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March Madness 2024 - The Secret to Success

By the Cold Hard Truth


Well here I am again - beginning the process of filling out my bracket. Unlike my wife who fills out her bracket in about 5 minutes, my bracket will take hours of research and careful evaluation of all pertinent parameters, and then and only then will I pick all the #1 seeds to advance to the next round.

I like to print out Ken Pomeroy Ratings. Each year I print out the complete list of 362 teams. Teams that make the March Madness field are highlighted in a light red color, and each year when I print this list out, no colors actually appear on the printed copy, rendering it nearly useless. Also,due to printer formatting issues, I occasionally will lose a team at the bottom of each printed page. This annoys me, but I realize that no matter how much data I have, I never win the contest. It just makes me feel better when I look at all this cool data. Also, I look at the Kenpom "Luck" column and I always ask myself,"What does that column really mean?" This year, I see that Oklahoma had a luck ranking of #251. That must explain why the committee left them out of the tournament? However, on the next line up I see Texas A&M and they were ranked #254 and made the tournament - I have no idea? A&M fans suffer from what they refer to as "Battered Aggie Syndrome" "BAS" and always expect the worst, and their opening round game is against Nebraska, the only Power 5 school to never win an NCAA tournament game. It is a good bet to expect Nebraska will win that contest and make history at the expense of the Aggies.

This looks to be an extremely difficult year to pick a winner. I completely missed how good UConn was last year. After losing two players to the NBA, they reloaded and are having an even better year at 31-3. They are #1 in the Kenpom and look poised to make a run at a second consecutive title. What about Houston? They went 30-4 and have the #2 ranked defense in the country. They beat Kansas by 30, but the other night, Iowa State (the #1 defensive team) held the Cougars to 41 points and 27% shooting. How about Purdue? Are they good enough to win it all? They have developed a reputation for losing early, but Zach Edey came back to college to prove something. Is he ready to prove that he can put this team on his shoulders and take them to the Final Four? When I look at the Kenpom rankings, I see 12 teams that could make a legit run to the Final 4. I see another 15 teams that could mess up my bracket, so I know I will never win this. Look at #26 St. John's. They have a real shot - oh that's right - they didn't even make the tournament. But we were lucky enough to watch #73 ranked Virginia embarrass themselves last night against Colorado State. Once again, the Selection Committee got it wrong in my opinion. I would gladly volunteer to help them. I am a self-proclaimed expert who consistently has printer issues and my favorite team lost 19 games in a row to end the season. So what I am saying is this is an impossible task. Even if the committee got it right, there will always be a St. Peters or a San Diego St. or a Florida Atlantic who gets hot at the right time and makes an improbable run. Each time that happens, millions of brackets are tragically destroyed.

Could the real secret to success be just skipping filling out the bracket? It would be less stressful and take less time. However, avoiding a challenge is never the right answer. I commend a team like Indiana St. who was left out of the Dance with a 28-6 record and a #43 ranking. They won their first round NIT game tonight and opted to compete, while teams like St. John's, Oklahoma, Pitt, Memphis, Ole Miss, and Indiana all skipped the NIT because they value themselves more than the enjoyment of playing the game. This is a sad trend for this great sport.

So here we are - the 2024 CBCC is here! You probably won't win it, but it sure will be fun watching all these great games. There will be great stories of leadership. There will be historic moments that we will talk about for years, and eventually there will be a champion. Best of luck to all the CBCC competitors!
stories/24_cbcc_intro.html

March Madness 2024 - The Secret to Success

By the Cold Hard Truth


Well here I am again - beginning the process of filling out my bracket. Unlike my wife who fills out her bracket in about 5 minutes, my bracket will take hours of research and careful evaluation of all pertinent parameters, and then and only then will I pick all the #1 seeds to advance to the next round.

I like to print out Ken Pomeroy Ratings. Each year I print out the complete list of 362 teams. Teams that make the March Madness field are highlighted in a light red color, and each year when I print this list out, no colors actually appear on the printed copy, rendering it nearly useless. Also,due to printer formatting issues, I occasionally will lose a team at the bottom of each printed page. This annoys me, but I realize that no matter how much data I have, I never win the contest. It just makes me feel better when I look at all this cool data. Also, I look at the Kenpom "Luck" column and I always ask myself,"What does that column really mean?" This year, I see that Oklahoma had a luck ranking of #251. That must explain why the committee left them out of the tournament? However, on the next line up I see Texas A&M and they were ranked #254 and made the tournament - I have no idea? A&M fans suffer from what they refer to as "Battered Aggie Syndrome" "BAS" and always expect the worst, and their opening round game is against Nebraska, the only Power 5 school to never win an NCAA tournament game. It is a good bet to expect Nebraska will win that contest and make history at the expense of the Aggies.

This looks to be an extremely difficult year to pick a winner. I completely missed how good UConn was last year. After losing two players to the NBA, they reloaded and are having an even better year at 31-3. They are #1 in the Kenpom and look poised to make a run at a second consecutive title. What about Houston? They went 30-4 and have the #2 ranked defense in the country. They beat Kansas by 30, but the other night, Iowa State (the #1 defensive team) held the Cougars to 41 points and 27% shooting. How about Purdue? Are they good enough to win it all? They have developed a reputation for losing early, but Zach Edey came back to college to prove something. Is he ready to prove that he can put this team on his shoulders and take them to the Final Four? When I look at the Kenpom rankings, I see 12 teams that could make a legit run to the Final 4. I see another 15 teams that could mess up my bracket, so I know I will never win this. Look at #26 St. John's. They have a real shot - oh that's right - they didn't even make the tournament. But we were lucky enough to watch #73 ranked Virginia embarrass themselves last night against Colorado State. Once again, the Selection Committee got it wrong in my opinion. I would gladly volunteer to help them. I am a self-proclaimed expert who consistently has printer issues and my favorite team lost 19 games in a row to end the season. So what I am saying is this is an impossible task. Even if the committee got it right, there will always be a St. Peters or a San Diego St. or a Florida Atlantic who gets hot at the right time and makes an improbable run. Each time that happens, millions of brackets are tragically destroyed.

Could the real secret to success be just skipping filling out the bracket? It would be less stressful and take less time. However, avoiding a challenge is never the right answer. I commend a team like Indiana St. who was left out of the Dance with a 28-6 record and a #43 ranking. They won their first round NIT game tonight and opted to compete, while teams like St. John's, Oklahoma, Pitt, Memphis, Ole Miss, and Indiana all skipped the NIT because they value themselves more than the enjoyment of playing the game. This is a sad trend for this great sport.

So here we are - the 2024 CBCC is here! You probably won't win it, but it sure will be fun watching all these great games. There will be great stories of leadership. There will be historic moments that we will talk about for years, and eventually there will be a champion. Best of luck to all the CBCC competitors!

PFCC: Weeks 14 and 15 Update

by: exRegionalWeenie (12/21/23)


Our September goal of weekly article updates for both CFCC and PFCC has again descended into late season once-in-a-blue-moon updates. Sorry 'bout that. In an effort to make amends, this article will be a two-fer special with shoutouts to the top performers from Weeks 14 and 15. And stay tuned because there might be updates for the season's remaining three weeks. Or, maybe not. We'll see.

Sean Poluos is The Man
We'll get to the weekly updates in just a sec, but this first highlight must go to Sean Poulos. The man just can't be stopped. He leads the overall PFCC after Week 15, just like he did after Week 14. And Week 13 and 12 and 11 and... all the way back to Week 3. That's 13 consecutive weeks atop the PFCC standings - wow! After Week 8, we wrote that Sean, "...holds a commanding 30 point lead..." (yes, that's us quoting us). Well, now his lead is 54 points! Sean is definitely having a dirty-dawg season for the ages, especially when you add in the fact that he is ranked 3rd over in the CFCC.

Week 14 Kudos
Emma Mims lives in Heaven, South Carolina, according to her player info page. I wonder if Heaven, SC, has angels? Maybe they're the ones who brought Emma a Week 14 win. Emma went 10-4 with 43 points. Forty-three may not seem special but the average player scored a -17 that week, so there. Congrats, Emma! {Ed. Note: After writing about Emma's location in Heaven, I decided to fact-check her. Low and behold, there is no Heaven in SC according to Google. Shame on you, Emma, for pulling a fast one on us.}

Mike Johnson earned a 2nd place finish in Week 14 with 39 points. Close behind was Phil Stiegman with 37 points. The week's 4th place went to Homer Bartson of Homer, NY, (I'm not even gonna bother) while Monte Oaks claimed 5th place.

Week 15 NFL Scores and Top Dawgs
Bizarre stuff keeps happening in the NFL and Week 15 was no exception. For the third consecutive week, at least one team was shutout (NY Jets). The Jets were one of SIX teams that scored 10 points or less. There's a lot of crappy football being played these days. Refunds should have been offered to those misfortunate enough to attend the Carolina-Atlanta snoozefest with it's 9-7 final score. B-O-R-I-N-G.

The low-scoring games didn't seem to impact us Dawgs, though, as the average player score in Week 15 was a much improved 40 (recall it was -17 the previous week). Top Dawg for the week was Kevin Fitzgerald who went 13-2 with 94 points. Nice job, Kevin! Kevin had many players nipping at his heels. Jerry Douglas and Amanda Fanning were next with 92 points. Cody Mize was 4th with 90 points while the week's 5th place went to Robert Ricks (he also scored 90 but had one less win than Cody).

The Non-Sean Poluos Portion of the Overall Standings
Sean may have a stranglehold on the year-to-date standings but there are still other players having a very good year. The overall 2nd place position is currently held by Dan Valle. Yeah, Dan is 54 points behind Sean, but he jumped 4 places this week and has risen in the standings for 4 straight weeks, so maybe he can make a run at Sean. Or, maybe Sean will be challenged by Jason Runyen. Jason is currently in 3rd place (56 behind Sean) and has pretty much been in the Top 5 for the past 2 months. John Schmidt is currently 4th and has just as many points as Jason, so maybe he can threaten Sean. Don't rule out Amanda Fanning. Amanda is on a tear, having reached 5th place overall after being ranked in the 60's just 5 weeks ago. And who knows, maybe someone in the rest of the Top 10 can surprise us in the end. Those players include Linda Kunches, Mark Avery, Daniel Noirot, Jeff Raberding and Christine Kruse in 6th through 10th places, respectively.

PFCC Group Play Standings
The Hailraisers continue to lead the Group Play standings and have a decent lead over the 2nd place Boomerbacks (the Boomers, by the way, lead the CFCC Group Play standings, so they're quite a... group). In 3rd place we find Padookie Quack Attack.



CFCC Week 12: Sideline Interviews with Last Week's Leaders and Losers

by: exRegionalWeenie (11/21/23)


We conducted midgame interiews with many of last week's scoring leaders. They told us that they were proud of their accomplishments thus far but would focus on playing a full season and try to do a better job at putting low numbers on possible upsets. We also did midgame interviews with some of last week's lowest scoring players. They promised to not quit in the face of adversity, try to win more games than they lose, and keep giving 100% effort. (NOTE: We're short-staffed at dirty-dawg, so we contracted out our interview program to Charissa Thompson. Thank you, Charissa!)

Week 12 CFCC Player Scores
We have played 12 weeks so far this season. Twelve! That means we're down to Week 13 plus the Bowl Blowout. Time's a wastin' so you better make your move right now. Several people made their move last week. Congrats to Monte Oaks on winning Week 12 by scoring 106 points on a 14-1 record. Jeffery Wood took second place last week with 104 points. Michael Barry and Nick Hampshire tied for third with identical scores (102 points, 13-2 record) while Judy Whaley took fifth place. Monte and Nick were two of last week's biggest gainers. Both improved their overall standing by 50 slots!

Home isn't where the heart is... or, at least it wasn't last week. Home teams went 3-12 in Week 12. That poor record is reflected in last week's standings where the bottom "players" Homer Bartson, Homer Picker and Homer Simpson each had the week's worst score of 3-12 with MINUS 50 points. So much for home cooking.

CFCC Standings after 12 Weeks
We have a new overall leader - it's Julie Jones who resides in the mountains on the east side of Albuquerque, NM. Julie has been in the Top 5 since Week 5 and this is her first stint at the top of the heap. Congrats, Julie, on your 15 minutes of fame, and good luck at achieving permanent fame if you can maintain your lead after the next two standings updates are posted. Mark Linhares moved up to second place and is just 2 points behind Julie. Mark has been in the Top 10 ever since Week 2. Sean Poulos and Geoffrey Heidelberger are in third and fourth place. They have the same number of points as Mark, but their won-loss records aren't as good. We have an EXTREMELY CLOSE RACE as these top 4 players are within 2 points of each other!

Jeff Graschel held on to fifth place and he's certainly within striking distance (just 10 points out of first). The rest of the Top 10 include Carol Overton, Steve Beaver, Judy Whaley (up 26 slots!!) , Tom Fannin and Mike Coyne.

CFCC's Latest Group Play Standings
From the Broken Record Department, the top 3 teams in Group Play are Boomerbacks, All in the Family and The Border War Still Lives in KC. Boomer has the #1 and #6 overall players, so it's pretty easy to see them owning Group Play. Meanwhile, the 4th place Florida Dummies have been surging in recent weeks but remain many points out of first place. Maybe the Moseley family is destined to abide by their team's bio which states, "...we are a solid bet to place 4th or 5th in the team standings." Yes you are, Dummies. Yes you are.



CFCC Top dawgs

Final Standings

Place Player Pts W L
1 Matt Hemingway 1210 163 57
2 Roger Bryan 1201 164 56
3 Tom Dang 1200 163 57
4 Doug Kluck 1188 166 54
5 Graham Whitin 1178 159 61
6 Jason Gribek 1176 158 62
7 Tammy Meffert 1172 160 60
8 Mike Zwier 1172 160 60
9 Jeff Weiler 1170 165 55
10 Lacy Dunn 1170 163 57
Full CFCC Standings

PFCC Top dawgs

Through Week 19

Place Player Pts W L
1 Sean Poulos 1192 173 81
2 Jeffrey Overton 1164 166 88
3 Jeff Raberding 1161 171 83
4 Jason Runyen 1152 171 83
5 Dan Valle 1132 169 85
6 Daniel Noirot 1128 171 83
7 Melissa Harral 1123 169 85
8 Alexander Overton 1122 167 87
9 Mark Avery 1108 169 85
10 Alex Libardoni 1102 168 86
Full PFCC Standings

CBCC Top dawgs

2024 Contest

Place Player Points
1 Joel Veeneman 3075
2 Penny Zabel 3071
3 Chris Darden 3055
4 David Schomaker 3050
5 Justin Weaver 3046
6 Dale Ganus 3043
7 Mary C Embry 3041
8 Jim Rutherford 3041
9 Dick Wagenmaker 3040
10 Mike Seaman 3039
Full CBCC Standings

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