Congratulations, Ron Bean - as we come to our Final Game

We are almost done with the 2009 edition of A Thinking Man's Tourney Time - and once again, I did not win.

With one game left, I can safely predict that the winner of this year's tournament is Ron Bean and I can pretty much give the entire standings (since no one other than Andy E. has picked either UNC or Michigan State - and Andy is far enough behind that he will not be passing anyone else :) ).

So, here is the (almost) Final results.

1. Ron Bean 245 points and 48 correctly picked games - good job, Mr. Bean. For those who cannot see the brackets, Mr. Bean picked a completely perfect South bracket - getting every single game of every single round correct in that bracket. He also only missed two games in the West and three games in the East brackets. Very impressive.

2. Frank Sansone 241 points and 43 correctly picked games. Not bad. While I did not have a perfect region like Mr. Bean, I only missed three games in the Midwest and the West brackets - and considering the number of upsets in the Midwest region, I would think that my performance in that region was pretty impressive.

3. Jon Knisely 231 points and 46 correctly picked games. Pretty impressive for the newcomer. Not only did he beat his brother (you know that has to count for some type of bragging rights), he also had a very well-balanced bracket. Only missing 2 games in the East, 3 in the South, and 3 in the West.

4. Josiah Sansone 220 points and 35 correctly picked games. Hey, the kid did a good job, I think I'll keep him! He let his allegiance to Ohio State get the better of him, but a pretty nice showing overall. (At least he didn't beat his old man, though, whew!)

5. Sam Knisely 199 points and 41 correctly picked games. And so ends the run of our two-time champion. Not a bad tourney, but a little out of the running this year. Probably his only relief is that while Jon beat him, Jon did not win it all as Sam has done the previous two years.

6. Andy Rupert 198 points and 42 correctly picked games. Wow, so close to breaking into the top five. A very impressive showing in the West bracket, where the only game Andy missed was in picking BYU over Texas A & M in the first round. The best West bracket in the tourney.

7. Andy Efting 184 points and 39 correctly picked games. (With a potential for 191 points and 40 correct games if North Carolina wins tonight) I will say that even Andy's bracket doesn't look that bad. We had some pretty good picking this year. And, as Andy pointed out in a comment on the last post, he is the only one of the regular players who still has a chance of picking the actual winner of the tournament heading into tonight's game - as he has selected UNC to win it all.

For those of you who are wondering, here is how some of the hypothetical and mythical pickers did.

President Obama would have lost our Tourney Challenge. Even if UNC wins tonight (his pick), his best possible score is 183. He currently sits at 177 and 40 correct picks.

Picking the highest seed in each game (at the start of the tourney) would have placed you just between Josiah Sansone and Sam Knisely (theoreically in 5th place and moving Sam down to 6th place).

The coin flip picks ended up with 150 points and 22 correct games.

Picking the lower seed in each game (at the start of the tourney) would have netted 118 points and 10 correct games.

So, Congratulations, Ron Bean - our 2009 A Thinking Man's Tourney Time champion.

(On a side note, for those who actually still come here to read things on interest, I will be making a few "real" posts coming shortly, including a "Who said it" and a book review.)

Just my thoughts,

Frank