March Maddness is ending Baby!

With the final match of the tournament ready to be played, I suppose it would be worth updating everyone on how I did with my COIN system. 

In two words:  not well.  In the first round (and by that I mean the round of 64, not the bracket busters), I just went straight down the list and picked the higher cedes, with one or two exceptions.  This actually worked OK; in the 2nd round I had 23/32 teams left.  This may be a mere 72%, but you have to remember that I did not study for the exam and I will gladly take a C. 

After that, I went with straight coin flippage.  Things fell apart fast.  I only had 6/16 for the sweet sixteen, only 3 of my teams were in the elite 8, and none of those made it to the final 4. 

Interestingly, my West regional picks were excellent, even with the coin flips.  Out of 15 possible slots I only missed 3, for an accuracy of 80%.  My COIN picked Arizona to upset Duke.  My worst region was the Southwest, where out of  a possible 15 I only had 3 teams right (an accuracy of 20%), though I doubt I would have done much better if I had been left to make the picks using the power of my own considerably limited college basketball mind. 

My dumbest pick with the coin flip?  I had George Mason beating Ohio State, which even I knew had a very, very low probability of happening in real life.  I think next year I may manually override the COIN if it makes such a boneheaded pick again.  But as for the other picks I made, the way I follow basketball, I think I may as well leave it all to chance. 

So, there you have it.  And tomorrow we will have a new NCAA Men's Basketball Champion.  Will I be watching? 

No. 

But, nevertheless, I wish to extend my congratulations to the team that remains standing after what is sure to be a battle for the ages, a veritable Waterloo.  Only without guns (hopefully) and Cannons (definitely, you can be pretty sure of that) and horses.  You know, that kind of stuff.