Off day

A few things to cover.

*First, at my mom's request, I looked at how many points a person who had taken the higher seed in every single matchup as their bracket would have accumulated so far (something Alma originally wanted me to do for her bracket but which I talked her out of). The answer: 430. (Alma currently has 390. Sorry, baby.) Of course, this isn't good enough for first, but it's just one Sweet Sixteen matchup shy as we stand now, and a first-round pick better than the score I've got with my first-choice bracket.

*My dad mentioned to me this morning that he heard Connecticut has been really lucky in their previous two national title runs in terms of the seeds they've had to face to get to the Final Four. And that is indeed correct. In 1999, #1 UConn faced a 16, a 9, a 5, and a 10 in their four West Regional games (the 10 was Gonzaga at the end of their Elite Eight run). In 2004, #2 UConn faced a 15, a 7, a 6, and an 8 in their four West Regional games (#8 Alabama had upset #1 Stanford and #5 Syracuse to reach the regional final). This year, UConn will face no higher than a #5 (Washington) during what now seems like a surpassingly likely Final Four run. (At least they're not in the West again too.) Has any team gotten a bigger break than that? Well, take a look at some other recent winners:

2005 North Carolina: 16, 9, 5, 6
2003 Syracuse: 14, 6, 10, 1
2002 Maryland: 16, 8, 4, 2
2001 Duke: 16, 9, 4, 6
2000 Michigan State: 16, 8, 4, 2
1998 Kentucky: 15, 10, 6, 1

So of the last eight national champions, fully half did not have to play the highest non-themselves seed in their region to make the Final Four, and only two of the eight (Maryland and Michigan State) had to play the highest possible seed they could have faced in all four matchups. In other words, give UConn - with at worst a 5-7 road - a better chance of going all the way than Duke, which could very likely end up having to run the 16-8-4-2 gauntlet.

*I know this is ridiculously early - a full year early, in fact - but I wanted to mention a couple of potential changes to next year's Challenge while people are actually reading this site and might be willing to comment.

First, next year I'd like to add the NIT Challenge to the repertoire. Basically, anyone who wanted to participate would kick in an extra buck on top of the usual fee and the winner would get the NIT pot - if someone lost the NCAA Challenge but won the NIT Challenge, it would basically be like getting a refund of the whole thing (assuming at least a handful of people were interested). It would be a little harder to pull off, of course, since the games usually start just two days after Selection Sunday, but as long as I got the brackets out that night you'd have at least a full day to puzzle over it. It could be kind of fun, at least.

The second thing was a change to the bonus system, but I think I need to think about it some more to come up with the fairest way to be rewarded for upset picks. If you have any input on that one (or the NIT one), leave a comment.