Here are the links to the standings and reports:
DAILY RECAPS
TOURNAMENT PREVIEW
Whether the tournament will have a repeat champion this year is a question with a consequential answer. Forty players, or 35% of the field, has picked UConn to repeat and 57% of players have them to at least reach the finals.
If you are one of those players, this means you'll have to look to this weekend to separate yourself from the pack.
One player who picked against popular opinion was Cinderallie. She chose 31-3 James Madison to win it all. She is one of five players to be the only person to pick a certain team to win. The others are Allie Bracket (Northwestern), PAWWWL (BYU), Turing Test (Creighton), and Sugarduck 52 (Baylor).
Purdump?
The concept of history repeating itself shows up in this year's tourney in a couple other areas.
The first is whether Purdue will repeat its historic first round loss from last year, when it failed to win a single game as a #1 seed.
It should be noted, of course, that the only other time this happened, to Virginia, that team came back the next year and avenged its humiliating loss by winning the title (in part by beating Purdue in miraculous fashion).
Twenty players have faith the Boilermakers can do what Virginia did. Three players--Sarah, SnowDaysInApril, and Sugarduck52--have seen enough and won't be fooled again. They have Purdue losing tomorrow night.
The other area where we might see history repeat involves defending champ Stump. He picked UConn all the way again, and he also predicted victory for himself. "Going back to back!!" was his bold statement.
UConn isn't the secret it was last year, however, so Stump will need some help from the likes of #12 seed Grand Canyon, who he has in the Sweet 16.
New Chippens Frontiers?
With Stump becoming the Challenge's first two-time champ, there are only a couple "moonshot" barriers left to crack.
One is breaking 200 points in a single season. The record still stands at 192 points, last achieved by tournament savant Blizzard T. Husky in 2009. What's more, only player since 2013 has even cracked the top 20 list for single season points.
A New Generation Of Players
Perhaps, with the Chippens player population becoming ever more aged, addled, and fossilized (speaking only for myself, of course), it will fall on a new generation of players to break records.
The previously-mentioned Allie Bracket and Sugarduck are part of a sizable contingent of young players reaching the age of "majority" (in Chippens terms this can be very young) and thus able to fill out a bracket on their own.
The "Next Gen" crowd of school-age wunderkinds also includes V, TrueWisconsiniteE, Unicano156, Gray is cool, Dawg, DaphneDooster, ChaChaTheCuriousWinner, Chucky's Fan Girl, and Addygator.
These youngins have the advantage of nimble minds, fertilized by sweet naïveté, and thus are able to do things with their brackets most adults couldn't do without first putting on a diaper and checking with their cardiologist.
Not bound by "safe" or "logical" choices, these are dangerous players who need just one or two blessings of fortune to come away with the Grand Prize and perhaps a new record.
Good luck to all!
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