Day One
And, we're underway! Had a handful of fun games yesterday, and we've already seen a lot of brackets crumpled up with Kentucky getting bounced early (53 of you had them in the Final Four). Apparently that Jack Gohlke fella is pretty good at hitting 3 pointers, knocking down TEN of them en route to victory. Congratulations to the FIFTEEN of you that managed to correctly pick Oakland winning that one. Less than a third of you got the Duquesne game right, so props are due there as well. And while the Dayton win didn't move the needle for a huge crowd, Nevada delivered an absolute gift to the 129 of you that got it right by being on the wrong side of a 24-4 run to close out the game.
Let's be honest, it's tough to get all of these games right, so much so in fact that as we awaken this morning, only .00038% of the brackets IN THE COUNTRY remain unblemished. One of those brackets, however, belongs to one of the "extra" brackets in our pool, Bijan Robinson of the Atlanta Falcons -- if his bracket counted, it would be in first in our pool (of course), but as it stands, "F.ck This Bracket II" is leading the pack. I'm sure the bracket feels the same way about its owner for giving it such a name while it's out there #winning. Dr. Dimple Popper is another extra bracket (and yes, it's really Dr. Pimple Popper's bracket), so here's what the top 10 looks like as we head into today's games... (full standings in real time here)
On the other end of the spectrum, Schoopin up da Pur doo doo turned in a positively dreadful performance, managing only 16 points from three correct picks. Big yikes.
As always, I've added a bunch of extra brackets so you can compare your performance against unusual ways of picking and notable people who have public brackets. I'll be continuing to add them as I find them, so if you see the number of entries go up, that's why -- there are 287 legit entries, the rest are just for fun. You can recognize the "just for fun" brackets because they will be in all caps, and the tiebreak will be 0.
So, let's take a quick look at those, shall we? As we head into today's games, the COIN FLIP bracket, which is literally my kid just flipping a coin to decide the picks, is sitting in 93rd place, outperforming more than 2/3 of you. Right above that in 90th place is our old friend the MASCOT BRACKET, where selections are made by trying to determine which mascot would beat the other in a one on one duel. Oh, and underscoring the importance of getting the upsets right, the ALL CHALK bracket, where the favorites are always selected, is at 199th.
Amongst celebs, former President Obama is doing the best after Robinson and Dr. Pimple Popper, coming in at 37th place. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Charles Barkley, whose bracket sits at 230th place. Turrible, just turrible.
OK folks, I've been on vacation and am just getting back to it, so gott keep it quick today. More tomorrow, and enjoy another fun day of basketball!