The Elite Marches to the Final Four - '09 March Madness!

[wheatrich]

We were one Texas in and out basket away from getting a solid win today but managed to cover the spread. I missed posting Villanova at -2--I should've put a bigger bet on that one actually
So we went about +.4u on a 3-3 day bringing us to a total of 8-6 overall for a +5u gain adding in the LSU futures loss we're at +4u currently at 8-7.

Arizona -150 a mystery unit (more than one) this is pretty simple actually here, with Cle St I can just raise the $ (till max bet ML in a conference final) as a hedge with the Cle St bet of earlier. Actually if Cle St makes it to the elite eight I'm going to need somewhat big bets on the other team's ML placed down by some people. This means that it's impossible for me to not gain something as a result somewhere if I don't fuck this up (or the top seed vs cle state line is absurd the wrong way).
I'm still rooting for Cleveland State because of that mystery bet earlier if they get to the final four it might be enough to get me to actually smile.

Oklahoma State ML +325. I really like this one. Any 1 or 2 seed who didn't beat the 15/16 by more than 10 has never won the NCAA tournament. But moreso than that (which is actually silly) they looked terrible and that should be ok. I like the spread to but the ML was a decently better line.
USC +4 looks solid to me as well

(I don't bet O/U's on bodog because the juice is absurd)

point 2
what the hell is this the-elite picks or the Bearder invitational?

point 3
the women's tournament is mega rofl. The 2 seed Auburn is playing the 7 seed Rutgers ON RUTGERS HOME FLOOR. Why the hell hasn't the women's side figured out with the mens side that home court is unfair especially for a LOWER seed. Could you imagine the uproar from Kansas right now if they had to face lower seed Dayton at Dayton (where a regional is being hosted today)?

point 4
I turned on Marist v Virginia for a few minutes and noticed there were about 25 people in the stands. x2=about 50 total. The ncaa womens tournament=who really fucking cares?

(btw where's the NIT prediction and CBI and that other one (yeah they have a FOURTH men's college basketball postseason tournament now) threads)

My bracket completely hinges on Uconn and not Memphis in the final four so even today's results are useless for me.

point 5
barack obama also went 8/8 in those games and if his crappy bracket beats mine (which if memphis beats uconn in that regional final he's got a shot) that would be immensely disappointing.

[RWG]

Agreed on point 2.

I see where Jon is coming from. His friends and family want to play along in the pool and it's the only pool around for them I assume, but still. This crosses the line.

[octoinky]

Fun read on fivethirtyeight.com - obama favored swing states (a deep statistical analysis, so read the article if you disagree)

Who cares if Jon's family is in, its not like winning the pool means anything. If you want, just pretend the names aren't there.

Seems like this years winning recipe is picking the top seeds. All our top brackets are like 1-2-3-4 1-2-3-5 1-2-3-4 1-2-3-6 in the sweet 16, and most from then out abandon the lower seeds more.

And another disappointing day of could be fun upsets, but the boring top seed winning.

And, rofl @ Arizona going from shouldn't be in the tournament to joke of a path for a 12 seed into the sweet 16? Unless USC pulls this off today, they're the ONLY true underdog in the sweet 16, talk about boring. I guess time to root for the 4/5 seeds next week...

[Thiradell]

1-2-3-6? Interesting.

[octoinky]

Oops, hehe! Must be 1-2-4-6

[Ngamer]

UPDATE THROUGH THE SECOND ROUND

Ack, a repeat of that disappointing Day 3! An early set where pretty much nothing was in doubt (though I was happy to see the Badgers put up such a good fight in the first half, that plus the awesome finish against Florida St was enough to redeem their season in my mind) followed by three very good games to round out the day. BUT, again, the underdogs just couldn't pull the trigger when they got their final shots and so we ended up watching all the favorites limp into R3. I'm still upset about the way that Marquette game ended... yes it was his own fault for stepping over the line, but it's still sad to see a team only 5 men deep (and minus their best player) run an absolute track meet the entire second half, come all the way back from 14 down, and yet still have the game taken from them in the last couple minutes. Bah.

Regarding the Bearder Invite comment, I think wheat was more upset at you guys for not picking well enough to push the Bearder picks back into the middle of the pack like they normally are. Or at least, I hope that's what he was getting at, because actually this same group (me, my Dad, two cousins, and my former next door neighbor) have picked together in every ESPN pool from '01 until now. It just hasn't been as noticable because we've never dominated like this before.

Speaking of which...

My cousin Max continues to lead the pack with 54 pts and a 98 percentile nationwide, while 1 back are my Dad and sister. Then it's... uh oh, me! Tied at 52 with wheat and wiff. Go Bearder clan!

[wheatrich]

I was just making a joke. Nobody gets my sense of humor

edit--first time ever the top 12 teams all made it to the final 16.

[Thiradell]

I second the ugh at the Marquette game.

[Ngamer]

Ng/QB 2008 Sports Tab

Due to Japan's WBC win I've boosted from being in the hole to...

YTD: +$13.32
QB Tab YTD: +$3.32 (includes two 360 controllers)

And so

Im Ngamer (12:45:00 AM): now I would like a make a risky $3.32 bet so I can hopefully lose and end my '08 QB tab at an even 0
CieloAzor (12:45:08 AM): oh my
Im Ngamer (12:45:26 AM): sooo, do we have anything in terms of who will win the Championship?
CieloAzor (12:47:09 AM): okay, UNC is the fav at 3-1
CieloAzor (12:47:14 AM): Louisville is 4-1
CieloAzor (12:47:29 AM): Pittsburgh and UConn at 6-1
CieloAzor (12:47:44 AM): Memphis is 13-2
CieloAzor (12:48:03 AM): looks like next is Oklahoma at 15-1
CieloAzor (12:48:11 AM): Duke 16-1
CieloAzor (12:48:15 AM): Gonzaga at 18-1
CieloAzor (12:48:25 AM): Michigan State and Syracuse at 20-1
CieloAzor (12:48:29 AM): Villanova 22-1
CieloAzor (12:48:49 AM): Kansas and Missouri at 30-1
CieloAzor (12:48:59 AM): Purdue at 40-1
CieloAzor (12:49:06 AM): Xavier and Arizona at 50-1
Im Ngamer (12:49:16 AM): golly, can't believe Duke is THAT disrespected
Im Ngamer (12:49:58 AM): my only trouble with Duke is they'd have to beat UNC just to get there, which I'm not sure they can do...
Im Ngamer (12:51:11 AM): but if Duke did pull it off I could cash out at 56 bucks, hmmm
Im Ngamer (12:53:25 AM): alright, I'll
Im Ngamer (12:54:11 AM): confirm a bet of $3.32 to win $53.12 on Duke to win the 2009 National Championship
CieloAzor (12:54:19 AM): noted

[Quiet Bol]

Ahhhhhhhh! Bodog had another huge linesetting fail yesterday, but I missed it. They offered 12-1 on only one #1 seed making the Final Four. This is actually greater than 25% to happen, based on current individual game odds. None of the #2 or #3 seeds have been upset to this point, so there's plenty of talent left for these #1s to wade through.

[sdkess]

I was barely able to get my picks done because I was working at a customer site all of last week. I like to put a lot of thought into my picks, but I basically just made speed picks this time since I was working long hours and had very limited internet access. So far my bracket isn't doing so hot, but it hasn't sustained any truly crippling damage yet either.

I will actually get to watch some of the games over the next few days which will be nice. I did not get to watch a single game last week aside from the tail end of a couple that were on pretty late. That sucked.

[packattack]

On a side note, I just checked my mess of brackets and surprisingly, I have one good bracket. Its in the 99.7%tile and in 11,000th place at espn.com. I have everything in tact still. I'm sure it will fail miserably soon, but at least I had one good bracket this year. Can anyone say chalk?

[octoinky]

I had a few brackets, but they fall apart late. One had wake forest final 4, another WVU, etc.

My elite bracket still has hopes. I can win our pool with a UNC > Louisville final, and if Villanova makes the final 4 on top of that.

The Memphis loss appears to be irrelevant, as even though they were in my final 4, nobody else above me with UNC > Louisville has UCONN. Additionally, the points from Nova instead of Pitt would be enough for me to pass them.

Clearly this isn't an early celebration as my odds of winning are still small, but rather showing that despite an awful first/second round, it just takes having your fianls right, and SOMETHING different, despite all of this chalk, etc., to win a small pool.

[Neo]

Damn it QB, you've ruined me!

[wheatrich]

picking the champ alone is 630 points to your total score.
analysts go in saying Duke > Nova so duke should win a close game then they get blown out and all of a sudden they overachieved and shouldn't have done a fucking thing all season because in reality they sucked balls and coach K did a fucking awesome job. Duke was favored in that game vs nova and they lost by 21 and coach K did a great job? Astounding.

[Ngamer]

UPDATE WITH HALF THE ELITE EIGHT DECIDED

Ewwww, what an awful set of results. The Duke bet instantly blew up in my face, but of course I'd known that would happen going in so no big deal (though I didn't expect them to get run off the floor THAT easily!). Memphis, on the other hand- ack! Awesome to see them fight back from 24 points down, what a shame (for my bracket) that they couldn't finish the job. But honestly I shouldn't be complaining, considering how I was only a few plays away from also losing my other Championship game pick tonight. It's like I was saying in Chat, Pittsburgh = the Steelers of the NCAAs; they're not going to blow you out, they're not going to earn any style points, but they're experts at surviving & advancing and winning ugly. I also shouldn't be complaining too much because, SOMEHOW, I'm still 7th in the Elite pool and still have a chance to win assuming that Pitt keeps advancing and Mizz continues their impressive run (to limit my Memphis damage).

But speaking of being 7th, who are the six supreme bracket experts currently ranked ahead of me? Why that would be:

My sister, alone in first with 65 pts (ugh, we should all be ashamed of ourselves!), wheat sitting 1 point back, and a logjam of Trent, Lark, and two Ngamer cousins sitting 2 back of wheat. Special note of congrats to my cousin Mike, the only one in the pool to correctly predict all 4 results today!

[packattack]

I agree Wheat. Duke is just pathetic. I'd rather watch big 10 basketball than watch Duke choke their guts out every year. This tournament this year has been great to bet on. A lot of bad lines by the oddsmakers throughout the tournament. Last nights Memphis Missouri 1H O/U was only set at 66 yet they set the Duke/Nova 1H at 69. I unloaded on that Over for the half and the game. I've now gone 12-3 betting on this years NCAA tournament.

[wheatrich]

I'm not on a book that lets me bet halves.

[packattack]

After getting moosed constantly at the end of games, first half lines have been a breath of fresh air for me. I prefer totals more than sides at the moment and it's nice not having to factor in 3 minutes of foul shooting to your over under handicapping, especially during tournament time.

[packattack]

My good bracket is now in 99.9%tile and ranked 2,316th place.

http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/2808/bracketezp.jpg

Unfortunately, I don't think its going to survive the weekend. Take a look and see.

http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/6022/final42.jpg

I guess If my final 4 were to pan out, I'd be ranked very high, but its extremely unlikely.

[octoinky]

All of my brackets have tanked pretty bad!

UNC pickers:

Wheat has UCONN in the finals, though would still win with anybody but louisville in the final really.
brewcity bracket comes down to pitt (him) and nova (me) with Louisville final,
Esox is eliminated, goose eliminated, R sanders eliminated, stinson eliminated, pack eliminated,

too lazy to look at the rest. it'll be easy after the final 4 is decided (obviously)

[Ngamer]

UPDATE WITH THE ELITE EIGHT DECIDED

My oh my... you'd think that with this being the chalk walkin'est bracket in history it would at least mean we'd see a competitive, well-played set of games in the Sweet 16. I mean sure these are all #1s and #2, but at least they'll be challenged considering they have to play the 3s and (expect for Arizona) 4s, right? Instead it seemed like we couldn't BUY a close game the last two nights. To be fair I guess Pitt/Xavier was legitimately fun, the Memphis game was decent because of the big comeback attempt and at least Kansas/Mich St came down to the final minute, but still... 106-64, 77-54, 96-77? The tourney was supposed to get those kind of scores out of its system back in Round One!

On the plus side I'm surprisingly still managing a 7th place status despite another disappointing set of results. Things have shifted a bit above me; the six now leading the pack are:

wheat, this season's most consistent leaderboard presence, who has 76 pts and a gap of 2 over Trent, Lark, sdkess, and my cousin Mike. Jenny falls to 3 points back of wheat and has her dreams of bracket glory killed off due to her faith in Kansas.

A special note of congrats to sdkess, the only Eliter to correctly predict all four of tonight's results (which is actually pretty sad on the part of the rest of us)!

[sdkess]

LOL. I'm doing as well as I ever have with 7 of the elite 8 picks correct. I find this funny because I agonized over picks for the last couple of years with results that were no better than this year when I did a speed run of the picking process. I don't think I have ever predicted the champion correctly since I started participating in the group several years ago. If I get it right this year, I'll laugh myself into oblivion. I need a good laugh.

[packattack]

I just checked the group and was surprised to see you in 2nd as well Scott. Hopefully you can have a nice finish. My crazy 99.9%tile bracket has L'ville winning it all too so that would help us both. Other than Louisville, I'm hoping for upsets the rest of the way. I don't think I've ever had a bracket inside 100th place after the first 2 rounds. It could happen if I get lucky.

[Cyberwrath87]

Ugh, this year is just terrible for me! I can actually only get points from 3 more games: Louisville and Nova getting into the Final Four and Louisville winning it all. In my defense, I didn't really follow college hoops at all this year. Our team (Indiana) was just so bad that I wasn't interested much this whole season. And I don't have TV this year at school so I couldn't really watch much.

Since I started playing March Madness in 2003, I've picked the correct final winner in 2003, 2004, and 2008 (came very close in '05). Hopefully Louisville wins this year so I can go 4 for 7!

[wheatrich]

It looks like I win with any uconn/unc final if pitt also reaches the final four and no matter what I have to fade the Lville/Mich St winner--I think a mich st over unc final would put me in a tie with PDO if pitt also reached the Final four.

ugh need pitt more than I thought I did.

Lville pickers
sdkess and lark can tie no matter what if they split the two games they have different left. Lark is looking for Uconn and Villanova while sdkess is looking for Missouri and Pittsburgh.

wiff needs chaos (best bet is OU to win 2 more games)

lockwood is eliminated (same bracket as lark)
wishall needs Lville over Pitt final
cyber and come also eliminated

pittsburgh pickers
ngamer's cousin (or whoever) looking really good right now for that bracket

ngamer--it looks like he needs pittsburgh to win AND OU AND LVILLE AND MISSOURI to reach the final four good luck with that (thanks to different final four games and he can't tie the final four round vs that cousin or else he's locked out)

spiderwaffle--I think he's fine with any pitt over lville final

matisko--same with pitt over mich st

Uconn pickers
reds--this is tough maybe a uconn over nova or OU final gets him a win. If mich st and OU win that probably gives him the title if uconn wins as well. UNC in the final means at best he ties (and that's if lville and pitt also lose).

mikers-- this is tough as well. Will need nova over pitt OR pitt over UNC to fight off wheat. OU over Uconn is only ok if Lville reaches the final four. He must get either UNC/LVille though to pass reds

looks like everyone else (save the nova/mich st champs) are eliminated.

A missouri OU final might get the win to wiff as he's got both of them in the final four.
I'm writing this at 5am so if I'm wrong well yeah...

[RWG]

I'm not bothered by my performance at all. I know if more teams which I chose won, I would have defended my title as elite champ, so I can go home knowing that I'm still the best at making March Madness predictions.

[Thiradell]

If more teams which you chose won? Hmm I think that applies to everyone.

I will win the whole thing if the Final Four is Louisville/Pitt/UConn/OU and Louisville beats Pitt in the championship. Lark/sdkess/wiff will beat me if UNC/UConn or even UNC/MU wins. And since I fully expect North Carolina to win...well, oh well.

EDIT: UConn wins! Pitt's behind though...argh, Villanova! Why must you have such clutch players...well I'm done.

[Wody]

well how about that villanova

[octoinky]

Can't win, it looks like a UNC win is all for wheat. I'll be rooting for MSU and heck, I'm rooting for everybody but uconn and oklahoma!

[NathanStinson]

why the OU hate?:-p

[octoinky]

I've never liked teams from the whole south/central/midwest whatever area. Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, Arkansas, Memphis, Texas etc. No real reason Oh wait, is that the bible belt? Maybe that's it, subconsciously. LOL

[NathanStinson]

I knew you were a bigot

[octoinky]

I wouldn't call that a fair assessment! I root against far more teams than I root for in general though, Pitt and UConn included, and usually pick teams with fun colors/names/upsets like Goose

[wishiwasfamous]

gg

[octoinky]

From what I can tell, the runner-ups aren't going to matter.

--Nobody who isn't already leading their "same winners" mini-pool has the potential to go 3/3 from here on out to potentially overtake that lead
--Given any winner, somebody has picked that team who is close enough that getting the winner right and the other finalist wrong is still enough to overtake anybody who has both finalists right, but the winner wrong. (480 points for finalist + winner, 320 for finalist + finalist, but mikers is within that gap of wheatrich who is the only person left with both finalists)

Which simply means...

UNC: Wheat
Villanova: Woll
Michigan St: G. King (?)
UConn: mikers





If UNC beats Michigan St., then my loss to Wheatrich will be completely from the first round, which I so boldly stated in chat "if the winner of this pool comes down to the first round picks, I'll eat my socks on youtube," but I believe I said WITHIN 30 POINTS, and I'm 40 points back.

Should this happen, I'll be relying on one of you chatloggers to make sure I'm not eating any socks :X

[packattack]

I'm more impressed with UNC than any team so far this tournament. Usually they fail to play great defense, but through 4 games, they have really kept their opponents in check much more than I thought they would. I really think they win it all this year still. The Louisville loss was not surprising to me. They lost to UNLV, Minnesota and Western Kentucky in non-conference this year and I don't think they were nearly as strong as people perceived them to be. I hope michigan state knocks off uconn and we see a unc, michigan state finals.

[octoinky]

I'm rooting for the same, if just to stay within 40 points of 1st in the pool, but also b/c I like them. I wouldn't mind seeing nova win it all also and just be a total dark horse from out of the big east and not even be one of the "big three" from there.

[sdkess]

Agreed, a UNC vs Michigan State final would be awesome to me. I wanted to pick UNC for my bracket, but I got tired of them losing every time that I pick my home state team. My bracket is toast now, so I'm pulling for UNC all of the way!

[Thiradell]

UNC definitely impressed me in the OU game...to an extent. Their offense was really not very good in the first half except for Danny Green, and they made plenty of silly mistakes late. They're still very good, but Hansbrough is certainly overrated and won't be able to handle Nova's defense. Both Final Four games should be excellent.

[dragondragon18]

I used the wrong bracket for the elite .

http://games.espn.go.com/tcmen/entry?entryID=1691550

[Wody]

i think villanova is going all the way

[Invertigone]

I didn't fill out a bracket, but I am going with U-Conn and Villanova in the championship game, and then Connecticut wins their third National Title.

[RWG]

5th place behind Wheat, Octo and Jon's invites... I'll take it. Shows how good I am at everything of course, and that last year's win wasn't a fluke.

[octoinky]

Nice, 2nd place, and it came down to the first round which I boldly stated never matters in a group so small. I guess when the favorite wins, it does.

My best "bracket" was only 1400 this year (last year I had a top 1000), which oddly enough was a bracket that simply picked the favorites, based on Las Vegas betting odds before the tournament started. Guess I'm not smarter than them! Actually, no eliter was! Hehe.

Good win, wheat! Though despite there being so much chalk this season, nobodies bracket really impressed me as nobody was able to get anywhere near the final 4 correct.

[wheatrich]

Nice, 2nd place, and it came down to the first round which I boldly stated never matters in a group so small. I guess when the favorite wins, it does.

when the favorite wins was referring to me and not unc obv

[rshepherd1000]

As usual March Madness was terrible for me betting wise

Total wins for Big East teams? Over 15.5 wins -137
Total wins for Pac 10 teams? Under 6.5 wins -150

Total wins for Big Ten teams? Under 8.5 wins -152 (hedged half with MSU ML in the F4)
How many #1 seeds will make the Final Four? Under 1.5 +102

West Virginia most wins vs Marquette -130
Duke most wins vs Oklahoma -135

Will a team from the Pac 10 win the title? Yes +3008 - didnt get far enough to consider hedge

Duke to win Championship 12/1 (placed mid-season) - didnt get far enough to consider hedge
Memphis to win Championship  30/1 (placed mid-season) - didnt get far enough to consider hedge
Kansas to win Championship  40/1 (placed after round 64) - didnt get far enough to consider hedge
Gonzaga to win Championship 75/1 (placed mid-season) - didnt get far enough to consider hedge
Missouri to win Championship 100/1 (placed mid-season) - didnt get far enough to hedge
BYU to win Championship 250/1 (placed mid-season) - didnt get far enough to consider hedge

Georgetown to win Big East 5/1 (not MM but may as well add to the failure record with this super LOL bet)