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Note: I had written up a longer post than this, but my computer decided to BSOD on me while writing it. And I was an idiot and didn’t save. Will try to figure out why when time allows. Meanwhile, I’m writing up a shorter post here just to get something up.

We have a winner of the NCAA Tournament Pick ’em who will win the thing, no matter what happens in Monday’s final game (as the top several places all picked North Carolina to win, and not a single person picked Michigan State to win). So looking at the nearly final, very close scores, “ft collins+jakes dinner=win (grant.ortman)” has taken first place, and “burnt bracket (Tyler S)” has taken second place. The Dren won the last-place prize again and will get his t-shirt after I have a chance to redesign it because he’s a two-time loser.

As you may have guessed, “grant.ortman” is a relative of mine in Colorado, and I’ll be shipping the winning prizes his way. “Tyler S.” if you can contact me via your Yahoo! email address on the tournament page or post an alternate email address for yourself, that’d be terrific. Remember that the rules state that contact has to be made within two weeks or I start going down the list.

Thanks again to all the prize providers who threw in prizes (click on their banners up by the BendBroadband ad), and I’ll post one more wrap-up on Monday after the final scores have been tallied (as there may be a few brackets down in the ranks that will move up).

While I picked two of the Final Four teams in the pick ’em, I’m still basically at end of the pack since I couldn’t seem to pick any of the other games properly. Right now, GoldenBearsInBend is holding onto a slim two point lead heading into the final weekend of play, but with the two final four games worth eight points and the championship game worth 13, there are easily 10 people that could still win this thing.

(Note: The tournament scenario generator that Yahoo! made appears to be perpetually broken, so I don’t know the possible ways this could turn out — I’m basing this all on the “possible points” listed on the tournament page. Why they switched from a completely functional Java version last year to a never-seems-to-work Flash one is beyond me. But I digress…)

I’m just hoping Michigan State wins their game, at the very least, so I can at least beat Jack (right now we’re tied, but he has nobody in the final four picked).

The spreadsheet has been updated.

So the round three of the pick ’em is over, and the leadership has changed since yesterday: Tasmanian_devils has regained a part of the lead along with Club Ed (who, full disclosure, is from Discover Sunriver, and isn’t eligible to win the towels he contributed). That being said, there are still several folks who could win the thing, and with the four games this weekend each worth five points, things will start to separate a bit more on top (be sure to play with the scenerio generator to see how things could end up). The spreadsheet has been updated with the latest scores, and remember that there are tie-breaker rules if it comes to that.

I’ll post scoring updates for round 4 on Sunday after the games are all over, and combine them into one column on the spreadsheet.

But not by much.

He was tied for the lead after last weekend in the pick ’em, but several folks are still within striking distance. Playing with the pick ’em Scenario Generator, there are still ways he can lose, so this thing is certainly not over yet.

Update with a different link for the Scenario Generator. If that doesn’t work, try just clicking the Scenario Generator link on the group page. It’s a slow-loading Flash, regardless.

While Tasmanian_devils had sole possession of the lead yesterday in the pick ’em, after the second day of round two, he has some company: everybody’s favorite food critic. The two of them are tied with four folks right on their taile (and many more within striking distance). Everybody’s still kickin’ my butt, including my boss, brother, and bojack. TheDren has already locked up the last-place prize and will be getting his t-shirt sometime — whenever I get around to it (next year, I’m going to have the last-place prize be something good so more people try to “win” it).

As usual, the spreadsheet has been updated.

The first day of round two in the pick ’em is over, and we have a new leader: Tasmainian_devils jumped from the middle of the pack to sole possession of the lead. There are four folks who are right on his tail, and pretty much everybody is kicking my butt. The games tomorrow will certainly mix things up a bit.

The spreadsheet has been updated if you want to see day-by-day scoring.

Round one of the pick ’em is over with a bunch of great upsets (which totally screwed my bracket, as I’m minus one Final Four team). We have a new leader with Monkeyinabox and 206Huskies tied for first. Which each game over the weekend worth two points, it’ll start to separate out some more. The spreadsheet and pretty graph has been updated.

I wasn’t following it as much through the day as I would’ve liked this evening, as my wife and I have gotten addicted to the British TV series MI-5 (aka Spooks) and we’ve been catching up on past seasons of that — Netflix Instant is awesome.

Day one of the pick ’em is over, and after 16 games played, we actually had somebody that picked all 16 of them correctly (even the 12-5 upset). So congrats to Homersolo for picking every game right today. There are three folks that picked 15 of them right today, and then six more that picked 14 right (the full scoring is all here). I did remove one bracket from the list, as only three of the games were picked, so they were not only not going to win, but they weren’t going to lose (The Dren appears to be well on his way to wrapping that up again — maybe I should make the prize for last place a bit better next time to encourage the fine art of sucking). Things are tight now, but things will start to spread out more this weekend as more games are played with more point values starting on Saturday.

As long as I beat my boss, that’s all that matters to me. And right now, I am, if only by a point.

We’ve got all sorts of fun prizes up for grabs in the NCAA pick ’em, but you need to sign up and get your bracket setup tonight as the games start tomorrow and I won’t be taking entries after that.

Be sure to check out that huge banner ad on the left side over there, too. NCAA.com is going to be streaming the games live on their site (in case you’re stuck at work and want to sneak in some watching), and that banner ad will take you to where you need to be.