The 2022 Bracket64 Challenge Winner Is....

After the first half of the game, I thought the game was over and North Carolina would win. They were dominating, looked quick, and were playing defense to win the first half. That all changed in the second half and Kansas playing defense, looked quicker, and dominated the second half to win the Tournament Championship. 

• Final Score: Kansas 72, North Carolina 69   - 141 points

Winning our contest this year is AJ Wood. This is their first time playing in this contest. They had a 60% pick rate, and finished with the most points in the last four rounds. Congratulations AJ !!

1st - $550 - AJ Wood - (136 pts)
2nd - $230 - Kristi DiNello (132 pts, 10 correct Rd 3)
3rd - $120 - Mary Field (132 pts, 9 correct Rd 3)
4th - $55 - Nick Vedder (131 pts)
5th - $55 - Samly Wittchow (130 pts)
$20 - Tie Breaker Payout (141 Points) - Jay Erickson

Congratulations to all of the winners! I will contact you on how you want to be paid, then get your winnings out to you.

** Next Year's Pool Update

I pains me to say this, after 26 years of running this bracket contest, next year's contest is up in the air. 

I use Turbo Tourney Software to run the office pool contest and incorporate the standings into my website. The coder of the software is retiring, and he sold his company to another office pool company. So the way I am able to run this tournament and add the standings to my website is done. This was the final year for that. 

I certainly want to keep running this pool going forward, this is one of  my hobbies and I enjoy doing this. I've looked at a few options for next year, but all of them require you to login to another website and we join a group pool together. I don't know if I can incorporate the standings into my website, but maybe that's no longer needed.

So, big changes for next year unfortunately. I hope you all come along for the next version, whatever form it takes.

If you have any office pool suggestions, or other pool sites you've used that you like and may work here, please drop me a message

Championship Weekend Is Here

Basketball starts back up on Saturday, with the championship game concluding the tournament Monday night. They have their dream match up for Coach K, plus many more story lines to bring in viewers this year. Kansas, Villanova, Duke, North Carolina are the remaining teams.

No one predicted this years Final Four teams, which isn't surprising since that usually only happens when mainly number one seeds make it this far. The best our office pool could do is two out of four correct. That's not great, but I only managed one correct or none correct on my brackets, so there's that. 

With only eight tournament scenarios remaining, a quick glance at them reveals the following outcomes for the Championship game:

• Mike Krings wins if Duke beats Villanova
• Anne Quinlan wins if Villanova beats Duke
• Nick Forga wins if Duke beats Kansas
• AJ Wood wins if Kansas beats Duke
• Kim Thompson wins if N Carolina beats Villanova
• Drew Wittchow wins if Villanova beats N Carolina
• AJ Wood wins if N Carolina beats Kansas
• AJ Wood wins if Kansas beats N Carolina

Saturday's Games

• Villanova vs Kansas - 5:09 (CBS)
• Duke vs North Carolina - 7:49 (TBS)

Monday's Game

• Winner vs Winner - 8:00 (CBS)

** All times are US/Central

And Then There Was Sixteen

For this years office pool, we have 111 pick sheets entered into the bracket contest. In 2021, we had 99. In 2019, there was 102. The Standings are current, with the links above to see where you rank.

With the second round of games ending last weekend, the Players Scenarios link is now live. This calculates your best and worst finish, plus lets you know who you need to root for to get your best finish.

The Sweet Sixteen round of games starts back up this evening. We have four games on Thursday, four games on Friday to complete the third round. 

Thursday's Games

• Gonzaga vs Arkansas - 6:09 (CBS)
• Villanova vs Michigan - 6:29 (TBS)
• Duke vs Texas Tech - 8:39 (CBS)
• Arizona vs Houston - 8:59 (TBS)

Friday's Games

• Purdue vs St Peters - 6:09 (CBS)
• Kansas vs Providence - 6:29 (TBS)
• UCLA vs N Carolina - 8:39 (CBS)
• Miami (FL) vs Iowa St - 8:59 (TBS)

** All times are US/Central

We Are Though First Round Of Games

Thank you to everyone for submitting your brackets. We ended up with 111 pick sheets for the 2022 contest. That should be around $1030 in collections. We are through the first round of games with Kentucky the highest seed to be eliminated.

I started writing this out during the Baylor vs North Carolina game, when it was well out of hand. Baylor was down by 25 points. I missed the player ejection, but was glued to the game pretty much from that point on. An hour later, and I'm just starting this email again. What a game it was to watch, but we did lost our first #1 seed.

If you are new to this pool, the web standings update once per hour, on the hour, after a game has completed. The direct links are above.

I have collected the majority of the entry fees. Just a few more to go before everyone is paid. I'll add the payment info to this email, so please get your entry fees in if you have not. 

2022 Bracket64 Challenge Begins

Entries are now being accepted for the 26th Bracket64 Challenge. If you are participating in this years contest, please have all your pick sheets submitted by tip-off of the first game on Thursday.

The pairings were announced just minutes ago and the 2022 Bracket64 Challenge is underway. Once again there are 68 teams selected in the official tournament bracket. However, we will start out contest when they are down to 64 teams. Our first game that matters this year is back to Thursday!! 

DEADLINE: March 17 @ 11:30 AM [CT]
ENTRY FEE: $10.00 per pick sheet

Enter Your Picks Here

Bracket Notes

• Make sure you hit the SUBMIT PICKS BUTTON at the bottom of the bracket page, or your picks will not be entered into the pool.
• If you are submitting more than one bracket, please place a number after your name to make it unique, or it will overwrite your submitted pick sheet. Example: Timmy 1, Timmy 2, Timmy 3

Printable Office Pool Bracket

If you want to figure your bracket on paper first, like I always do, I have a printable bracket available in PDF format using Adobe Reader, plus a graphic version as well. The PDF version prints out bigger, I recommend to grab that one first. 

2022 Printable March Madness Bracket - PDF

2022 Printable March Madness Bracket - HTML

 

2022 Tournament Schedule

Pre-Tournament Events
March 13: Teams Announced @ 5:00 PM [CST] on CBS
March 15-16: Four Play-In Games
March 17: Entry Deadline @ 11:30 AM [CST]

First Weekend Of The Tournament
March 17-18: Round One - 64 Teams
March 19-20: Round Two - 32 Teams

Second Weekend Of Games
March 24-25: Round Three - 16 Teams
March 26-27: Round Four - 8 Teams

Championship Weekend
April 2: Round Five - Semi-Finals - 4 Teams
April 4: Round Six - Championship - 2 Teams

NCAA Division I Men's Tournament Dates (2022).
Retrieved from https://www.ncaa.com/march-madness/schedule