New Rule For Future Picks

I had two new rules I was going to add for future years, but I'll be darned if I can think of the second one right now. I'll add it later on if I recall it. Here is the one that should be quite obvious:

Always pick last years championship team to repeat as champs if they return all five starters.

2007 OfficePool64.com Top Ten Finishers

Congratulations goes out to this years top ten finishers in the 2007 OfficePool64.com contest:

1 - Brian Michnowski [196 points]
2 - Troy Liske [195 points]
3 - kden [193 points]
4 - Brad Balcerzak [190 points]
5 - Gregy D [189 points]
6 - gllll [187 points]
7 - Justin Mangold [185 points]
8 - Dick [183 points]
9 - Hal Cason [180 points]
10 - Steve Mason [179 points]

Like A Stuck Record, Gators Win, Gators Win, Gators Win

Well, it wasn't that dramatic, but Florida repeats as National Champions of the 2007 Men's Basketball Tournament. All around a decent game to watch. Ohio State was able to keep Oden in the game, which the experts all said needed to happen if they even had a shot at winning tonight. What didn't happen for the Buckeyes was their outside shooting game. It was on the bench in foul trouble this game instead of Oden.

Florida, returning all five starters from the 2006 Championship team proved once again and earned their second consecutive championship. Corey Brewer was amazing, in my eyes tonights MVP. Other than Brewer, no one really stood out from the Gators. That is a good team effort, as it took everyone doing their job for tonights victory.

Sixty Four, Minus Sixty Two, Equals Two

I can't believe I didn't have them paired up in the finals. I did four pick sheets with various different methods on how I picked the teams this year. I had Florida winning it all and I had Ohio State winning it all. Not once did I pick Florida and Ohio State to meet in the Championship match up. I was so sure that one of the two would win this tournament, yet I neglected to see the most obvious match up of all. Florida vs Ohio State.

Talk about a dream come true match up for the NCAA selection committee. They hit the home run on this years schedule. You get the number one ranked team in the nation versus last years championship team. Could it get any better than the game on Monday night? I'm psyched! I can't wait.

The odd thing was watching both games unfold. Both teams struggled to get the final four. Coming from behind to win in many of their earlier games. Tonight was not the case. They came to play, they got the lead and never looked back. Ohio State still had the foul trouble with Greg Oden, but they've now won their last three games with him sitting on the bench for the majority of the game. They will need him to stay out of foul trouble on Monday if they expect to win.

Florida was on cruise control. It was hardly a contest this time around with UCLA. Florida looked like they are in top shape to repeat as National Champions two years in a row. A feat that's rare these days in any sport. Five returning starters from a championship team, why shouldn't they win again? When is the last time that has happened?

I'll be adding two new guidelines to follow based on this years tournament on how you can win next years tournament. I'll release them a little later on, but I have mentioned one already.

Rematch Of 2006 Is Set

We are down to the final four teams for the 2007 tournament. One side of the bracket has a replay of the 2006 championship match up between #1 Florida Gators and #2 UCLA Bruins, while the other side of the bracket has #1 Ohio State versus #2 Georgetown.

The games are to be played on Saturday and Monday evening. Ohio State and Georgetown kick things off at 6:07 EST followed up by Florida and UCLA at 8:47 EST [or 30 minutes after the first games ends]

Round 3 Stand Outs - 8 for 8

14 pick sheets correctly picked all eight winning teams. Eight! I was feeling good about going 7 for 8 with my bracket, but 14 people were 100% correct.

Gregy D - 1st place
Adam Michniwski - 3rd
Steve Burow - 4th
Frank Mar 6 - 21st
Trenton Stokes - 6th
Dick - 6th
Brian Michnowski - 12
Chris Charters - 16
kden - 37
Frank Mar 2 - 56th
Mailman Dan - 56th
Joe Lacognata - 71
Tony Jelinek - 93
Frank Mar 3 - 143

Ho Hum, Yet Another Come From Behind Victory For The Number 1 Seed

So yeah, all four number 1 seeds advance to the final eight teams in the tournament. All four teams have to come from behind to win their games. Tonights late game featured North Carolina with a repeat performance from last night Ohio State come back victory. The Heels, down by as much as 16 points advance over USC and win by 10 points. A 26 point swing. Well, it should have been had it not been for the tantrum the Trojan coach had with under a minute by picking up the technical foul.

So we end up with, going into the 4th round of games, four number 1 seeds, three number 2 seeds and one number 3 seed. Thanks Wisconsin for ruining the curve. I kid you cheeseheads. [I'm thinking of the Randy Moss end zone mooning]

What's interesting for me personally, before the pairings were announced, I was talking with a friend of mine about who we thought we be the national champion. This has been a very strange year as I thought there was 5 or 6 very strong teams that could win this year. I'd been perplexed as to whom I wanted to win it all from the get go. The 5-6 teams I was leaning to before anything announced was Florida, Ohio State, North Carolina, Kansas, Georgetown were the 5, the 6th team was really three teams. Wisconsin was strong, but the had a major injury, UCLA was strong, but they lost in the first round of their conference tournament, and Memphis was a hot team, but I was concerned that they didn't play in a conference that was strong enough for them to compete when the field got down to 8 teams.

Oddly enough, all but Wisconsin have advanced. I'm looking my exact conversation from about four weeks ago. Who really is going to win this year? There isn't one team that you can point at and say, yep they've got it this year. It's still really anyone's game as each remaining team has massive strengths, but are all beatable under the right conditions. Look at all four number one seeds, each team has struggled and come from behind to win. Aside from the UNC victory, they barely won their games.

Wow....Ohio State Rolls On

Ohio State, Kansas, UCLA and Memphis all move on to the next round of games on Saturday.

Ohio State, down by 20 points, Greg Oden with 3 fouls, and Conley Jr with 2 fouls [both sitting a good amount of time] end the half looking flat, out played and looks of being schooled by Tennessee. I'm not sure who was playing in the first half compared to the second half team. It was yet another 'what the hell did the coach say' in the locker room to get them motivated?

Saturday we see not one, but two #1 vs #2 match ups. #1 Ohio State vs #2 Memphis, #1 Kansas vs #2 UCLA. The Cinderella teams have left the building. Just think back a year ago, all four number 1 seeds were all eliminated by the final four teams. This year we still have them all. Plenty of basketball to be played, so I may be getting ahead of myself.

Tubby Smith To Coach Minnesota Gophers?

Is this for reals? Tubby Smith of Kentucky Wildcats leaving their program for my Golden Gophers? I am based in Minnesota and the basketball program is in a world of hurt. Did someone not mention this tidbit to Tubby? There has to be a catch, why would someone want to come here? Lost a bet perhaps? I simply do not get it.

Don't get me wrong, I really like this move by the Minnesota Athletic department, but how in the hell did they pull this off is what I wanna know?

CBS Sportsline had this on their write up about the coaching move " Minnesota was 9-22 this season, the most losses in the 111-year history of the program, and averaged just 60.6 points a game, its lowest in 56 years"

Personally I've been so disinterested in watching the Gophers, this may be what it takes to win me back. My highlight of this season was getting to watch Ohio State play. Oddly enough, I liked them so much I picked them to win my bracket [in one of the couple I entered].

2nd Round Salutes

With round two completed, I'm giving a second round salute to two people for correctly picking 14 of 16 teams correct. That's outstanding

Casey Croslin 2
kelly mooberry 2

ABC News Sports Article Quote

This site was mentioned in an ABC News Sports article by Marcus Baram. He wrote a piece titled "How To Win Your Office Pool" that was posted on March 13.

It was basically a good run down on various tips to win your office pool. He used my tip in his article. It was the number 3 tip on the list:

3) Don't pick a team to reach the Final Four if it lost in the first round of a postseason conference tournament, say the folks at OfficePool64.com.

There wasn't any link back, but I did get the site mentioned, thank you.

The Best Weekend Of Basketball Has Completed

Hopefully you didn't overdose on watching basketball the past four days. So many games, so much to watch, pick sheets, brackets, predictions....it can consume you if you've let it.

Thursday and Friday's games were rather uneventful. Saturday and Sunday's games....WOW! Those were some close finishes, minor bracket killers, upsets, some teams look unstoppable. Sixteen teams remain heading into next weekends games which start on Thursday once again.

Little numbers break down. What seeds advanced to next weekends games:

Thursday, March 22 [West Region]
#1 Kansas vs #4 So. Illinois [7:10] - #2 UCLA vs #3 Pittsburgh [9:40]

Thursday, March 22 [South Region]
#1 Ohio State vs #5 Tennessee [7:27] - #2 Memphis vs #3 Texas A&M [9:57]

Friday, March 23 [Midwest Region]
#1 Florida vs #5 Butler [7:10] - #3 Oregon vs #7 UNLV [9:40]

Friday, March 23 [East Region]
#1 No. Carolina [7:27] vs #5 USC - #2 Georgetown vs #6 Vanderbilt [9:57]

1-1-1-1
2-2-2
3-3-3
4
5-5-5
6
7

This really wasn't the typical year for seed # winners compared to previous years. Some of the expected numbers were there, but there is nothing between #8-12. 10 of the 16 teams make up the top three seed numbers. There were no #12 vs #5 upsets. There were two #11 vs #6 upsets, but they were unable to advance in the next round versus the #3's.

The West bracket saw the seed numbers 1-2-3-4 all advance.

Eight For Eight

Not too shabby on the four people who went 8 for 8 on Saturday. Four people correctly picked all eight winners today, dnamertz, Robb Perkins, steve foster, and Casey Croslin.

Today was the highlight of the three days. So many games came down to the last shot, double overtime, #1 and #2 seeds clawing their way back to a victory. What intensity that was displayed in almost every game.

Holy Crap! Ohio State Vs Xavier Goes To OT

Are you kidding me?!?!?!! I thought we had our first bracket killer, but Lewis makes a clutch 3-point shot for Ohio State and finally we have a game that this tournament is famous for. Down by 9 points with a 1:39 to play, Ohio State ties the game with 2 seconds remaining on the clock off a missed free throw. We are tied....what a game!

Overtime Update: What an incredible finish to the end of regulation. I honestly thought Ohio State was done for. I yelled with joy when the basket fell to tie the game as I have Ohio State winning the championship in one of my brackets. 78-71, the Buckeyes dominate in the overtime portion of the game. Could be from the deflated felling of letting them tie the game in such a dramatic finish.

What a game....finally!

Nothing Has Been The "Norm" after the first round

With the first round completed and looking at today's match ups, its not what many of the 'experts' had predicted.

1 vs 9 [Ohio State vs Xavier]
3 vs 6 [Texas A&M vs Louisville]
2 vs 7 [Georgetown vs Boston College]
3 vs 6 [Washington St vs Vanderbilt]
2 vs 7 [UCLA vs Indiana]
4 vs 5 [Maryland vs Burler]
3 vs 11 [Pittsburgh vs VCU]
1 vs 9 [North Carolina vs Michigan St]

To me, there were not any upsets from the first day of games. Sure, Duke lost to number 11 seed VCU, but honestly, did Duke deserve that high of a seed? The 8 and 9 seeds, I never will call them upsets if the number 9 wins.

Round 1 Has Completed

Check your current standings in the pool via the pool menu on the left.

Hats off to Chris Belcher as she correctly selected 30 of 32 games correctly in the first round of games. She has all final 16 teams still on the board and is currently in the drivers seat....but it is still the beginning of the second round and she is only ahead by two points.

We didn't see that often talked about 5 v 12 upset as has happened in the past, not really any trend of upsets this first round. Duke lost due to global warming, highly predicted by the professionals, #5 Winston defeated Notre Dame, a couple #9's over #8's, but those are not that big on the upset meter. So yeah, lots of better seeds defeated the teams they should have beaten.

Wisconsin on the other hand had to earn it's victory today to #15 seed Texas A&M Corpus Christie. I would have loved to been in the locker room during half time. Whatever their coach said to motivate them for the second half....WOW! Down by 19 points and looking like the first major upset of the tournament, the Badgers come back on a terror and win by 13 points. You should have heard all the swearing during the first half at my work as Wisconsin's first half of game play, or lack of, played out. There was a look on terror on many faces.

Quick Pool Stats for 2007

I had a total of 471 entries for the 2007 OfficePool64.com contest. That was up 80 people from the 2006 office pool.

97 people correctly selected VCU over Duke. Congratulations on that one.

Florida Gators were picked 118 to win the championship game.
Ohio State were picked 87 times.
Kansas Jayhawks were picked 58 times.
North Carolina were picked 52 times.
Georgetown Bulldogs were picked 42 times.

Global Warming Slows Down Duke

It's official, global warming has been blamed for tonights loss by Duke Bluedevils. Paired with having Christian Laettner sitting in the stands, it was a fairly close win for the Rams of Virgina Commonwealth. I recall one of the first headlines after the pairings were announced was "Duke a number 6 seed????" It was questioned at that time why they had that good of a seed number. Tonights loss only proved that headline? The good news is, all of you fans who despise Duke, were happy as a pickle.

Other than that one loss by a #6 seed, there were not any other upsets for the entire day. A #9 beat a #8, but that game was a toss up in my eyes.

96 Rock Morning Show Interview

I was interviewed this morning by Salt and Demetri of the 96 Rock Morning Show based in Raleigh, North Carolina. They wanted to talk about the site content that I posted this year about the rules or "guidelines" as I called them, for winning your office pool.

They don't have streaming audio on their site, so I really don't know just how dorky I sounded. Mainly because I was taken off guard when the interview started, they just jumped right into their side of the conversation and I stumbled a few words out. Perhaps it was the lack of coffee in the early morning hours with not much sleep this past week.

The night before I was up quite late filling out my brackets on my regular office pools I participate in every year [iSportsLink, Ganza, Pick 16, MarchPools].

Well, if anyone heard my interview from their audience, drop a comment below.

Pick Submissions Are Open For Business

Picks Are Closed For 2007

Make sure you hit the SUBMIT PICKS button at the bottom of the page or your picks will not be entered into the pool.

Enter as often as you like. When entering multiple times, please place a number after your name to make it unique [or it will over write you last submitted picks] For example: Timmy 1, Timmy 2, Timmy 3

NOTE: You will not see your entry(s) listed until after tip off on Thursday.

Part 4 - Tips To Win Your Office Pool

DISCLAIMER: I'm not claiming to be any expert of any kind, but I'm continuing on with my tips on winning your office pool. I've never won my office pool in the 10+ years I've been doing this, but I have come very close, also finished very close to the bottom. Use these tips I've thought of, discovered, read about, and a bit of dumb luck at your own risk.

• Don't pick a team seeded #16 to #13 into the field of 8. Not once has one ever advanced.
• Do pick three #1 seeds into the field of 8. 70% of all number 1 seeds have advanced to the fourth round of games.
• Don't pick a team seeded #16 to #9 into the field of 4, only two times has a team in this range advanced to the field of 4 [George Mason in 2006 was the last]
• Don't pick a team seeded lower than a #6 to the championship game, not a single one has advanced in the last 21 years.
• Do pick a seed ranked #4 or higher to win the championship game. For 18 straight years, this has been true.

Part 4 - Tips To Win Your Office Pool
Part 3 - Tips To Win Your Office Pool
Part 2 - Tips To Win Your Office Pool
Part 1 - Tips To Win Your Office Pool

2007 Office Pool Tournament Is Live

Picks Are Closed For 2007

Make sure you hit the SUBMIT PICKS button at the bottom of the page or your picks will not be entered into the pool.

Enter as often as you like. When entering multiple times, please place a number after your name to make it unique [or it will over write you last submitted picks] For example: Timmy 1, Timmy 2, Timmy 3

NOTE: You will not see your entry(s) listed until after tip off on Thursday.

Part 4 - monday night
Part 3 - Tips To Win Your Office Pool
Part 2 - Tips To Win Your Office Pool
Part 1 - Tips To Win Your Office Pool

Thank You Hosting Company

3/11/2007 - We are currently experiencing technical difficulties.

We are currently experiencing technical difficulties. Thank you for your patience while we work through these issues.

Thank you to my hosting company for the down time this morning/afternoon. Good timing.

Saturday's Automatic Bid Winners

American East - Albany Great Danes
Atlantic 10 - George Washington
Big East - Georgetown
Big West - Long Beach State
Conference USA - Memphis Tigers
MAC - Miami (Ohio)
MEAC - Florida A&M
Mountain West - UNLV
Pac-10 - Oregon
SWAC - Jackson State
WAC - New Mexico State

Updated Conference Winners - 31 Automatic Bids

31 Automatic Bid - Dates And Conference Winners

--=::[[ 31 Automatic Bids ]]::=--

1. North Carolina Tar Heals (28-6) - [ACC]
2. Albany Great Danes (23-9) - [American East]
3. Belmont Bruins (23-9) - [Atlantic Sun]
4. George Washington Colonials (23-8) - [Atlantic 10]
5. Georgetown Hoyas (26-6) - [Big East]
6. Webber State Wildcats (20-11)- [Big Sky]
7. Winthrop Eagles (28-4) - [Big South]
8. Ohio State Buckeyes (30-3) - [Big Ten]
9. Kansas Jayhawks (30-4) - [Big 12]
10. Long Beach State 49ers (23-7) - [Big West]
11. Virginia Commonwealth Rams (27-6) - [Colonial]
12. Memphis Tigers (30-3) - [Conference USA]
13. Wright State Raiders (23-9) - [Horizon]
14. Pennsylvania Quakers (20-8) [Ivy League]
15. Niagara Purple Eagles (22-11) - [MAAC]
16. Miami (Ohio) Redhawks (18-14) - [MAC]
17. Florida A&M Rattlers (21-13) - [MEAC]
18. Oral Roberts Golden Eagles (23-10) - [Mid Continent]
19. Creighton Bluejays (22-10) - [Missouri Valley]
20. UNLV Rebels (28-6) - [Mountain West]
21. Central Connecticut State Blue Devils (22-11) - [Northeast]
22. Eastern Kentucky Colonels (21-11) - [Ohio Valley]
23. Oregon Ducks (29-7) - [Pac-10]
24. Holy Cross Crusaders (25-8) - [Patriot]
25. Florida Gators (29-5) - [SEC]
26. Davidson Wildcats (29-4) - [Southern]
27. Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders (26-6) - [Southland]
28. North Texas Mean Green (23-10) - [Sun Belt]
29. Jackson State Tigers (21-13) - [SWAC]
30. New Mexico State Aggies (25-8) - [WAC]
31. Gonzaga Bulldogs (23-10) - [West Coast]

Part 3 - Tips To Win Your Office Pool

PLEASE NOTE: I'm not claiming to be any expert of any kind, but I'm continuing on with my tips on winning your office pool. I've never won my office pool in the 10+ years I've been doing this, but I have come very close, and finished very close to the bottom. Use these tips I've thought of, discovered, read about, and a bit of dumb luck at your own risk.

• Don't pick a team from the Big Sky, MEAC and Southland to win a first-round game. They're winless in the Division I playoffs since the field was expanded to at least 52 teams in 1983.
• Don't pick an at-large team with a losing conference record to get beyond the second round.
• Two of your Final Four picks should be teams that didn't finish atop their regular-season conference standings.
• Don't be too concerned about a regular-season defeat against a conference rival with a losing league record.
• Don't pick a team to reach the Final Four if it lost in the first round of a postseason conference tournament.

Part 1 - How to win your office pool
Part 2 - How to win your office pool
Pre-register for the 2007 office pool

Crusaders Of Holy Cross Enter The Tournament

Tonights only conference final saw the Holy Cross Crusaders from the Patriot conference defeat Bucknell for their fifth Patriot League Championship. Saturday's conference finals will be a busy day. There will be ten more automatic bids determined by days end with the last five schools on Sunday. The Big Ten conference usually is the final game of the day before the selection committee makes their final tournament bracket of 65 teams. It will be a busy weekend and a crazy week in the office pools for all of us fans.

Pre-register for the 2007 office pool

Updated Automatic Bids - Conference Winners

Turbo Tourney - recommended office pool software - my 10th year with the software

Two More Enter The Big Tournament

With the longest school name in the country, Central Connecticut State Blue Devils win the Northeast Conference tournament, their conference regular season title and a trip to the big tournament that starts next week. Weber State Wildcats from the Big Sky conference were also victorious tonight over Northern Arizona and will join the rest of the schools who have automatic bids as of tonight.

Updated Automatic Bids - Conference Winners

Tips On How To Win Your Office Pool - Part 2

PLEASE NOTE: I'm not claiming to be any expert of any kind, but I'm continuing on with my tips on winning your office pool. I've never won my office pool in the 10+ years I've been doing this, but I have come very close, and finished very close to the bottom. Use these tips I've thought of, discovered, read about, and a bit of dumb luck at your own risk.

• Pick a team seeded 1 or 2 [there will be eight of them] to win the national title.
• Don't pick more than two of the four number 1 seeds to be the last four teams in the tournament. In 2006, not one of the number 1 seeds made it to the championship weekend. I'd call it a fluke year.
• Pick one team seeded 12th to reach the regional semi finals.
• Despite some success, and I do mean some, don't go too far with the number 4 and 5 seeds.
• Pick two teams seeded 13th to 15th to be victorious over teams seeded 2nd to 4th.

Part 1 - How to win your office pool

Mean Mean Green

North Texas Mean Green, I have to admit, I've never heard the team nickname before, though I'm not too familiar with the Sun Belt Conference. What matters is this, Mean Green are in the tournament which tips off in 9 days. Five other teams have claimed their bid into the tournament over Monday and Tuesday nights conference finals. The other five teams with automatic tournament bids are: Virginia Commonwealth, Gonzaga Bulldogs, Niagra Purple Eagles, Wright State Raiders, Oral Roberts Golden Eagles.

Creighton Bluejays Earn MVC Title Over Salukis

The Creighton Bluejays, winners of the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament, earn a bid into the big tournament for the seventh time in nine years. They become the sixth team to get an automatic bid for this years tourney.

Updated Conference Winners Link

Pre-register for the 2007 office pool

Tips On How To Win Your Office Pool

I wanted to post a few tips on being successful in your local office pool. Over the past 10 years of running an online office pool, the winners of all of my office pool all posted at the very least a 70% success rate on their picks. The best was a 79% success rate in my 2003 office pool despite not correctly picking the winner of the championship match up.

My goal is to give you some tips on how to beat the odds over the average person in your pool. Picking only the higher seeds is not going to make a hill of beans by the championship game, picking a lot of upsets is very risky and usually doesn't pay off, so hopefully you'll do better in this years office pool. I've analyzed the winning pick sheets and here are a few tips and trends I've noticed through the years of my winners. I'll post more helpful tips in the next week and a half to give you some success for this years office pool.

• Pick all of the number 1 seeds to win their first round games. Since 1985, all number 1 seeds have won their games over the number 16 seeds 100% of the time.
• Don't pick a number 1 seed to be one of the last four teams, let along the national title, if the school wasn't in the playoffs the previous year.
• Pick at least one number 2 seed to lose before the second round games complete.
• Don't pick more than two of the four number 1 regional seeds to reach the final weekend of games when only four teams remain in the tournament.
• Pick at one number 3 seed team to lose in the first round of games.

Pre-register for the 2007 OfficePool64.com contest: click here

Four More Schools Earn Automatic Bids

Today we saw four more schools earn automatic bids by winning their conference tournament. Belmont Bruins, Winthrop Eagles, Eastern Kentucky Colonels, and Davidson Wildcats.

To see all of the schools who have earned automatic bids: click here

Pre-register for the 2007 OfficePool64.com contest: click here

Pre-Register For Office Pool 64

You can now pre-register for the 2007 office pool. Fill out the form with your information that is needed. When the pairings are announced on Sunday, March 11, 2007, I'll send out an email when this website has been updated and you can then enter you office pool picks.

Pre-Register Here For Office Pool 2007

Quakers Earn First Tournament Bid

The automatic bids into the tournament are under way. Pennsylvania Quakers have secured the first tournament bid by winning the Ivy League regular season outright. This is the third consecutive season the Quakers have won the Ivy League title.

I'll update this post as the conference tournament winners are known on the dates provided below.

Memorable Moment Series

Ahhh, this just kills me every time I see it. Gary Parrish of CBS SportsLine.com is writing a five part series on past tournament memorable moments. He is up to number three, the Chris Webber time out in the 1993 championship game against North Carolina. Oh the pain it brings back! I still recall yelling at the television when it happened.

I've lived in Minnesota all my life and subsequently I'm a Golden Gopher fan [though it has been a very rough last seven to eight years]. However back in 1993, I was rooting for the 'fab five' as they were part of the Big Ten conference and they were fun to watch play together. I picked them to win it all in my office pool and was sitting pretty going into the evenings game in the office pool.

73-71 with under a minute to play, I was hoping for at the very least a tie game. Webber rebounds the ball, and the rest is history. If you've seen it, you know what I am talking about. If you have never seen this moment in history, head over to Gary's column and see it for yourself. He has a good write up on the game and the video from the game to go along with it. It hurts to watch it again.

Gary Parrish, SportsLine.com: Memorable Moment No. 3: Webber forgot, but we never will - Video Clip

I just hope that the number one most memorable moment is not the Christian Laitner last second toss to win the game. I will vomit if I see that video again. If you recall, Laitner was drafted by the Minnesota Timberwolves and stunk up the joint with his game play ever year he was on their roster.

First-Round Match Up Statistics

Since the inception of the 64-team tournament in 1985 each seed # has played a total of 88 first-round games.

1. The #1 seed has beaten the #16 seed all 88 times (100%)
2. The #2 seed has beaten the #15 seed 84 times (95%)
3. The #3 seed has beaten the #14 seed 73 times (83%)
4. The #4 team has beaten the #13 seed 70 times (80%)
5. The #5 seed has beaten the #12 seed 59 times (67%)
6. The #6 seed has beaten the #11 seed 61 times (69%)
7. The #7 team has beaten the #10 seed 53 times (60%)
8. The #8 team has beaten the #9 seed 41 times (47%)

SOURCE: Wikipedia

Conference Tournaments Begin This Week

31 automatic bids are in play. 30 conferences hold tournaments except for Ivy League. The regular season winner receives the automatic bid. 34 additional schools will receive an 'at-large' bid. I'll update the 31 automatic bids as the conference tournaments complete over the next 12 days. Then when the selection committee announces the final tournament bracket, the 10th OfficePool64.com tournament will open up for your pool sheet entries.

There was just under 400 people in last years office pool. This pool is still free and there still are no prices for the winner. I don't have any paid advertisements for this site, I'm just a fan who enjoys the big March basketball tournament and all the hoopla that goes along with it.

I have new hosting for OfficePool64.com. I've redesigned the website slightly while keeping the familiar format in place. With the new hosting for the site, I have a lot of extra room to host the past tournament archives that I've collected along the way. The archives are located on the lower left side of your screen. Select a year and find the tournament you've played in from the past. I don't have all of the years posted as of this writing, but will have them all shortly.

Ohio State Tops Week 17 Rankings

ESPN: UCLA jumps to No. 2; Ohio St. nearly unanimous No. 1
ESPN: Memphis continues to own home court, wins 29th straight
TeamRankings.com: Mike Greenfield's Team Rankings

10 Year Anniversary for OfficePool64.com

Time to celebrate, I've hit 10 years of running an online office pool tournament on the intarweb. New website design is currently in progress over the next couple weeks.

The 2007 Office Pool 64 will be up and running shortly after the team pairings are announced on Sunday, March 11 @ 6:00 EST on CBS.

Key Tournament Dates courtesy of NCAA Sports

First Weekend Of Games
March 15-16: Round One
March 17-18: Round Two

Second Weekend Of Games
March 22-23: Round Three
March 24-25: Regional Finals

Third Weekend Of Games
March 31: Semi-Finals
April 2: Championship Game