For additional commentary on Market Madness Contest strategy and results, please check out the Market Madness message forum.

Wednesday, Mar. 26
All GuruPatron entries have been tentatively identified. You can now elect to see the standings for "GuruPatrons only". Only GuruPatrons are eligible for prizes other than the two cash prizes. If you are a GuruPatron and your entry does not appear in the GuruPatron standings, please send me an email. My identification method was not foolproof. Remember also that members of the immediate family of any GuruPatron are also considered to be GuruPatrons.

Thursday afternoon, Mar. 20
There are 396 entrants this year (down about 10% from last year.) I think all picks were stored correctly. Please report any problems ASAP. (davehall@rotoguru2.com)

I've posted a sortable summary of the unit selections. Click on any linked column heading to sort by that column. UCLA, North Carolina, Texas, and Pitt are the most popular longs, while Memphis, the Big 10 basket, Tennessee, and Wisconsin were the most heavily shorted.

To give you a chance at a "Mulligan", or to give late entrants a chance to try this out, I've enabled the program to allow new sets of picks to be stored - but only for entrants who do not already have an official set of picks included in the standings. If you failed to get your picks in on time, or if you set up a late registration, you can still store a new set of picks. These late entries will not be listed in the official contest standings, but you can still track their progress using the "My Score" link at the left. This at least allows you to let the system do the scorekeeping for you.

The standings will be updated periodically during the day. Click on the standings link, and the number of games included will appear in the page heading. Remember that because cash received on shorts is part of your net return, entries with large short imbalances will appear at the top of the rankings at the start of the contest. After several rounds, most of those will drift down, unless their shorts have worked out very well. It is typical that some entrants position their picks with the apparent objective of gaining an early lead. Everyone seeks their 15 minutes of fame, I guess.

GuruPatron identifiers have not yet been set up in the standings. Hopefully, I’ll have that done within the next few days.

Tuesday, Mar. 18
If you are new to the Market Madness format, don’t despair when you read the scoring rules. Even if you don’t “get it”, fill out a set of picks and try it for a year. Once you’ve lived through a tournament, you’ll catch on, and be much better prepared next year. If you want a few simple tips, try these:

• For your shorts, look for first round upsets, and short the loser. For example, if you think that Austin Peay(16) will beat Memphis(1), then short Memphis. You might also try shorting one or two of the top seed baskets (1-3). For example, shorting the #1 seeds gives you plenty of opportunities to profit from an early upset.
• For longs, pick the 4 teams you expect to survive to the Final Four. In many instances, it’s good to take those teams not only as single teams, but also in their basket forms – unless you think the other teams in those baskets are really overrated.
• Pick one or two double-digit seeds as longs. These will pay off well if they make it to the Sweet 16.

Every year, there is a lot of attrition between the contest registrations and the actual entries. It’s not unusual for as many as 25%-30% of the registrants to not submit a set of picks. I’m sure that some of that is simply forgetfulness, but I suspect a larger issue is the confusion factor. One of the dominant feedbacks that I get from people who play for the first year is that they felt pretty befuddled when making selections, but once they see how the tournament and the scoring play out, they can’t wait for next year. The simulator was designed to help you get over that initial hump.

This year I’ve once again been submitting a bunch of “pundit picks”, based on the public bracket selections of a number of different coaches, columnists, and analysts. I simply enter each of these brackets into the simulator, and use it to select an optimum set of selections. These won’t be prize eligible, of course, but will give you a chance to see how you fared against people like Tony Kornheiser or Michael Wilbon, for example. To that end, if you see any published bracket picks by any recognized “experts”, please send me a link to their bracket so that I can add them in.

Sunday, Mar. 16
Brackets are loaded, and prices are set. You may now make your picks, and continue to revise them any time until the opening tipoff of the first game on Thursday, March 20.

The #16 seed in the East Region will be the winner of the Mount St. Mary’s/Coppin State game on Tuesday. There are not separate units for these two teams, and that game does not count for contest scoring.