My Bracket is Broken

[toc36]

The University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) became the first 16th seed to eliminate a number one seed.  Number 16 seeds had been 0-135 until tonight.They handily beat Virginia by 20 points.  I bet Virginia would win the NCAA March Madness tournament. 

 

 

[TCC Railroad]

Sorry, I shouldn't laugh, but UMBC handed them their heads on a silver platter. Perhaps that's why it's called March Madness.

 

[toc36]

I didn't bring my "sheet" home with me.  So I don't know exactly how well/poorly I'm doing. 

 

I picked Chicago-Loyola (as a spoiler) to win the first round, but they beat Tennessee (which I bet going deep).    Their second win hurt me.

 

I bet on Villanova to make to make it to the Final.   

 

Check out:

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2018-march-madness-predictions/

 

I've won my pool once in the past 6-8 years.  Had a couple of Cinderellas go deep.  Got my butt kick when I used GPA.  

[railsquid]

Quote

My Bracket is Broken

 

My Hovercraft is Full of Eels?
 

(Genuinely mystified by this thread)

 

Edited March 18, 2018 by railsquid

[toc36]

Squid,

 

I get Nate Silver's 2018 March Madness Predictions with the Round-by-Round Probabilities Bracket.

 

UMBC has a 17% chance of beating of beating Kentucky.  Loyola/Chicago has a 21 chance of beating Nevada or Cincinnati.

[cteno4]

7 hours ago, railsquid said:

 

My Hovercraft is Full of Eels?
 

(Genuinely mystified by this thread)

 

No worries squid it’s a different dimension of time and space, the NCAA college basketball finals. Name of march madness is pretty much self explainatory. It’s an elimination tournament and folks will make their own guess at how the elimination brackets will happen before the tournament. Lots of stats and analysis to try and guess right and get as close as possible to the final outcome of it all. Lots of money bet as well...

 

Google sports translation: 

One of our local state college, university of Maryland Baltimore county which is a very new and academic university (ranked the bottom, 16th seed, of the 16 on the one side of the bracket) creamed another local university, university of virgina (which was ranked the top of the 16 teams on that side of the bracket). So basically the worst team that made it into that side of the tournament totally creamed the best team. Never happened before. David vs Goliath. They knocked the team favored to win the whole tournament out in the very first round, not by a point, but by 20 points. A humiliation, but thats the way things go. Good lesson all around, don’t get cocky and don’t ever count yourself out.

 

but it probably ruined 99.9% of the brackets out there.

 

Cheers,

 

jeff

 

https://nyti.ms/2tC5hWr

[bikkuri bahn]

16 hours ago, railsquid said:

 

My Hovercraft is Full of Eels?
 

(Genuinely mystified by this thread)

 

The closest equivalent here in Japan would be the summer National High School Baseball Championship at Koshien, in terms of unlikely, underdog teams beating the well-known goliaths, and how that scenario resonates with the public.  Unfortunately this year, my team (UCLA), got beat in a "play-in" game as an 11 seed, ugh....

[cteno4]

Where are the threads on cricket upsets? Those are wonderful different language to hear! Followed close by Australian rules football (that I swear was made by someone dropping binders of a bunch of different sports and pulling out a random handful).

 

Cheers,

 

jeff

[chadbag]

 

I'll admit to not caring about March Madness or any sports events since I was about 12 :)  

 

(No, I did not watch the Super Bowl and haven't in like 10 years or more even though I grew up in New England -- I will admit to checking my phone after a while to see how things were going with a score update now and then).  (And I do read a few sports news articles when perusing news while occupied otherwise...)

 

But I like to hear about how different people do on the brackets and office pools.  That is a personal touch and I always find it interesting and funny (in a good way) how much passion and interest people pour into it.

[cteno4]

Have to admit a similar level of sports interest...

 

jeff

[railsquid]

Aha, a sportsball thing! Still don't quite get where the bracket comes to it but can safely let my eyes glaze over and scroll on by :D

 

I did go to a baseball match once come to think of it, was most impressed by the staff wandering round with beer backpacks.

 

5 hours ago, cteno4 said:

Where are the threads on cricket upsets? Those are wonderful different language to hear!

 

"The batsman bowled a googly curve ball on a sticky wicket for five runs not out for an over before tea", that sort of thing? Not that I have the faintest idea what it all means but have been more exposed to it than Nate's Seed Brackets over the years ;)

[bikkuri bahn]

It's very much a U.S. thing, even more than say the Super Bowl, which generates some international interest (and FWIW something I have zero interest in).  I think especially those that went to college in the U.S. have a connection with it, either because their alma mater participated in it, and/or the charm of little schools (the "Cinderella schools") having a chance to compete with, and even perhaps beat the perennial powerhouse college teams.  As an event it still has the atmosphere of amateur athletics as opposed to the crass commercial feel of professional sports, though we now know the college sports administration is as corrupt as any professional or supranational organization.

[chadbag]

8 hours ago, railsquid said:

Aha, a sportsball thing! Still don't quite get where the bracket comes to it but can safely let my eyes glaze over and scroll on by :D

 

Yeah.  Being a single elimination competition, people try and predict how it will play out and there are office pools and professional betting (and just for fun) reasons why people do this.  That is "your bracket".  How you fill out your prediction of the results at each level.

[cteno4]

Well it’s mainly interest in basketball more than going to college. Some have the alma mater spirit for sports, but I attended three different colleges/universities and have zero and many I know are the same.

 

ncaa basketball is very commercial now, bringing in huge bucks for universities thru the shared media contracts. There are 4 “medial timeouts (one per quarter) for commercial breaks... to be fair it allows for commercials to happen at a desired periodicity to not have them go away from play as much to get them done.

 

jeff