Coming to you live from the skies over Greenland as I type this on my return flight to SF. After 90 minutes of sleep last night – as was glued to ESPN Player until 4am and had a 7am flight – this return day has gone well. Breakfast included the Polish scrambled special as well as the Arkansas game before boarding - clearly the happiest I think I have ever been at an airport at 5:45am!!
After a completely non-Germanic Frankfort passport control mess took 75 minutes to clear (thank goodness I had a 4 hour layover), the Lufthansa lounge allowed me to round out my Day 1 viewing. Now I type this fresh from 5 additional hours of sleep. So……LFG!!!!
This year’s Hopski has a healthy 137 entries and the donations to PAH for Ukraine have been numerous. I will total up and share shortly, but the generosity of all of you is impressive and will be more than welcomed and well utilized in Poland! Thank you!
After a long walk around Warsaw on Wednesday and seeing so so many Moms & Grandmas with their kids (no Dads) – those funds are and will be needed as the refugee crisis grows. Soooooo many Polish residents (Poles and expats alike) have opened their doors quickly to house these homeless Ukrainians, but if Russia starts moving further West to Lviv – the refugees will really test overwhelming Poland and the rest of the EU. Here is some “cool” poster art posted around Warsaw:
On to Day 1 of the Hopski and March Madness.
For many Hoosier fans, myself included, both the high and low points of the day pertained to losses – so you can imagine my picks are in the toilet already!! Indiana took one of the worst beatings I have seen in a tournament after racing to an early lead for the first 10 minutes of the game. After that – it was ugly and a low point of my day.
After clicking over to St. Joseph’s vs Kentucky and seeing UK go down to the #15 Peacocks, my spirits were lifted as at least Indiana won one game in this tournament!! Just 2 entries picked the Peacocks of St. Joseph’s to win in the pool, garnering a whopping 13 bonus points.
Congrats to Biden's Gas Busters (Nick Adams, nephew of WTNY Jack Bell and a Hopski competitor since he was in middle school! Nick is now in LA working for Adidas – clearly not highly ranking though as still waiting for my Mike Woodson issued black IU sideline quarter zip). Also nailing those 13 bonus points was Mathurin Father (Peter Pell, in his 5th year now and with 2 runners-up, a 9th and 12th place finish - uncanny - we need to source his source!!).
2 #12 over #5 upsets also provided ample bonus point opportunities thanks to the Richmond Spiders & New Mexico State (Jimmy Buckets). In all, Day 1 delivered 6 upsets and a total of 34 underdog bonus points. 39 entries picked NMSt and 23 picked Richmond.
My favorite game though was Murray State vs San Francisco. This had a lot on the line after Kentucky lost as the winner would be a favorite to make the Sweet 16 and both teams played well before SF was vanquished by the Racers (btw I always thought their mascot was a snake, but it is actually a thoroughbread – that was news of the day for the Commish). I prefer the Blue Racers!
The Homer Simpson DOH of Day 1 goes to ButlerDawgs – picking 15 out of the 16 winners, tops for the pool. On the other hand – the one miss was their champion pick – Kentucky. The Russian Judge also gets a shoutout with a 14 for 16 day. In all – 16 entries lost their Champion pick on Day 1 (Kentucky, Iowa and Marquette – seriously – without looking I can venture a guess this was one Mr. Szczerba!).
Those of you that can look on the Leaderboard and see your name or last name or your name with a #1, #2, #3……. SHAME ON YOU!!! Creative entry names are a REQUIREMENT of the Hopski. Get these entry names FIXED (click on my entries, click on the dots at the far right, click on entry name) over the weekend or face commissioner assigned names that you may not enjoy (or even expulsion as per the published Hopski Rules - Eric Gates – you are biggest violator of this rule and it will not be tolerated!!!).
The pool hosting platform (RYP) is delivering well (certainly my life was easier this week not downloading and uploading Turbo Touney – RIP – on a daily basis. I do miss our Leaderboard with not only entry names – but entrants too! We’ll try to whip RYP in shape for next year with a letter of improvement requests post-tourney (a thread for this is set-up on the pool message board – which is kind of a nice addition!).
Upon landing I will be taking my 10 year-old Sophie (of the near bottom dwelling Chicken Life entry) to her AAU basketball tournament, so further updates this weekend may be limited but as always – I will try and do my best to keep you entertained!!! Get those entry fees in (or donations) as I will hunt you down when the dust settles for me on Monday.
Enjoy the hoops!!!
**Actually finished this off in the past 30 minutes from home - gotta hit the road for Pismo Beach!!
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