Round 1 (yes - still round 1 for me) in the books

 Joe Pleasant was THE MAN on Saturday!!

Shooting just 59% from the line on the season - he stepped up to the line with 1.3 seconds left and with #14 seed Abilene Christian (not even a Div 1 program 4 years ago!) down 1 vs the mighty Texas Longhorns.  Calm, cool and collected - Joe drained them both and the Wildcats became the 9th double digit seed to win in the first round this year.  

That is a total of 65 underdog points up for grabs!!!!  

No one in the Hopski picked all 9, but our first round leaders managed to get 50 of those points!! No Suggs in the Champagnie Room (Peter Pell, runner-up in 2019 after losing on a tiebreaker AND having 3 of the top 5 entries heading into the Elite 8 - Peter is a Richmond Spider alum living outside of NYC).   He is clearly BACK again for 2021 with all 4 of this year's entries in the Top 11 at the moment!!  Peter missed only the Oral Roberts and Maryland upsets.  The rookie Keir Novesky's King Slayer entry is tied with No Suggs at 74 points.  I know little about Keir and the only one I can find after a google is a Design Director at GQ.  That would certainly be an diversifying add-on to the Hopski pool if so!!  Keir also missed out on Oral Roberts and Maryland.

The top DAWGpointer after Round 1 is Beaver Believer Bill Lyon (Bill and I hooped it to a runners-up finish in the Warsaw Adidas 3 on 3 in 90s before he returned to the States and taught outside of Chicago.  He is now teaching in semi-retirement in Budapest!!).  Beaver Believer (we'll presume Bill is an Oregon St fan with that one as opposed to an alternative interpretation) is sitting in 3rd position but with 53 underdog points, missing out only on the Oral Roberts upset (which also has taken one of his Elite 8 teams out of the running).

For those new to the Hopski, please note a plethora of reports exist on the Hopski Pool Website.  TO ACCESS THESE, CLOCK ON REPORTS AND CHOOSE ONE OF THE FOLLOWING:

THE LEADERBOARD:  The Top 25 entries in the standings will always show up on the first page of the website.  After the 1st round, the Leaderboard and the Current Standings reports will both show how many positions entries have move up and down the standings since the previous break point.  These breaks are at 32, 40, 48, 52, 56, 58, 60 and 62 games.

CHAMPIONS SUMMARY REPORT:  Summary of the teams picked to win the tournament and how many times.

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).

CURRENT STANDINGS REPORT:  Shows the entire pool standings.  This is a 3 pager and whilst you may not win or contend to win the pool, it is certainly a worthwhile objective to finish on the 1st page (and certainly avoid the dreaded last page).  From this report as well you can click on any entry name to see the entire bracket entered by that person.

PROJECTED STANDINGS REPORT:  This is a sorted report by possible point totals, showing the maximum points an entry might get if all the remaining games go as they have picked. This reports also shows predicted champ. 

TO SEE ANY ENTRY, USE PLAYER LISTING:  The player listing report lists all entries by entry name.  To see any full set of brackets that an entry includes, along with points scored each game, click directly on that entry name. 


ENJOY THE GAMES AND THE HOPSKI!!