The 2019 Conference Tournament Championship Pool Final Results

All the conference tournaments games are over, the brackets are out, and this brings the 9th year of our conference tournament pool to a close.  We had a ton of great games over the past 2 weeks, many upsets, some chalk, close games, and blow outs.  We have $1,500 paying out to 12 people.  Below are the final standing along with a snapshot of the money payouts.  If you won money please reach out to me and let me know how you want to be paid.

American Athletic and Big 10 Tournament Championship Game Preview

Yale was able to come back against Harvard late in the 2nd half and coasted to an easy victory.  You can get to the updated Standings by clicking on Standings, the Ivy League is updated.  The Sun Belt conference tournament championship game is in progress with (1) Georgia State vs. (2) UT-Arlington, everyone towards the top of the standings either already lost or has (1) Georgia State.  If Georgia State wins this game we will see 6 people in the top 10 jump over the 4 people that are already out.

American Athletic and Big 10 Conference

• In the American Athletic (1) Houston is the most impact win in terms of setting up our winner, (2) Cincinnati winning helps Sam I Am, Brad, and SJS hang on to the top spots
• But the entire pool will come down to the final conference tournament championship game in the Big 10.  Robb, Searcy, Sam I am, and Corey all have 2 points at stake if (3) Michigan can hold off (1) Michigan State.  If Michigan State wins, depending what happens with the other games in progress, TJH or I may end up winning this pool.
• So many people are still int he running for 1st place!

SEC Tournament Championship Game Preview

I will not be previewing the Atlantic 10 conference tournament championship game that starts at noon CST today because everyone except Andrew was knocked out of this conference.  With Andrew being in 28th and eliminated from everything, if (4) St. Bonaventure wins it doesn't have any overall impact to our pool.  You can get to the updated Standings by clicking on Standings, but we have not had any changes as the Ivy League game is still in the 2nd half.  As soon as the Ivy League game ends the standings will be updated.

SEC

• By far this is the most important tournament for our pool as we have 8 people on (3) Tennessee and no one on (5) Auburn.
• 5 of the top 10 people in the pool have Tennessee, which means bonus points are available
• A Tennessee win will make the remainder of the today a battle for 1st between TJH and Searcy
• Additionally, a Tennessee win will award people bonus points for the bonus point category payout as well as 2 points towards the power conference category payout.
• This is such a big game for our pool

Selection Sunday Preview

Today is Selection Sunday, one of the greatest days of the entire year, and we have 5 conference tournament championship games being played today.  I will do 3-4 blog updates today and I will post standings updates after each conference tournament game ends.  I did find a small calculation error in the excel file that was impacting bonus point losses and max points calculations, that has now been updated and slightly changed the standings.  This did not impact actual wins and actual bonus points.  You can get to the updated Standings by clicking on Standings, everything is up to date prior to the Ivy League conference championship tip off.

Anyone that has been eliminated from being able to reach a top 4 spot has been grayed out on the standings file.  We have 13 people that can finish in the top 4, the number that can win the pool is smaller, but we have 25+ scenarios for 1st place.  While (6) Oregon secured the bonus point payout for lowest winning seed last night, the other categories are still up for grabs, so everyone has the ability to win some money today.

Ivy League

• (1) Harvard will match up against (2) Yale with the 1st championship game at 11:00 AM CST this morning
• As with all 5 championship games today, this one is very important because only 5 out of the 13 people in the running have Harvard, the other 8 have Yale
• I don't know the exact scenario, but a  Harvard loss will make it difficult for 5 people to finish in the top 4. 

Standings Updated

Shortest post ever.

You can get to the updated Standings by clicking on Standings, everything is up to date through Saturday night.

If you don't know who Collin Welp is, look him up.  U.C. Irvine.

Vermont and North Carolina Central Punch Tickets

We are 2 conference championship games in for today and in the America East we saw (1) Vermont easily dismantle UMBC and in the MEAC (3) North Carolina Central was able to beat the favorite Norfolk State.  We still have 12 more conference championship games today, plus many more semi-final games.  You can get to the updated Standings by clicking on Standings, everything is up to date through the MEAC conference championship.

I will continue to post updated standings throughout the evening today as we work our way through the remaining 12 conference championships being played today.  We have a lot of bonus point opportunities available with (3), (4), (5), and (6) seeds playing for championships!

A Day of Championship Games - Morning Preview

Below is a short preview of the Saturday morning and afternoon conference championship games.  If I can find some time I'll post a second blog today going over the late afternoon/evening conference championship games.  You can get to the Standings by clicking on Standings, everything is up to date through the end of Friday night.

America East

• We have a 10:00 AM CST championship game to get things started early.
• 9 people have potential bonus points if (3) UMBC can win, but most of our pool picked (1) Vermont.

MEAC

• At noon CST we have another match up with potential bonus points as (1) Norfolk State take on (3) North Carolina Central.
• Norfolk State is our pool favorite with 44.12% of the picks and the Team Rankings favorite with a 32.55% chance to win the conference tournament.
• North Carolina Central has won this championship the past 2 years.
• Between these two early morning championship games, if the bonus points come through on both we'll start to see major standings separation.

Starting at 5:00 PM CST today through 11:00 PM CST we will see 12 more conference championship games tip off, I will attempt to do some sort of preview for those.  At the very least we'll have updated standings posted after the MEAC conference championship game.