2015

K Equals W

The Duke Blue Devils held off the Wisconsin Badgers to earn Coach K his fifth National Championship. Duke’s victory also means that John Fiasco is the 2015 HoopsHysteria.net champion. John correctly predicted all four Final 4 teams, both National Championship teams and the National Champion en route to his comfortable victory. John also finished third. It’s the second year in a row that a person has placed multiple winning brackets. Congrats John!

And congrats to the others that won including Jeff Warren, Deanna Manning and Tim Dougherty who was our winner last year.

Rank Team Name Score Winnings
1 john fiasco 157 $330 Duke (146)
2 Jeff Warren 146 $150 Duke (146)
3 john fiasco (2) 142 $100 Duke (144)
4 Deanna Manning 139 $50 Duke (137)
5 Tim Dougherty 139 $25 Duke (143)

The winners will receive an email with instructions on claiming their winnings.

Thanks to everyone for another fun tournament season. See you next year.

 

38-Oh!

Notre Dame gave the Wildcats (and Big Blue Nation) a scare. Wisconsin gave both a nightmare ending Kentucky’s bid at history. The Badgers will square off against Duke on Monday night for the National Championship after the Blue Devils made easy work of the Spartans.

Now for the important stuff. The scenarios for this pool.

If Wisconsin wins ..

Rank Team Name Best Score Best Correct
1 KIMBERLY AMMON (4) 156 50 Wisconsin (132)
2 thomas e. kakaris (2) 152 48 Wisconsin (155)
3 Joe Lapensee (2) 138 42 Wisconsin (119)
4 Allison Corcoran (3) 134 47 Wisconsin (151)
5 Al Schulte 132 41 Wisconsin (139)

If Duke wins …

Rank Team Name Best Score Best Correct
1 john fiasco 157 44 Duke (146)
2 Jeff Warren 146 43 Duke (146)
3 john fiasco (2) 142 43 Duke (144)
4 or 5 Deanna Manning 139 45 Duke (137)
4 or 5 Tim Dougherty 139 45 Duke (143)

The tie-breaker would only come into play should Duke win to settle 4th and 5th place. Good luck to all in the running … including my dad.

In the last mail I sent out the breakdown of National Champion but included the 15 disqualified entries. Here is the corrected totals.

School Entries %
Kentucky 76 57.1%
Wisconsin 14 10.5%
Duke 14 10.5%
Arizona 12 9.0%
Villanova 8 6.0%
Gonzaga 5 3.8%
N. Carolina 2 1.5%
Wichita St. 1 0.8%
Oklahoma 1 0.8%
Total 133 100.0%

Below is the payout structure.

1st – $330
2nd – $150
3rd – $100
4th – $50
5th – $25

Thanks for another fun tournament. Once again good luck to all.

Are You Not Entertained?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsqJFIJ5lLs

Yes Maximus. I was. What a way to kick off March Madness with a tournament record five games decided by 1-point including UC’s thrilling OT win over Purdue. However it can’t be March Madness without upsets and those came quickly as two 14 seeds (Georgia State & UAB) sent thousands of brackets to the trash unless your name is Jeff Warren who correctly predicted both upsets. He is the leader after day one getting 15 out of 16 correct. He came oh-so-close to perfect start but saw SMU fall to UCLA in a controversial ending when the referees awarded UCLA with the go-ahead basket on a goaltending call with 10.9 seconds. SMU missed two attempts to win the game before time ran out and were upset by the 11 seed Bruins. The SMU loss could be even more costly to Jeff’s entry as it had the Mustangs making the Elite 8.

However the darlings of day were Georgia State and UAB. Both are 14 seeds and both won their opening game by one point. Georgia State rallied late outscoring Baylor 13-0 in the last 2:54. It included an unbelievable 3-pointer from RJ Hunter with 2.7 seconds left that left Baylor stunned, 57-56. Meanwhile UAB destroyed countless brackets with their upset of Iowa State, 60-59. The Blazers surprisingly owned the boards against the Cyclones who surrender a season high 19 offensive rebounds to the Blazers.

The night continued with several more close games. Ohio State needed overtime to advance defeating VCU 75-72. Two 5 seeds both escaped upset with narrow victories.North Carolina squeaked by Harvard 67-65 while Arkansas slipped by Wofford 56-53. The UC/Purdue game had it all including Troy Caupain’s game tying basket as the clock expired. It was a shot that you would expect to see in movie but even then you would say that it’s too cliche.

What made this shot even more incredible was that UC trailed by seven with 48.6 to play. But this happened in a 9 second span ..

UC Purdue Game Log

A 6-0 lightning quick run by the Bearcats and suddenly they trailed only by one. Ultimately the game goes to overtime and continues as a back-and-forth battle. With UC leading 66-65, Troy Caupain is fouled with 5 seconds. He misses the free throw and Purdue’s Vince Edwards gets off a three that just misses. For once everything went right for UC in a tournament game (including overcoming Ellis’ ejection) and their reward is Kentucky. Undefeated Kentucky. David meet Goliath.

Xavier controlled their game from the tip against Ole Miss en route to a comfortable 76-57 win. The Muskies took advantage of a slow starting Rebels team possibly due to their track meet against BYU on Tuesday night. Matt Stainbrook owned the paint scoring 20 to go along with 9 boards. Xavier gets Cinderella Georgia State for a chance at the Sweet 16.

As for the pool, we have 148 current entries but the official total will not be verified until all payments are received. Once this is complete I will announced the prize pool. Good luck to all and hopefully the rest of the tournament is just as exciting.

 

 

Bracket Time!

Well the waiting is over and the brackets are out. It’s now time to analyze the matchups and select your champion. Please pass along this invite to HoopsHysteria to your family, friends and co-workers. Again we will use CBSSports.com to run the pool. Good luck to everyone and enjoy the action this week.

It’s Almost Time

Welcome back to HoopsHysteria! The site is a bit different than the past several years because the previous site got corrupted and I had to start from scratch. If anything is missing, please let me know.