Picking brackets is fun, but let's face it: It gets old fast and is over fast (if your title team loses early, you're pretty much done).
I have a revolutionary new idea that will operate under the following rules:
1. Each person gets a budget of $100 each week of the tournament (before the second/third rounds, before the Sweet 16/Elite 8, and before the Final 4/Championship).
2. Each person will select as many teams as many teams as they desire as long as said teams can fit in their budget.
3. Teams will earn points as follows:
Second round win = 1 point
Third round win = 3 points
Sweet 16 win = 2 points
Elite 8 win= 6 points
Final 4 win = 3 points
Championship win = 9 points
If you're wondering why the scoring works this way, it's because A) It's harder to pick the second game of the weekend than it is the first and B) It's harder to pick games later in the tournament.
4. The most points at the end of the tournament wins. If this pool has 10 or less people, the winner will take 70% and 2nd place will take 30%. If it has more than 10 people, the winner will take 60%, 2nd will take 30%, and 3rd will take 10%.
If you're wondering how the price per team will be created, I'll simply use a proprietary spreadsheet uses a proprietary rating that gives outcome a percentage (St. Bonaventure has a .005% chance to win it all).
As some examples, Wisconsin is 55.5% likely to win both games by my calculations and Virginia is 13% likely to win both games. When you add all of the calculations together from all 64 teams, you get a total of 16.
The idea is to use these percentages, then, to price each team. If a team were somehow 100% likely to win both games, their cost would be $50.
So, without further ado, here is the price list for week 1:
KENTUCKY 42
OHIO ST. 42
NORTH CAROLINA 37
KANSAS 34
MICHIGAN ST. 34
SYRACUSE 33
MISSOURI 31
WISCONSIN 28
DUKE 25
WICHITA ST. 25
NEW MEXICO 23
GEORGETOWN 22
BAYLOR 21
MARQUETTE 21
FLORIDA ST. 20
MICHIGAN 19
NEVADA LAS VEGAS 18
CINCINNATI 16
INDIANA 16
LOUISVILLE 15
MURRAY ST. 15
VANDERBILT 15
CALIFORNIA 13
FLORIDA 13
KANSAS ST. 12
NOTRE DAME 11
BELMONT 10
BRIGHAM YOUNG 10
SAN DIEGO ST. 10
TEXAS 10
XAVIER 10
LONG BEACH ST. 9
MEMPHIS 9
OHIO 9
PURDUE 9
TEMPLE 9
NORTH CAROLINA ST. 7
SOUTH DAKOTA ST. 7
ST. LOUIS 7
VIRGINIA 7
ALABAMA 6
CREIGHTON 6
ST. MARY'S 6
COLORADO 5
HARVARD 5
LEHIGH 5
ST. BONAVENTURE 5
COLORADO ST. 4
CONNECTICUT 4
GONZAGA 4
IOWA ST. 4
NEW MEXICO ST. 4
SOUTHERN MISSISSIPPI 4
VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH 4
DAVIDSON 3
WEST VIRGINIA 3
LAMAR 2
MONTANA 2
DETROIT 1
LONG ISLAND 1
LOYOLA MD 1
NC ASHEVILLE 1
NORFOLK ST. 1
WESTERN KENTUCKY 1
(Note that I just picked a random team from each First Four matchup, so you'll probably want to ignore those unless you feel really confident.)
Again, you can construct a squad of however many teams you would like AS LONG AS YOU STAY AT OR UNDER $100. You could literally have 28 teams in your stable! Unfortunately, almost none of these teams would be likely to win even one game, let alone two, so that's what you need to grapple with. Do you want to take a few near sure-things (like Kentucky and Ohio State) or do you want to do something in-between?
Whatever you do, remember that you'll be supplied with new team prices next week.
Entry is $30 per entry ... and you can have as many entries as you want. Feel free to share with friends, but if we get above 20 entries somehow, I'm keeping 5% for myself for doing the legwork.
If you want to be in, send me an email titled 2012 NCAA POOL WEEK 1 TEAMS with your teams and their prices included (to save me some legwork on inputting into the master spreadsheet) and $30 via PayPal gift (bobwothe@gmail.com) or check (2190 Willow Hill Dr., Neenah, WI 54956) by Thursday at 10 a.m. CST.
OH, last thing: In order to remove any issues with me knowing other people's picks before giving my own, I (and my wife if she chooses to play) will send our picks to a new email account each week before 11:59 p.m. CST Tuesday. At game time, I will send out an email with a spreadsheet containing everyone's picks AS WELL AS the login credentials to the email account that I create. This will provide a timestamped version of our picks so that y'all can rest assured that I am not cheating.
Let me know if you have any questions and feel free to share with others!
