Friends in Madness,
When your coach takes his shirt off, it's probably been a very good day.
With all the chaos so far, the BEST any of us could possibly do in the Big Bracket is 118 points (out of 137).
The real question is whether we'll top last year's Bracket champ, who had just 89 points. Commish is taking the under.
SWEET 16 PICKS
While you might be out of it if your final is Kansas vs. Marquette, most of us still have a shot.
Our Big Bracket leader is down 1 Final Four team and 2 Elite Eight teams (see lillehej6's bracket).
Our current highest potential bracket looks pretty damn good... but we all KNOW that can change in a heartbeat (see @11dfish's bracket).
And in our Round-by-Round Pick'em - remember, there are prizes for Overall, Round 1, and Rounds 2-6 - just ONE person went 15/16 in Round 2, and just four more went 14/16. If you bagged even 8 wins, YOU STILL HAVE LIFE.
The best predictor of what'll go down from here on out is what's already happened...
... so buckle up and bow just a little lower to your Joakim Noah fathead tomorrow morning.
BRACKET ROUND 2 RECAP
We hit on 50.7% of our picks - barely staying above the .500 mark. Given the chaos that's... not bad? We averaged 16.2 points in Round 2, and are averaging 37.7 points overall. One brave soul got 13 correct in Round 2 - one more than the 18 people who got 12 right.
Any Princeton pickers? Nope, not a single one of us had the Tigers in the Sweet 16. Nobody had FAU in the Sweet 16, either. 179 did take Arkansas and its shirtless coach.
Leaders: As mentioned above, @lillehej6 has the best bracket so far, but @11dfish has the highest potential with all Elite 8 teams still alive.
See Big Bracket standings >>
See Bracket #2 standings >>
See Bracket #3 standings >>
Who else is among our "highest potential score" leaders? Here's the list, through two rounds:
- Big Bracket
- 1/ @11dfish (118-point potential)
- 2/ @tlpon269 (117)
- T3/ @Byars (116)
- T3/ @Quin71 (116)
- T3/ @Jricci1491 (116)
- Bracket #2
- 1/ @Byars (115-point potential)
- T2/ @Musberger (114)
- T2/ @Myoung1072 (114)
- T2/ @KateL8 (114)
- T2/ @nshuman21 (114)
- Bracket #3
- 1/ @Byars (116-point potential)
- T2/ @BobL (115)
- T2/ @swedishphish (115)
- T4/ @Musberger (114)
- T4/ @Fojasj01 (114)
It's been Jekyll & Hyde. We're averaging 11.3 points in the West and 11.1 in the Midwest, but just 8.1 in the South and 7.1 in the East.
Team SZN record
COMMISH IS NO LONGER IN LAST PLACE. I've soared to 2,036th. Stat Czar is doing pretty well up in 270th, but he's lost half his Final Four already.
ROUND 2 PICK STATS
SURVIVOR
We entered with roughly 900 survivors and are down to just 204. It's tough to get three picks correct in Round 2! The biggest killers were Missouri (473 picks), Marquette (80), Duke (71), and Kansas (70).
Moxie Hall of Fame: First, let's give one more standing ovation to the most Moxilicious picker in this year's tournament. @ltd went UConn (4-seed), Maryland (8), Furman (13) in Round 1. And then went EVEN BOLDER by taking Pitt (11-seed), Princeton (15), and FDU (16) in Round 2.
Princeton won. FDU was within one possession with a minute to play. Pitt was outclassed by Xavier but was competitive.
You need Moxie to win a SZN title. @ltd gets it!
Golden Spreadsheet: As Survivor competitions dwindle, the Golden Spreadsheet becomes more and more important. This is what it tells us:
- The most used team by our 204 survivors is SDSU, at 59.3% utilization
- Next: UCLA (57%), Xavier (56%), FAU (49%), Gonzaga (46%), and Texas (44%)
- The remaining 1-seeds have been picked by 26% (Alabama) and 14% (Houston) of survivors
Leaders (highest seeds picked):
- @EKnox has gone 9-AUB, 6-TCU, 7-NW, 5-SDSU, 9-FAU, 3-XAU (sum: 49)
- @mjscher has gone 8-MD, 5-DUKE, 8-ARK, 5-SDSU, 9-FAU, 3-XAU (sum: 48)
- Another way to look at this is number of teams still available to pick. @EKnox and many others saw all three of their Round 1 teams lose in Round 2. That's your ideal Survivor result!
PICK'EM
@panesh (see picks) is our banner child for bouncing back from a meh Round 1 performance and crushing Round 2. They went 19/32 in Round 1 and then 15/16 in Round 2 - the only person to get 15 correct. Kansas was their only miss.
Overall, it's a 5-way tie at 38 correct (out of 48 picks). Hat tip to @Rthecity, @medicalmatt224 (our NBA Survivor #1 champ), @HaveYouCheckedYourButthole (our username champ), @thegregcollier, and @randipoli (our Round 1 leader).
Shout-out to our 148 Arkansas pickers - the highest leverage pick of Round 2. Surprisingly, many more of us picked Princeton (214) than Arkansas.
Yours in Hooptopia,
The Commish