The Picks Are In
We had 144 brackets entered (thanks everyone!) and this is the distribution of picks. Interestingly, the most popular first round upset pick (excluding 9-8 games) was #10 Maryland over #7 California, with 61% calling the upset. And the majority were right, as Maryland won today over Cal. Overall the picks show an incredible lack of respect for the Pac-10 and the Big-12, with teams like Cal, Washington, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Kansas getting a lot of votes to fall in early to mid round upsets. North Carolina garnered the most picks to win it all, followed by Louisville and Pitt.
Jay:
Maryland has the prototypical squad that generally does well as a lower ranked seed. One streaky star player that can go off for 30+ points on any given night. And an excellent (and sometimes underrated but not in this case) coach.
March 19, 2009, 8:13 pmJeff C:
Nice. After winning this contest last year, my entries are 141st and 142nd out of 144 after 1 day this year, lol.
March 20, 2009, 8:32 amMatt:
According to Yahoo Sports, 65% of all their brackets had Maryland picked, the highest for any team seeded lower than 7. It's like the whole world knew!
March 20, 2009, 8:43 am