Hopski Historical Stats (for you analytics!)

This will be a quick post to share Hopski Historical Stats and of course, the Hopski Hall of Fame!!

Jeff Chamberlin has been added to the Hall of Champions, albeit with the lowest Hopski Champion's score ever!!

South Beach Wannabee from Joey Wagoner was added to the record book this year with the all-time highest underdog point total of 63:

2014 was an average year in terms of pick % and slightly low in terms of scoring.  It was the FIRST year ever to not have at least 1 entry pick the Champion though.

Lastly, Matt Powell extended his Top Ten-less streak to 14 years this year, while Bill Carey moved within one Top Ten finish of Kyle Bower's record 5 Top Ten Hopski finishes:

2014 Hopski Champion: The Law Firm of Revis, Browner & Chambo; Congrats Jeff Chamberlin!

Congratulations to the U Conn Huskies - 2014 NCAA Men's Basketball Champions (thank goodness - anyone but UK and Calipari!!).

The suspense was ended on Saturday when Florida was eliminated, making The Law Firm of Revis, Browner & Chambo the 2014 Hopski International March Madness Pool Champion!  Jeff Chamberlin was close before as back in 2012 his Respect the Drag Bunt entry led the Hopski until the final game when KU let him down and Kentucky snatched the Hopski Championship away from him.  Now in 2014, Jeff Chamberlin wears the Hopski crown!  Jeff now lives/works in the DC area for the US Department of Energy (Nuclear Nonproliferation) after growing up near Boston, going to Boston College and spending his formative Hopski years on the hoops court in Warsaw, Poland in the last 90s.

When contacted, he commented that "I owe it all to my close Indiana U ties - with his mom, aunt and cousins all being Indiana grads.  He wanted to thank 2010 Hopski Champion Mark Noferi for his unending support through this years Hopski rollercoaster and for "Nofeing" it this year as well as 2-time Hopski Champion Kyle Bowers for teaching him what is means to be a true Hickory Husker as the Law Firm of Revis, Browner & Chambo was all about the fundamentals.

Well done Jeff - the 2014 Hopski Title is yours!

Florida's loss ended the Hopski title hopes of the Godfather of Green Bay, Mike Dorsey.  Mike has recently returned to Wisconsin after an 8 year stint in Denver.  When contacted, he said "I owe this year's Hopski success to a lack of hoops watching this year due to fatherhood, as Mike and his wife had twins in August last year."  His Hopski winnings will of course be going towards shoes, as in "babies needs new pairs of shoes"!  Here's Mike on the slopes (pre-fatherhood of course):

Grabbing the last of the 2014 Hopski medals is Attack of the Clones and John Springer!  His Cyclones let him down this year, but his picks did not.  Big John will of course be spending his Hopski winnings on chew!

The Hopski 2nd Chance Dance Championship came down to the tiebreaker and luckily, I noticed over the weekend that both "finalists" had the same tiebreaker, so that was modified and by virtue of picking 133 points in the final game (vs 139 by the tough luck runner-up Charles Peligro's THIRD Chance from Richard Yunis), Going for Three became Champion!  Bill Carey was also the 2007 Hopski Champion and this year's 4th place finish gave him a 4th all-time Hopski Top Ten.  Bill knows how to pick 'em (then again, he has benefitted greatly from his "homer" picks of the Florida Gators too!!).

Best Entry Name for 2014 is…………………………

When I Think of You, I Touch Bill Self, from THE Matthew P Powell!  Matt resides now outside of Cincinnati, but his heart and home is Kokomo, Indiana!  Matt is one of my best friend's from my IU college days and after 14 years of futility in the Hopski Pool, he at least gets free entry in next year's pool with this year's entry name winner!

And so ends another Hopski pool with my new mantra of "never again".  Yet, check back at this blog site or the standard pool internet site next March and yep, it will probably be going yet again.

Please do once again consider a donation for the Great Lakes Outreach effort in Burundi for whatever reason best moves you to action!!!  Click here:  BURUNDI DONATION  I managed to ride 191 miles in the past few weeks of the tournament in preparing for my fundraising ride in May, so not all time was spent managing the Hopski!  Donations of the same $25 for the Hopski would be well used and greatly appreciated, so do not overlook what might be considered a small token donation!

As always, March Madness and the Hopski are great opportunities to get in touch with many of you that unfortunately we are not able to be in as regular contact these days.  It is also a great opportunity to introduce many of you and to meet new entrants as well.  Take care.

The Commish

Post - Elite 8 Letdown

FIRST OFF - BEST ENTRY NAME - PLEASE DROP A QUICK EMAIL ASAP WITH YOUR VOTE!!  1 VOTE PER ENTRY AND NOT FOR YOURSELF!  I AM BEHIND ON THIS AND POWELL IS NOT AROUND THIS YEAR TO GIVE US HIS ENTRY NAME ANALYSIS, THERE ARE SOME GOOD ONES.  PLEASE VOTE!!!

Sorry for the radio silence, but the week turned busy (with work - shocker eh?!) and a Hopski update was unfortunately low on the totem pole of priorities.  On the bright side, I did hit the road for two 2 hour + training rides, including one today inland to the local mountain range.  My legs burned and screamed on a 30 minute / 4 mile climb, but all is well that ends well….right?  Burundi will unfortunately have a few climbs way more than double that as well as 4-6 hours of riding time per day, but I figure if I can train on 1/2 of it, I can survive…right?

Back to the Hopski and yep, as much as it pains me to do so, this update is in Kentucky Blue!!!  On that note, kudos to my all-time favorite Wildcat, Kyle Macy from my hometown of Peru, IN:
  

Gotta give credit where credit is due and those Wildcat freshman stepped up to the plate last weekend and delivered back to back impressive wins over Louisville and Michigan.  Not only were they impressive victories, but they knocked out 20 entries' champion picks and 98 entries' Final Four picks!!  Only 2 entries in the Hopski picked the Wildcats into the final four:  Its Marty's Time (Marty not Mickey Koehler, an Andersen colleague and mentor, now a VP at Mid-American Group near Chicago) and Kreativhead (the Croatian Creative Sensation, Damir Brajdic, in Warsaw for nearly 12 years I think and now out of Atlanta, but working in DC for Capital One).

I have re-set the "mover/loser" figures on the website so as to show changed from the pre-Sweet 16 standings and will report against that since this is my first real update since then…..

Surging into the Hopski top spot is The Law Firm of Revis, Browner and Chambo (Jeff Chamberlin, a BCU grad is about all I can confirm at this point - though he may be a Nuclear Game Theory Specialist from all I can find on the web…Jeff??

Chambo managed to pick 5 of the Elite 8 teams and 2 of the Final Four team (tied best of any entries in the Hopski this year).  Jeff has been in 8 previous Hopski, with just 1 Top Ten finish, so this is nosebleed territory for him.  That said, provided that Florida DOES NOT win the tournament, his entry will take the 2014 Hopski (not a bad time to consider a hedge bet on Florida Jeff!!).

Checking into 2nd place, an 8 spot leap from pre-16, is the Godfather of Green Bay entry from Mike Dorsey of Milwaukee who is a Domer (e.g. ND grad) and works now for Northwestern Mutual.  Certainly he's looking at some alternative outcome bets to hedge his Hopski championship winnings IF Florida wins it all.  On a side note - Mike is leading the 2nd Chance Dance as well, but no chance to pull a double and win both!

Holding on to third place is Attack of the Clones from John Springer, our previous number 1.  Arizona's loss to Wisconsin ended Springer's Hopski title hopes (along with quite a few others), though he could still get some money out of the Hopski for the first time in 15 years!!!! 

We have a New Toilet Bowl Champion (this section in brown….for obvious reasons) Champion.  The 2014 Hopski Toilet Bowl goes to Spartacus Rules from Kamran Koochekzadeh.  Kamran managed to go 0 for the Elite 8, locking up early the Toilet Bowl title over a strong attempt from A Year Without Santa Clause (Julie Grundberg, a 7 time Hopski participant out of Chicago)

Looking into this weekend, aside from the 82 entries that have predicted a Florida presence in the Championship Game, there are a few entries with a lot to gain in the standings.  7 entries have Wisconsin making it to the final, including:

• Docent Darling (Terry Kenney of SF, CA, from "that" Kenney USC group that has someone contending each year!)
• Donovan for President (Bill Carey, UF grad, zero handicapper and permanent Warsaw expat)
• Dunkin Blumpkin (Don Lubreski, the rebounding monster, at least in his Warsaw days in the early 90s!, now out of DC)
• Its Marty's Time
• Not Comin' In Last Again This Year! (none other than Vicki Maloney, indeed last year's Toilet Bowl winner with a Hopski all-time low point score.  Vicki was in Budapest back in 1992 when I left the US as well and now is in DC)
• TennisTime? (yet another ex-Budapest expat AND 2008 Hopski Toilet Bowl winner, Linda Genty now out of Tokyo and living in Kenilworth in suburban Chicago)
• The Law Firm of Revis, Browner and Chambo

The four which I have highlighted in Orange even have a Florida/Wisconsin final predicted (well done!!)!!  Not to be overlooked is the Kreativhead prediction of a Kentucky presence in the final game - the ONLY entry to pick UK there, while no one predicted UConn in the Final.

OK - gotta cut this short.  Kids are almost home from school and it is sunny - so I have zero chance of getting away with typing on my computer.  Enjoy the games and VOTE for the best entry names.  Adios until Monday's pre-Final Update.

**My Finals Picks:  Florida vs Kentucky (UGHHHHHHH - an ALL-SEC FINAL!!)

Click, Click, Welcome to Your Kodak Moment!

That was my favorite quote of the tournament so far, from Reggie Miller after one of the UCLA players threw down on Florida's center.  Reggie was a great trash talker and certainly has not lost his flair for it as an announcer!  I am pretty sure I will never be able to use this in the future (or the past for that matter as this was a posterizing dunk!), but I can pass it on to some of the Spaniards here and localize it.

4 of the Elite 8 teams are set now, with Wisconsin delivering an impressive blow for the Big 10, Arizona and Florida moving on without too much flash (I especially thought Florida was sloppy) and Dayton officially is crowned this year's Cinderella!  On Sparty On! from Richard Rykhus (MSU grad living now in Chicago - obviously going with the hometown pick of the Spartans to win it all!) picked Dayton, but he was unable to come up with the other 3 winners on Thursday.  This correct pick though pushed the Sparty On! entry up 30 spots in the standings to 11th place.

60 other entries picked 3 of the 4 Thursday winners and were rewarded with jumps in the standings from 10 to 15 places in general.  Attack of the Clones from John Springer has moved into the to spot, while 7 other of the top ten spots also had 3 winners on the day and are contending.

6 entries, including #2 overall South Beach Wannabee by Joey Wagoner, pulled Blutarsky's on the day, getting zero.zero points!  This gives the pool a new Toilet Bowl leader, Spartacus Rules from Kamran Koochekzadeh of Washington DC (great profile photo on Facebook by the way, though judging from your picks, you may have wanted to jump the fire a 2nd time!!).  Spartacus Rules' Toilet Bowl "hopes" come down to tonights Virginia vs Michigan State game with a Spartan victory delivering the knock-out blow to this entry (ironic given the entry name!) and locking up the 2014 Hopski Toilet Bowl Championship for Kamran.

Deadbeats:  We are down to just two deadbeats, Leapin' Larry Corrigan of Peru, IN (now in Chicago) and the man formerly known as the King, Darin Townsend of A-Town, IN!!!  PAY UP!!

As for tonight's match-ups, a whopping 124 entries have Michigan State picked to knock off the #1 seeded Virginia Caveliers.  A Sparty loss will certainly end the Hopski title hopes for quite a few of those 124 entries.  I like Sparty to continue their healthy late season surge.

Just 3 entries have UConn picked over the Cyclones, including the Commish.  I gotta have this one to have any shot at a 3rd Hopski title (heck, I will settle with a 1st page finish given the past few years results).  UConn in MSG is a tough team to pick against.

Another 3 entries have some BIG points riding on Tennessee over Michigan.  Sorry, not happening.  Cinderella Vols are going home and yes - the BIG 10 RULES!!

The State of Kentucky Championship will be played out in Indianapolis and just 6 entries have Kentucky winning this one, with 109 rooting on UL.  UL will get some revenge for its defeat earlier this year I believe.

96 entries this year in the 2nd Chance Dance!  16 went 4 for 4 on the first night of their 2nd chance!


ADIOS!!

Sweet 16 Preview

Let's get into it quickly as I have hoops practice in 30 minutes!

Game 1 today is the Cinderella match-up, guaranteeing a double digit seed in the Elite 8 for just the 14th time in March Madness since 1985!  Basically it happens just about every other year, though certainly sounds better as previously written.  In terms of the Hopski, 41st place Sparty On! from Richard Rykhus is the only entry with Dayton and 65th place The Polar Vortex, from ex-Warsaw expat Bill Lyon is the only entry with Stanford.  The Polar Vortex could use this one to stay on the 2nd page but Sparty On! still has a shot at Hopski Champion, so a big one for Richard!

Game 2 tips off 30 minutes later and it should be a good one, Baylor vs Wisconsin.  14 entries have Baylor winning and 81 have Wisconsin - so a LOT to gain for those backing the underdog, including 4 dawg bonus points IF you picked both teams into this game.  I gotta support the Big 10 and indeed expect a Badger victory.

Florida is our "pool pick" for champion, leading the way with 57 entries having tabbed the Gators to win it all.  A Bruin upset here would boost greatly the chances of the 8 having picked UCLA, but this is just not gonna happen, in fact, I expect a double digit win by the Gators.

The lat game of the night pits another pool favorite, Arizona (picked by 19 entries to take the title) against San Diego State.  A whopping 119 have Arizona picked in this game, with 20 picking SD State.  I am not expecting an upset in this one either.

In terms of the unpaid - we are down to 5 entries and 3 families!  The Fazios are still waiting to hedge something, while Larry Corrigan and Darin Townsend just flat out have no excuse but to pay the fiddler!

A historical stats review puts the 2014 1st and 2nd rounds as above average in terms of correct picks and WAY above average in terms of Dawg Bonus Points!!  This year's Hopski may break the all-time average of 136 set back in 2001 at this pace (and presuming Genty actually picks a winning underdog at some point!).

Presuming the final unpaid entries pay up - the Prize Pool looks like this:

155 entries @ $25 per, less last year's free best name and toilet bowl ($50), less software ($39), less paypal fees for non-personal payments ($15) = $3,771.

1st Place:  60% - $2,262.60
2nd Place:  25% - $942.75
3rd Place:  10% - $377.1
2nd Chance Dance:  5% - $188.50

Good Luck!!

Pre-Sweet 16 Post Tomorrow!! Check out my ride today and BUY A COW!!

My legs have been just achy and somewhat tingly now for about 4 hours after knocking off a 60km ride today (that's about 37 miles), my longest yet in training for Burundi.  More so, the elevation change was a nearly staggering (for me) 761 meters (just under 1/2 mile).  Not sure how many of you know about strava, but it is a great training/tracking tool.  You can check out my ride statistics at:   Today's Ride

The challenge in Burundi is great (heck, it is pretty big everywhere these days).  Yes, my bike challenge, but more so the challenge for Great Lakes Outreach and the people there.  I continue to strongly urge you to consider a donation.  Let's say just another $25 or $50 and with my matching, the Hopski will have a herd of cows producing milk in Burundi!!

WHY DONATE??  

1. This is a good cause;
2. The people are personally known to me;
3. The money gets to the projects (their admin costs are single digits!);

Those are 3 tick the boxes for me when making donations, so please give this more thought as we can certainly bump $375 total to date (though this may overlook your big checks sent directly to GLO!! :)  

My Razoo page:  http://www.razoo.com/story/May-2014-Tour-Du-Burundi-Hopper

Better still, send a check to GLO and avoid Razoo's 4.5% fees!!

Back to the brackets and madness tomorrow.  I gotta go lay down!

Speaking of which - 6pm EST deadline for your free entry into the 2nd chance dance!!  2nd Chance Dance Entry

Deadbeat Time

Ok, it is now time for some collection assistance from the field!!

Two rookie entrants have yet to pay and I have little idea where they have come from (presumably from one of you!).

Hayden Dudley (OJ Simpson), hiepduc2@yahoo.com and Matthew Powell (Dancing with the Starters), powell.mcp@gmail.com have yet to pay up.  Please do put a bit of pressure on them to do so as I have little patience for excuses such as "I am busy" or "I will find the time soon" to pay!!

Other Hopski returnees still yet to pay include Larry Corrigan, Pat Libby, John Springer, Michael Fazio and Darin Townsend.   Tidy this up ASAP and do not waste my time - seriously!!

The Hopski is a "public service" operation and chasing slow to pay entrants reduces my motivation to do this in the future - trust me!!

First Weekend Update: Congrats Joey, Now Good-bye!

This update is in the Red and Blue of the Dayton Flyers as they certainly had a huge undertaking the first weekend, taking out Ohio State and Syracuse!  They have a real shot at Dallas I think.  Their attacking of the Syracuse zone was outstanding - great ball movement, patience and the crucial 3s or offensive rebound when they were needed.  Basically just about everything that the Hoosiers did NOT do last year in losing to Syracuse (one of the below did not figure it out that time….)

South Beach Wannabe (Joey Wagoner of Indianapolis, IN and the son of my college roommate Wags) exploded in the 2nd round, racking up a whopping 63 underdog points and taking control of the leaderboard!  Joey picked Dayton, UConn and Kentucky all into the Sweet 16 and racked up serious Dawg Bonus points in doing so.  His 63 underdog points have smashed the previous all-time Hopski record of 55 by Cape Town Caper (Kyle Bowers of Warsaw, Poland, a Hoosier and two-time Hopski Champion) in its 2010 Championship.  Unfortunately for Joey, he did NOT pick the Stanford defeat of KU and worse, had KU as his champion pick.  Thus, Adios Joey!!

While we are handing out "adios" messages, Adios to Benny Brackets (Bennett Greenfeld of Washington DC and dare I say Jack's girlfriend's son).  Benny Brackets racked up the 2nd most Dawg Points (48) and moved into 2nd place with a near perfect South and East brackets, but it all came apart in the West and Midwest as his champion Wichita State and final four bound Creighton were bumped along with Benny Brackets yesterday.

In third place, we actually have a continuing contender in Attack of the Clones (John Springer, former Warsaw expat and Iowa State grad).  John has 5 of his Elite 8 left and his champion, but the ability to contend will rest on his Cyclones pick into the Final Four!

The first weekend does not typically determine the Hopski Champion, but it certainly determines who will NOT be the Hopski Champion!  It is kind of like the Masters in that respect, with this coming weekend "Moving Weekend" where the true contenders for the title emerge!  If you're Final Four is still intact and you are on the first 2 pages of the standings, you are still a contendah!!

At the other end of the Hopski spectrum, we have Crimeata (Ron Genty, the Big Dog E&Y partner formerly of Denver, Budapest, Manhattan Beach, Tokyo and now living in the Chicago burbs!) with zero Dawg Points!  MR. BLUTARSKY, ZERO POINT ZERO ZERO!!  Are you kidding me??  I thought something was wrong with the TT program when I saw zero Dawg Points in one of the most historic underdog tournaments ever!  Ron, Ron, Ron - how did you do it??  Ron's ability to avoid the Hopski Toilet Bowl will largely rely on the Big 10 as he has Michigan St and Wisconsin picked into the Final Four!  More importantly, he can get on the "Dawg Points" scoreboard with either earning a victory in the Sweet 16!

That is all for now.  A pre-Sweet 16 update will come on Wednesday or Thursday. 

Make sure you get your entries in for the 2nd Chance Dance!!  It's already paid for and you could still nab 5% of the Prize Pool (about $191).  Click on the 2nd Chance Pool tab on the Hopski Pool Website 

I was serious about NOT referring to March Madness Pool when payment via paypal!!

Dear Mark Hopper, 

After a review of your account activity, we have determined that the payments you received for a March Madness pool violate PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy. 

Under the Acceptable Use Policy, PayPal may not be used to send or receive payments for activities that involve gambling and/or gaming activities. Among other things, this includes sports betting. 

We understand that you may not have been aware that March Madness pools are considered sports betting under the PayPal Acceptable Use Policy.

Sincerely,
Sofia
PayPal, Brand Risk Management
PayPal, an eBay Company

Anyone else feel this is hypocritical shite given that had I been selling Chinese knock-offs on ebay, they would have no problem!?!?

2nd Chance Dance Pool Ready for Entries

Your Main Pool Entry gives you free entry into the 2nd Chance Dance!!  This is your chance at redemption and to show what you learned from watching the games over the weekend!! Same rules as the main pool and same scoring for teams picked into the Elite 8, Final Four, Championship Game and Champion. Underdog points still in play as well. Winner of 2nd Chance Dance receives 5% of Prize Pool! The link to the 2nd Chance Dance is at the top of the main pool (tab stating "2nd Chance Pool"). Good Luck!

So much for best intentions!

Update sometime tomorrow after work and a bike ride!

Today flew by with "other priorities", including scouting for CB Sitges and watching FC Barcelona's controversial win in the El Classico at Madrid!!

The man, the myth, the legend went for 3 goals, 2 goals on penalties and Barcelona stopped Madrid's 17 home win streak!

Back tomorrow with a weekend recap of the Madness!!

Update At Around 10am EST

Off to church to pray for my picks after watching Dayton take down the 'Cuse!!

Atlantic Sun Sets On Duke!

The Mercer Bears from the Atlantic Sun Conference took out the Duke Blue Devils in tonight's big upset.  I guess Coach K should have worried more about the ASC instead of the A10 when making comments about relative conference strength last week.  As it is, the ASC (Florida Gulf last year) takes out another top seed in the tourney and Coach K gets an early start on preparing Team USA for the Spanish visit and the World Cup of Basketball this summer!

24 games now in the books and South Beach Wannabee (Joey Wagoner of Indianapolis, son of my college roommate Wags) has taken over the top spot in the pool.  Wags II was one of 5 entries picking the Mercer upset and surged up the leaderboard as a result.  All Right, Good Night! from Darren Kenney and Nofe, Follow, or Get Out of the Way from former champion Mark Noferi of NYC also tabbed Mercer and round out the top 3.

I am calling it an evening here in Espana.  The pool scheduler does not seem to want to cooperate with updating the website standings through the night, so most likely I will get them updated for you in the morning once i am up and about.

Better Call Saul!

Saul Phillips that is, the Coach of the North Dakota State Bison and the 2nd of two #12 seeds to pull of Day 1 upsets in the tourney.  Oklahoma seemed to have this game in hand but a couple of bonehead plays in the final 2 minutes of regulation gave the Bison new life.  Once the game got into OT, a freshman off the bench scored a huge 4 points and it was over for the Sooners!  This game was a favorite upset pick of many of the media and 80 of the Hopski entrants to boot.  17 entries, including the Commish, have the Bison picked to knock off SD State as well.  GO BISON!

The NDSU Post Game Press Conference is worth checking out.  A refreshing team and coach without a doubt.  I love the bar fight reference (Foster?!)!

Close but no cigar kudos go out to the Manhattan Jaspers who did a wonderful impression of Louisville until crunch time arrived.  With 2:30 to go, the Jaspers had the ball and a 3 point lead, then, doh………bad pass turnover and a long-range bomb from Russ Smith tied it up.  Luke Hancock then took over with 2 3s and a pair of free throws.  Game over.  Manhattan should be worth watching next year for those of you on the island….if their coach does not bolt.  A very exciting team and style of ball.

NC State gets the goat award from yesterday as they could have added a 3rd 12 over 5 upset, yet a 14 point lead with 5 minutes to go was not enough to beat St. Louis.  BOTH teams were terrible from the FT line, a combined 32-63 being the worst combined FT percentage in NCAA history (50.8%)!!  Certainly no Elks Hoop Shoot winners from that game.  Watching this game, it was clear that NC State was playing on fumes down the stretch, possibly due to the Tuesday night play-in game.

On to the pool Day 1 standings.  None other than "Somebody Help Me, I Can't Stand the Pain" from Steve Miller of Bloomington, IN (my employer for two years while I was in College at IU) leads the way with the only perfect entry remaining.  Steve barely beat the Hopski entry deadline due to his tax season workload, yet here in his 13th Hopski, he appears poised to contend (for atleast a day or two!).

Four entries are tied for 2nd after going 15 for 16.  These include former champion "Going for Three" Bill Carey (a Florida Gator and zero handicapper living in Warsaw, Poland), Attack of the Clones (ex-Warsaw expat John Springer, nervously waiting for his Cyclones to take the court today), Was the IU Team on Flight 370? (Gopher/Zag Joe Kozlak, living in Wroclaw, Poland) and I Want to Have a Final Fourgasm (Chicago Festivals head Phil Purevich).

Overall an impressive first day for most with just 5 entries not picking any of the days' 4 upsets!  I will be "tape delay" again tonight, but will be updating the blog from time to time.  Enjoy the Madness, as always!

8 Games in the Books

Congratulations to the Crimson of Harvard with yet another 1st round upset.

We are 1/4 of the way through the first round and the Hopski is down quickly to just 22 perfect entries.  In 16 years, we've never had anyone go a perfect 32 for 32 in the first round (I am a traditionalist by the way and refuse to acknowledge this as the 2nd round!).  The record stands at 29 out of 32, held by this foursome:

I am off to bed, but I think (hope) that the scheduler will run during the night and update the website.  If not, well, I will try again tomorrow to get it to work and you'll just have to wait until the morning my time for updated standings.

Please get those payments in either via amazon payments or paypal (markhopski@gmail.com in each case).  Ensure paypal payments are "to a friend or family" to avoid dropping the Hopski prize pool.

Remember as well that starting Monday, all Hopski pool entries get free entry into the Hopski 2nd Chance Dance Sweet 16 Pool!  Just go to the main website to enter.

Goodnight!

1 Game, 1 Upset

Go Dayton Flyers!!  Wow - cannot believe they went at Craft on the last bucket and then somehow his buzzer beater fell off the rim!!  53 entries picked this upset and gather the first underdog bonus points (5) of the tournament.  Meanwhile - the Big 10 is all too quickly down to 4 teams.

Sophie Update:  Peed on my new couch with 4 minutes left in the OSU/Dayton game……back to the hospital……….just kidding.

The 2014 Hopski Field is Set!

ALL PICKS ARE IN - 155 entries this year!!

To see your entry, go to The Hopski Website, click on reports, then player listing and then click on your entry name.

Other worthwhile reports on the website include:

The Champions Summary report is a summary of the teams picked to win the tournament and how many times. Florida leads the way with 57 entries predicting a Florida Gator championship. 17 different teams have been picked to win it all this year!

The Tournament Summary report shows, by team, how many entries picked them to win in each round. I will change this report as the tournament progresses so it sorts by each round (unfortunately, I cannot exclude teams that have been eliminated).

As the tournament gets a few games under its belt, the pool Top 25 will be on the front page of the website (the LEADERBOARD).

I will try again this year to get the TurboTourney scheduler software to update the website during the night (The Commish doesn't pull all-nighters anymore, timeouts every 3 minutes is a killer at 4am!) so as to keep everyone in the US up to date on the standings, however, this has not worked well in the past.  We'll see if I cannot improve upon that this year.

That is all for now.  Sophie's (my 2 year-old) arm is ok.  One of those hyper-extended elbow things.  A couple of suckers and she is as good as new!  Unfortunately, the ipad is not keeping her attention right now as I try to watch a streaming feed of OSU/Dayton (UK ESPN HD is not televising today for some reason until 11pm!).

Enjoy Day 1 and feel free to add comments on any of the posts (makes for more interesting discussions than my one ways!).

Hopski Hall of Fame

Could not copy into this the actual chart or file, so not sure how this will turn out, but thought I would give it a try and post here the Hopski Hall of Fame.

Just over 2 hours to go and entries now at 120.  Might be close towards breaking the 150 entry mark of the last two years.

Hey - for the first few days, I will not post payments to the actual software, so do not rain emails on me if you see that your entry is not checked for being paid on the website.

I did (somehow) get rid of the annoying orange background color on the website.  It would be great to get the cream and crimson color of those Indiana March Madness (doh they are not in it) special Adidas uniforms.

4 hours until tip-off of the Madness - get your Hopski Entries in soon!!

My 2 year-old Sophie picked a bad day to fall at school, hurt her arm and need to come home.  My first thought was, damn, Ohio State and Dayton at 5:15, does she really need to go to the doctor.  She's sleeping now and we'll check the arm later.  I am "sure" it is ok! :)

Was surprised to flip on the tivo games from last night this morning and see none other than ex-IU coach Mike Davis on the sidelines for Texas Southern.  Not surprising that he had the best player on the court and still got taken down.  Very disappointed to later watch the first Big 10 team get put on the sidelines.  The Volunteers (this blog post in orange to give Cuonzo Martin some kudos for saving his job!) had some serious beef in the middle and they hit some big 3s while Iowa threw bricks from the 3 point line.  Damn, now I am really starting from a hole on my Big 10 vs (former) Big 12 team bet with Tom Wojt.

Hopski entries have reached 114 and I must say, this year's crop of entry names is outstanding.  I have been LOL throughout the past two days as I downloaded the entries.

Once the games tip-off, the Hopski entries will be closed.  To avoid any issues (this has only happened once or twice in past Hopskis), sometime today, go and check the website and ensure that your picks are listed.  IF for some reason they are not there (under the reports tab, player picks), then email me immediately your picks and I will get them added to the pool.

These first two days are generally bad viewing days for the Commish as I have hoops practice in the evenings and doubt the motivation to stay up much past midnight.  So……any updates via the blog or random musings on whatsapp (yes - join the fun and download whatsapp, I can add you to the March Madness live text chat, let me know) may be time delayed.  More so, Saturday's early games will be tivo'd here as well due to an away game keeping me out of the house until 10pm.

On the bright side, I can skip those 12 commercial breaks per game.  Those are just killers when watching live and after midnight over here.

The Commish will go "live" more on Saturday and Sunday.

Enjoy the Madness!!!

Hopski Goes A Blogging

It has been awhile since The Hopski introduced any technological improvements, so we'll see how well this is received.  I do think it may be a more reliable way to keep the Hopski public informed and updated during March Madness (emails tend to get blocked!).  More so, I think it will allow the Hopski diehards to post comments, etc…. after each update.  In turn, that should allow for some public debate and fun!  

I do not think that I can include attachments here, so you will still need to go to http://www.mysideline.com/u/2588/collegebbmens/default.htm in order to access standings and reports.  I will also try and post these blog updates there (though note - mysideline.com allows only .txt file posting, so this blog will allow me to revert to coloring, etc… as in the early days.

It is Wednesday, so one day remains to enter the 2014 Hopski International March Madness Pool.

Please note some early "returns":

• If you pay via paypal, PLEASE choose "payment to a friend or family" so paypal does not deduct fees from the Hopski Payout Pool;
• ALSO, if paying by paypal, DO NOT mention anything regarding the pool, March Madness, NCAA, etc….  Email me if it is not clear from the payee for what entry the payment covers;
• Amazon Payments is a preferred means of payment as I do not worry about Amazon freezing my account as paypal did a few years back;
• Entry names are definitely improved over recent years, though I am not sure I see any that make me do summersaults just yet!;
• 43 entries have been received, which is normal for this point.  I expect the pool to reach 130 to 150 entries;

You can find the link to this blog at the top of the Pool Website at mysideline.com or you can even RSS it.

Adios!