Quote of the day
"When I went to Alabama as the head coach at the age of 33, John Wooden told me one time, he said, 'Coach, don't give them too much too fast. They might start expecting that every year.’ … Well, we failed in that category already." -- First-year NC State head coach Mark Gottfried, after beating Georgetown to advance to the Sweet 16Daily blurb
Madness and drafting and golf – oh my!
My head is still spinning from all of the weekend activity.
So far, the tournament is looking very average. For the past 27 years, there have been an average of 12.8 upsets in the first two (full) rounds. This year: 13 upsets (seed-based). The average Sweet 16 has teams whose seeds add up to 70.5, and this year’s seed sum is 73. We could still end up with all four #1 seeds in the Final Four, or we could end up with a stunning set of underdogs. Too early to call how this one will eventually look in the history books.
As of this point, the Market Madness Contest standings still tend to reward entries that shorted a lot of the top seeds, particular in basket format. If those top seeds continue to advance, those entries will lose a lot of value. So don’t read too much into the current standings, unless you are really sucking with lots of shorts still active and very few longs. In that case, you’re toast – time to move on to baseball.
Two teams tied for the top bestball score (-45) in GuruGolf this weekend. Worstball honors went to caddies with a +42, of which 27 of those strokes occurred in the final two rounds. I obviously took my eye off the ball this weekend, as my four GuruGolf teams had only three golfers make the cut – combined. Thanks goodness for all of the distractions. I barely noticed.