There was no gleeful chorus of the Yellow Rose of Texas last night thanks to Paul Jesperson of Northern Iowa!!
And then now it is all about "It is so good to be THE MAN!!". It cannot feel better than that!!
I was yelling for a few seconds after and then my thought went immediately back to Butler vs Duke in the 2010 Championship and how Gordon's shot SHOULD HAVE gone in as well. It just SHOULD HAVE GONE IN DARN IT!!
You gotta listen to the Northern Iowa radio guys go nuts after the half court game winner - click this: NIU RADIO It only would have been a greater shot had NIU been down 1, but still one of the great finishers in Madness history!
In terms of the Hopski pool - this was technically not an upset as 93 entrants had picked Northern Iowa, presumably as most entries had Texas A&M going into the Sweet 16 - so may as well roll the dice. On that topic - here are the numbers on the other major picked upsets:
- VCU - 124
- Gonzaga - 91
- Wichita State - 77
- Hawaii - 66
- Yale - 56
- Little Rock - 32
- SF Austin - 22 (just 22!!)
- Middle Tennessee State - 1 (just 1 - I am in awe!)
More on the upset picking at the end........
Stephen F Austin as well delivered some big bonus points (11 to be exact) as it whacked West Virginia - another Hopski pool favorite predicted to go a long way. NOT SO!!
This guy - Thomas Walkup - destroyed WVU's defense for 33 points and 9 rebounds - leading SFA to a match-up with Notre Dame and it will not surprise me if SFA is favored in that game!!
So, even with a record number of big opening round upsets, 50 Fades of Grayson (the other Matthew Powell) ties the all-time Hopski record by picking 29 out of 32 games (missing only Michigan, Pitt and Michigan State) and holds the top spot in the standings! Outstanding!!! Unfortunately - his homage to the Michigans will hurt in the standings as Matt had MSU in the final and Michigan in the Final 8 - ouch! Still - record setting none the less with the 29 picks.
Moving up 2 spots to 2nd place from Thursday is the Bob Mulcahy entry from none other than.......care to guess.......BOB MULCAHY!! Bad entry name karma did not stop Bob from picking 26 winners and all of the important bonus point winners in the first round!! Bob is one of the few having picked Kentucky to win the tournament and is primed to take the Hopski IF they do so (NOT HAPPENING BOB - GO HOOSIERS!!).
Rounding out the money spots is I've Made a Huge Mistake (Beth Paul of Thoma Bravo in Chicago), who moved up 6 spots from Day 1 into 3rd place, but also has unfortunately lost her champion Michigan State. We'll not be hearing from her again.
My previously perfect wife - I Bullshit You Not (Ola Hopper) dropped like a rock (heck - I am even ahead of her now) on the 2nd day, all the way to 44th.
The biggest move up on Day 2 was from Drumph Roll and Ricardo Yunis - jumping a whopping 103 places to 46th thanks to being the only entrant to pick the Middle Tennessee State upset of Michigan State! The biggest Day 2 drop was 77 places by Spartacus Rules (Kamran Koochekzadeh of Washington DC - hopefully replicating the name only and not the finish of his 2014 Toilet Bowl winning entry) from 41st to 111th. He'll be moving up though as he at least has Virginia as his champion!
Speaking of the Toilet Bowl.....Day 1 "leader" Big Nips (Darren Kenney) has been joined in last place now by Few's Flyfishing Season Starts Friday (Joe Kozlak, Gonzaga alum and soon to be Amsterdam resident, currently living in Wroclaw Poland and taking money off the commish again in our NCAA side bet). Ugh - he bets better than he picks!! Coincidentally, the other side bettor with the Commish ended the 1st round with the worst number of correct picks in the pool, just 15 for 32, Cadwallader University (Tom Wojt of Long Island, former Warsaw expat famous on the court for the Freddy Flintstone travel and off the court for numerous unmentionables). Our side bet is Big 10 plus Butler (me) vs Big 12 plus CU.......did I already mention GO HOOSIERS!
FOR FULL HOPSKI STANDINGS - CLICK HERE
For the first round - you were average if you picked 22.56 of the winners AND racked up 24.7 bonus points. Average in this case would put you in 72nd place in the standings! That 22.6 is consistent with the historical Hopski first round average of 22.4. The bonus underdog points though already approaches the all-time best average for a complete tournament of 25.9 (2014), a year when no one picked the UConn Huskies as champion!
For Day 3 - do not expect a complete Day 3 blog update as a busy Sunday with church and a calcotada (roasted wild onions with a tasty orange sauce - a tasty Catalan tradition) thereafter. Of course I will be watching Indiana/Kentucky live tonight and may muse a bit but most likely, be patient for a full update on Monday regarding the Saturday and Sunday game. I WILL though update the standings on the Hopski Website on Sunday morning!
NOTE - IF you are a rookie or someone not well known to me that is suddenly contending (and definitely if you are into the top 10!) - drop me a quick note of introduction and something to share with the pool!
Given the extensive upsets of the 1st 32 games and that most pool members are picking them, I am wondering if this whole bonus point thing is the way to do the brackets anymore! Everyone has kind of figured out (or most anyway) that you pick a Sweet 16 and pick every other game as an upset, rolling the dice for Hopski bonus points. I am just thinking out loud here - but maybe the way to go in the future is to revert back to a straight scoring system without underdog bonus points as the playing field (court) is much more level these days say than ten years ago. Just a thought - comments appreciated!
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