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
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March 15th, 2010 at 12:57 pm
64, 47, 18, 48, 24, 61, 28, 8, 23, 46, 60, 17, 20
March 15th, 2010 at 2:55 pm
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
March 15th, 2010 at 4:08 pm
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
March 15th, 2010 at 8:32 pm
3,4,17,23,24,29,33,35,39,48,51,61,65
March 16th, 2010 at 10:48 am
You guys do podcasts???
March 16th, 2010 at 1:13 pm
4,7,10,16,20,21,33,37,39,46,49,51,58,61,63
March 16th, 2010 at 1:52 pm
8,16,18,23,35,36,47,49,61
March 16th, 2010 at 2:11 pm
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!!!
March 16th, 2010 at 2:23 pm
18, 17, 58, 35, 12, 29, 39, 56, 4, 33, 41, 14, 59, 30, 46
March 16th, 2010 at 2:42 pm
39, 35, 56, 4, 51, 18, 21, 12, 32, 48, 49, 8, 30, 15, 26, 10
March 16th, 2010 at 2:44 pm
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?
March 16th, 2010 at 2:51 pm
6, 7, 16, 17, 18, 20, 29, 45, 46, 47, 55, 58, 59
March 16th, 2010 at 4:14 pm
3,12,17,21,29,33,35,39,42,49,58,61
March 16th, 2010 at 6:29 pm
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?
March 16th, 2010 at 6:35 pm
3,8,12,16,18,38,47,60,63
March 16th, 2010 at 7:44 pm
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
March 16th, 2010 at 9:11 pm
3, 8, 10, 12, 15, 18, 29, 30, 35, 39, 41, 47, 59
March 16th, 2010 at 10:58 pm
2,7,8,16,18,28,29,34,35,38,43,55,60,65
March 16th, 2010 at 11:09 pm
[redacted]
March 16th, 2010 at 11:16 pm
Does the winner have the option of being a guest on the podcast?
March 16th, 2010 at 11:57 pm
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
March 17th, 2010 at 6:45 am
2, 3, 13, 15, 16, 18, 23, 30, 39, 43, 46, 54, 55, 56, 63
March 17th, 2010 at 7:00 am
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
March 17th, 2010 at 10:42 am
[redacted]
March 17th, 2010 at 10:49 am
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
March 17th, 2010 at 8:03 pm
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!
March 17th, 2010 at 8:15 pm
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...
March 17th, 2010 at 9:35 pm
24,63,8,50,21,53,61,16,3,47
March 17th, 2010 at 10:07 pm
2,3,4,8,16,32,35,41,47,55,63
March 17th, 2010 at 10:24 pm
24,60,63,8,11,12,2,28,22,53,49,54,3,41,18
March 17th, 2010 at 10:45 pm
2,4,5,6,8,11,13,22,24,25,26,28,32,35,38,41,45,55,59,60,63
March 18th, 2010 at 12:00 am
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.
March 18th, 2010 at 9:13 am
2,4,5,6,8,11,13,22,24,26,28,32,35,38,41,43,45,55,59,60,63
March 18th, 2010 at 10:05 am
3,5,7,8,9,10,14,15,16,25,26,32,33,37,41,43,44,56,60,63
March 18th, 2010 at 10:25 am
16, 61, 20, 32, 60, 65, 17, 8, 4, 28, 50, 49, 7, 46, 19, 1, 9
March 18th, 2010 at 10:37 am
Standings page. Will be updated after each block of games.
March 18th, 2010 at 1:22 pm
Doug - on behalf of nerds who like sports everywhere - you're awesome!!
March 18th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
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?
March 18th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
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.
March 18th, 2010 at 1:45 pm
Is there a DougD entry?
March 18th, 2010 at 4:17 pm
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?
March 18th, 2010 at 4:44 pm
Your wish is 13.36% of our command, JT.
March 18th, 2010 at 5:25 pm
This is fun.
March 19th, 2010 at 5:46 pm
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.
March 19th, 2010 at 8:27 pm
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
March 20th, 2010 at 7:31 pm
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!March 22nd, 2010 at 9:27 am
I don't see my entries tallied (Comment #35). Did I go over 100? I have 2s, but I guess I was DQed?
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:28 am
*2s = 20 points
March 25th, 2010 at 9:59 am
Matt's entry is legal and changes the landscape considerably. My mistake for not including it sooner.
March 29th, 2010 at 2:26 am
Great job Matt, your entry was ridiculously good.
March 29th, 2010 at 8:29 am
Congrats, Matt
April 8th, 2010 at 8:50 am
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.
April 23rd, 2010 at 1:29 pm
So what's the podcast subject going to be and when the hell is it going to be posted!