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Sigh, so close Butler, so close! That would have been the greatest finish of all time (in my opinion) if that final shot had dropped for Butler. As it is, that was one of the best NCAA tournaments that I can remember. And it was also a really fun year for the pool. I think the scoring system worked very well, and the survivor pool was a fun new idea, though short-lived for a lot of us. I’m not really sure what’s in store for next year. I’d certainly be happy to step aside and let someone else run this thing if they wanted to. Thanks to everyone who came back to play this year! You guys make this a lot of fun and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Congrats to Tony and Bigler for winning the two pools this year! As for the rest of us, better luck next year. Over and out.

…. TONY! Not to kill the suspense, but no matter how this tournament finishes, Tony has won the pool, with Breanna taking 2nd, and Dan K coming in 3rd. Congrats to Tony for a fantastic job of picking teams this year! Next up we have Butler vs. Duke for the championship on Monday night. It will also be Tony vs. Breanna in that game. Amazingly enough, only Tony picked Butler, and only Breanna picked Duke! Everyone else is done and gone.  I’ll be cheering for Butler to win on Monday night. Should be a very hard-fought and intriguing matchup.

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So the folks over at the NCAA are considering turning our beloved tournament into a charity event by inviting 32 more teams to the field. That would bring the total number of teams to 96. And I quote:

“An expanded 96-team NCAA men’s basketball tournament starting in 2011, the subject of much debate during the current incarnation of March Madness, is considered “probable” by Big Ten conference commissioner Jim Delany.”

I think this idea sucks. Bigtime. How about they fix college football first! This could be the end of this pool as we know it. Who knows…

Here we are at the final four round! The scores are updated through all of this weekend’s games. Tony has taken a rather commanding lead in the pool now. Who will win it all? Here is a list of scenarios of how this all could play out next weekend, based on how each time might win the national championship:

Michigan State beats West Virginia: (1) NICK, (2) JOSH H, (3) STEPH

Michigan State beat Duke: (1) NICK, (2) STROMBIE, (3) JOSH H

…

Butler beats West Virginia: (1) TONY, (2) DAN K, (3) NICK

Butler beats Duke: (1) TONY, (2) BREANNA, (3) DAN K

…

West Virginia beats Michigan State: (1) TONY, (2) NICK, (3) JOSH H

West Virginia beats Butler: (1) TONY, (2) DAN K, (3) NICK

…

Duke beats Michigan State: TIE FOR FIRST – TONY / BREANNA, (3) NICK

Duke beats Butler: (1) TONY, (2) BREANNA, (3) DAN K

…

Down to the elite eight now, and we have a new leader in Pool A – Tony! With big wins for Butler and Tennessee, Tony put together a very nice Sweet Sixteen round and shot up to the top of the leaderboard. Dan K remains close behind in 2nd place, and Alex and Strombie are tied for 3rd place, still within striking distance. And of course, Bigler won our survival pool yesterday – congrats again!  This is a big weekend coming up! Good luck

We have a winner in our survivor pool! After Syracuse and Washington fell, Bigler survived with West Virginia and is the last and final survivor. Congrats to Bigler for winning the survivor pool! I’m surprised we have a winner after just 5 days of the tournament but I guess that’s just how it went this year. Even though I bit the dust on the first day, like most of you, I thought this was a really fun pool. And now it’s over already! Oh well

After two rounds of pure chaos, here we are at the sweet sixteen. Alex has taken the lead in Pool A with 58 points, but Dan K (56) and Breanna (53) are not far behind. Also worth noting, Jeff and Strombie are tied for the most teams remaining (6 teams left for each). The survivor pool has dwindled down to four players (Bigler, Dan K, Josh V, and Julian), with 6 more tournament days to crown a winner in that pool. To those of you still alive in the survivor pool, I need your picks for day 5 by Wednesday night. Anyhoo, I hope everyone is having fun! See you clowns back here on Thursday.

They all survived again! The gang of five will move on to day 4 of the survivor pool. Remember, you cannot re-use any of your previous picks from the first 3 days of the tournament. Remarkably, I don’t think anyone has even burned one of their #1 seeds yet. Best of luck to you guys for as long as you can stay alive.

I found a few errors in some score calculations that will benefit a few players who were not receiving their full points. Here are the scores that were amended:

Josh H : from 15 to 16 points (was not awarded for Kansas win)
Jay: from 21 to 22 points (was not awarded for New Mexico win)
Alex: from 18 to 26 points (was not awarded for G Tech or Saint Mary’s wins)

Everyone else’s scores were double checked as well and appear to be accurate after the completion of the first round. Feel free to double check your scores again and let me know if you think there are any further errors. But I think we’ve got all the bugs fixed now.

Good grief this has been a crazy tournament! We are through the 1st round of the tournament, and it’s crowded at the top of the leaderboard. We now have a four-way tie for 1st place between Dan K, Breanna, Steph, and Tony, with Nick and Alex only a point behind as well. This has been one of the wildest tournaments we’ve seen in some time, so upset points have been especially important in this year’s pool. Good luck to you all the rest of the way.

And just as a topic of discussion, what has been your favorite game or moment of the tournament so far?