My primary bracket this year has an Elite 8 of:
Gonzaga/Texas Tech
Arizona/Tennessee
UCLA/Kentucky
Kansas/Auburn
My big brain bracket that is a little bolder, taking inspiration from some analytics, swaps out Arizona for Houston.
So I was pretty surprised that I was able to get Texas Tech, Houston, Tennessee, UCLA, and Kentucky, 5 of my bold Elite 8 teams covering the West, South and East. Then I also got a team in the Midwest that I've got making the Sweet 16.
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I think Gonzaga is going to win it all. I came in willing to spend $13 on the Zags. When I wasn't willing to bid 13.75, I pivoted. I tried to get Arizona, but was happy to get Kentucky for under $8. Coming in I thought I would be lucky to get 4 of my elite 8 contenders.
There were teams that I didn't want to spend money on: Baylor, Duke, Kansas, Villanova, Arkansas, Wisconsin.
In addition to Gonzaga and Arizona and the teams I ended up getting, I also wanted Purdue, Iowa, 11 seeds and 13 seeds but you can't have them all.
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Of course, it's all a crap shoot. You can have feelings about all kinds of teams that don't come true.
For example, this is a very likely Elite 8:
Gonzaga/Duke
Arizona/Villanova
Baylor/Purdue
Kansas/Auburn
If that happens, I've got zero teams alive. So who knows.
It would have been helpful if you had hit publish on your elite 8 picks BEFORE calcutta.
ReplyDeleteI didn't follow basketball except for the Illini, just knew that Gonzaga was at the top the whole year, plus some Auburn sprinkled in and that Arizona climbed to the top 5 and stayed there. Naturally, I got none of them. I didn't want Duke and got left holding the bag on them. Same with Villanova. I did not care for the auction this year. With six people it seemed like there was a lot of money to throw around on only a few good teams. It's all a crapshoot anyway. That said, though, Kirat doesn't have a lot of upside after the first weekend (except for Purwon't).