2017

This year’s Final Four has a lot of new flavor with a touch of the old guard. Gonzaga and South Carolina both are first timers with one guaranteed to advance to the National Championship game. Meanwhile Oregon had not seen the Final Four since 1939. The Kentucky-North Carolina game had the feel of a National Championship game. Yet it was only to get the fourth ticket to the Final Four and was settled it in truly legendary fashion.

With the Final Four set, our pool is now set too. The final tally of paid entries 111 with eight disqualified for non-payment.

Here’s the official prize breakdown:

Good luck to everyone. It looks to be a weekend of good basketball.

The tournament is winding down but the action is heating up. Last night the SEC put the nation on notice as the conference claimed three spots. First South Carolina continued their impressive run with an impressive win over Baylor. It’s the first Elite 8 appearance for the Gamecocks. Florida later added to the SEC’s claim to the Elite 8 after Chris Chiozza’s buzzer-beater three knocked off Wisconsin in OT.

Lastly Kentucky defeated UCLA avenging an early season defeat by the Bruins at Rupp.

It wouldn’t be March Madness if Cinderella didn’t make an appearance. This year’s Cinderella hails from Cincinnati as the Xavier Musketeers stunned 2 seed Arizona late Thursday night (actually it was early Friday morning.) X takes on Gonzaga today for the first ticket to this year’s Final Four. Regardless of this game’s winner, it will result in the first trip to the Final Four for either program.

Lastly our pool remains wide open. However I have not received word back regarding payment for the below entries. I’m worried that my change in email address has caused some to possibly miss these emails. Thus I will allow anyone listed to still pay thus keeping their brackets alive. However this offer ends Monday. I would hate to remove 12 entries so if you personally know anyone listed  below please give them a heads up.

Please use the PayPal option on the HoopsHysteria site or Pay a Friend option otherwise I get charged a fee and well that’s not cool.

Good luck to everyone.

Before I get to a pool or tourney breakdown, I would like to put my dad hat on for a moment and brag mention that we have a little March Madness in our own household. My oldest son’s basketball team, the Royals named after the old Cincinnati Royals, plays in their league championship game today. Unfortunately my son will not play today. He broke his thumb in their first tourney game. However he will be on the bench today cheering on his teammates as they go for the championship. Go Royals!

This year’s tourney should be called March Mildness. A trio of 6/11 upsets coupled with a few down-to-the-wire games has not lived up to the annual expectations of March Madness. This is not a bad thing though. Better teams remain which should lead to better Round of 32 games. This Mildness has also resulted in more of a chalk bracket thus far. The next two days will provide a lot of fun matchups and good basketball.

As for our pool, we have a total of 119 entries unofficially which is down 11 from last year. A final tally will be announced once all payments are made. Unfortunately I have received feedback from some users that had issues entering brackets on CBS. I even had issues submitting my brackets. Thus I have decided to move the pool to a new TBD site next year.

David Fewell and myself sit atop the standings after the first round while a pack of 9 is one point back. The standings will fluctuate over the next two days as point values per game increase to two. One final note is the breakdown of predicted champions. Again for the second straight year Lisa Burns is the first to have one of her champs knocked out. Screw you Marquette! Right Lisa?

Reminder that all payments are due by Wednesday. Please use the PayPal option on the HoopsHysteria site or Pay a Friend option otherwise I get charged a fee and well that’s not cool.