I look like a geeky hacker, but I don’t know anything about computers. – Justin Long
The Contest That Almost Wasn’t
Greetings and blessings to all the fine minions of the 22nd Annual Jeff’s March Madness Contest. It’s another record year for the contest, and that’s entirely thanks to you, the loyal fans and followers of our March excursion into madness. So thank you all, sincerely. I am looking forward to another three weeks of laughs and mayhem. We’ll get to the numbers in a moment, but first, I have a few stories to tell. Because gregarious.
As I sit here contemplating the launch of another contest, awaiting inspiration to hit me like falling space debris (those of you who have seen the California Almonds commercial will get the joke), my first thought is…I’M STARVING! I have barely moved from this spot here in the command center since I got out of bed at 6:00 AM this morning. The truth is it has been tough sledding for this year’s contest. You know that car you had (or maybe still have) that you can’t afford to replace, but every time you fix one thing, two more things break? Yeah, that’s my contest website. Early in the year my sixlittles.net domain had landed on just about every naughty list on the internet, thanks largely to WordPress being perhaps the most vulnerable and hack-prone platform of all time (which undoubtedly explains its enormous popularity). I nearly threw in the towel, but instead I spent some significant coin on a professional “cleaning” service to rid WordPress of all of its bugs and suspicious links and get me back in Google’s good graces. I now have a real-time firewall on my WordPress blog, and if you have a WordPress site, believe me, you need one, too.
In addition to all of that WordPress mess, I took the time to try to shore up my website code itself to make it more impervious to basic hacking. In the process, it seems, I may have introduced a bug or two, which I have spent the better part of the last three days chasing. While most folks had no issues, there were a few entry attempts I noticed were failing for reasons unknown. So, in an attempt to debug, I inserted code that would email me some details every time someone would enter new picks or make changes, because nerd. You can imagine the sheer volume of email that generated, especially over the last two hours. One of the interesting side effects of that move was that I was able to note just how often some of you make changes to your picks before the deadline. Bethany Davis must have changed hers two dozen times in the last hour. A little indecision, perhaps?
Despite all of these difficulties, I have persevered, and having held the hackers at bay for the moment, the 22nd Annual contest will go on, full speed ahead!
And speaking of hacking…
I Thought Wizards Didn’t Get Sick
About mid-afternoon Tuesday I noticed a growing irritation in my throat. This has now developed into a full-blown, hacking cough that would make a chain smoker with emphysema feel sorry for me. So if you’re wondering why I didn’t post a witty pre-tournament video in the Facebook group as I have done in the past, it is because I only get about 20-30 seconds between coughing fits. Believe me, if I didn’t have 16 basketball games to keep track of today, I would go sleep for, like, days.
Politics Finds Its Way Into The Contest, Too
No, I am most certainly NOT going to introduce politics into any of my tomes. I am, after all, not ESPN. However, it goes without saying that our nation’s political climate has been intensely interesting to say the least, and that is manifesting itself in many of your aliases. There is some really funny stuff there, and it will be duly noted when we hand out the best alias awards in a future commentary. Keep everything in good taste, minions, and we’ll be fine. Just don’t ask me for my tax returns.
What’s In A Name?
One of the things I enjoy about the tournament is a perusal of the mascot names for each school, especially the more unusual or interesting ones. Take, for example, the Wichita State Shockers. For years I thought their mascot was some sort of electrified bumble bee due to its black and yellow coloration. However, closer inspection and a little research reveals that it is not a bumble bee at all, nor does it have anything to do with electricity. No, the Shocker is actually a shock of wheat, which I assume is a cash crop in that part of the country. This will come as quite the revelation to those of you who didn’t know that a “bunch” of wheat actually has a name, especially to the kids of the 21st century who believe food comes from a grocery store.
In the past few years cultural sensitivity has led to NCAA schools dropping their Native American monikers in favor of something else. One of my favorite such switches is the South Dakota State Jackrabbits. I mean, that’s just totally unique. And there’s the UC Irvine Anteaters, who didn’t make the field of 68, but must have one of the most original mascots in all of college sports. I think we should start a petition drive to get more schools to change their names, you know, just to add some variety to the landscape. Some of these schools have been the totally boring Aggies or Wildcats or insert-some-adjective Devils since Naismith invented basketball. For example, there should be some school that caters to computer or technology students that calls itself The Hackers. That would be totally legit. The mascot could dress up in one of those old school burglar outfits, carry a laptop, and pace around the arena looking suspicious. For road games he could even hack the scoreboard and foul out the opponent’s best player or something.
By The Numbers
It’s become something of a tradition for me to give a by-the-numbers rundown in the opening commentary, and so at the risk of being redundant, here it is.
- 841 – Total number of entries in this year’s contest, yet another record. It is also the number of quips, puns, witticisms, cultural references, and obtuse inside jokes that I probably won’t get that I have to wade through to hand out the coveted Best Alias Award.
- 144 – Number of rookies in this year’s contest. Welcome to the madness!
- 9 – Number of teams in the tournament from the ACC, more than any other conference.
- 0 – Number of minions who picked all 32 upsets in the first round. This is historic, because at least one person has tried this approach every year. Perhaps the minions are getting wiser and realizing that this strategy never works.
- 25 – The highest number of first round upsets picked by any contestant, which is still a lot. This honor belongs to Paul Smith.
- 7 – The number of minions who took the safe approach and picked according to Hoyle for every first round game. Sadly for those 7, this approach has never worked in the past, either.
- 2 – Number of teams that have won back-to-back NCAA Championships since the field expanded to 64 teams. Villanova will try to be the first team to repeat since Florida in 2006, 2007. The only other team to accomplish that feat? Duke, in 1991, 1992.
- 78 – Number of years since Northwestern has appeared in any sort of men’s basketball post-season tournament. They are definitely the Chicago Cubs of March Madness.
- 447 – Number of minions who have made at least one pick that qualifies for the unicorn of our contest, the coveted scategories bonus.
First Awards
I don’t have many awards to hand out right now, mainly because I need to eat something and take some cough medicine before I expire. But, since I know this is, for most of you, the best part of the whole contest, I will dangle out a few carrots.
- The Early Bird Gets The Worm award goes to our very first entry, Dr. Miltiadis Ntragatakis.
- The Better Late Than Never award goes to Mike Aue, our last contestant who got in just under the wire.
- The Top Recruiter award goes to the Cru Crew from Cru Digital Strategies, the private group with the largest number of members, 42.
- The Persistence Pays Off award goes to James Badgley, one of the premier victims of the various goofiness of the website this year. He had to attempt his entry multiple times before finally switching browsers and finding success. Best of luck, to you James!
- The Pick Of Destiny award goes to those minions who are convinced that the Michigan Wolverines are now charmed in some way having survived the mishap with their team plane prior to the Big Ten tournament. These six contestants picked Michigan to go all the way: Jamie Wise, Matt Cohee, Kelly Harman, Rick Mohler, John Clark, and Kelly Fitch.
- The You Gotta Be Kidding Me award goes to Nick Langhals, the lone contestant to pick Dayton to win the championship.
OK, minions, that’s it for now. Time for the wizard to get some food and medication and focus on some games. Watch for the next commentary coming sometime between the early and late session games today.
The Wizard of Whiteland