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