NCAA Tournament - Round 1 Day 1

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Welcome back to my gazillionth annual NCAA Tournament Pool.

Every year I am amazed at how many people fail to follow the rules.  Now newbies to the pool I can understand missing something here and there, but for you veterans the mistakes are unbelieveable and deserve to be called out.  For example, Vic LaPira and Ty Leatherman failed to put their respective names on their brackets.  I figured out Ty's because she had Duke winning it all - homer.

I also still have two nameless bracket which I am including in the standings hoping that someone claims it soon.  If you see someone missing, please contact them and me to try to determine the missing bracket.

All told we have about 84 entries.  I say "about" because one entrant, Alison Parker, went old school and mailed her entries.  I do not know whether to expect multiple brackets from that household or not.  They will be added once received.  I also received an unnamed entry which I am still searching for the owner.  Once that is identified, it will be added as well.

We had 10 total champions picked, with the majority of the people selecting Kentucky.  All of the champions that remain will be listed in bold for the remainder of updates.  The champions selected this year are:  Arizona, Duke, Iowa State, Kansas, Kentucky, Notre Dame, SMU, Villanova, Virginia, Wisconsin.

You read that correctly folks.  We have already had two champions eliminated on the first day.  The lucky entries were Ashley Poer 2 who selected Iowa State and Erin Devlin who selected SMU.  Now Erin I understand, as she is an alumna, but who knows what on earth Ashley was thinking.

For yesterday's games we had 4 unanimous selections, those being Arizona, Kentucky, Notre Dame and Villanova.  Good thing for our entries all of those teams won.  If those were the unanimous picks, that means we had winners and losers for each of the remaining 12 games, including 1 that selected UAB.  So the honor of the pick of the day goes to Kingfish Rod Parham of Atlanta, Georgia.  Honorable Mention to those that earned multiple bonuses from the UAB, Georgia State and UCLA.  On the other end are Barkley Sosa and Myself, but yuck it up now, as I will be having the last laugh.

I am referring to yesterday's action as Round 1, Day 1 because that is what it really is, and not the Second Round which is the moniker the NCAA gives to the yesterday's and today's games.  The NCAA, however, doesn't have a great reputation with me, so I will do what I want.

As always, please double check your math as I may have missed something, or even missed your "guaranteed upset" since I had to go back and forth with several of you to make sure I knew which pick was your "guaranteed upset".

I will send out PayPal and Google Wallet information on my next post.

Now, on to the standings.  Ties, for now, are listed alphabetically.

1.  Kingfish Rod Parham - 33
2.  Colleen Hamilton - 25
3.  Ashley Poer 1 - 23
     Chad Upson - 23
     George Walks 1 - 23
6.  George Walks 2 - 22
     George Walks 5 - 22
8.  Steven Usma 4 - 21
9.  Carolyn Fowler/Jane Reynolds - 20
     Rich Samuels 1 - 20
11.  Si Nichols 1 - 19
       Silas Nichols - 19
       Unknown Bracket  (Jessica Koch?)- 19
14.  Arlene Hopps - 18
      Stacia Wilkaitis 1 - 18
16.  Kyle Henderson 2 - 17
      Sasha Moon - 17
      Si Nichols 2 - 17
       Jonathan Wasserman - 17
      Justin Yung - 17
       Amy Zdrowak - 17
22.  Martha Kroesen - 16
       Debbie Nieman - 16
       Rich Samuels 2 - 16
25.  Jacey Fowler I - 15
       Mac Kroesen - 15
       Michael Litsey - 15
       Ashley Poer 2 - 15
       Jane Reynolds - 15
       Rich Samuels 3 - 15
       Day Yi - 15
32.  Jacey Fowler 2 - 14
        Kyle Henderson 1 - 14
       Cheryl Spuhler - 14
35.  Greg Kummerlen - 13
        Traci & Kyle Sheehan - 13
37.  Carolyn Fowler - 12
       Matt Hopps - 12
       Kim Bancsi Lumpkin - 12
       Brian Spatchek - 12
       Steven Usma 1 - 12
42.  Koma Gandy - 11
       Alvaro Gonzalez - 11
       Albert Harper III - 11
       Adam Jorgensen - 11
       Alex King - 11
       Anthony LaPira - 11
       Vic LaPira - 11
       Kim Bancsi Lumpkin 2 - 11
       Jen Mahoney - 11
       Kareem Montague - 11
       Jason Schultz - 11
       Hannah Sosa - 11
      George Walks 4 - 11
      Keith Zdrowak - 11
56.  Brent Bellinger - 10
       Serena Davila - 10
       Eric Inge - 10
       Chris Kroesen - 10
      Ty Leatherman - 10
       Katie Butler Litsey - 10
       Sam Lozier - 10
       Cory Mauro - 10
       Jason Spuhler - 10
       Stacia Wilkaitis 2 - 10
       Hershey Zdrowak - 10
       Katie Zdrowak - 10
68.  Braeden Helland - 9
       Steven Usma 2 - 9
       Steven Usma 3 - 9
       George Walks 3 - 9
       Joshua Zdrowak - 9
73.  Erin Devlin - 8
       Jed Dorsey - 8
       Noel Martinez - 8
       Abigail Sosa - 8
77.  Steffan Alexander - 7
       Matt Nieman - 7
79.  Trenton May  6
        Barkley Sosa - 6
        Pepe Sosa - 6