No Action Today; 3 Conferences Tip Off Tomorrow

Although a few conferences were in play today, none of the teams had any impact on our pool, so overall a boring day.

Standings

The 1st day of March will bring more action for all of us as 3 new conferences tip off tomorrow.

• America East
• Northeast
• Ohio Valley

America East

74% of the picks in our pool are for Vermont, they are the overwhelming favorite.  A few people picked Albany, which is not bad for getting Bonus Points as they have won this conference 2 out of the last 3 years.  Fuss is the lone New Hampshire pick, LOL.

Northeast Conference

This conference is much more wide open and the picks are all over the board, this can be a conference that separates people so you don't want to suffer an early loss here.

LIU Brooklyn was the favorite picked by 48% in the pool, however they are only a 4.5 point favorite against Robert Morris.  It is possible for everyone to escape without a loss tomorrow in this conference, but these lines are tight.

Ohio Valley

85% of the pool picks are for Belmont, however we have some crazy upset picks tomorrow!

Again, Fuss, LOL, went with 7 seed Murray State and Jack went with 6 seed Tennessee Tech.  

Good Luck guys, one of you will get a loss!

Fuss could be mathematically eliminated by tomorrow night.

That summarizes the action tomorrow, it will be a day all about surviving and advancing.  I'm also excited we'll have our 1st loss tomorrow.

Day 1 Atlantic Sun Results and 2 More Conferences Tip Off Tomorrow

A couple more conferences have wrapped up the regular season and more seeds are now finalized, that has changed the standings, below is an update.

Standings

The Atlantic Sun conference was the only conference in action today and the games went as expected.

• The 1 seed, Florida Gulf Coast, won by 30 points
• The 2 seed, Lipscomb, won by 31 points
• The only close game was North Florida, winning by 3 points, almost resulted in a loss for Young!

2 more conference tournaments tip off tomorrow with The Big South and The Patriot League.  It's not worth covering as it's the bottom tier games and will have no impact on our pool.

The good news however is that every day 1 or more conferences keep tipping off and our 1st championship game is only 5 days away!

http://2017conferencetournamentchallenge.blogspot.com/

Conference Tournament Season Tips off Tonight with the Atlantic Sun Conference

We'll keep the important stuff on the top so you don't have to work your way through the e-mail to find it.  I've included the Blog link and the Standings.

http://2017conferencetournamentchallenge.blogspot.com/

Remember, you can subscribe to the Blog on the right hand side of the Blog page so you'll always be notified when I post an update.

A few more entries came in after I sent out the note last night, they are now included on the Master excel sheet.  I wouldn't be surprised if a few more come in before the games tip off tonight.  

Beginning tonight, all 8 Atlantic Sun teams will be in action as that conference does not give any teams a bye.  This means we will all have teams at risk tonight, however we can all escape without a loss.


Only 3 teams matter to us in this conference, Florida Gulf Coast, Lipscomb, and North Florida.

Below is a summary of the match-ups, the majority of the pool selections are for Florida Gulf Coast.  85% of the pool picked Florida Gulf Coast to be the Atlantic Sun conference champion.

• Florida Gulf Coast should have the easiest game as they are favored to win by 14.5 points
• Lipscomb is favored to win by 9 points
• North Florida should have the toughest game as they are only favored to win by 4 points

Although none of these games are actually on TV, they will all be available through ESPN3.

Later tonight I will recap the Atlantic Sun games, update the standings, and preview the next days games.  Let's hope for a few people to get knocked out early so it's not a boring night.

If you have not yet paid the $50 entry fee, please send money through PayPal, rwdpeanut@gmail.com, or make other arrangements.

Good Luck to everyone as we get started, we have 14 days of this ahead of us!

2017 NCAA Basketball Conference Tournament Pool Picks Are In!

The picks are in and the master spreadsheet is updated with everyone's selections!  

I know many of you are challenged by technology (I guess that is the nice way to put it), so I'll always have 2 versions of the spreadsheet.

• 2017 Conference Tournament Champions Master (This has all the features and functionality to show things like Max Points Available and more)
• 2017 Conference Tournament Champions Master Light (This will error out many of the added features, but you can still see standings and picks)

We still may have a few more entries coming in tonight, so expect an updated spreadsheet from me later tonight or early tomorrow morning.  

Please also look carefully through your picks, and if I made an error or something needs to be changed due to a mistake, please let me know by the end of the day on Monday, 2/27.  No changes to the Atlantic Sun conference will be allowed after 6p CST on Monday, 2/27.

Remember, you will want to bookmark this link so you can see up to date standings throughout the next few weeks.  

Standings will be updated a few times each day, or as games complete.  I essentially dedicate my life to this over the next 2 weeks, even with starting a new job Monday.  

Also, as conference tournaments complete at different dates through Sunday, 3/12, I will post updates along with the current standing on the blog via the link below.  I'll also send e-mail updates periodically for those that refuse to use the Blog.  Usually the first few days I'll send information in e-mail, but I'll back off of that once things get going.

This Blog is a great way to pass time during the day...

http://2017conferencetournamentchallenge.blogspot.com/

The master spreadsheet has a ton of information to help you track the games, below is a preview of what you will see on the attached spreadsheet.  I keep this up to date on a daily basis.

• If you scroll to the right you'll see everyone's picks, tracking for who paid (For Shaming Purposes), how much money is in the pot, and the payouts

• Scrolling down you'll see a summary that shows when each conference tournament starts, the location, projected winners, historical winners, if the seeding is finalized yet, and a link to the TV schedule and bracket

• B.I. has the most upset/bonus picks and is starting with the opportunity to get 47 points, riding teams like TCU and Furman!

• Smallz FF (Chris Iannuzzi) is the chalkiest this year, even his upset/bonus picks are teams like Albany as a 3 seed

• For the 1st year ever, we don't have a conference in which everyone picked the same conference champion, even in the West Coast Conference we had Tina NOT pick Gonzaga

To review for any one new to this, because the regular season is still in progress for many conferences, updates to the Master Spreadsheet will continue to happen over the next several days as conference tournament seeding is finalized for the different conference tournaments.  This may impact your bonus points and max possible points.

Conference tournament games begin tomorrow, Monday, 2/27!  Prior to the games I will attempt to review and send out what to watch for based on our pool picks.  The first few days are tough because you can't rack up any wins, you can only get losses until an actual championship game takes place.  So the game right now is to minimize the number of losses.

Finally, we technically have standings since we can rank people based on max possible points due to bonus picks.  B.I., Sully, and Genthner round out the way too soon top 3.

And I'll remind everyone again, more than half the conferences seeding is not yet finalized, the max points for most of you will change as teams jockey for position this week.  If a conference's seeding is finalized and someone gets stuck with a ineligible team or a team that is listed a DNQ, I will offer you the opportunity to change that pick.

Good luck to everyone over the next 15 days! 

2017 NCAA Basketball Conference Tournament Pool Sign Up Now Live

It's that time of year again...

To make watching the NCAA Basketball 2016 Conference tournaments a little more interesting for the 7th year in a row, below are the details of a pool in which you pick the champion for each conference.  

This has been a ton of fun the past few year's so sign up and pass it along to anyone else that may want to play.  

Congrats to last year's champion, "The Judge" winning easily.

The game is simple, all you do is pick who you think is going to win each of the 32 conference championships.

*NEW for 2017*

The Ivy League will host its first ever conference championship, which means we are now picking winners for an additional conference, with no history

The entry fee is $50 with the following payout structure:  

1st Place receives a 60% payout

2nd Place receives a 25% payout

3rd Place receives a 15% payout

4th Place receives a free entry for the 2018 pool*

*This years free entry is awarded to Safka based on his 2016 finish

This Pool Has a Very Easy Scoring System: The person with the combination of most correct picks, including bonus points, wins the pool.  

Bonus Points are Available:  The bonus point scoring is simple, for every 3 seed or lower winner that you pick, you will be awarded 1 bonus point.  In 2016 11 out of 31 (35%) conference tournament winners were a 3 seed or lower.

Also...

More Ways to Win Money!

The really nice thing about this pool is you have more ways to win money, so even if you're not towards the top of the standings you can still win money throughout the conference tournament week.  It's likely we'll have some ties, so the money gets split among all winners in the event of a tie.

1. Most Bonus Points:  The person with the most total bonus points will win $100

2. Most Power Conference Points:  The person with the most Power Conference points will win $100 (The Power Conferences will be highlighted in red)

3. Lowest Winning Seed:  The person who has the lowest winning seed conference champion wins $50 

4. Closest Big 10 Score:  The person with the closest Big 10 championship game score wins $50 (This is the last conference championship game, so even if you're in last place you have the opportunity to recoup $50!)

As conference tournaments complete at different dates through Selection Sunday, 3/12 I will post updates with the current standing at:

http://2017conferencetournamentchallenge.blogspot.com/

To get started, fill out the attached spreadsheet with the team you think will win each conference tournament and e-mail it back to me no later than Sunday, 2/26.  You can also, call, text, mail, or e-mail your picks in to me if you prefer not to use the spreadsheet. 

It really shouldn't take longer than 5-10 minutes to fill everything out as I included a drop down list for each conference to allow easy and accurate selections for that conference.  

The seed numbers currently shown in the excel spreadsheet may change over the next few weeks as the regular season comes to an end at different dates for each conference.  I will keep the seeds up to date on the master score sheet I send to the group.

I would highly suggest to subscribe to the blog if you want consistent updates as I will avoid sending constant updates to everyone's e-mail.  Every few days however, I will send out a excel copy of the standings.  You can subscribe by entering your e-mail address on the right hand side of the page.

As the tournament gets underway, and we start to have teams eliminated early on, I will post numerous updates to the standings here (Bookmark this link for the standings)

Here are some tips (If you care!):  If you are not college basketball savvy, NOT all teams in some conferences make the conference tournament, so it's a wise move to avoid picking a last place team when viewing the current conference standings on ESPN, CBS Sports, or any other college basketball website.  In addition, many teams this year are ineligible for their conference tournaments, even if they are in first place.  I have marked all known teams as ineligible or DNQ for the tournament in the spreadsheet dropdowns.  Additional teams may be added, but it is currently up to the date of this note.

More tips and tricks to be aware of - Current standings  can be found  at http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/standings which can help show which teams are most likely to win, and you can assume teams in 3rd place and lower are potential Bonus Picks .  But remember, standings may and probably will change between when you submit your picks and when the conference tournament starts for a particular league (i.e. A 4th place team may get hot and jump into a 1 or 2 seed, making them not a bonus pick)

Ensure you fill out your name and E-mail address on the sheet prior to sending it back to me to avoid any confusion.   

I will send out a master spreadsheet with everyone's picks, known bonus points, and conference info prior to the first tournament championship game (Including my picks).  

Money can be sent the following ways:

PayPal:  rwdpeanut@gmail.com

Address: 1067 Whirlaway Ave.  Naperville, IL 60540  

In Person/Vegas

If you have any questions or want to forward this to anyone that may be interested, feel free to do so, just ensure they send the spreadsheet back to me by Sunday, 2/26.