Let’s do another bracket contest. There’ll be no prize this time. We’ll be playing only for the love of the game.
The problem I always have with traditional NCAA bracket contests is that there’s little room for creativity. Outside of a few cases where one might think the selection committee seeded a team inconsistent with their true ability, the rational strategy is to pick the higher-seeded team in each match-up.
A few years ago, a friend told me about an alternate, unconventional way of running a bracket contest. I’ve always wanted to do this, but never had a forum where I thought enough people would be interested. But you guys will be hip to this jive, I’m sure of it.
Here it is:
- Each entrant picks a list of 16 teams from the 64-team NCAA bracket.
- For each game a team on your list wins, you receive points equal to the team’s seed. Example: If you pick an 8 seed and they win 2 games before losing in the third round, you get 16 points. This creates an incentive to look for lower-seeded teams likely to pull upsets.
- There are bonuses of 5 points each for (1) making the Final Four, (2) making the championship game, and (3) winning the national championship. So picking a 1 seed who wins the national championship would be worth 21 points (6 points for their 6 wins plus 5 points each for the three bonuses). This keeps the top seeds in play as potential picks.
You’re intrigued, aren’t you? I can hear the wheels already turning in your brain. Here’s the official bracket, so you can get started.
Entries must be posted in the comments section of this blog post by noon on Thursday. Just list your 16 teams in any order (hint: the best strategy is generally to pick one team from each 4-team “pod”). No tie-breaker. If there’s a tie, the multiple winners will simply have to divvy up the bragging rights into equal parts.
Interesting idea for a contest. Not sure the best strategy is to go with one team from each pod – if I went with the projected top 16 teams if my bracket turned out perfect, I would have four empty pods and four with two teams. Decided not to go with that completely – where I could swap without losing too much (or by dropping my dubious “glory pick” from the list in favor of a much safer bet to win once and pick up a decent number of points), I did.
My picks: UNC, Wazzu, St Joe’s, Butler, Kent State, Villanova, Wisconsin, Gonzaga, Mississippi State, MSU, Oral Roberts, Texas, UCLA, Drake, Xavier, Arizona
These aren’t the 16 highest according to my bracket, though – to get those I would swap Washington State, Mississippi State, and Butler for Arkansas, Boise State, and St. Mary’s. Curious which way ends up better.
By the way, going straight chalk in a normal bracket contest is a good strategy for placing in the top half. It’s a terrible strategy for winning the whole thing, because someone always gets the crazy picks right. You need to get most of the upsets right to win any pool of reasonable size.
My picks (in order of how many points they are going to score):
Villanova, Western Kentucky, UNC, Davidson, Texas, Purdue, Wisconsin, MSU, Winthrop, Marquette, St. Joseph’s, Kansas St., Notre Dame, South Alabama, Arizona, UCLA.
Booya-kasha
My picks:
Arkansas
Louisville
Butler
Kansas
Villanova
Kansas State
Davidson
Mississipi St
Pittsburgh
Kentucky
St. Mary’s
BYU
UConn
Texas
Purdue
Duke
In doing this myself, I think Dan is right–picking one team from each pod may not be the best strategy. Good place to start, though.
North Carolina
UCLA
Wisconsin
Kansas
Texas
Duke
Michigan State
Louisville
Clemson
St. Mary’s
Baylor
Davidson
Kansas State
Stanford
Notre Dame
UConn
Louisville
Wisconsin
North Carolina
Clemson
Michigan State
Texas
Memphis
Marquette
UCLA
Purdue
Drake
Kansas
Butler
Duke
Washington State
gonzaga
North Carolina
Notre Dame
Louisville
Tennessee
Kansas
Clemson
Wisconsin
Georgetown
Memphis
Michigan State
Marquette
Texas
UCLA
UConn
Xavier
Duke
UNC
Notre Dame
St. Joe’s
Butler
Clemson
Wisconsin
Davidson
MSU
Stanford
Texas A&M
Drake
Purdue
Arizona
Kent State
Mississippi State
UCLA
Kansas
UCLA
Texas
Georgetown
Louisville
Marquette
Michigan State
Purdue
Indiana
Kent State
Davidson
South Alabama
Kansas State
Western Kentucky
Siena
Georgia
I had to put a lot more thought into this than I was expecting. Should be fun to see how this turns out.
My picks
UCLA
North Carolina
Purdue
Michigan State
Davidson
Texas
Georgetown
Indiana
Butler
Villanova
Drake
USC
Louisville
Stanford
Vanderbilt
Marquette
UCLA
Tennessee
Washington State
Michigan State
Texas
Georgetown
Davidson
St. Mary’s
Kentucky
Butler
Villanova
W. Kentucky
Arizona
Xavier
Connecticut
Stanford
I play in an NFL playoff pool that is similar, only without the bonus points. I find it to be a more intellectual experiment. Though with the NFL there’s fewer teams. I just sorta flew through this one!
Best of luck today and into the weekend Spartan Nation. Kick some arse!
Here are Hoopraker’s picks:
North Carolina
Wisconsin
Washington State
Michigan State
Purdue
Butler
Marquette
Texas
Memphis
UCLA
Drake
Arizona
Vanderbilt
Kansas
Tennessee
Pittsburgh
Cheers.
Go Big Ten!
Indiana
Washington state
St. Joe’s
Tennessee
Kansas
Clemson
Wisconsin
Davidson
Memphis
Michigan State
Stanford
St. Mary’s
UCLA
Western Kentucky
Xavier
West Virginia
MSU
Indiana
Butler
K State
Drake
Marquette
Louisville
Texas
U Conn
Vandy
Gonzaga
Notre Dame
Kentucky
Xavier
Purdue
Wisconsin
I’m working on a spreadsheet for scorekeeping, just a couple of quick notes:
kj: only person with Arkansas, BYU; only one without MSU, UCLA
GBBound: only person with Baylor
Dr Huxtable: only person with Georgia and Siena
Me: only person with Oral Roberts
Dave: only person with Texas A&M
spartanproducer: only person with USC
Devin: only person with West Virginia
TMadison25: only person with Winthrop
46 teams total selected
Dan is hereby appointed Official Scorekeeper of the Spartans Weblog.
Okay, results through 7 games:
Hoopraker 22 (5-0 record for teams picked)
wifeofaspartan 18 (4-0)
Dr Huxtable 18 (4-2)
TMadison25 17 (3-0)
spartanproducer 17 (3-0)
Erik J 15 (4-0)
Dave 11 (3-1)
kj 11 (4-1)
Devin 9 (3-0)
Kurt 8 (3-1)
Dan 8 (4-2)
GBBound 6 (3-1)
Wait, some of the team records are incorrect. Dave is 2-1, kj 3-1, Kurt 2-1, Dan 2-2, GBBound 2-1. (Forgot that the spreadsheet was showing total games, not wins.) Point totals should be right, though. Let me know if there are any other inaccuracies.
Dan, NorthernSparty’s entry (#14) got caught in the spam filter.
Thanks a bunch for tracking the scores.
No problem. NorthernSparty is at 20 points (4-1).
End-of-Thursday update:
NorthernSparty 39 (7-1)
TMadison25 37 (7-2)
Dave 32 (7-2)
GBBound 31 (8-1)
Hoopraker 30 (8-1)
Dr Huxtable 30 (6-2)
wifeofaspartan 28 (8-0)
Devin 27 (8-0)
Erik J 26 (8-0)
kj 24 (5-2)
spartanproducer 21 (5-1)
Kurt 16 (5-2)
Dan 16 (5-3)
That’s what I get for going with the crazy picks. (Of course, if it works, I win big.)
After session 2 on Friday:
TMadison25 61 (10-3)
Dr Huxtable 56 (10-3)
Devin 51 (11-1)
Kurt 51 (11-4)
Dave 49 (9-3)
NorthernSparty 48 (9-4)
GBBound 43 (10-3)
kj 43 (8-4)
spartanproducer 42 (9-2)
Hoopraker 41 (11-2)
wifeofaspartan 37 (10-2)
Erik J 32 (11-1)
Dan 25 (7-5)
Think it’s safe to say I’m not winning.
Standings after round 1:
kj 75 (12 teams surviving)
TMadison25 74 (12)
Dr Huxtable 72 (12)
Kurt 63 (12)
spartanproducer 58 (12)
Dave 58 (11)
Devin 52 (12)
NorthernSparty 51 (10)
GBBound 47 (12)
Dan 46 (10)
Hoopraker 43 (13)
wifeofaspartan 42 (13)
Erik J 37 (14)
Go ‘Nova and K-State!
…and kj takes the lead. This has been an entertaining bracket for sure.
I’m with you on ‘Nova, kj. I’ve successfully picked all 4 correct teams in the infamous 5/12 matchups.
Tell me some of you were watching that Western Kentucky/Drake game live? Saw that matchup from start to finish. That is why March Madness is the best. Two schools that the majority of people know nothing about, but turn heads and captures the talk of sports for a day.
Yeah, the WKU/Drake game was a blast. Had it on MMOD whenever they were showing something else live.
I had the right number of upsets this year, just missed horribly on which ones. I don’t know why I let my friend talk me out of Siena, and I knew there would be a 13 so I decided to go with ORU instead. And who would have thought OU and Miami, the two major-conference at-larges to be outscored in conference play, would both advance?
Well, today was much kinder to my bracket – got 7 out of 8, and the only miss was picking the wrong team to upset Duke.
As for the contest:
TMadison25 83 (3 advanced to the Sweet 16, 5 in play tomorrow)
Kurt 79 (5, 7)
Devin 78 (7, 5)
Dr Huxtable 78 (2, 7)
kj 75 (0,
Dave 70 (4, 4)
spartanproducer 67 (3, 7)
Dan 62 (5, 5)
NorthernSparty 62 (3, 3)
GBBound 59 (4, 5)
Hoopraker 56 (4, 6)
wifeofaspartan 55 (4, 6)
Erik J 49 (4, 7)
That smiley for kj was supposed to be 8 teams in play tomorrow.
[...] have one more DVD to give out, so we’ll do an NCAA Tournament contest, too. Like last year, though, we’ll mix things up. Any schmuck can fill out a bracket by picking the higher seed [...]