March Madness Yahoo Pick'Em Tournament

Its that time of year again! March Madness is once again upon us as we try to pick who makes it to the NCAA Final Four. I am once again running a tournament on Yahoo. If you want to be a part of it, pm me with an email address and Ill send you an invite!

I'm in.

Cool - just signed up!

I love March Madness but I havent followed it close enough this year to make any logical picks. I'll be watching it though!

stepcousin wrote:

I love March Madness but I havent followed it close enough this year to make any logical picks. I'll be watching it though!

This. I hope the Big Ten can make a good showing this year. I suppose its obvious who I want in the tournament. Unfortunately, they've been sucking it up lately. They squeaked a win over Michigan State yesterday that gave them part of a three-way share of the Big Ten title.

stepcousin wrote:

I love March Madness but I havent followed it close enough this year to make any logical picks. I'll be watching it though!

most of the time the people who dont make the safe picks actually end up doing the best...

I'm gonna pick Belmont to upset Georgetown.

For one thing, I saw Petra at Belmont back in the 80s. And I HATE Georgetown; talk about a school guilty of "reverse prejudice"; I've hated them since John Thompson the first and his sons haven't gotten any better IMO. Georgetown is like Notre Dame for me; I root for anyone to beat them.

tohostudios wrote:

I'm gonna pick Belmont to upset Georgetown.

For one thing, I saw Petra at Belmont back in the 80s. And I HATE Georgetown; talk about a school guilty of "reverse prejudice"; I've hated them since John Thompson the first and his sons haven't gotten any better IMO. Georgetown is like Notre Dame for me; I root for anyone to beat them.

yeah - its hard for me to dislike anyone more than Carolina but Georgetown (Syracuse also because Boeheim went to the John Chaney school of crying) comes a very close second.

I'm doing one at work. Think Michigan will win it all? I'm picking Kentucky but it's a year for anyone to grab it, FSU could get hot and pull it off.

I've got Kentucky winning everything in all my brackets.

Which of course means they'll lose before they even get that far.

tohostudios wrote:

I've got Kentucky winning everything in all my brackets.

Which of course means they'll lose before they even get that far.

i have them too. its the kiss of death. Once more I dont have the nerve to pick all the underdogs.

I'll pick a few to go deep but it seems to be Caintuck's to lose.

as is normal, I am picking Temple to go out in the first round. I am also pickng UConn to be done after the first game.

Hope the games are as good as last nights though I wanted BYU out.

This new format makes no sense. How can a play-in game be for anything other than a 16 seed? How can the winner of a play-in game be seeded ahead of anyone else in the bracket?

tohostudios wrote:

This new format makes no sense. How can a play-in game be for anything other than a 16 seed? How can the winner of a play-in game be seeded ahead of anyone else in the bracket?

Because those who are #16 seeds have earned their way into the field by winning their conference tournaments. Iona/BYU and South Florida/CAL were essentially the last four at-large teams I have no problem with the NCAA committee not awarding mediocrity, making teams that fall on the 12 line play early. The ESPN pundits usually are up in arms over teams being screwed over by the committee. This year, the only teams that were mentioned who might have a beef were Washington, Drexel, and maybe Miami, FL. In Washington's case, they were the PAC-12 champions, yet their best win was at Arizona. They finished 14-4 in the PAC-12, but had ZERO wins in the top 50. It shows you how far the once mighty PAC10 has fallen. Drexel had the longest winning streak going into the Colonial at 19, but had a really soft SOS of over 200. They're a really good team, but they did themselves no favor by not playing anyone worth a darn out of conference. I think the Colonial is the most underrated conference in the country. Teams like VCU, Drexel, George Mason, Old Dominion are perennial powers. Georgia. St will be the next team everyone will be hearing about. Ron Hunter is in his first year there, and he will have those guys in the thick of things for years to come. I would have liked to seen the Colonial better represented, but it is what it is...

metalinmyveins wrote:

tohostudios wrote:

This new format makes no sense. How can a play-in game be for anything other than a 16 seed? How can the winner of a play-in game be seeded ahead of anyone else in the bracket?

Because those who are #16 seeds have earned their way into the field by winning their conference tournaments. Iona/BYU and South Florida/CAL were essentially the last four at-large teams I have no problem with the NCAA committee not awarding mediocrity, making teams that fall on the 12 line play early. The ESPN pundits usually are up in arms over teams being screwed over by the committee. This year, the only teams that were mentioned who might have a beef were Washington, Drexel, and maybe Miami, FL. In Washington's case, they were the PAC-12 champions, yet their best win was at Arizona. They finished 14-4 in the PAC-12, but had ZERO wins in the top 50. It shows you how far the once mighty PAC10 has fallen. Drexel had the longest winning streak going into the Colonial at 19, but had a really soft SOS of over 200. They're a really good team, but they did themselves no favor by not playing anyone worth a darn out of conference. I think the Colonial is the most underrated conference in the country. Teams like VCU, Drexel, George Mason, Old Dominion are perennial powers. Georgia. St will be the next team everyone will be hearing about. Ron Hunter is in his first year there, and he will have those guys in the thick of things for years to come. I would have liked to seen the Colonial better represented, but it is what it is...

I dont have an issue with them doing the play-in games either. It reduces the number of teams who complain they never got a shot.

I don't have an issue with play-in games per se; but I don't understand how someone who has to play their way into the tournament ends up with a better seed than someone who made the tournament outright. If it's because of automatic bids, then that system needs to be fixed IMO. It makes no logical sense that a team that has to play its way into post season gets a higher seed than other teams that made the tournament outright.

tohostudios wrote:

I don't have an issue with play-in games per se; but I don't understand how someone who has to play their way into the tournament ends up with a better seed than someone who made the tournament outright. If it's because of automatic bids, then that system needs to be fixed IMO. It makes no logical sense that a team that has to play its way into post season gets a higher seed than other teams that made the tournament outright.

Yeah, but the power conferences are always going to get the better seeds then all the other conferences. Look at Cal tonight, do they even look like a #12 seed? They were leading the PAC-12 conference until the last week of the season (finished 2nd behind UW). It's been bantered about since selection Sunday that Detroit was under seeded as #15. In reality they should probably be a #13 seed. The reason why the #12 seeds should play and do play in the play in round is do to the bias that takes place in never having a power conference representative lower than a #12 (occasionally a # 13 seed).

I was wondering about that. Maybe they figure both those teams are better but why not just grant them invites outright. Somehow I bet it comes down to money.

tohostudios wrote:

I don't have an issue with play-in games per se; but I don't understand how someone who has to play their way into the tournament ends up with a better seed than someone who made the tournament outright. If it's because of automatic bids, then that system needs to be fixed IMO. It makes no logical sense that a team that has to play its way into post season gets a higher seed than other teams that made the tournament outright.

Its the strength of schedule. Teams in the power conferences end up playing stronger teams night in and night out so teams in those conferences will have a stronger case to be seeded higher in the tournament. The automatic bid gives the smaller conferences the ability to make it to the tournament but they dont normally have the strength of schedule which results in the lower seeding. The teams on the bubble have better strength of schedule generally than the low seeded automatic bids so they play into a higher seed.

I personally think the NCAA tourney is about as flawless as one is going to get - you have big and small conferences, any team in a conference that has a bid has a chance to get hot and get into the tournament, its one and done so the power teams cannot rest on their laurels and it involves a wide geography to start.

exact33 wrote:

tohostudios wrote:

I don't have an issue with play-in games per se; but I don't understand how someone who has to play their way into the tournament ends up with a better seed than someone who made the tournament outright. If it's because of automatic bids, then that system needs to be fixed IMO. It makes no logical sense that a team that has to play its way into post season gets a higher seed than other teams that made the tournament outright.

Its the strength of schedule. Teams in the power conferences end up playing stronger teams night in and night out so teams in those conferences will have a stronger case to be seeded higher in the tournament. The automatic bid gives the smaller conferences the ability to make it to the tournament but they dont normally have the strength of schedule which results in the lower seeding. The teams on the bubble have better strength of schedule generally than the low seeded automatic bids so they play into a higher seed.

I personally think the NCAA tourney is about as flawless as one is going to get - you have big and small conferences, any team in a conference that has a bid has a chance to get hot and get into the tournament, its one and done so the power teams cannot rest on their laurels and it involves a wide geography to start.

...and for some of these teams from mid major conferences, it's virtually impossible to get home games with power conference teams. The best case scenario for these teams is to face a power conference opponent on a neutral floor site for the holiday tournaments in November & December. I think it was Mississippi Valley State, who had to spend a straight month on the road in December. That is just brutal!

Damn! I just noticed I never picked a winner out of the East bracket. Oh well, I'm sure my bracket will have been destroyed by that point anyway.



EDIT: That's weird. The copy of my picks that I printed out has everything filled in. Wonder what happened?

You didn't grease the right palms.

Did you see the end of that Syracuse game? One of the worst calls of all time.

Dark Horseman wrote:

You didn't grease the right palms.

Did you see the end of that Syracuse game? One of the worst calls of all time.

The lane violation call was a joke, but the complaints about the ball going out of bounds off the Syracuse player were a joke. Granted, it went off the Syracuse player, but the Syracuse player got absolutely hammered along the baseline. I'm a Big East fan, but not that of Syracuse. The call really wasn't that egregious, because the referees totally swallowed the whistle on what looked like a safety hitting a wide receiver along the baseline!