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P-F-R March Madness pool 2010

Posted by Doug on March 15, 2010

First prize is we will do a podcast (yeah, that's right) on the player or team/season of your choice. Also honor and glory.

Rules: each team has a price, listed below. Pick as many teams as you want, as long as the total price stays at 100 or less. The winner will be the entry with the most total wins by all teams in the entry. First tiebreaker is greatest number of 16 seeds, second tiebreaker is greatest number of 15 seeds, etc. No point will be awarded for winning the play-in game.

Enter by putting a comma-delimited string of team numbers in the comments, like this:

3,8,12,14,...

which would correspond to Baylor, Duke, Georgetown, Gonzaga, etc. It doesn't matter what order you put the teams in. I will try to check all the entries to make sure they're legal, but I make no guarantees. It's your responsibility to make sure your entry is legal. Deadline is tipoff of Thursday's first game.

 1 = (16) Ark.-Pine Bluff       1
 2 = ( 7) BYU                   7
 3 = ( 3) Baylor               11
 4 = ( 5) Butler                5
 5 = ( 8) California            4
 6 = ( 7) Clemson               4
 7 = (12) Cornell               2

 8 = ( 1) Duke                 15
 9 = (16) East Tenn State       1
10 = (10) Florida               2
11 = ( 9) Florida State         4
12 = ( 3) Georgetown           10
13 = (10) Georgia Tech          4
14 = ( 8) Gonzaga               3
15 = (13) Houston               1
16 = ( 1) Kansas               20
17 = ( 2) Kansas State         12
18 = ( 1) Kentucky             14
19 = (16) Lehigh                1
20 = ( 9) Louisville            3
21 = ( 6) Marquette             6
22 = ( 4) Maryland              8
23 = ( 5) Michigan State        7
24 = (11) Minnesota             3
25 = (10) Missouri              4
26 = (14) Montana               1
27 = (15) Morgan State          1
28 = (13) Murray State          2
29 = ( 3) New Mexico            8
30 = (12) New Mexico State      1
31 = (15) North Texas           1
32 = ( 9) Northern Iowa         3
33 = ( 6) Notre Dame            4
34 = (14) Oakland-Mich.         1
35 = ( 2) Ohio State           10
36 = (14) Ohio University       1
37 = ( 7) Oklahoma State        4
38 = (11) Old Dominion          4
39 = ( 3) Pittsburgh            8
40 = ( 4) Purdue                8
41 = ( 7) Richmond              3
42 = (15) Robert Morris         1
43 = (10) Saint Mary's          4
44 = (14) Sam Houston St.       1
45 = (11) San Diego State       3
46 = (13) Siena                 2
47 = ( 1) Syracuse             15
48 = ( 5) Temple                7
49 = ( 6) Tennessee             5
50 = ( 8) Texas                 6
51 = ( 5) Texas A&M             6
52 = (15) UC Santa Barbara      1
53 = ( 8) UNLV                  3
54 = (12) UTEP                  4
55 = (12) Utah State            3
56 = ( 4) Vanderbilt            6
57 = (16) Vermont               1
58 = ( 2) Villanova            12
59 = ( 9) Wake Forest           2
60 = (11) Washington            3
61 = ( 2) West Virginia        13
62 = (17) Winthrop              1
63 = ( 4) Wisconsin             8
64 = (13) Wofford               1
65 = ( 6) Xavier-Ohio           6

Related posts:

    College Bowl Pool Madness: My Picks
    College Bowl Pool Madness: Contest inside
    College Bowl Pool 2009–2010
    March Madness: how important is a team’s recent play?
    NCAA: SRS ratings through seven weeks
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53 Responses to “P-F-R March Madness pool 2010”

  1. RS Says:

    64, 47, 18, 48, 24, 61, 28, 8, 23, 46, 60, 17, 20

  2. Chase Stuart Says:

    24,5,25,6,60,55,11,20,59,10,50,13,53,45,2,32,14,28,54,46,38,43,49,41,63,65,15

  3. Vince Says:

    4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 13, 15, 20, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 32, 35, 38, 41, 45, 46, 53, 55, 57, 59, 60, 63

  4. Shattenjager Says:

    3,4,17,23,24,29,33,35,39,48,51,61,65

  5. Richie Says:

    You guys do podcasts??? :)

  6. Eric Says:

    4,7,10,16,20,21,33,37,39,46,49,51,58,61,63

  7. Jim A Says:

    8,16,18,23,35,36,47,49,61

  8. Dan Says:

    2,6,8,11,13,22,24,26,28,35,39,45,46,48,55,59,60,63,65

    Get ready for the John L. Williams podcast!!!

  9. Stevie C Says:

    18, 17, 58, 35, 12, 29, 39, 56, 4, 33, 41, 14, 59, 30, 46

  10. G Fish Says:

    39, 35, 56, 4, 51, 18, 21, 12, 32, 48, 49, 8, 30, 15, 26, 10

  11. Eric Says:

    Just curious if you could elaborate on how the point values were determined? For instance, why is Duke 15 points and Kentucky 14 points, if both are #1 seeds?

  12. Daniel Says:

    6, 7, 16, 17, 18, 20, 29, 45, 46, 47, 55, 58, 59

  13. Ron Stevens Says:

    3,12,17,21,29,33,35,39,42,49,58,61

  14. Roby Says:

    2, 5, 10, 12, 13, 15, 18, 20, 23, 25, 26, 27, 30, 31, 33, 39, 47, 51, 56, 64

    It's on. The winner gets a football podcast, correct?

  15. Tom Gower Says:

    3,8,12,16,18,38,47,60,63

  16. Eiad Says:

    4,7,10,14,15,18,20,28,30,32,33,35,37,39,41,43,44,46,48,51,53,55,56,59,64

  17. Nathan Jahnke Says:

    3, 8, 10, 12, 15, 18, 29, 30, 35, 39, 41, 47, 59

  18. JT Says:

    2,7,8,16,18,28,29,34,35,38,43,55,60,65

  19. Bill M. Says:

    [redacted]

  20. Bill M. Says:

    Does the winner have the option of being a guest on the podcast?

  21. Bill M. Says:

    8,16,17,18,30,35,47,61

    [edited by Doug for scraping purposes]

    CORRECTION.... Sorry, my first entry was illegal. Please drop team #58.

    My corrected entry follows:

    8,16,17,18,30,35,47,61

  22. Chris F. Says:

    2, 3, 13, 15, 16, 18, 23, 30, 39, 43, 46, 54, 55, 56, 63

  23. Jason McKinley Says:

    5,6,7,10,11,13,15,23,24,25,26,28,30,32,33,34,35,39,41,43,45,46,53,54,55,59,60,63

  24. JR Says:

    [redacted]

  25. JR Says:

    14,15,16,17,18,23,35,39,49,58,63

    Please remove 61 from my post, it puts me over 100. Picks are
    14,15,16,17,18,23,35,39,49,58,63

  26. Patrick W Says:

    53,59,23,48,30,49,21,6,29,37,14,5,20,4,51,56,33,41,10,39,65,32.

    Get ready for this podcast: The 1973 preseason.

    I just love the mathematical underpinnings of this madness!

  27. Felden Says:

    3,4,12,16,17,18,20,24,32,41,48,51,60

    Um, let's see...

    3,4,12,16,17,18,20,24,32,41,48,51,60

    Interesting to see some people go for the PICK EVERY TEAM strategy--and it's interesting, you can guarantee yourself some points if you just pick both halves of one matchup...

  28. Hedgehog Says:

    24,63,8,50,21,53,61,16,3,47

  29. BLM Says:

    2,3,4,8,16,32,35,41,47,55,63

  30. Francis O. Says:

    24,60,63,8,11,12,2,28,22,53,49,54,3,41,18

  31. Tom A. Says:

    2,4,5,6,8,11,13,22,24,25,26,28,32,35,38,41,45,55,59,60,63

  32. JWL Says:

    3,12,16,17,18,47,54,61,64

    I'm playing for a podcast of the 1972 Oilers.
    That was a terrible team.
    The head coach gave quite a few memorable quotes due to his struggles with the English language.
    Ed Baker's cup of coffee was during that season. In his lone NFL appearance he came off the bench to throw four interceptions on only 10 passes.

  33. buzz Says:

    2,4,5,6,8,11,13,22,24,26,28,32,35,38,41,43,45,55,59,60,63

  34. Jason Lisk Says:

    3,5,7,8,9,10,14,15,16,25,26,32,33,37,41,43,44,56,60,63

  35. Matt Stephans Says:

    16, 61, 20, 32, 60, 65, 17, 8, 4, 28, 50, 49, 7, 46, 19, 1, 9

  36. Doug Says:

    Standings page. Will be updated after each block of games.

  37. Dan Says:

    Doug - on behalf of nerds who like sports everywhere - you're awesome!!

  38. Dan Says:

    Doug - on the standings page - what are "points" under the individual entry sections? Like mine says BYU 1 win 10 points, and -8.1 expected remainign points. Are those vestiges of a previous incarnation of this contest?

  39. Doug Says:

    That's a bug Dan, and it should be fixed by the time you read this. And you're right: for this pool, points = wins.

  40. Francis O. Says:

    Is there a DougD entry?

  41. JT Says:

    Right now, there is a 13.36 percent chance that everyone will be subjected to a Denver Broncos podcast :)

    Orange Crush or Rod Smith everyone?

  42. Doug Says:

    Your wish is 13.36% of our command, JT.

  43. Bill M. Says:

    This is fun.

  44. Bill M. Says:

    I feel compelled to defend my honor. My strategy was to pick as many top seeds as possible. I picked all four 1-seeds and three of the four 2-seeds. This cost me 99 units. With my remaining singleton, I opted for the highest seeded team that cost just 1 unit. That was New Mexico State.

    Keep one fact in mind. I know virtually nothing about college basketball. I never watch basketball of any kind. I don't follow the sport in any way.

    My theory was one of efficiency. I would expect that in a seeded tournament, the top seeds usually go a lot further than the lower ones. Therefore, I thought that it is possible that the 8 most likely teams to reach the round of 8 would be the 1's and the 2's. If all 7 of 1's and 2's that I picked made it this far, I would have, at that point, 21 wins, plus any bonus wins offered up by NM State. Then with any luck, I would get all 7 of the remaining points no matter what happened, unless the lone team that wasn't one of mine won in subsequent rounds. If this worked out, I would wind up with 28 points, which I would think is a good score.

    The key for me is to hope the top teams hold serve as long as possible.

    I haven't studied the situation enough to see if those who picked a greater number of teams pretty much have me shut out by virtue of stockpiling early round wins.

    No matter what, due to my lack of knowledge of the sport, my entry was one purely of gamesmanship. I hope it works out well. It is tough to see the high early scores some of you are putting up, though.

    Good luck everybody.

  45. JT Says:

    Thanks for the explanation Bill, it's interesting to see other's strategies.

    My was entirely driven by my bracket: a few high seeds, and the low seeds I see succeeding. However, it's not just your everyday bracket filled out by hand.

    What makes it different is that it's been entirely generated by an algorithm of mine. I started a contest 3 years ago to have friends/students (when I was in college) write a block of code for a game(team A, team B, int round) function I had written in a tourney simulator.

    So for the last 4 NCAA tourneys (including this one), I have run this contest and I've used the same algorithm for the last 3 years. I can't comment on this year, but the algorithm I've used the last 2 years has done well and predicted a cinderella and the tourney winner.

    This year, it likes KU over Duke in the final, and BYU to make the final four, with Murray State, Cornell, and St. Mary's going into the Sweet 16 or Elite 8 as cinderellas.

    So I just made sure to pick the cinderellas, pick Duke, Kentucky, BYU, and Kansas.

    It's been OK so far, we'll see if it continues.

    It's also my plan someday to put the contest up on a website and automate much of the process...one of my many plans :)

  46. Bill M. Says:

    Too bad for Kansas.

    Too bad for me.

    Too bad for all of you... now you probably won't get to enjoy a Chris Burkett... make that Brad Lamb podcast!

  47. Matt Stephans Says:

    I don't see my entries tallied (Comment #35). Did I go over 100? I have 2s, but I guess I was DQed?

  48. Matt Stephans Says:

    *2s = 20 points

  49. Doug Says:

    Matt's entry is legal and changes the landscape considerably. My mistake for not including it sooner.

  50. JT Says:

    Great job Matt, your entry was ridiculously good.

  51. Bill M. Says:

    Congrats, Matt :)

  52. Bill M. Says:

    All in all, I'm happy with my results. My strategy produced 2.625 points per team picked. Only Jim A. had a higher such ratio with his 2.889, and there were only 5 people with at least 2.000. Not bad for someone who knows little about basketball.

  53. Richie Says:

    So what's the podcast subject going to be and when the hell is it going to be posted!

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