Ifs and Buts

I entered three NCAA jackpots. My performance in two of them was quite lousy but in my work jackpot I was quite good. Just not good enough. I'm currently 10th out of 251 entrants, though I have no chance of winning. Plus if North Carolina wins I'll drop another 20 spots or so.

The frustrating thing is, I picked North Carolina to win it all in the other two jackpots. The only reason I didn't pick them again for my work jackpot was that I'd already picked them in the other two. I had a Final Four of Michigan State, UConn, Pitt, and North Carolina, and when I looked at it I thought "North Carolina is clearly my favorite, but I should probably pick someone else just to mix it up a little."

I basically didn't want 1 upset loss in an early round to completely ruin all three of my chances at the same time. So I picked Pitt over North Carolina and then UConn over Pitt. The Pitt/UNC matchup was the only game out of all three sheets that I chose 'just for a change' rather than who I thought (at the moment) would win. It cost me a few hundred dollars. Oh well.

If I'd gone with UNC as I had in the other two, I'd have already clinched first place regardless of tonight's outcome, because nobody within range on points has Michigan State winning. Everybody had U of L (or the race car from Monopoly).