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Monthly Archive: March 2023

History

For the first time in NCAA tournament history, zero one-seed teams advanced to the Elite Eight. San Diego State and Miami both upset their one-seed opponents Friday night to knock out the two remaining one seeds. This also led to a lot (and I mean a lot) of trashed brackets.

Thursday night saw two of the best played games to this point in the tournament. First Kansas State guard Markquis Nowell had a performance for the ages.

And he’s fun to watch. Really fun.

Oh and this happened right before the play. Baller.

Nowell’s Wildcats survived overtime, this first and only overtime game this year, and a tough Michigan State to advance to the Elite Eight for the first time since 1964.

Gonzaga and UCLA renewed acquittances once again. These two teams battled in a classic at the 2021 Final Four with Jaden Suggs hitting the game winner in overtime.

Thursday night saw UCLA take a double-digit lead into half. Gonzaga rallied to take the lead and pullaway in the second half when UCLA went scoreless for over nine minutes. Amazingly ULCA rallied from down eight with 1:04 to take the lead.

And then Gonzaga’s Julian Strawther buried a three and UCLA’s hopes.

Just another incredible game between these two schools.

So now the Elite Eight field is set.

How could have seen this group schools? Well based on our pool not many. Of the remaining schools, here’s the list of champions selected with the number of brackets.

Texas (14)
Gonzaga (5)
Connecticut (2)
Kansas St. (1)
Miami Fla. (1) **

Note: the Miami entry was disqualified for non-payment.

Speaking of which I did not received payment for only one bracket. This means that the official pool pot is $710 (142 x $5), a $95 increase from last year. This increase led to adding another bracket getting paid and increased amounts to others. Here’s the payout for this year with any increase noted. 

1 $300 (+$20)
2 $150
3 $100
4 $75 (+$25)
5 $50 (+$25)
6 $25 (+$25)
7 $10

You can use the Best Results report on Pick Hoops to see if your bracket is the running.

https://www.pickhoops.com/HoopsHysteria/bestresults

Good luck to all and enjoy the four game this weekend.

Farleigh Incredible

The 16-seed Farleigh Dickinson Knights shocked the world Friday upsetting 1-seed Purdue Boilermakers, 63-58. FDU becomes the second 16-seed to pull an upset in NCAA tournament history joining UMBC. This upset may have been more improbable than UMBC’s upset of Virginia. Consider the following.

True madness.

FDU wasn’t the only upset during the first two-days of the tournament. 15-seed Princeton stunned off 2-seed Arizona, 59-55, on Thursday and followed it up on Saturday by knocking off 8-seed Missouri. It’s the Tigers first Sweet 16 appearance since 1967.

14-seed Furman also joined the party by literally stunning Virginia on Thursday, 68-67. Virginia appeared to have the win wrapped up leading 67-65 with :07 seconds to go and then the Madness was unleashed!

The Madness has created havoc in the pool too. Here are the teams picked to win the championship in this pool.

Several favorites are already out before the weekend is over.

We topped out at 143 brackets this year which would be increase of 20 from last year. That’s awesome!.

However the official count is TBD until all payments are received. The deadline is Wednesday. If you have not paid yet, please do so.

I will send out an update tomorrow wrapping up the Sunday action when we will have the Sweet 16.