Pool Update

Ah, if poologic is at all sensible, I've realized its strategy to a T. Only one other bracket, of 51, has OSU (2) taking the whole thing. In fact, more people selected as champions the unlikely teams of Florida (4), Louisville (4), and Syracuse (4) than took OSU even to make the finals; only handful took OSU to make even the Final 4.

Of course, OSU's probability of winning is probably about a quarter of that of UNC's or Illinois', but if either of those teams won I'd have to have a near perfect bracket, since each was selected by approximately ten entries in my pool. If OSU wins, however, I've got a very high chance of winning the pool.

The one other competitor who selected OSU has Wake (2), Kansas (3), and Duke (1) rounding out her Final 4, which means if OSU does win, one of us should pull away from the other, with OSU being our only shared pick for the Final 4.

That said, poologic is most, er, logical, where there's an exponential increase in point values per round. In my pool, however, each round multiplies seed by only the prior round's number + 1; first round picks go 1*seed, second round 2*seed, third round 3*seed, and linearly thus until the end. Accordingly, the benefit of picking a champ, and an underchosen one, which lies at the heart of poologic's theory is diminished. Still, though, I'm hopeful. The first necessary condition (selecting a champ most people overlook) has been met. I'm glad I didn't pick Louisville (4) to go all the way; like four or five people in my pool did. Pitino's good, but he's not that good.