Round Two Wrap-Up

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The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

The Sweet 16 is settled. In the spirit of ESPN’s Mike & Mike In The Morning, I would like to offer the 2011 Jeff’s March Madness Contest version of the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The Good

  • Ohio State – Guess what. George Mason is not this year’s George Mason. What the Buckeye’s did to them today ought to be illegal. Total beat down does not begin to describe their 32-point victory. It will be interesting to see if this trend continues in the next round when OSU faces stronger competition for the first time in the tournament.
  • Kansas – Yawn. The Jayhawks never really allowed Illinois to make a game of it. Kansas looks like a legitimate contender.
  • Duke vs. Michigan – This was a very entertaining, down-to-the-wire contest in which Duke escaped again as their underdog opponent launched a last-second shot to win the game…that missed. To say that Duke looks vulnerable against a team that started 1-7 in the Big 10 this year is an understatement.
  • The West Region – The West region came closest to coming in according to Hoyle, advancing the 1, 2, 3, and 5 seeds to the Sweet 16. Fourth-seeded Texas lost a close one to fifth-seeded Arizona in yet another wild finish.
  • Conferences – ACC: 6-1; Mountain West: 4-1; Pac 10: 4-2.
  • Double Digit Seeds – One fourth of the Sweet 16 is occupied by double-digit seeds: #10 Florida State, #11 Marquette, #11 VCU, and #12 Richmond.

The Bad

  • Over-and-back Call Against Syracuse – With the scored tied at 59 and 52 seconds to play, Syracuse inbounds the ball in the front court to Scoop Jardine. Scoop jumps in the air, catches the ball, and lands with one foot on the half court line. The referee called a back court violation, which turned the ball over to Marquette. Marquette hit what turned out to be the game-winning three-pointer on the next possession. Was this the right call. One alert blogger posted the actual rule (4.3.8), which says, “After a jump ball or during a throw-in, the player in his front court, who makes the initial touch on the ball while both feet are off the playing court, may be the first to secure of the ball and land with one or both feet in the back court. It makes no difference if the first foot down was in the front court or back court.” This should have been a play on, and it can be argued that it cost Syracuse the game.
  • Indiana Teams – Four teams from Indiana entered the tournament. After round one, three remained, but only Butler survived to the Sweet 16. Notre Dame and Purdue both failed to show up today. More on that in a moment.
  • #5 Seeds – Only two won in the first round, and only one survived to the Sweet 16, and they (Arizona) just barely.
  • Conferences – Big 12: 4-4; Big East: 8-8 (Ok, .500 is not necessarily “bad”. This is a judgment relative to other conferences and expectations.)

The Ugly

  • Purdue – Never has the acronym “PU” been more appropriate to describe the Boilermaker squad. They were not beaten. They were run over by VCU. It was never close. It was never competitive. It was never interesting. This game left 56 of us wondering what in the world possessed us to pick this team for the Final Four.
  • Domers – There may be no place like dome, but in Notre Dame’s contest with Florida State, there was no Dome in the place at all. Much like the Purdue game, Notre Dame was never competitive. Notre Dame joins Pittsburgh in the dubious honor of being the first among their seeding level (#2) to go home.
  • The Southwest Region – The Region Difficulty Report (on the Reports and Standings page) reveals that the contest is under .500 in picking this region, and no wonder. The four Sweet 16 representatives in this region are the 1, 10, 11, and 12 seeds. This guarantees at least one double-digit seed in this year’s Elite Eight.
  • Mascots – Bears: 1-4; Military: 1-4.

Quick Hits

  • Close Shaves – 18 of the 32 games played so far have been decided by 5 points or less or in over time.
  • Double Trouble – The four double-digit seeds that advanced to the Sweet 16 is tied for the most ever (the other occurrence was 1999). This is the first time a single region has ever advanced three double-digit seeds.
  • First Time Ever – When Florida State plays VCU in the Southwest region semifinal, it will be the first time ever a #10 has played a #11.
  • Upsets – This year’s second round featured five upsets as defined by our contest (lower seed winning): Marquette, Arizona, Butler, Florida State, and VCU. (Richmond, though a 12 seed, was not an upset, as they faced #13 Morehead State). It turns out that, historically, the average number of upsets in the second rounds is (you guessed it) five.

Contest Standings Shake-up

Today’s games gave us our first Scategories Bonus of the contest as eleven brilliant contestants received big points for their VCU pick. Just to demonstrate how significant this bonus is, here is a rundown of how far each contestant jumped in the standings right after this game was final.

  • Christopher Randazzo – 75th to 6th
  • Matthew Hand – 115th to 9th
  • Pat Donahue – T188th to 11th
  • Eugene Clark – T122nd to 12th
  • Karen Deaver – 170th to 18th
  • J.R. Shrader – 217th to 34th
  • Jason Snyder – 263rd to 43rd
  • Tyler Drone – 327th to 65th
  • Cyrus Schafer – 431st to 140th
  • Carmen Quint – 440th to 155th

There are more Scategories bonuses out there to be hand, and several are quite possible given the way this year’s tournament has shaken out. Check out the Possible Scategories Bonuses report on the Reports and Standings Page to see if one of your picks qualified.

Round Two Awards

The re-pick round starts today, but before I give important details about the re-picks, here are the round two awards.

  • The My Dad Can Jump Higher Than Your Dad award for one upmanship goes to Matthew Hand who reported via his alias that he spent one more minute on his bracket than Kasiah Hand. Not to be outdone, Jonathan Hand reported he spent three hours on his. Do I hear three days? Anyone? Anyone?
  • The Sweet Tooth award, sponsored by Crest toothpaste, goes to the two contestants who picked the highest number of Sweet 16 teams correctly. This year the number is 12, and the contestants are Mike Brown and Blake Dieringer.
  • The Detroit Lions Award For Utter Futility goes to Lucas Drone, who went a perfect 0-16 in the second round. The good news for Lucas is that he has the luxury of re-picking all remaining 15 games without having to worry about second guessing himself. (Incredibly, Lucas is not dead last in the standings.)
  • The Upset Stomach award, sponsored by Pepto Bismol, also goes to Matthew Hand, who has scored more upset bonus points than anyone else at 59.
  • The Top Prognosticator award goes to the contestant who has picked the most games correctly so far overall. That would be Tará Wynn who is 39-9 and in 23rd place.
  • The Biggest Loser award goes to Phil Huneck who has dropped from a high of 10th place to a low of 233rd.
  • The Rising Star award goes to Liam Donahue who has climbed from a low of 481st to 74th.
  • The Julius Caesar award goes to Chris “The Last Emperor” Rose, who has impressively climbed all the way to 8th place from a low of 319th.
  • The Alanis Morissette Award For Irritating Irony goes to Scott “63 Guesses” Moore who is currently in 63rd place, of course.
  • The Asked And Answered award goes to Zach “Why not Notre Dame?” Richardson. Zach’s rank is 118th.
  • Finally, the Yellow Jersey award goes to our round two contest leader, Jane “Go Urbana” Gomez. Jane is seven points ahead of second place contestant Matthew Hand and just 12 points ahead of 10th place contestant J.R. Shrader.

Re-Pick Round Begins Today

It is now time for a very important aspect of the contest that seems to confuse some folks every year. Detailed re-pick instructions can be found at the top of the Enter Your Picks page found here. Let me highlight some points here that are the most frequent points of confusion.

  1. The first step in entering your re-picks is to go to YOUR PICKS PAGE. This means you go to the View & Search Contestants Picks page, find your picks either in the list or by using the search tool, and clicking the appropriate link.
  2. You cannot re-pick any of the 48 games that have already been played. Those games are over.
  3. You can re-pick any of the remaining 15 games you wish, whether your original pick has already lost or not.
  4. Here is the most frequent point of confusion. For the next four days, until 6:00 PM on Thursday, when you go to your picks page, the 16 teams that actually advanced to the Sweet 16 will show up in EVERYONE’S grid. This is so that you can re-pick whomever you want for the remaining 15 games. However, the red/green color codes will still correspond to your ACTUAL picks. Please do not email me and say, “Hey, my bracket shows that I picked Richmond in the Sweet 16, but it’s showing up in red. My score is wrong!” No, it isn’t. You did NOT pick Richmond. The fact that the box is red indicates you picked someone else. Richmond is in the box because they actually won. If you are still confused, email me, and I’ll be glad to answer any questions you have.
  5. The re-pick deadline is 6:00 PM EDT, Thursday, March 24th.
  6. You can change your re-picks as much as you want between now and Thursday. If you change an original pick, and then change it back before the deadline, it WILL still be considered an original pick for scoring purposes.

Re-pick Advice

Here are a few tips to consider as you are re-picking.

  1. You should absolutely re-pick all remaining games that show up in red on your bracket. Any teams that you have in the Elite Eight or beyond that have already lost cannot score you any more points. It is better to re-pick a team that is still in it and have a chance to score 75% of the point value than to have no chance to score any points at all.
  2. You can re-pick a game where your original pick is still alive in the tournament if you want. Just remember, re-picks are only worth 75% of the normal point value for a game, and re-picks cannot qualify for a scategories bonus. Re-picks are eligible for upset bonuses. Why would you want to re-pick a game where your original pick is still alive? Well, if you think given their matchup they have no chance of winning, re-picking and scoring 75% of the points is better than getting zero for a loss. It’s a tough decision, I know. I designed it that way!
  3. A few trends you might want to consider while re-picking:
    • A 12 seed has never beaten a 1 seed in 17 tries.
    • An 11 seed has beaten a 2 seed only once in 9 tries.
    • A 10 seed has never beaten a 1 seed in a regional final in 4 tries.
    • However, in the 4 times an 11 seed has faced a 1 seed in the regional final, the decision has been split 50/50.
    • In 5 games featuring an 8 vs. a 4, the 8 seed has actually won 3 out of the 5.
    • In 4 regional finals featuring an 8 vs. a 3 or 2, the 8 seed has won only once.

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