Championship Weekend At US Bank Stadium

This is my 23rd year of hosting this Bracket Contest, and for the first time, I was able to attend a Final Four Weekend. My seats were in the second level, not the greatest, but being there in that atmosphere was undescribable. Especially when the Auburn Player fouled the Virginia player behind the three point line to end the game. The mood inside the stadium when we all finally realized what was happening....wow!

The games were so good and so fun to witness with the passionate fans that were there for each of the four schools. The Texas Tech fans were the loudest, or at least in my section they were the loudest. I knew all of their cheers by the end of the Saturday games.

We do have a winner in the 2019 Bracket64 Contest. Congratulations goes out to Jamie Kiritschenko who had the best pick percentage overall. Started out slow in the first round correctly picking only 24 of 32 teams, but picked it up the remainder of the rounds and most importantly, having the guts to pick Virginia as their Championship team. Well done!

Here are the top five brackets earning cash for this years tournament:

Jamie Kiritschenko - 165 Points
Cory Vogel - 162 Points
Bob Ross - 160 Points
Blake Pierre - 160 Points
Cory Vogel - 159 Points

Congrats to all of the winners and we will see you in 2020!!

What Difference A Week Makes

What a difference a week makes for the tournament results. First weekend, it was clear the top seeds were ranked correctly by the powers that be with 12 of the top 16 teams advancing. And my though last weekend was, if this trend keeps going, the top seeded teams will again advance keeping a lot of bracket sheets in play. Well, that trend did not continue as we ended up a #1, #2, #3, and a #5 advancing to the championship weekend in Minneapolis.

We have #1 seed Virginia advancing this year. In my bracket, since they lost as a #1 seed to #16 seed UMBC last year, naturally I was scared to pick them to go far. 54 of the 100 brackets correctly selected them.

Then we have #2 Michigan St, in a very exciting game beating the favorite Duke team. Only 16 of you got this one correct. As I look at the one bracket I did on paper, I have Michigan St as my champion, except when I filled it in online, I picked Gonzaga as my champion. Why did I change? I pick Michigan St as my Champion, a lot, and get burned year after year as they always lose to Duke. Izzo was 1-11 versus Coach K. So I went with Gonzaga, and they are out with Mich St advancing.

Only 8 pick sheets correctly picked Texas Tech to beat Gonzaga. Goodbye to my champion team, but thankfully it wasn't after round one like last year.

Lastly is Auburn, the #5 seeded team. Just two of you brave soles correctly picked them. They were not on my radar this year, but they have been fun to watch.

We had three brackets top out at correctly picking three of the four remaining teams. They currently sit as the top three teams in the standings, yet two of them lost their championship team and their fate is not good.

That's all I have for today, the last three games start back up in Minneapolis, Saturday evening and finish up on Monday.