2008 College Basketball Season [Winner: lardass76]

[lostatlimbo]

Purdue took down Xavier in basically a rout in the first round of the NIT.....the Boilermakers are out to show what they think of their snub in the Big Dance!

The Boilermakers better keep bribing the officials if they want to go deep in the NIT - because despite their incredibly fortunate drop, there was a moment where Xavier could have crawled back into the game, if the dice had been a bit kinder.

[flexmaster33]

New brackets are up...a couple more games have gone final...

Available second-round games will go out in a moment. Enjoy and good luck as we head into the Sweet 16.

[flexmaster33]

Figured I'd post this while we still have quite a few active tourney players.

I feel like this year's tourney ran even better than last year's, but I'm always open to suggestions...so feel free to post here or pm me if you have ideas for making this college hoops tourney better for 2009-10.

I think we could add a few more leagues (10-20) teams for next season if we get enough interest. And I'm pretty sure we'll retain the 3-map format for the NCAA championship tourney.

Also, thanks to all the players who finished out the season and thanks for keeping a steady pace of play...it went very well with much fewer headaches for the T.O. than I encountered my first year doing this.

flex

[denominator]

flex, again well run this year. About the only thing I can think of for next year is to make it bigger. This is far and away my favourite tournament on CC.

[Hath]

#14 Tennessee completes the upset of #3 Clemson!

[uofajac]

#14 Arizona over #3 Oklahoma in game 3.

[chopsiu]

indiana beat virginia in nit first round
thanks

[laci_mae]

Hey flex,

Again great job running this tourney. I've really enjoyed getting more or some experience on a wide variety of maps. Definitely keep exploiting that aspect of the tournament.

Best,
L

[flexmaster33]

The Southern Region is shaping up as the wildest with first-round upsets by...
#11 Nebraska
#12 Tulane
#13 Duke
#14 Tennessee and
#15 Vermont

crazy, but well done guys.

[cazmart]

Texas Cinderella run not to be in '09.

UMASS used a great knowledge of its home court to dominate.

Good Job flex....see you in the fall as the longhorns will return!

[flexmaster33]

UMass is the first team into the Sweet 16...we'll take a break until the full Sweet 16 is set, then we'll continue with the the final rounds of the tournament. Congrats to tsiomiu

Brackets will get updated Sunday night.

[RamWreck]

Well Duke just made it by sweeping Tulane so I guess I am done for this year.

Thanks Flex, very well run tourney. PM me when you start next years...

RamWreck

[plash.ricrem]

UMass is the first team into the Sweet 16...we'll take a break until the full Sweet 16 is set, then we'll continue with the the final rounds of the tournament. Congrats to tsiomiu

Brackets will get updated Sunday night.

It appears that Vermont has also continued the A-10 love by advancing to the sweet 16 (as opposed to the real life version which got knocked out in yesterday's AE quarterfinal game ) with a clean sweep of 7 seed Western Michigan (4403712) and (4410071).

[Lubawski]

Illinois State took 2 of 3 over Fireside Poet

[Easy n Dirty]

Hi everyone...I've had some complaints about choices for neutral maps and looked into it more closely and thought it was something that should be changed starting with round 2 of the tourney.

When I first selected the maps, I was focusing on mostly geographic maps without a lot of tricks to them or special rules. Since then it has been brought to my attention than some maps are better for 1 vs. 1 based on the territory giveout at the start of a game. Some maps make it much easier for the player going first to get a slight advantage from the drop, and of course, this slight advantage can easily snowball for no other reason that the player was given the first turn.

I've seen the light...maps that start with each player getting 14, 17 or 20 territories give the best chance for both players to have equal armies on their opening turn.

As a result, I've re-evaluated some of the neutral maps in play and replaced them with others that meet the above description.

Here are the changes (they will go into effect for Round 2)
In the South...
The Sweet 16/Elite 8 maps are now Asia and BeNeLux
For the second round...Cairn's Coast replaces Iberia

In the West...
The Sweet 16/Elite 8 maps are now San Francisco and Carribean
In the second round...Hong Kong replaces Africa

In the Midwest...
In the second round...Malta replaces Montreal

In the Northeast...
In the second round...British Isles replaces Tamriel

For the Final Four
the neutral map has changed from San Francisco to North America.

All of these changes are reflected on the newly updated brackets.
I feel like this 2008-09 format is making the championship tournament more of a fair test to decide out 1 vs. 1 champion, and improving this map selection is just another step to making the March Madness bracket that much more fair.

thanks, flex

PS - I'm now keeping a log of maps and starting territories for each one, so that I can refer to it in other tourneys I may organize...since most of mine are 1 vs. 1 events.

While I and I'm sure everyone else appreciate your efforts to constantly improve this and other torunamens, I think Malta is also not a great 1vs1 map because of having two simple bonuses which could easily be granted on the drop, including one for holding only 1 territory (Valletta).

[flexmaster33]

Vermont and Duke join UMass as early teams into the Sweet 16...giving us three double-digit seeds advancing at the moment.

Also, of note is #16 New Mexico on the verge of the tourney's biggest upset over #1 Bowling Green.

Finally, Nevada defeated Duquesne in the play-in game to earn the right to go against overall #1 UCLA.

Brackets are updated...newsletter will get an update once my kids get over being sick...no sleep around here that last few days...especially for my poor wife, who's on the way to the hospital tonight...ughh


PS -- point noted Easy N Dirty, although at this point we'll stick with Malta for this year's tourney, and I'll see how it does.

[*Pixar*]

pixar wins game 1 but dont think the others;(

[flexmaster33]

I must admit I'm suffering withdrawals after being reduced to a spectator/T.O.-only after the first round.

Congrats to those who have already moved onto the Sweet 16, I'm expecting quite a few of the other spots to fill up in the next few days. We'll probably get those matches started around the time of the real Selection Sunday...here's hoping my real Vikings (second place) can win the Big Sky and get a spot.

[agonzos]

Kentucky Wildcats take first game against Illinois State. We're ready for the next one.

[pimphawks70]

air force wins two of three against pitt and should advance.

[AndrewB]

Hi everyone...I've had some complaints about choices for neutral maps and looked into it more closely and thought it was something that should be changed starting with round 2 of the tourney.

When I first selected the maps, I was focusing on mostly geographic maps without a lot of tricks to them or special rules. Since then it has been brought to my attention than some maps are better for 1 vs. 1 based on the territory giveout at the start of a game. Some maps make it much easier for the player going first to get a slight advantage from the drop, and of course, this slight advantage can easily snowball for no other reason that the player was given the first turn.

I've seen the light...maps that start with each player getting 14, 17 or 20 territories give the best chance for both players to have equal armies on their opening turn.

As a result, I've re-evaluated some of the neutral maps in play and replaced them with others that meet the above description.

Here are the changes (they will go into effect for Round 2)
In the South...
The Sweet 16/Elite 8 maps are now Asia and BeNeLux
For the second round...Cairn's Coast replaces Iberia

In the West...
The Sweet 16/Elite 8 maps are now San Francisco and Carribean
In the second round...Hong Kong replaces Africa

In the Midwest...
In the second round...Malta replaces Montreal

In the Northeast...
In the second round...British Isles replaces Tamriel

For the Final Four
the neutral map has changed from San Francisco to North America.

All of these changes are reflected on the newly updated brackets.
I feel like this 2008-09 format is making the championship tournament more of a fair test to decide out 1 vs. 1 champion, and improving this map selection is just another step to making the March Madness bracket that much more fair.

thanks, flex

PS - I'm now keeping a log of maps and starting territories for each one, so that I can refer to it in other tourneys I may organize...since most of mine are 1 vs. 1 events.

I would not complain about maps, but the settings. I got to play 2 flat rate games and I was raped twice by the cards in them.

If you want to make it fair, you would have to make the neutral game in no cards. And make it at least 7 games long. To be frank, if i knew that in the finals i would be playing just 3 games, with 2 of them flat rate, I would not participate in the tournament to start with. You could as well throw a dice to decide a winner

I sound like a sore loser, maybe I am. But the tournament format was so nice in the beginning, and ending was so undefined till the very end and whatever was defined was such a disappointment...

[got tonkaed]

I actually think as frusterating as it can be for some who had a really good season that the way flex does it actually simulates the tournament phase a lot better. You simply dont always have the team who on paper is the best win the tournament every year, you have a team that his good and gets really hot at the right time. I think people who dont see this arent giving flex enough credit for how well the entire tournament mirrors the actual sport itself.

[flexmaster33]

Thanks tonkaed...that is my ultimate goal is to mask the real sport as closely as possible.

Last year, I felt we had too many undeserved upsets (most of the #1s and #2s went out early), and I feel that the 2 of 3 format defeats that a great deal.

Going to a best of seven would prolong this phase of the tourney far too much, and it's college hoops which isn't supposed to be a prolonged series like the NBA in the first place.

As far as flat rate vs. no spoils...I prefer flat rate, but am open to feedback from others.
I like it 1) because it speeds play along, so you don't have too many of those 20-30 round marathons and 2) because I think it can even the playing field many times if you suffer a bad drop, you still have hope with the cards. With no spoils it's usually just a slow death.

I will make a point of better explaining the tournament format in detail next year, but it was mentioned from the beginning sign-ups and even featured as something new about this year's league. Now that I have the scoring formula designed and a better feel for 1 vs. 1 neutral maps, I will include those at the start.

I'm not trying to throw you under the bus AndrewB...just trying to address some of the concerns you had. Hope to see you back next season.

[flexmaster33]

Brackets are updated, but the newsletter refresh will have to wait until my youngest gets out of the hospital He's hanging in there though...should be released tomorrow

[flexmaster33]

Also a quick congrats to CashBox, who led his #16 seed New Mexico to a first-round upset over #1 Bowling Green 69-31 for the biggest surprise of the opening matchups.

Only two games remain active out of the first round and about half of the Sweet 16 field is set.