For the first weekend of the Glimm men’s NCAA tourney pool, defending champ Kelly Bohling struggled. She entered three brackets, and none cracked the top 50. The chances of a repeat champion seemed slim.
Then Bohling’s long-shot bet on Miami paid off: As the Hurricanes pulled off back-to-back upsets, Bohling’s Bohling-3 climbed through the standings.
Now, with three games remaining, Bohling is poised to become just the second back-to-back champion in Glimm history. Her path to victory is straightforward: If UConn, the favorite of the remaining four teams, wins the championship, Bohling will win the Glimm.
But favorites haven’t faired very well in this tournament, and if UConn falters, two other women are waiting in the wings: Sylvia Horowitz and Nicole Kleinbaum.
99-year-old Sylvia Horowitz also bet on Miami – but she had more faith in the Hurricanes than Bohling. If Miami wins the championship (including an upset of UConn on Saturday), Horowitz’s bigmama bracket will finish first.
Nicole Kleinbaum also has a chance: If SDSU beats Miami in the championship game, her yamama bracket will finish first.
This sets up an intriguing possibility: A Miami-SDSU championship will pit Kleinbaum against Horowitz, her grandmother-in-law. And they will be together to watch the game — Kleinbaum and family will be visiting Horowitz for spring break.
And that’s it. Bohling, Horowitz and Kleinbaum are the last three standings: Nobody else has a chance to win. That includes Arun Gopal’s Brandon Miller’s Alibi, which remains in first place but cannot fold onto it – best-case scenario, the Alibi will finish second (much better than Brandon Miller himself). It also includes Lauren Kimball, whose LK1 bracket is in second place – Kimball’s bracket is done, and she will not finish in the top three.
The down-bracket competitions are also coming down to the wire:
* The Kids Championship is a two-person race: Rose Varley and Avery Sweet. Rose’s rose.granger bracket leads the kids tournament right now with 68.5 points, but Avery could jump to first place if SDSU wins it all. Avery’s bugsy bracket was in 250th place — second-to-last — after the first round, but was the only person in the entire Glimm to pick two Final Four times (SDSU and Miami).
* The battle for the pity money is tight: Diane Otter’s Olives and Doug Sweet’s PJS are tied for last place, with 28 points, which means it will come down to who loses the championship-game tiebreaker.
Overall, 11 Glimmers have a chance to finish in the money (top three). Check out the possible outcomes here, complete what if scenarios here, and the full standings here.
The men’s tournament resumes on Saturday with the Final Four. In the women’s tournament, the Elite Eight wraps up tonight, and we’ll have a women’s update after that.