I haven't really watched much, if any, D-I hoops this year, but brackets are brackets. I have to do this.
Once again though, I won't be alone in this quest. Adam Quinn, who joins me every fall for Pigskin Pick 'Em, will join me again for NCAA Tournament picks. As we've done the past couple years, we're going to go region by region and make our Final Four picks, plus a few other things. Then to round it out, we'll make our title game predictions.
After months of focusing on Division III basketball and paying little to no attention to Division I... the most magical time of the year is upon us and I'll try to pretend I know what I'm talking about with the NCAA Tournament.
After the debacle that was the Selection Show, we now know the field that began with the First Four in Dayton the past two days, and now begins in earnest today. This first weekend is the greatest four day stretch in sports, and hopefully there will be plenty of buzzer beaters and upsets like Aurora University toppling Wash U a couple weeks ago (don't let anyone tell you D-III basketball is a garbage product).
Adam Quinn, my partner in the weekly Pigskin Pick 'Em feature during football season, asked if we were doing anything for the NCAA Tournament this year, and because I'm a sucker I couldn't say no. We're condensing it down to one post this year though (a couple years ago we went through each region individually). So below, we'll go region by region with our Final Four picks, dark horses, disappointments, best matchups, and ultimately our national championship picks.
The wait was not very long in Naperville. With bated breath, members of North Central's men's basketball team gathered in the Cardinal Room in Merner Fieldhouse to watch the NCAA Selection Show this morning. Fortunately, they did not have to wait very long, as the setup of the bracket got the Cardinals on the board within five minutes of the start of the show.
Yeeeeeeeeeeah time to get out the dancing shoes #GoCards
The at large bid marks the first trip to the NCAA Tournament for the Cardinals since that legendary 2013 run to the Final Four, and with the Augustana automatic bid and Elmhurst also getting an at large bid, the CCIW got three teams in for the second straight year. It's a testament to how much of a gauntlet the conference truly is.
North Central is heading up to Wisconsin this weekend to advance, and they avoid both of their conference rivals, who are on the other side of the bracket, as well as Benedictine, who looms as a potential Elite Eight matchup. So as is my tradition, the questions are plentiful. What do we know about North Central's opponents? I dug into the stats and have a preview of the weekend ahead,
Welcome back O'Neill Middle School students! Last week, Mrs. Mitzel offered you some extra credit points for answering a couple math questions related to the NCAA Tournament. With the field now narrowed down to the Sweet 16, we've decided to offer another opportunity for some extra credit.
Before we get to this week's questions, here's an answer key from last week. I heard there were some questions about the answers this week, so hopefully this will clear it up a little bit.
1. You guys have learned about percents and the percent proportion, so we'll apply it to last year's NCAA Tournament bracket.
Of all the "Second Round/Round of 64" games last year, what percentage
of those games were "upsets"? (For those of you who aren't familiar with
the NCAA Tournament or sports in general: the bracket is split up into
four groups of 16 teams who receive a "seed", a number from 1 to 16. The
1 seed is the best team, the 2 seed is second best, and so on. An
"upset" is where the team with a higher number seed wins over the team
with the lower number seed. For example, the 12 seed beating the 5 seed
would be an upset.)
Looking at the 2014 bracket, there are 32 games in the "Second Round/Round of 64". Of those games, eight met the definition of an "upset": #9 Pitt beating #8 Colorado, #12 Stephen F. Austin beating #5 VCU, #11 Dayton beating #6 Ohio State, #10 Stanford beating #7 New Mexico, #12 Harvard beating #5 Cincinnati, #12 North Dakota State beating #5 Oklahoma, #11 Tennessee beating #6 Massachusetts, and #14 Mercer beating #3 Duke. So, using the percent proportion, we multiply 8 by 100 and divide that by 32. 8*100 = 800; 800/32 = 25. So, 25 percent of the "Second Round/Round of 64" games last year were upsets. However, in talking to Mrs. Mitzel, it sounds like some of you misunderstood what I meant by "Second Round", and looked at the "Third Round/Round of 32" instead (not your fault; the NCAA is dumb). Those of you who found five upsets were correct, and out of 16 games, the correct answer would be 31.25 percent.
2. We're going to try a probability question. Starting on Thursday, the
field of 64 will start playing, and by Sunday, only 16 teams (known as
the "Sweet 16") will still be in the Tournament. If you pick one team
out of the 64, what is the probability that they will make the Sweet 16?
Express this answer as a percent (rounded to the nearest whole number),
a decimal (rounded to the nearest hundredth), and a fraction.
Dictionary.com defines probability as "therelativepossibilitythataneventwilloccur,asexpressedbytheratioofthenumberofactualoccurrencestothetotalnumberofpossibleoccurrences." Basically, you're dividing the number of outcomes you want by the total number of possible outcomes. A good comparison would be to take a bag of 64 marbles. 16 are blue, 20 are red, 24 are green, and 4 are yellow, and you want to know what the probability of drawing a blue marble would be. This would mean you divide 16 by 64. 16/64 = 1/4 = 0.25 =25%.
If you have any further questions, you can leave them in the comments below or ask Mrs. Mitzel. In the meantime, here is this week's question.
You guys may have learned about this last year, but if not, you will have to look up how to do it (yes, you can use Google). Look at the bracket and take note of the seeds (this will be the number next to each team listed on games scheduled for either March 26th or March 27th) of the 16 remaining teams. Find the mean, median, and mode of this set of data. Round all answers to the nearest hundredth.
Like last week, please send your answers back to Mrs. Mitzel in an email by the end of school on Thursday. Mrs. Mitzel will give you an extra credit point for each of these correct answers. On top of those, for a possible additional extra credit point, look at the Sweet 16, and pick one team that you think will make the Final Four. Here's the catch: you cannot pick the same team that you picked last week. So those of you who wasted your extra credit point on Kentucky last week... sorry, I'm not sorry. If whatever team you pick does make it, you will get that bonus point.
We're down to 64 teams. And with that, the best four day stretch in all of sports can begin.
Adam and I have spent the last three days hard at work looking over the bracket, thinking about possibilities, rethinking them, and writing up predictions on what we think will happen. Today, we finish stuff out just in time for the opening tip.
With time running out, if you're still looking for a pool to join, you can join the official Confessions of a Sportscaster pool. I'm pretty sure it closes when the games start, so time is short.
And with that, here's our thoughts on the West region.
Adam and I are halfway through our early set of predictions for the NCAA Tournament. If you're just joining us, we're going region by region to make some picks about what we think will happen.
If you want to join us for some overall bracket filling, you can join my Yahoo! group and see if you can beat us.
Happy Tuesday! We get the First Four starting tonight to whittle the field down a little bit, but in the grand scheme of things, that doesn't impact our selections here.
Yesterday, Adam and I began our region by region look at the 2015 bracket. I'll have a link to that posted below.
With a couple days left, you still have time to join in on the official Confessions of a Sportscaster bracket pool. It's free to join, and while there's no money to be made, you can earn bragging rights, which are pretty cool in and of themselves.
Today, we're going across the bracket to the East Region. Let's get to it.
Selection Sunday saw the unveiling of the field that will be whittled down over the next three weeks until we arrive at a single champion. In years past, I've done a single general post about the upcoming tournament. This year, I'm expanding it and bringing in some outside perspective again.
Adam Quinn, who you may be familiar with from his appearances in Pigskin Pick 'Em last season, wanted in on some March Madness action. I'm happy to welcome him back for the next few days as we pick apart each region.
Because odds are that we're going to differ on opinion on each region, we aren't going to go pick by pick (also, it would probably end up being a longer blog post). Instead, we'll pick out a few key facts. We're each going to pick who we think will make it out of each region, a likely first round upset, a sleeper team, and a bust.
Meanwhile, if you want to go bracket to bracket with us, you can join my tournament pool on Yahoo! at the link provided. For now, here's a look at the Midwest Region.
In the three and a half years I've been writing on Confessions of a Sportscaster, I've done a lot of different projects. I've picked three seasons' worth of NFL games against the spread. I've blasted the corruption of big time college football in favor of a more equitable playoff. I've chronicled the rise of The System that is slowly destroying my vocal chords (but I love every minute of it). I've even proved that the 1996 Chicago Bulls are the greatest NBA team of all time. But today... I'm giving a homework assignment. Kind of.
If you are one of Mrs. Mitzel's students in either Common Core 7, Math A, or Foundations, welcome to your extra credit opportunity. One of the great things about math is that it's everywhere; you just have to know where to look. And with the greatest four day stretch in sports coming up this weekend, we're going to find some.
There are plenty of ways math applies to March Madness. Mrs. Mitzel and I came up with a few questions for you about the NCAA Tournament. Answer the following questions below in an email back to Mrs. Mitzel, and she will give you some extra credit points.
You guys have learned about percents and the percent proportion, so we'll apply it to last year's NCAA Tournament bracket. Of all the "Second Round/Round of 64" games last year, what percentage of those games were "upsets"? (For those of you who aren't familiar with the NCAA Tournament or sports in general: the bracket is split up into four groups of 16 teams who receive a "seed", a number from 1 to 16. The 1 seed is the best team, the 2 seed is second best, and so on. An "upset" is where the team with a higher number seed wins over the team with the lower number seed. For example, the 12 seed beating the 5 seed would be an upset.)
We're going to try a probability question. Starting on Thursday, the field of 64 will start playing, and by Sunday, only 16 teams (known as the "Sweet 16") will still be in the Tournament. If you pick one team out of the 64, what is the probability that they will make the Sweet 16? Express this answer as a percent (rounded to the nearest whole number), a decimal (rounded to the nearest hundredth), and a fraction.
Mrs. Mitzel will give you 1 extra credit point for each correct answer. In addition to this, pick one team out of the field of 64 that you think will advance to the Sweet 16. If that team is still alive on Monday morning, she will give you an additional extra credit point. All of this is due before the start of school Thursday morning.
Then, for kicks and giggles, if you want to fill out a bracket and see how well you can do, you can join my free pool over at Yahoo! Make sure that this is okay with your parents first before you join. Good luck!
We interrupt our focus on finding a football champion to bring you some basketball.
I've said for years and continue to maintain that the best four-day stretch of sports is the opening weekend of the NCAA Tournament. Wall to wall basketball for four days? Count me in.
I started up a bracket pool again this year, but didn't get any takers this time around. Nonetheless, I figured I should at least share my picks to show everyone how much of an idiot I am when it comes to this and how I will almost certainly lose out on winning a billion dollars by 3:15 this afternoon.
While it might be difficult to see, you can click on the image to see a zoomed in view. If you're lazy, my Final Four is Florida, San Diego State, Wichita State and Michigan State. I have the Spartans topping the Shockers 71-62 in the title game.
I've had good first days in the past; I think my best finish was 15-1 after a single day before things started to fall apart. It always seems to happen on either the Friday or the Saturday. Last year it happened on the Thursday when I made the mistake of picking New Mexico to make the Final Four and seeing them lose their opener. I look forward to seeing some other shenanigans destroy my bracket this weekend.
I have a love and passion for pretty much all things sports, but absolutely nothing compares to the first 4 days of the NCAA Tournament. My work schedule aligns such that I have Friday off and can catch several games that day, and needless to say, shortly after the brackets came out I pored over them in trying to figure out how to fill everything out. I do think I got an answer though.
Like last year, I am hosting a tournament pool on Yahoo for anyone who is interested. Nothing special to be offered this time other than the ability to lord over me that you picked winners better than I did. Odds are you probably will; I have a tendency to do well on the Thursday, stumble a little on the Friday without too much damage done, then see everything get destroyed on Saturday. Probably a good thing that I only have a single 1 seed advancing to the Final Four, but I'm sure it will be more chaotic than a Final Four of Louisville, Georgetown, Miami and New Mexico.
If you think you're better at picking this stuff than I am, the group can be found here and it is free to join (both for Yahoo and because I'm not putting money on this... again, the whole "gambling is illegal" thing.) I would love to see this thing fill up!
1. You guys have learned about percents and the percent proportion, so we'll apply it to last year's NCAA Tournament bracket.
Of all the "Second Round/Round of 64" games last year, what percentage
of those games were "upsets"? (For those of you who aren't familiar with
the NCAA Tournament or sports in general: the bracket is split up into
four groups of 16 teams who receive a "seed", a number from 1 to 16. The
1 seed is the best team, the 2 seed is second best, and so on. An
"upset" is where the team with a higher number seed wins over the team
with the lower number seed. For example, the 12 seed beating the 5 seed
would be an upset.) 
