The Glimm was made for this moment.

Glimm historians know the story: In the fall of 1991, I was a sports-obsessed kid without a college to root for. Then my sister was accepted to the University of Michigan, so I started watching their basketball team.

And I fell in love. Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, Juwan Howard, Jimmy King, Ray Jackson. The most fun sports team I had ever watched.

When March came around, I wanted to share that fun with my friends, so I started an NCAA tournament pool. It was really an excuse to get more people watch this team. And, I hoped, watch them win a championship.

They didn’t. Not in 1992, when they hung close to Duke for a half before fading. Not in 1993, when an ill-fated timeout doomed them. Not in 2013 (Trey Burke’s block was clean, dammit!) or 2018.

Monday night, all those tough losses were put to rest. Goat Cadeau and the 2026 Michigan Wolverines took care of that. Champions.

It was even more special to see my kids fall in love the same way I did 33 years ago, and share the moment with them. When I was in 8th grade in 1992, my parents made me go to bed at halftime, and I listened to the second half on the radio in my room. No such punishment my kids, who jumped up and down with me in the living room as the clock approached midnight on a school night, watching their favorite player — Goat Cadeau — accept the MOP award.

The Glimm was made for this moment.

There were many Glimm winners this year. The pool has a natural Michigan vibe. Seventy people picked Michigan to win the whole damn thing this year, and it wasn’t an emotional pick this time, but it certainly was emotional. We’re feeling all of those emotions right now.

But some of those Glimmers won more than others.

Chris Bowman’s BOCH2 bracket was the big winner. Bowman picked 74.6% of games right throughout the tournament, and was the only person to perfectly predict the last three rounds of the tournament. His 141.5 points was good for first place.

James Smith’s Jhsmith2 finished second with 133.5 points. He picked more games right overall – 79.4% – but had Purdue over Arizona in the Elite Eight. That game was the difference between Bowman and Smith.

Third place came down to the tiebreak — perhaps the closest tiebreak in Glimm history: Both Shannon Ceglinsky and Chris Kern‘s brackets both finished with 129.5 points. Shannon picked 148 total points in the championship game for the tiebreaker — and Chris picked 149. With 132 total points in the game, Shannon is closer by a point, and takes third place.

Bowman, Smith and Ceglinsky now all have a little extra money for championship merch.

In the women’s pool, nobody had much confidence in their picks, and it didn’t matter NBC News digital reporter Rudy Chinchilla’s This won’t end well bracket ended very well – Chinchilla picked 82.5% of the games right, including nailing the Final Four. That put him in first place with 135.5 points.

Jon Lloyd’s best guesses were good enough for second place with 128 points, and Michael Rosenberg‘s bracket finished third with 125 points.

Of note: Seth Rubinroit let emotion cloud his picks. His bracket name told the story: Came THIS close to picking UCLA…but it’s not my brand. The USC graduate couldn’t pick his arch rival. If he had, he would’ve won the women’s pool. Instead, he finished in fourth with 124 points.

Other Glimm winners:

• Kids champions: Clare Kern won the kids championship in the men’s pool with 112.5 points, and Simon Stamm’s the stuffy bracket won it in the women’s pool with 117 points. Both get a free entry to the Glimm next year.
• Owen Lester’s OWL1 won the Glimm Scholarship. With 122 points, he was the top-scoring Glimm family member.
• The Orlov came down to the tiebreak. With 265 entries, the Orlov goes to the person who finished in 132nd place. Jill Gregor’s JGregor and Jason Kaden’s Jiffo1 tied for 131st place with 86.5 points, but Jill’s tiebreak of 139 beat Jason’s of 143 — meaning Jason fell to 132nd place to win the Orlov. He will receive a $5 bill via snail mail for his Orlov prize.
• Brian McGettigan and Ansel Macht finished in last place in the men’s and women’s brackets, respectively, and they each win the Pity Prize. They will each get their $5 entry fee back.

A few of you still haven’t paid your Glimm winnings yet – you’ll get Venmo requests from me today, so we can pay out the winners ASAP.

Thanks everyone, and see you next year!

The leaderboard (final men’s standings here, and final women’s standings here):

Rank	Name	Score	Pick %	Champion
1	BOCH2	141.5	74.6%	Michigan (151)
2	Jhsmith2	133.5	79.4%	Michigan (170)
3	Chris Kern	129.5	74.6%	Michigan (149)
3	Shannon Ceglinsky	129.5	76.2%	Michigan (148)
5	GDTBATH 2	126	81%	Duke (150)
6	rosie posie!!	123.5	74.6%	Michigan (137)
7	Buddha 2	122.5	76.2%	Michigan (144)
8	OWL1	122	76.2%	Illinois (132)
8	Riot Juice	122	74.6%	Arizona (151)
10	Erin Rosenberg	120.5	66.7%	Michigan (144)
10	Sean Ceglinsky	120.5	73%	Arizona (151)

With one game remaining in the Glimm Memorial men’s basketball pool, the big drama is over. The Michigan Wolverines took care of that.

With yet another dominant performance in this NCAA tournament, Michigan dispatched of Arizona with shocking ease — eliminating the champion picked by 60 Glimmers, and essentially ending the competition in the Glimm.

The Glimm is full of Michigan fans, so this result — and this entire three-week run by the Wolverines — was joyous for so many of us. But the biggest winner was Christopher Bowman, whose BOCH2 bracket jumped not only jumped into first place, but sealed the victory.

Two outcomes remain, and both end with BOCH2 on top.

Bowman picked Michigan to beat UConn, which means if that happens, he remains in first (and there will be much joy in Glimmland overall). If Michigan does fall to the Huskies, the biggest beneficiary is Joseph DeMichele’s Googootz. Currently in 10th place, Googootz is the only of the top 10 to pick UConn to win it all. But BOCH2 has 129.5 points, and Googootz has currently sits at 116.5 — which means the 12 points for picking the champion correctly is not enough for DeMichele to catch Bowman.

While the drama is gone from the top of the Glimm men’s pool, there’s plenty of drama elsewhere.

• In the women’s pool, there are two contenders: If South Carolina wins the title today, Michael Rosenberg takes the women’s prize. If UCLA wins, Rudy Chinchilla’s ths won’t end well bracket will end very well, and Rudy will finish in first.
• Second and third place are also up for grabs in both pools. Jhsmith2 will take second and Chris Kern third if Michigan wins, while Googootz takes second if UConn wins (and third could come down to a tiebreaker). In the women’s pool, Rosenberg and Chinchilla will both finish in the top three no matter what (Rudy, in fact, will take second and third place if South Carolina wins), but Jon Lloyd’s jon’s best guesses can join them if UCLA wins.
• In the kids tournaments, we have our two winners: Clare Kerns will win the men’s pool (she picked Michigan to win, and no kids picked UConn), and Simon Stamm’s the stuffy braket will win the women’s pool (his 14 point lead is big enough to win no matter what, even though his champion has already lost).
• Owen Lester’s OWL1 bracket has clinched the Glimm Family Scholarship.
• The Orlov is still very much up for grabs.
• An apology from me: It’s been a while since the last Glimm update. I meant to send one after the women’s Elite Eight games ended, but life intervened.
• A final note: Please be healthy on Monday, Yaxel. And Go Blue!!!

The Leaderboard (full men’s standings here, full women’s standings here):

Rank	Name	Score	Pick %	Champion
1	BOCH2	129.5	74.2%	Michigan (151)
2	GDTBATH 2	126	82.3%	Duke (150)
3	OWL1	122	77.4%	Illinois (132)
3	Riot Juice	122	75.8%	Arizona (151)
5	Jhsmith2	121.5	79%	Michigan (170)
6	Sean Ceglinsky	120.5	74.2%	Arizona (151)
7	PennyK2	119.5	72.6%	Duke (118)
8	Chris Kern	117.5	74.2%	Michigan (149)
8	Shannon Ceglinsky	117.5	75.8%	Michigan (148)
10	Googootz	116.5	75.8%	UConn (125)

After three rounds of the Glimm Memorial Men’s basketball pool, we have a new leader: Owen Lester, grandson of Glimm namesake Mrs. Glim, picked six of the Elite Eight correctly to move past Kate Lord’s GDTBATH 2 and into first place.

Lester’s OWL1 bracket correctly picked Illinois to knock off Houston and Tennessee to beat Iowa State, propelling him 96 points, four ahead of Lord.

Lord slipped to second place after going five for eight in the Sweet Sixteen, and Penny Kowitt PennyK2 moved up to third place (85.5 points) with a six-for-eight round. Both Lord and Kowitt have identical picks in the final seven games, with Duke over Michigan in the championship games.

Christopher Bowman (BOCH3) and Brandon Curley (Buddha2) are tied for fourth at 84.5.

But it’s at the bottom of the top 10 of the Glimm standings where things get really interesting.

Earl Camburn (Earl Camburn 2 (JB)), Jim Catapano (JimCat), Jeff Keating (jkedit1) and Adam Gould (Roid Rage) sit in a four-way tie for seventh place, with 83.5 points.

Not only are Earl, Jim, Jeff and Adam tied, but through 112 games, their picks are identical.

That’s right. 112 for 112. They all picked Texas to win the first two games then lose to Purdue. They all picked Tennessee to knock off Virginia and then lose to Iowa State (which didn’t happen). They all picked St. John’s to reach beat Kansas but lose to Duke.

This seems supsicious. In fact, it seems like a near mathematical impossibility. And this is a pool named for match teacher – we must take these things seriously! So Glimm officials turned to the most trusted source — ChatGPT – to crunch some numbers and determine just how likely this is.

This formula gives us the answer (the full math is here, for anyone interested):

Plugging in the right values for the Qs, you get this: 1.25×10⁻²³

And in English, that means 1 in 79,736,844,641,242,890,000,000 — or 79.736 sextillion.

Incredible, right? Well, maybe not.

There is a reason this seemingly mathematical impossibility happened.

The name of Camburn’s entry gives us the clue: Earl Camburn 2 (JB).

Look at those last two letters in the parantheses: JB.

Earl Camburn, as some of you may know, is a senior director of creative services for the NBC Regional Sports Networks. He’s a really good guy who loves to talk sports.

In one of those recent discussions, he revealed a secret: For one of his brackets, Camburn said he would just use the picks of Jay Bilas, the ESPN college basketball analyst – aka JB.

The math tells us Camburn wasn’t the only one to have that idea.

The bad news for the Bilas Four: Jay’s Elite Eight wasn’t so elite. He had Michigan State, Florida and Iowa State all reaching the Elite Eight. When Michigan State and Iowa State both lost late last night, the Bilas Four dropped from third place to seventh.

Now, it appears the Bilas Four will part ways. Gould used the Bilas picks to get him to the Elite Eight, but then tweaked his Final Four and Championship picks. Earl and Jeff stuck with Bilas minus one game – Jay picked Florida to reach the Final Four, while Earl and Jeff both (wisely, it appears) abandoned the Gators and picked Illinois.

Only Catapano stuck with the Full Bilas. In Jay He Rides.

Some quick other Glimmbits:

• In the women’s pool, it’s an LA Daily News party at the top. Two-time Glimm men’s champion Ramona Shelburne got three of yesterday’s four games right to move into first place with 73.5 points. Gene Warnick (Gene W.) and Aron Miller (UCSD for the (first round) win) are tied for second with 70 points. All three are former Daily Newsers.
• In the kids brackets, Clare Kern leads the men’s pool with 82.5 points, and Asa Kleinbaum’s e^i pi +1=0 and Sydney Kwarta’s Soupy Popcorn are tied for first in the women’s pool with 66 points.
• Speaking of Asa Kleinbaum, my math-obsessed 11-year-old son, today’s Glimm update is dedicated to him. You may have noticed three entries with math formulas for names — ln(x)=sum from n=1 to infinity for -(1-x)^n /n, e^i pi +1=0 and i^i=e^(-𝞹/2) — those are Asa’s (and he only submitted the second women’s bracket because he realized he could include the pi symbol in the name).
• If you haven’t checked theglimm.com lately, I recommend you do. If you click on the ‘full stats’ options in the top menu, you’ll see lots of new reports available, including end-game scenarios, best possible scores and a What If tool.

Games continue for both the men and the women today.

The Men’s Leaderboard (full men’s standings here, full women’s standings here):

Rank	Name	Score	Pick %	Champion
1	OWL1	96	80.4%	Illinois (132)
2	GDTBATH 2	92	83.9%	Duke (150)
3	PennyK2	85.5	73.2%	Duke (118)
4	BOCH3	84.5	75%	Houston (160)
4	Buddha 2	84.5	78.6%	Michigan (144)
6	This won’t end well	84	80.4%	Illinois (135)
7	Earl Camburn 2 (JB)	83.5	78.6%	Arizona (161)
7	JimCat	83.5	78.6%	Arizona (148)
7	jkedit1	83.5	78.6%	Arizona (153)
7	Roid Rage	83.5	78.6%	Duke (135)

The first day of the NCAA tournament wasn’t a good day to be a Tar Heel. North Carolina, a six seed, became an early upset victim, losing to VCU in the first round.

But one Tar Heel didn’t have that much faith in her beloved team. Kate Lord, longtime Glimmer and UNC alum/superfan, correctly picked that upset — going against her heart to pick her team to lose in the first round.

In fact, it was a good weekend to be Kate Lord. Her GDTBATH 2 bracket (Good Day To Buy A Terrible Hat? Good Day To Befriend A Time-traveling Hamster? Good Day To Be A Tar-Heel?) went 28-for-32 in the first round, then an impressive 15-for-16 in the second round, only missing Iowa’s upset win over top-seeded Florida.

That was good enough to catapult the 2016 Glimm champion to the top of the leaderboard. Entering the Sweet 16, GDTBATH 2 71.5 points was enough for first place, ahead of Owen Lester’s OWL1 (69.5) and Chris Rotar’s Crotar3 (66).

Speaking of Florida’s upset, it was surprising how little of an impact that had. Typically, when a one seed goes down, it busts lots of brackets. But Glimmers never had much faith in the Gators. Just 11 people Florida to win the national title, far less than any of the other top seeds.

In the women’s bracket, it was a Good Day To Back (most) All Higher Seeds. Upsets were few and far between. The key, of course, was picking those few upsets correctly.

John Schippman did that best so far. He picked all favorites in the first round, and then mostly favorites in the second round — but correctly picked Notre Dame’s upset over Ohio State. That was enough to vault his John Schippman 1 bracket into first place with 60 points, just ahead of Ramona Shelburne (59.5) and Jeff Keating (58.5).

A housekeeping note: Some of you have not yet paid your Glimm dues. Please get that to me ASAP.

The tournament resumes with the Sweet 16 — the men play Thursday and the women Friday.

Men’s leaderboard (full men’s standings here, full women’s standings here):

Rank	Name	Score	Pick %	Champion
1	GDTBATH 2	71.5	87.5%	Duke (150)
2	OWL1	69.5	81.3%	Illinois (132)
3	Crotar3	66	87.5%	Michigan (143)
4	PCatOne	65.5	87.5%	Michigan (168)
4	Winner Winner	65.5	79.2%	Santa Clara (157)
6	Ottomatic 2	65	83.3%	Houston (158)
7	Buddha 2	64.5	81.3%	Michigan (144)
8	Earl Camburn 2 (JB)	63	81.3%	Arizona (161)
8	JimCat	63	81.3%	Arizona (148)
8	jkedit1	63	81.3%	Arizona (153)
8	Roid Rage	63	81.3%	Duke (135)

At the start of this basketball season, my daughter Stephanie sat down next to me during a Michigan basketball game. She had just recently gotten into basketball, and, somehow, had never really watched Michigan games with me.

A few minutes after she sat down, Elliot Cadeau made a great pass. ​​

“Who was that!?” she said. “That was the GOAT!”

And Goat Cadeau was born. 

Now, GOAT CADEAU is in the Glimm – naturally, that’s the name of Stephanie’s bracket. It’s not doing great – currently sitting in 184th place after the first round. But it has something the rest of you don’t: An Island.

At the start of this basketball season, my daughter Stephanie sat down next to me during a Michigan basketball game. She had just recently gotten into basketball, and, somehow, had never really watched Michigan games with me.

A few minutes after she sat down, Elliot Cadeau made a great pass. ​​

“Who was that!?” she said. “That was the GOAT!”

And Goat Cadeau was born. 

Now, GOAT CADEAU is in the Glimm – naturally, that’s the name of Stephanie’s bracket. It’s not doing great – currently sitting in 184th place after the first round. But it has something the rest of you don’t: An Island.

Today, Stephanie and I are going to watch Michigan play St. Louis in the second round. The game is in Buffalo, NY. We spent the night in Niagara Falls, and took a morning walk to see the falls — and we found Cadeau’s island.

Hopefully this brings Michigan good luck today.

As far as we know, none of the Glimm leaders have an island. Joe’s Best Bracket (39.5) and Winner Winner (39) remain atop the standings, with Ottomatic 2 (38.5), Big 3.0 (37.5) and Buddha 2 (36.5) rounding out the top five.

But there are already cracks at the top: John Cusimano’s Winner Winner has already lost its champion (Santa Clara). In fact, seven Glimmers lost their champion in the first round, thanks to losses by Santa Clara, North Carolina, Wisconsin, BYU and Miami (Ohio). Three more people lost their runner-up, and 14 lost at least one Final Four team.

In the women’s tournament, the chalk prevailed: The higher seed won every game on the first day, and 13 people correctly predicted that.

The men’s second round kicks off at noon ET today from Buffalo, and the women’s first round continues at 11:30 am ET.

The men’s leaderboard (men’s full standings here, women’s full standings here):

Rank	Name	Score	Pick %	Champion
1	Joes best bracket	39.5	87.5%	UConn (142)
2	Winner Winner	39	84.4%	Santa Clara (157)
3	Ottomatic 2	38.5	84.4%	Houston (158)
4	big 3.0	37.5	87.5%	Arizona (129)
5	Buddha 2	36.5	84.4%	Michigan (144)
6	Brenner1	36	81.3%	Duke (145)
6	Crotar3	36	87.5%	Michigan (143)
8	GDTBATH 2	35.5	84.4%	Duke (150)
8	Googootz	35.5	84.4%	UConn (125)
8	hi guys	35.5	87.5%	Arizona (109)
8	Otter4	35.5	87.5%	Arizona (160)
8	Yahtzee	35.5	78.1%	Duke (143)

​​

We’ve made it through 16 games of the NCAA Tournament, and we know one thing: There will be no perfect bracket this year.

The Killer Js came the closest: Joe Cadelago, John Cusimano and Jack Otter picked 15 of 16 games.  Joe (Joe’s Best Bracket) and John (Winner Winner) had the same mistake: They picked all the upsets correctly, but ALSO picked South Florida to beat Louisville. Jack’s big 3.0 failed to pick Texas upset of BYU. (Somehow, the J magic eluded me – my brackets linger in the 100s). 

And there were plenty of upsets! Wisconsin, North Carolina, BYU and St. Mary’s all lost, and Duke had a near miss. Men’s games resume at noon ET today, and women’s games kick off at 11:30am ET.

You can see how you’re doing by checking out theglimm.com: Click on ‘Men’s standings’ in the nav to see the full standings and find your bracket. Just as important, you can go there to SUBMIT A WOMEN’S BRACKET!. Women’s games tip off in about two hours, so time is running out!

There’s lots of other goodies to dive into here – kids standings, Glimm family standings, who picked who and more. 

A note from your Glimm host: Site updates may be slow tonight, as I’m driving to Buffalo to watch Michigan play St. Louis tomorrow. Go Blue!!!

It’s the most wonderful time of the year: Glimm time!

That’s right, we’re in the middle of March, which means only one thing: The best NCAA tournament pool in the land is back, this time, with a special feature: Michigan as a #1 seed. Woo-hoo! So don’t waste any time: Get your Yaxel’s together and fill out your brackets.

If you’re on this site, you likely know the drill. We’ll have men’s and women’s pools. The men’s pool has the Orlov and the Glimm Family Scholarship. Both pools have the pity prize, the Kids Championship, and a 70/20/10 prize split. And yes, while prices seem high everywhere else, the Glimm’s entry fee hasn’t changed since 1993: It’s still just $5.

Here are the key Glimm details:

WHAT: The 34rd Annual Glimm Memorial NCAA Basketball Tournament Pool

HOW: Fill out a men’s bracket here, and/or a women’s bracket here, then send me $5 per bracket via venmo (username @Josh-Kleinbaum). IMPORTANT: When sending money, be sure to specify what bracket (entry name and men’s or women’s pool) you’re paying for. I’m also requesting your Venmo handle, so if you don’t pay by the end of the first weekend, I can send you a request.

HOW MUCH: Five bucks per entry for each pool. And yes, you can enter more than once (but no more than five times per pool, thanks to the Nevin Barich rule).

THE PAYOUT: In both pools, the winner gets 70% of the pot, runner-up 20% and third-place person 10%. To give some context, the winner has taken home north of $1K in some years. There are a few other prizes in the men’s pool, too: The Orlov (whoever finishes exactly middle of the pack gets their $5 back, in cash, via snail mail), the Glimm Scholarship (the highest-finishing relative of Mrs. Glimm from the previous year gets a free entry), the Kids Champion (the top finisher under Bar Mitzvah age; details below) and the Pity Finisher (the last-place finisher gets his/her $5 back). On top of that, thirty bucks comes out of the pot to pay for Glimm infrastructure, and I give myself 2 free entries.

SCORING: For both pools, it’s a 1-2-4-8-10-12 scoring system with upset points. So that means that you get one point for picking a game correctly in the first round, two points in the second round, etc. And we use upset points – any time a lower-seeded team beats a higher-seeded team, you get half the difference between the seeds as bonus points. So if a 15 beats a 2, you get 6.5 bonus points. If a 9 beats an 8, you get half a point. The bottom line: It pays to take risks.

KIDS CHAMPION: Any kid under Bar Mitzvah age that enters the Glimm (and makes their own picks – this isn’t about mommy or daddy submitting an entry under baby’s name) is also eligible to win the Kids Championship. Like the Glimm Scholarship (awarded to the top finisher related to Mrs. Glimm), the Kids Champion will receive a free entry to the next year’s Glimm. When filling out their bracket, kids should choose YES in the Kids Bracket drop-down. Note: We’re planning a women’s Kids Championship, but if we don’t have enough kids entering, we may scrap it.

HOW TO PAY: Venmo (username @Josh-Kleinbaum). IMPORTANT: When sending money, be sure to specify which brackets in which pool you’re paying for. This year, I’m asking for your venmo handle in the bracket. If I don’t receive payment by the end of the first weekend of the tourney, I will send you a Venmo request.

Lauren Kimball never had to sweat. As UConn romped its way to the women’s national championship, so too did Kimball to her first Glimm title.

In fact, just to erase any doubt, Kimball gave herself some insurance: She finished first and second in the women’s Glimm.

Her LK1 bracket finished with 153 points, 6.5 points ahead of her second-place LK2 bracket. Jim Catapano’s JimCat finished third with 145 points.

Three teams finished tied for fourth (including two brackets named after UConn stare Paige Buecker) with 144 points, just outside the money: Earl Campburn’s Paige Buckets, Dan Stamm’s Paige vs. Dawn and Pete Catapano’s PCwomen2.

In the men’s bracket, Francesca Catalano had a much tougher path. In the second straight must-win game for her Cesca bracket, her team had a win percentage below 5 at some point during the second half. But days after Houston pulled off a near-impossible comeback over Duke, Florida pulled off an improbable comeback over Houston — leaving Cesca atop the standings.

Catalano finished with 159 points to win her first Glimm title. Nick Putnam’s NPD1 finished in second (147), followed by Sean Ceglinsky (146.5). Jack Otter’s OtterV 3.0 (146.5) and Carson Derosiers’s Carson-Derosiers1 (146) rounded out the top five. 

Some final Glimmbits:

• The only other prize that wasn’t clinched before the championships was the Orlov, the prize going to the person who finished in the exact middle of the men’s pool. This year, with 284 entries, that went the person who finished in 142nd place. In fact, five people finished in 139th place, so we have to go the tiebreaker — looking for the person who finished in fourth place in the tiebreaker. That person? Jerry Kleinbaum’s DoctorK bracket. 
  
• Women’s champ Lauren Kimball finished within striking distance of the rare double championship — her LK1 bracket finished in sixth place.
  
• Your host had one of his best Glimms in years, but not good enough to finish in the money. My Pennypacker bracket finished in seventh place. 

Francesca Catalano’s Glimm outlook looked bleak late Saturday night. Yes, her Cesca bracket sat atop the Glimm standings with just two undecided games. But Duke held a commanding lead over Houston in the second Final Four game, and Cesca needed a Houston win to have a shot at not only winning the Glimm, but even finishing in the top three.

Then the unimaginable happened. 

My son is fascinated by the ESPN win probability calculator, so I looked this up: With 8:17 left in the game, Duke had a 98.5% chance of winning (and therefore Cesca’s odds of staying alive in the Glimm were 1.5%). With 2:30 left, Duke’s winning percentage was 97.1%. 

Yet Houston won, and now Cesca is in the driver’s seat.

Now, it’s down to two: If Florida beats Houston on Monday, Cesca will be your Glimm men’s champion. If Houston rides the momentum of this incredible win and beats Duke, Eric Jones will be your champion (his Jonesz02 currently is in second place, 2.5 points behind Cesca).

One champion has already been crowned in the men’s tournament: 7-year-old Sammy Eckerling has clinched the Kids Championship. His 116 points put him 1.5 points ahead of Kendal Gregor’s Kgregor and five points ahead of Nola Fowler. But all three picked Florida to win on Monday, so Kendal and Nola cannot catch Sammy. Henry Benham’s Henry B 3 is the closest kid to have picked Houston – but he trails Sammy by 18 points, an insurmountable deficit.

In the women’s tournament, we’re also down to two contenders: Michael Kern’s Mimi and Michael is in first place with 142 points, ahead of Lauren Kimball’s LK1 (136.5). Mimi and Michael picked South Carolina to win the championship, and LK1 picked UConn, so one of those two will be your women’s champion.

We also have a women’s champion already: Malcolm Stamm. Malcolm’s King bracket sits atop the kids standings, and he is the only kid to have picked either UConn or South Carolina to win.

Some GlimmBits:

* No matter what, we will have first-time champions in both the men’s and the women’s tournaments. None of the four Glimmers still fighting for a championship has won before.

* Eli Lester, Mrs. Glim’s grandson, has won the Glimm Scholarship — awarded to the top-finishing member of the Glim family. Eli entered five brackets this year, and all five are currently ahead of the other four members of the Glim family competing this year (his Eli 4 has clinched the Glimm Scholarship). This is Eli’s third Glimm Scholarship in the last five years.  

* Don’t forget: The Orlov is still up for grabs. The Orlov is awarded whoever finishes in the exact middle – this year, in 142nd place. Right now, five Glimmers are tied for 142nd, so it would come down to the tiebreak (whoever finished third in the tiebreak, not whoever finished first, because that’s the middle). But that’s likely to change once the championship results are factored in.

* The women’s championship is at 3 pm ET today, and the men’s championship is at 8:50 pm ET tomorrow. 

What makes the NCAA tournament so much fun each year is its unpredictability. Crazy upsets every round, a Cinderella making an unexpected run.

That unpredictability opens the door for the underdog — not just in the tournament itself, but in the Glimm. That’s how, back in 1995, Glimm namesake Marion Glim won the pool — the high school calculus teacher took advantage of Final Four runs by fourth-seeded Oklahoma State and second-seeded Arkansas (read more about Mrs. Glim’s run, and why the pools is named for her). 

Now, 30 years later, Mrs. Glim’s grandson did the opposite: Eli Lester rode the chalk to first place. Houston, Auburn, Florida and Duke, the four No. 1 seeds, all reached the Final Four. And Eli, one of several relatives of Mrs. Glim to compete in the Glimm each year, picked all four of them in his eli 4 bracket.

That gave Eli 119.5 points — half a point ahead of Francesca Catalano’s Cesca and Sean Ceglinsky‘s eponymous bracket.

The Ott’s didn’t fare so well. Jack Otter’s OtterV 3.0 picked just two of the Final Four right, and he fell to fourth place. Otto Kern’s Ottomatic 2 got three of the Final Four, but slipped all the way to 11th. 

In the women’s pool, it was much the same: Sure, one #1 seed lost, but is it really an upset when they were 14-point underdogs, or did the committee just get the seeds badly wrong? 

Yes, second-seeded UConn was the heavy favorite over top-seeded USC, and UConn won. And Paul (Mordyusa1) and Paige (Paige1) Mordarski rode that win to the top of the standings. Paul is in first place with 121.5 points, three points ahead of second-place Paige. Lauren Limball’s LK2 and Mike Kern’s Mimi and Michael are tied for third with 117.5.

Other Glimmbits:

* Seven-year-old Sammy Eckerling set his sites on the men’s Glimm Scholarship over the weekend. By going 7-for-8 in the Elite Eight then 3-for-4 in the Final Four, Sammy moved into first place in the Kids Championship with 104 points, 1.5 points ahead of Kendall Gregor’s kgregor. 

* Eli Rosenberg’s Eliskul32 remains in the lead in the women’s Kids Championship with 98 points. Sydney Kwarta’s Sydney Hummingbirds is in second with 90 points, and Malcolm Stamm’s King bracket is in third with 89. 

* The first Glimm prizes of 2025 were locked up: Both men’s and women’s Pity Prizes are done. In the men’s pool, Rosaleen Ortiz’s Harris Hoops finished with 28.5 points, clinching last place. In the women’s pool, Penny Kowitt’s PennyK3 finished with 40 points. Both Rosaleen and Penny will get their $5 back. 

* The women’s Final Four begins on Friday, and the men’s Final Four begins on Saturday.