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by Matthew | Apr 10, 2014 | Contests
Apologies for failing to check in after the rounds of 16 and 8. Apologies for letting three full days pass before announcing the results of this year’s Idiots’Hoopla Bracket Challenge.
My passion for this tournament faded hard when my Blue Devils made their dispiriting first-round exit to unheralded Mercer. But you deserve better than my blunted enthusiasm.
And so I will rise up and share the results. Here are the top ten finishers.
Alas, none of you guessed that the eventual champion would be the Huskies of Connecticut, though the seven highest point earners each chose either Arizona, Florida, or Wisconsin to cut down the nets.
Our champion, Topology Kate, chose Arizona, and eked out a narrow victory over rower97bu, who, in addition to needing a tutorial on naming conventions, also chose Arizona to win it all.
But what else can I offer by way of insightful comments? I’m grasping to make sense of it all, that I might not do so horribly next year. Can logic ever overcome emotion? Can we, as a people, learn from our mistakes? History suggests that the answer is no.
Case in point: those of us who chose Duke as champion finished near the bottom of the standings. Note: I am related to exactly all of these people.
Though Tillyhp, bold in her prediction that Louisiana Lafayette would win it all, did even worse.
The tournament is over. I can only take solace in the fact that each of the nine 2014 preseason top-25 polls that I have so far read considers Duke among the top 2-3 teams in the country. Which is to say, my hopes are sufficiently high that the insult of an early-round exit will be all the more crushing next year.
Thanks, all of you, for making your picks and joining the fun.
And congratulations again to TopologyKate, who has earned a free year of Idiots’Books.
Until the Madness returns again next March…
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by Matthew | Mar 27, 2014 | Contests
Perhaps this advice is coming a week too late, but this morning I will give you free (and unsolicited) advice on how not to fill out your bracket.
1) Do not pick your team to win it all when they lack leadership, cohesion, and an inside presence (by which I mean a tall player who is capable of moving without “traveling” and who is able to put the ball in the basket (at least occasionally).
2) If you do pick your deeply flawed team to win it all in one of your brackets, forgodsake don’t do it in both.
3) Don’t pick your “other” favorite team to meet your favorite team in the final game when your “other” favorite team also lacks leadership and cohesion and when their (admittedly skilled) big man is out indefinitely with a fractured back.
4) Do not pick every member of your favorite team’s conference to advance in every game in a sort of giddy solidarity, casting aside such usual indices of success as seeding and record and ranking.
I’m sure there are other pieces of advice I could offer, but these are the ones that rise to the surface this morning, as I try to post-rationalize my dismal showing in the Idiots’Hoopla standings and try to contemplate the prospect of the tournament’s section weekend, which will feature games by neither my favorite team or my second favorite team. And only one member of the aforementioned conference with which I felt such misbegotten allegiance.
Let’s look at those standings now, shall we?
If those numbers are too small to read, click here to see them on the ESPN site.
At whatever scale, the truth is the same, in spite of my enthusiasm for college basketball, when it comes to picking games, I am defeated by wish fulfillment.
For now, please join me in congratulating TopologyKate, who leads our group with 470 points and 1,000 more possible points remaining.
In second is rower97bu, with 450 points but 1,200 possible points remaining. Which sets us up for a good old fashioned dog fight.
And let’s not forget Eeny Meeny Miny (with 440 points so far a 880 possible points remaining), who might still surge to the front of the pack depending on what happens next.
The only thing I know for sure is this: I will not be this year’s champion.
If only I had learned to follow the advice of my good friend who never picks his own team, using the following logic: if his team wins, he will be happy because his team won; if his team loses, he will be sad because his team lost but happy because he picked correctly.
I am left with a loss on top of a loss.
Please don’t weep for me. Instead, learn from my tragic mistakes.
I know I won’t.
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by Matthew | Mar 16, 2014 | Contests
Hello, all.
The Madness is upon us, and once again, we at Idiots’Books are hosting a bracket challenge. Once again, the winner will receive a year-long subscription.
I have reactivated last year’s group, which is called Idiots’Hoopla. If you played last year, you can click here to rejoin the group with no further fuss. If you’re joining us for the first time, click here to create your entry and then, when prompted to join a group, search for Idiots’Hoopla.
And that’s it. The first four “play-in” games happen Tuesday, but you don’t need to have your brackets filled out until late morning on Thursday. That said, why wait when you can make your picks now?
That question was strictly rhetorical. I look forward to soundly beating you all.
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by Matthew | May 23, 2012 | Contests
Hello Friends. Today is the start of something new—and wonderful—at Idiots’Books. Today is the first-ever installment of a new contest in which we show a famous writer’s underwear and you have to guess who it is!
Here is the writer in question:
To guess, send me an email. Please DON’T post your guess as a comment.
To heighten the intrigue, we’re going to turn this sucker into a caption contest, as well.
In seeming contradiction to the instructions above, please DO post your caption in a comment to this post. We’ll name the winner this coming Sunday.
But what is a contest without prizes? The first one to correctly identify the writer in question will win his choice of either the Pansy Saddle…
Or the Yankee Candle Root Beer Float lip balm.
As loathe as I am to part with these precious items, the thought of sharing them with you fills me with an even greater happiness.
So have at it. Happy guessing.
And while you’re at it, see if you can drum up any other famous writers who might be willing to participate.
