Let's start with the bracket contest. Niraj won our group of 11 valid entries, with an impressive 1420, nailing all three games of the final weekend.
Niraj's 1420 finished better than 99.2% of the country. Pretty good. Brit finished in 2nd once again, who I'm convinced has the record for most 2nd place finishes.
I somehow finished in 3rd (of legit entries, not counting Niraj's for fun entry) because I was the only other one that had UConn reaching the final game.
My work had a bracket contest with 31 entries. 9 had UConn winning it all. The winner in that league had a 1430, 2nd place had 1400. I finished in 17th place with a 650.
Even though I can only enter one in our friend contest, I did end up making 14 brackets, trying to cover all the things I thought possible. Even with getting 14x the chances, I only had one that beat Niraj's entry.
Just shows how valuable it is to get the Champion right.
Meanwhile in Calcutta, I botched everything. It's true that Kirat took the Champion first overall...but even if I had the first pick, I was going to take Houston.
I thought the clear top 3 was Houston, UConn and Purdue. I thought it would be too unlikely for UConn to repeat and I thought Houston's experience last year would serve them better than Purdue's lack of experience. Basically, I bungled getting the 2nd pick and fell backwards into NC State. My Calcutta game is weak.
And Mark and I did a bonus sweet 16 point-spread bracket and I bungled not taking UConn first overall in that one too. Bad job by me.
