NCAA Basketball Big Bucks!

REVIEW: Rounds 1 & 2; Monday, March 20, 206

Heading to the Final Four, Maybe.

All four teams I picked to go to the Final Four survived thier first and second round games over the weekend. That doesn't mean I'm any closer to winning the $10,000 first prize in ESPN's Tournament Challenge.

Of the three entries I submitted to ESPN, only one is still performing well, showing 91 % percent accuracy. But I have only earned 450 points ot of a possible 640. ESPN's Leader Board

shows the top contender at 94 % with 540 points. My ranking is 223478 out of 2.2 million entrants.

Since the point system is an assending scale, the next round of games are worth 60 and 80 points each, with the Final Four netting 120 points for correct picks. The championship game is worth 160 points. So, it's easy to catch up quickly, if the leaders miss one or two games from here on out.

This ESPN contest is lods of fun. I recommend it for any NCAA turney

UPDATE: Saturday, March 18, 2006

WARREN, PA--I did the math. And, it doesn’t figure to my advantage. I will not be collecting $10,000 as the winner of the ESPN Tournament Challenge for the NCAA men‘s basketball tourney.

I cannot accumulate enough points to overtake the current leaders, about 200 of the 2.2 million entrants who have near perfect scores.

My highest possible score in 1550 of 1680.

But, it’s not all gloom and doom. I’m currently running at 81 percent, having correctly picked the winners in 26 of 32 games in the first round. I only have three future loses straight through to the championship game, so I’ll probably move up in the rankings. I’m in 506,785 place right now.




Keep the bragging rights, I'll take the $10,000 from ESPN

After about 20 years of participating in a local “office pool” for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, I opted this time for the Internet and found several national pools that offer cash., cars and Final Four tickets as top prizes.

The local pool required a $2 entry fee. Since it’s a small office there is only about $75 in potential winnings, and bragging rights.

The ESPN national challenge contest offers $10,000 for a winning entry. There is no entry fee and you can submit as many as five entries FREE! Other free pools I’ve entered are CBSSports, which offers two tickets to the 2007 Final Four as top prize, and NCAA Challenge, a pool apparently sponsored by General Motors, which offers a Pontiac Gran AM as top prize.

Preliminary results for my entry in the ESPN Challenge finds that after half of the first round games on Thursday, my best showing is the entry I submitted picking all the top seded teams to win their games.

I scored 120 of a possible 160 points to yeild an 89 % performance. I rank 305,196 out of 2.2 million entries. Currently there are 78,456 perfect entries.

Then, I’ll turn my attention to horse racing in April as we head to the Triple Crown followed by the NHL playoffs and Stanley Cup finals in June.

While most of my weekend will focus on watching the NCAA tourney and the prospects of winning big cash, I’ll take a break here and there for some socializing. My friend Vicky and I are set for lunch at Taco Hut on Saturday. She has an active interest in the tournament and has been participating in the local office pool from the beginning. She has won first place honors at least twice now.

On the arts and culture scene this weekend, is the season finale Saturday evening for the Warren Concert Association, which is closing this year with the jazzy big band sound of the Gene Krupa Orchestra.