jimdahl

Ack, I have Michigan as my first upset of the tourney... Looking at your picks, as long as you don't cheer for BC tonight to help your bracket, I can let it slide

With the higher seed winning each of the first four games, not much separation yetin the leaderboard. Today should shake some people out as Harvard and Maine were popular upset picks.

Mea culpa. The original implementation of the brackets this year was hurried, as was the resolution of the rearrangement of the semifinals. I wasn't able to dedicate the time I would have usually liked to ensure usual quality control. Sorry for the invconvenience, and I apologize for this feature deviating from the quality standards I usually hold up for SiouxSports.com. It should all be displaying correctly now, everyone's picks are fine.

The Tarleton box score lists official attendance at 727. That's quite likely tickets sold; which, given bisonguy's description, could be quite different from turnstyle count. That also would imply that no more than that many all-session packages were sold. That's about in line with my expectations and others' concerns, though undoubtedly a bit disappointing for REA. The championship game on a weekend afternoon could be a bit better.

Bryant def. Mt. Olive 84-69 Watching the bracket graphic at REA. Bryant: Promised to send fans to cheer for the Sioux in Worcester if we cheer for them. Mount Olive: My favorite Cinderalla in the ACC's shadow in the heart of Tobacco Road (and makes me think of pickles). Update: Bryant's recap of their 84-69 win NCAA recap Tarleton St. def Cal. Poly Pomona 58-56 NCAA recap

SH usually count, as do ENG, because neither represent a rule-imposed offensive advantage.

No surprise here -- GPL fans think their picks look more realistic, while Sioux fans think SS.com's do. Unfortunately, even once the matches are completed, we won't know, because it will have been a single sample. I would say UND at 50% is as realistic as UND at 1.6%. KRACH gives them about 5%, which is about 1/10 SS.com's guess but about 3x GPL's guess; however, I'm quite comfortable claiming that KRACH underestimates UND's chances by that 2x gap (by equally weighting losses in January with a March winning streak). Both samples are super-homerific, as I would expect. They overfavor the schools that they're familiar with that aren't their archrivals (hence the love for CC); understimate their rivals (did anyone pick Wisconsin?), and give no love to the out-of-conference powers (poor Cornell!) Since UND has been on a tear lately and Minnesota has been awful, Sioux fans are willing to overweight UND's chances a little more than Gophers fans overweight UMN's chances, though both are showing the obvious proclivity to align their predictions with their desired outcomes.

Hmmm... first game seems to be March 25 at 4:30pm ET, so I guess I should shut down new picks then.

With just over a 100 guesses tallied so far, whither the Gophers? You'd expect our picks to be quite homerish (I certainly find it hard to predict the Sioux's demise), which influences our picks to be overly pro-Sioux/anti-Gopher. However, having received only 62% of the vote in the first round, Minnesota is the only #1 seed to get less than 98%! Admittedly, Mercyhurst and Bemidji St are no Maine, but Sioux fans are overwhelmingly happy to give Denver a win over at-large participant, Colgate. Reflecting a more somber fan base, only 50% of us see a UND championship, compared to ~90% last year.

Argh. Thanks vindy. That's what happens when you rush; I just punched in the teams by seeding (e.g. W1, MW1, etc...) into last year's bracket ASSUMING the bracket would stay the same shape. Edit - OK, all fixed now. Unfortunately, that makes any old picks garbage. If you made picks before this post, redo them. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Back for the second year. Link from front hockey page (watch that space for a switch from entries to leaderboard once the games begin). I notice on USCHO that a few more sites have set up similar things this year, but I still say ours is the coolest Feel free to spread the word, more entrants = more fun. Last year we had about 250 entries.

This one? (Link updated to point to complete original thread)

It's just poorly worded, he correctly identifies the situation and points out a fascinating trend later in the article:

W've got pictures. Linked from the hockey front page. Thanks John.

Scroll down just a little to see quite a bit more discussion on this.

I wouldn't say nobody Not much has changed since then, I still don't think UND's core crowd is >10k and I think attendance will slip dramatically during a sustained period of true mediocrity (dropping out of the top 15 for one week this year is nowhere near what I'm talking about). Thankfully, so far the Sioux continue to prevent my theory from being tested by contuing to excel. Regardless, I think we're going to see some modest declines in coming years as the "new thing" factor wears off REA. This is why I've questioned the apparent business strategy of maximizing revenue now instead of using this surge in popularity to try to lock-in more hardcore fans; fostering loyalty could produce a lot more consistent revenue in the long-run than trying to extract an extra dime from each fan when times are flush.

UW Free Audio Broadcast Given the problems with UND's broadcasts the last couple years, I think I'll put together a database of all our regular opponents' broadcasts so they appear with the game info on the front page.

The mailings are sent out by the UND alumni association. Cindy Filler (cindyf@undalumni.org) will be able to help you or direct you to a more appropriate contact.

Usually you can find a partner link to Times stories or a specially coded link that bypasses the registration, for example: Tired of TiVo? Beyond blogs? Podcasts are here Also mentioned in the article is Dave Miller's "Miller Report", from which he has another link: grandforkscity.com. I've seen it claimed many places that most podcasts are not actually used by people with portable music players, rather its people on their PCs. The claim is that the increase in popularity now is because of the ease of recording and serving open formats (e.g. mp3) instead of traditional licensed formats. As to the value of an iPod... I personally find the sweet spot to be around the iPod mini. Tiny device (iPods are a little big for a pocket), 4Gb music, ~$200. I own no such toys, but my wife does, and it really is dramatically easier to carry a mini than the corresponding 20-30 CDs into the car, into work, to the gym, etc... I personally have no need for a 60Gb+ $400 music-only units, because I usually choose what to listen to so don't need (or even really want) every song I've ever owned with me at all times.

I know you all get these in the mail, but a little reminder never hurts: Saturday, February 26, 2005 Fighting Sioux vs. Wisconsin Badgers Gametime: 3:35 p.m. CST UND Alumni Association satellite parties Bismarck, ND Boise, ID Cedar Rapids, Iowa Columbus, Ohio Durham, NC Madison, WI Mesa, AZ Portland, OR Rock Springs, WY San Diego Seattle Twin Cities, MN Washington, DC Troy, MI North Milwaukee

To quote the avatar upload page: I'm not sure how generic the error message you received is, but if it's accurate, it sounds like you have an incorrect file type (not one of those listed as allowed).

The Sioux could actually still finish 10th. It would take a pretty odd scenario. Blatant plug -- no need to crunch those numbers, the web site does it for you.

Since you asked... while it's true that so pronounced a late-season swoon usually has a much more deleterious effect on tournament seeding, the Gophers have won the right the games this year. By going an amazing 17-9 against teams currently under consideration, they win that point in almost every PWR comparison. It's quite intentional (and sound, IMHO) that teams that win against tough competition are ranked higher than teams with similar records but mostly losses against the elite competitors. Combine that with an RPI bolstered by arguably the toughest schedule in the nation, and they certainly deserve to be in the tournament. They similarly don't seem to deserve a #1 seed at this point, and there's a fair chance they'll lose it by the end of the regular season because of their falling RPI from having to finally play the "weaker" WCHA teams (I had the exact magnitude of the drop projected and posted on POI, but don't care to repeat the exercise). If they manage to turn it around and win out or do well in the conference tournament to lock up the 1-seed, it will have been well-earned. Any coach who wants a good seed should be paying attention to their coincidental mediocrity and great ranking -- if you want a good tournament seed, schedule tough competition and beat them; then you can afford a few slipups against the Tech's and AA's.