the other end of the spectrum is Brokeback Alex, who would need to have all his picks lose AS WELL as have all other 10 contestants be eliminated. Hmmm. This is indeed a tough pool, I say.
Note that there are 4 teams that are charity bombs. That is, if they make the sweet 16, we all lose because we all picked them. Morehead St., Cal St. Northridge, E. Tennessee St., and Binghamton. Suggestions are still being accepted for where the charity $ would go.
By the way, for those of you gung-ho enough to pick #7,10, and 15 seeds in the same box - assuming that the #2 will make the sweet 16: just wanted to let you know that over the past 10 years, onlt 50% of #2 seeds made the sweet 16. Have a nice day.
I’m a fan of the bracket pool. I really am. But the Poolmaster, in addition to referring to himself in the 3rd person, also refrains from running March Madness bracket pools. While fun, there are 2 things about brackets that aren’t perfect:
1. Most of the excitement is in the first weekend, but bracket pools are decided by picking Kansas, Duke, or UNC in the finals. What if there was a pool for just the first weekend?
2. All this picking of winning teams gets a bit repetitive. What if there was a pool for losing teams?
You know that gritty 13 seed that wins their first game with a buzzer beater, and is up by 8 at halftime of their second round game, only to go on and lose by 5 as their star player with a 3.9 GPA in biomedical engineering fouls out and cries on the bench? This pool is for those guys!
Welcome to the first annual Sweet 16 Loser Challenge!
Your goal is to pick teams that will not make it to the sweet 16. The better the team, the greater their value if you pick them. (#16 seeds are only worth 1 point, but #1 seeds are worth 16 points, for example). Pick as many loser teams as you like, but be warned: if any of your loser teams actually make it to the Sweet 16, you are eliminated!
The player left standing with the most points is the winner. US$5 or CAN$6 entry fee, multiple entries are encouraged. Tiebreaker question is to pick the team that will allow the most points over the first weekend of the tournament.
What will be your strategy? Go whole hog with about 40 teams and hope the brackets go chalk the first 2 days? Pick your spots with some #5 and #6 seeds and stay away from the curse of the #12 seed? Or go with the Price is Right $1 bid strategy and take only Radford and hope everyone else flames out? Perhaps you plunk down $15 and do all 3? Perhaps I'm thinking about this too much?
Picks of course are due before The Ball Is Tipped 12:25 eastern on Thursday.
(Note: this is meant as a supplement to your regular diet of bracket pools, not a replacement. None of the products in this infomercial contain sufficient nourishment for all of March.)
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