Running 2022-23 NCAA Basketball Thread

I was talking to my friend on the first day of the tournament. His wife went to San Diego State, so he follows the Aztecs. I told him, good news, the Aztecs are winning. He said, no, it's bad news because he had Alabama winning it all. He probably is happy now that all of the usual candidates have gone home.

 

The one office pool I won was the year Butler went to the Final Four and I had them getting there. Just one of those deals where I kept looking at their potential match ups and saying, "Yeah, they can beat them ... they can beat them ... they can beat them ... holy shit, I have Butler in the Final Four!? Sure, why not?"
Think I pocketed about $100 from that. And yes, you bet your ass that has been a proud moment in the Batcave for 13 years and counting.

 

Unless someone with less carnage has picked the same champion as you.

 

The biggest pool I was in had hundreds of participants and paid out the first 10 spots. Top prize was $3,000 or more. I never finished in the money.

 

The year the Carmelo Anthony Syracuse team won my wife damn near had a perfect bracket, or as perfect as they come. I think she had like every Sweet 16 team, or all but one, and it just kept going. I just went back and looked and that was a pretty chalky tournament overall, although 7 seed Michigan State made the Elite 8. She easily won her med school pool and I am pretty convinced if she had entered it in one of the online challenges (ESPN had one by then), she would have won something.

Me being a brilliant sports writer or something she had some classmates legit think I did the stupid thing for her. She probably paid more attention because of me, but I had nothing to do with it and sucked in my own right as always.

 

But chances are no one really knows all that so soon (and other stuff could happen later, too, to mitigate that). They just see a bunch of upsets they (and almost no one else) picked after the first weekend and declare their bracket busted.

 

A quick Google didn't turn that up. I want to say that it was to increase to full over three or four years. Per school split is $8m with the new contract. C-USA paid around $500k, so this is a huge budget increase for the six schools moving up, even with that restriction. There was a lot of crap flying around on the AAC fan boards about how little value most of the new members would bring to replace Houston, UCF, and Cincinnati. This tournament season has had some impact on that perception. Both conference's existing members have made out like bandits between the tournament shares and the entrance/exit fees involved.

 

Haley Van Lith of Louisville with 17 points, but Caitlin Clark of Iowa goes off for 22 points, 8 assists in the first half.

Hawkeyes up 48-43 at halftime in Seattle.

 

Nearly more points than LSU and Miami put up in an entire game.
Clark is awfully fun to watch. She zips a pass across the court and you assume it's gonna get picked off. But it isn't.

 

Obviously I’m biased, but I’d much rather watch this kind of fast-paced women’s game than the defensive battle earlier today.

Louisville can play fast, too.

 

Well, in fairness, most of the time they’re right.

 

I always seem to have one region where my picks are completely screwed by the end of round one, and one that I absolutely nail right down to the upsets. Then the other two are typically 5/8 or 6/8. I think my average is generally 10/16 left after the first two rounds. This year I had 8/16.
In general when picking a pool, if you have a Sweet 16 and an Elite 8 that's mostly chalk you're going to do well. There are always outliers like this tournament, but when the dust settles those 1-5 seeds are normally the ones standing tall.