It’s become clear to me that most pool administrators are handling this newfangled “First Four” different than me, and concerns have been expressed about the Tuesday deadline, and the uncertainties created by those Tuesday & Wednesday games. As such, I’ve had a change of heart about the pool deadline and rules. I’ve decided to utilize the ingenious “Option 3” described here. Basically, it will work like this…
Well, wait. First things first. If what follows below makes your head spin, and you have no idea what I’m talking about, JUST IGNORE IT AND ENTER THE POOL NOW. 🙂 Treat 4:30 PM MST Tuesday as the deadline, and pay no attention to all this mumbo-jumbo.
Having said that, here’s the new procedure…
1) If you submit your bracket before Tuesday’s pair of “First Four” games, you can pick all games, and your maximum possible point total will be 477.
2) If you submit your bracket in between Tuesday’s “First Four” games and Wednesday’s “First Four” games, you can pick all but those 2 Tuesday games, and your maximum possible point total will be 471.
3) If you submit your bracket in between Wednesday’s “First Four” games and the regular Thursday noon EST deadline, you can pick all but the 4 Tuesday & Wednesday “First Four” games, and your maximum possible point total will be 465.
4) If you submit your bracket “early,” with First Four picks, and then you get a First Four game wrong, and if you have the loser of that game going beyond the Round of 64, you will get credit if the actual winner (the team you didn’t pick in the First Four game) goes as far as you thought the loser would go. In other words, let’s say you have USC beating VCU and then going to the Sweet 16, but in fact VCU beats USC. Your bracket will effectively “change” to a VCU-to-the-Sweet-16 bracket, and you’ll get credit if the Rams win the games you thought the Trojans would win. Thus, you aren’t penalized for entering the pool early, as compared to those who waited until they know who won the VCU-USC game.
5) On the other hand, if you submit your bracket “early,” but then events in the actual “First Four” games cause you to change your mind about your picks in later rounds (e.g., you made the above-referenced picks because you thought USC matched up well with Georgetown, but you don’t think VCU does), such that you want to re-submit your bracket, YOU CAN DO SO, anytime before the Thursday deadline. You’ll be in the same position as “late” entrants, and will get no points for any First Four games that took place before your re-submission. Basically, it will be like your “early” bracket never happened. But otherwise, you won’t be penalized. Thus, once again, “late” entrants don’t get any unfair advantage by waiting.
6) Point number 5 also means that nobody is penalized by this belated rule change. If you already entered your bracket, but this new rule causes you to want to change it, simply re-submit your picks and you’re golden.
As a practical matter, this means the entry form will disappear Tuesday night around 6:30 PM Eastern, then re-appear after the UAB-Clemson game ends, and the same pattern will repeat itself on Wednesday night. THE FINAL DEADLINE WILL BE NOON EASTERN ON THURSDAY (but anyone who waits until then will have left 12 points on the table by not predicting any of the “First Four” games).
Again, if this confuses you, just ignore it and enter the dang pool now. 🙂
I say do an early entry bracket and do a late entry bracket, don’t do an interim bracket. Much less confusing.
If you’re saying what I think you’re saying, that would mean nobody could enter the pool at all between ~6:30 PM Eastern Tuesday and ~11:00 PM Wednesday. Put another way, nobody could enter during business hours on Wednesday. That would almost defeat the purpose of extending the deadline.
Once the Round of 64 starts, there will be no such thing as “early entry brackets” and “late entry brackets,” they will all just be brackets. The only confusion is how we get there, and like I said, if people are confused by it, they should just ignore it, and treat Tuesday as the deadline. However, for those who are very particular about their brackets and want this option, or who are just procrastinators, this option is there.
If I’m saying what I think you’re saying David is saying that you are saying, I’m just making shit up as I go along. 😉
I’m pretty sure I’ll submit a bracket tonight, and then redo it again two days hence — unless I get all four play-in games correct.
Keep in mind, if you get, say, 3 out of 4 play-in games correct, you’d be throwing away 9 points by doing that. But if the 1 play-in game you get wrong impacts the rest of your bracket, it might be worth it — though even then, you’re throwing away 9 real points for an unknown number of speculative points. Could make for some interesting choices.
Hmm, I suppose you are right. Still it would have been nice if the commitee had 1) Not expanded, 2) made the 16’s the play in game.
Heh. I have mixed feelings about #2, agree with #1. Personally I’d say they should have gone back to a clean 64 teams. Would we really be worse off if, in addition to Colorado and Virginia Tech and St. Mary’s, the committee had also “snubbed” UAB, Clemson, VCU and, with apologies to, er, myself, USC? I think not. None of these are championship-worthy teams. That doesn’t mean they can’t make a run, but we don’t need ’em. Get ’em out of there and give me back a proper bracket, NCAA. And get off my lawn. Bah. Humbug.
If you look at it the lowest seed to ever win was an 8, so you could reasonably make an argument that we don’t need even 64 teams, 32 should do. Of course I’m sure you’d bring up George Mason’s improbably run in 2006, which is fine for tournament drama, but I’d argue its not a good way of determining a champion. Its a good way of determining a team that plays good during the year and great in a few games at the end.
But thats a whole new argument. I doubt the bell will ever be unrung to go back to a more reasonable 32 teams, so it should stay at 64.
I think the 68-team format is a bit silly, but I disagree with both of you on the fixes. The committee should have jumped directly to the 96-team schedule, with the Top 32 getting a first-round bye, and the lower 64 playing into seeds 9-16.
Also, it struck me today: Why the heck is the NCAA Selection Committee not already using a software program to do the seeding? They already use a software program to assist them in determining which teams are in (and this can be further refined to recommend “stone-cold lock” at-large teams, recommended in, and recommended out, which the committee can then sift through). I can’t understand any arguments why they shouldn’t use a program to determine seeding — every contingency and variable the committee worries about once teams are already selected can be programmed in. For instance, you can:
– Have the software suggest an “S-curve” seeding based on a number of factors and inputs (e.g. RPI, SOS / OOC SOS, kenpom ratings / Log5 results, or whatever you want)
– Shuffle team seeding within a certain range to accommodate other exclusionary policies (avoid in-conference opponents until Elite 8 — or Sweet 16 for the Big East whenever they have 9 or more teams; avoid non-conference rematches until Elite 8; ensure higher seeds are seeded in geographic pods that favor them for sub-regionals; avoid mid-major match-ups in Round 1; and so on)
– Spit out recommended “scenarios” for the committee to debate and implement
So many head-scratching seeding decisions could be avoided this way, and the programming algorithms for this would presumably be relatively straightforward, I cannot understand why this is not being done already. From the committee’s standpoint, it would raise the likelihood of them achieving their political, financial, and competitive fairness objectives, as well as making the entire process much faster and easier — seriously, what’s not to like?!?
You seriously think that 96 teams have honestly earned the right to be considered the BEST team in college basketball this season? Really? I realize not everyone is going to be as strict as my prefered guidelines would be (must have won your conference) but still, 96 hardly seems like a reasonable field to argue that all these teams are deserving. Hell even the 64 team field regularly includes teams who have no legitimate claim (bubble teams, for example, if its not obvious you belong, its obvious you didn’t earn the shot).