A Thinking Man's Tourney Update

Want to get this update up before the Elite Eight is over.

Going into the Elite Eight, Andy Efting has overtaken me to take the lead in our bracket challenge.

1.  Andy Efting            202 points   38 correct games
2.  Frank Sansone       193 points   33 correct games
3.  Andy Rupert          189 points   37 correct games
4.  Don Johnson          187 points   38 correct games
5.  Matt Jury               178 points   34 correct games
6.  Josiah Sansone      151 points    30 correct games
7.  Sarah Nething        101 points   19 correct games

Andy E. still has the possibility of getting all four Final Four teams correctly.  Andy R. has six of the eight Elite Eight teams (but none from the West).

I am pretty much dead in the water.  UNC is my only hope for any additional points in the Tourney.

Tonight begins the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA Tournament.

Things have been very busy and I have not had much time to check things out, but I thought I would update the standings from after the round of 32.


1 Frank Sansone       184
2 Andy Efting       178
3 Don Johnson       165
4 Andy Rupert       161
5 Matt Jury               155
6 Josiah Sansone       137
7 Sarah Nething         90

While I have the lead (which is actually pretty unusual for A Thinking Man's Tourney Time), I believe I am the only one who has had his eventual champion already eliminated, so unless Kentucky, UNC, and Kansas take a fairly quick exit, I don't think my lead will hold.

Just discovered that this never made it past "draft" mode.  A little out of date, now, but it was supposed to go up on Saturday - oops.9

Wow, what a first round (okay, technically it is now the second round because of the "First Four" thing, but even the brackets don't really recognize those first games as real games :) ).  The first day was fairly uneventful as far as upsets go, but yesterday was a different story.  Let's hear it for the Norfolk State Spartans and the Lehigh Mountain Hawks.  There have only been four times before when a Number 15 has beaten a Number 2 seed - and then it happened twice in a matter of hours.

I had picked Duke to win it all, so Lehigh annihilated my bracket - a fact that will become much more evident as the tourney rolls on.

I thought it was pretty cool that the Patriot league champions, Lehigh, has a player by the name of John Adams - and another whose last name is Hamilton.

After the first round (I realize by the time I am able to post this, we will be well into the next round, but these scores reflect just the first round).

1.  Frank Sansone    130 points
2.  Andy Efting         125 points
3t.  Andy Rupert      117 points
3t.  Don Johnson      117 points
5.  Matt Jury            115 points
6.  Josiah Sansone    104 points
7.  Sarah Nething        81 points

It's Tourney Time - 2012 Edition

For a number of years I have run a free NCAA Bracket challenge just for the fun of it. Those of you who were with me at Heritage or even GCCS, may remember filling out brackets back in the day. For the last few years, I have done this online through my blog - A Thinking Man's Thoughts. Although I have not written much on the blog for a long time, due to a couple of requests, I thought I should at least go ahead and do another edition of "A Thinking Man's Tourney Time."

It is that time of year again and I thought I would expand my invitation to those of you on Facebook. So, if you would like to participate, follow the link provide. If you need the password, it is "tourney".

I am sure I have not watched a complete college Basketball game all year - I am not even sure if the total of all the pieces of games I have watched this year would equal one full game. However, it is Tourney Time, and that means it is time for the greatest event in all of sports. So, feel free to join us as part of this year's "A Thinking Man's Tourney Time."

If you would like to participate, the link is at http://athinkingmansthoughts.mayhem.cbssports.com/e

The pool password is "tourney"

If you have participated before and already have a CBS Sports ID, all you need to do is
1. Follow the link above
2. Login
3. Enter the Pool Password: tourney
4. Make your picks

If you have never participated before and would like to do so, follow these steps:

1. Follow the link above
2. Register for a CBS Sports ID (it's free)
3. After registering, it should ask you for the pool password - enter "tourney"
4. Make your picks

(Note: If you end up somewhere else after registering, just return to this page and follow the link and the instructions above :) ).

If you did not participate last year, we would love for you to join us this year.

A NOTE ABOUT THE RULES:

1. You are allowed to make up two brackets - one for your head and one for your "gut" if you wish.
2. Scoring is a Weight + Seed method of scoring

*In other words, points are awarded based on what round the game is in, plus the seed of the team. If you pick Morgan State to defeat W.V.U. in the first round and get it correct, you will get 16 points for that pick - 1 point for getting it correct in the first round PLUS 15 points for correctly picking that 15th seed to win. So, correctly picking an upset can help you out a lot, but it also means that if the team you pick to lose that game goes deep (and you picked them to go deep), you could be leaving a lot of points on the table. For example, in the previous example, if you chose WVU to beat Morgan State and to make the Final Four - and you are correct - the choice of WVU in that scenariou would actually be worth more than the upset pcik because WVU would earn you ultimately 18 points during the tournament (1st round - 3 [1+2], 2nd round - 4 [2+2], 3rd round - 5 [3+2], and 4th round - 6 [4+2]) (CONFUSED, YET?)

Just my thoughts,

Frank