2015 NCAA Basketball Conference Tournament Pool Picks Are In!

The picks are (almost) in and the spreadsheet is updated with everyone's selections!  We still have a few more entries coming in tonight and tomorrow morning.

Please take a close look at your picks and if anything looks inaccurate or you need to make a change due to seeding changes or you have a DNQ/Ineligible team, you will need to let me know before the end of the day on Monday, March 2.  If you let me know after Monday, March 2 then Kevin Stallings comes to your house and threatens to kill you.

Important Note:  In the Atlantic Sun Conference, Northern Kentucky (4 Seed) was originally ineligible for the conference tournament, however they are now eligible.  If anyone would like to change their Atlantic Sun pick, for any reason, you may do that, I will need to know your change by the end of the day on Monday, March 2

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.

Also, as conference tournaments complete at different dates through Sunday, 3/15, I will post updates along with the current standing on the blog via the link below.  I'll also send e-mail updates as needed.

http://2015ncaaconferencetournamentchallenge.blogspot.com/

Because the regular season is still in progress for some 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.

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 throughout the day.

• If you scroll to the right you'll see everyone's picks, tracking for who paid, 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, and a link to the TV schedule and bracket

Conference tournament games begin on Tuesday, 3/3.  Prior to the games I will 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.

• By far, Doug has the most upset picks and is starting with the opportunity to get 54 points
• Close behind is Rabitoy with 49 max points, but after that it drops to a more normal range
• Shockingly, Chris Iannuzzi is the chalkiest with only 3 upset picks (I really am shocked that he actually tried this year)
• And I'll remind everyone again, half the conferences seeding are not yet finalized, the the max points for most of you will change as teams jockey for position this week

Good luck to everyone! 

It should be a really fun 13 days of conference tournament action, and win some money!

2015 NCAA Basketball Conference Tournament Pool Sign Up Now Live

It's that time of year again...

To make watching the NCAA Basketball 2015 Conference tournaments a little more interesting for the 5th 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 years so sign up and pass it along to anyone else that may want to play.  Congrats to last years champion,  Joel, who dominated this pool in 2014!

The entry fee is $40 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 2014 pool*

*This years free entry is awarded to Curt based on his 2014 finish

This Pool Has a Very Easy Scoring System: The person with the combination of most correct picks, including bonus points, wins the pool.  Any tiebreakers will be decided by guessing the score of the Big 10 Championship game. 

Tiebreaker Details:  Predict the combined score of the Big 10 Championship game and the person with the closest score will win any tiebreaker.  (Example:  If you think Team A will score 60 and Team B will score 58,  you will predict a score of 118).  Do not forget to pick your Big 10 score on the spreadsheet.

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 2014 10 out of 31 (32%) conference tournament winners were a 3 seed or lower.

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, 3/1.  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.

More Ways to Win Money for 2015!

The really nice thing about this pool is we now 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 $80 (The Power Conferences are highlighted in red)

3. Lowest Winning Seed:  The person who has the lowest winning seed conference champion wins $40 (Go 6 seeds!)

4. Closest Big 10 Score:  The person with the closest Big 10 championship game score wins $20 (This is the last conference championship game, so even if you're in last place you have the opportunity to recoup $20!)

As conference tournaments complete at different dates through Selection Sunday, 3/15 I will post updates with the current standing  at:

http://2015ncaaconferencetournamentchallenge.blogspot.com

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 Whirlway 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, 3/1.  

Thanks!

Rick Donegan

630-885-2873