We have 49 entries this year.  Lost two players from last year.  Picked up three Six veterans returned after taking a year off.  Welcome back Gary, Brian, Jeff, Denise, Peter, and Lynn.

Two pacesetters (Jan 16 and Feb 13) – first place only - $35 each

At March bracket announcement:

• Weighted points – three places -- $100, 70 and 40

• Number of teams in Sweet Sixteen – first only - $50

When tourney over:

• Number of teams in Sweet Sixteen – three places -- $130, 90, and 60

• Weighted points Original Dec picks – ten places – $300.200.150.120.100.80.80.70.70.70

• Four division winners - $50 each

• Unweighted points – three places – 130. 90. 60

• Most teams in Final Four – first place only - $130

• Most confidence in Eventual Champion – first place only - $130

• Regroup Weighted points – four places – 150. 120. 90. 70

• Sleepers – three places – 150. 110. 80

Note: if someone totally nails it, they can win as much as $1390 across all of these payouts.

• The consensus Sweet Sixteen, based on these 49 entries, is as follows:

• Number in ( ) is how many times picked as champion.

• UCLA (13), Duke (11), Villanova (10), Kentucky (2)

• Kansas (4), Gonzaga (5), North Carolina (3), Baylor (1)

• Louisville, West Virginia, Virginia, Creighton

• Purdue, Wisconsin, Butler, Indiana

Note: with Oregon’s 89-87 victory over UCLA on December 28, I wonder if we might have overvalued the Bruins and/or undervalued the Ducks.  Time will tell.

The consensus top eight sleepers, in order, are Florida St (32 times picked #1), Arkansas, Minnesota, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma St, Miami, Kansas St, and Michigan.  Three available sleeper teams went unselected – Vanderbilt, Mississippi and Nebraska.

One of our players (Brian Thiemann) did some research on the “Blue Bloods” of college basketball over the recent years and created a “fictional” entry for this pool.  He did this well prior to my first email back in November.  That “entry” is, in order, Kentucky, Duke, Kansas, North Carolina, Michigan State, Villanova, Louisville, Syracuse, Arizona, Wisconsin, Gonzaga, Indiana, Xavier, Oregon, Florida, and Georgetown.  I have added this fictional entry into the pool to see how it does.  Syracuse and Georgetown will drag it down.  And I would suggest that UConn has a greater pedigree than Oregon.  I might retro-fit that entry into last year’s scoresheet and see how it would have fared.

The matrix of Teams by Players, with the numeric pick in each cell, is the gospel when it comes to scoring.  I had one error reported so far.  John Bovitz has Valpo at 1 point per game, not Oklahoma State.  I corrected my master, but will not send out a new copy. 

The four weighted points divisions are:

• Division 1: UCLA as champion

• Division 2: Duke as champion

• Division 3: Villanova as champion

• Division 4: Someone else as champion

Note: one of the four division winners above will also be the big weighted points winner of $300.  The other three division winners will probably be toast and the $50 is a pity payout.

Coach K will be having back surgery later this week and will miss at least the next four weeks.  20-ish years ago, he had back surgery and Duke went in the tank that year. Will history repeat itself?

I have four fictional entries for comparison purposes – the USA Coaches poll and Sagarin ranking, both as of Dec 17, as well as the Consensus picks and the above mentioned Blue Bloods.

And now for the first scoring report – attached.  Please note that updating the master scoresheet for a new year is a massive manual effort  So please take a look at your numbers and see if they make sense.  All you players with shadow scoring systems, please double check the numbers and let me know of issues.

Scoring uses the records as of Sunday night.  For example, it does not include last night’s Kansas win when they walked (literally) over Kansas State in the final five seconds.  Uses Monday’s USA Today Coaches poll. 

As you know from prior years, any Weighted Points and Number of Teams scoring prior to March is for amusement only, and only gives you an indication of how you might be doing if the current poll turns out to be the final April results.  Unweighted and sleeper points are real since no poll is involved.

24 tied with 13 teams