For more than 30 years, the Glimm Memorial NCAA Tournament Pool has been your home for March Madness, bringing you the best pool in the land. And this year is no different! Well, it’s a little different: For the first time since 2015, Michigan is not in the men’s field (boo!). That means all of us Michigan people won’t be picking with our hearts – maybe it’ll help our brackets!
Like last year, we’re going to have pools for both the men’s and the women’s tournaments. They work pretty much the same way (although the women’s Glimm won’t have all of the special awards of the men’s Glimm – the Orlov, the Glimm scholarship, etc). The women’s pool will have to build its own traditions over the years): $5 to enter, upset points, 70/20/10 split, last-place gets $5 back.
WHAT: The 31st 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). The deadline is noon on Thursday for the men’s tournament, and noon on Friday for the women’s tournament. IMPORTANT: When sending money, be sure to specify which brackets in which pool you’re paying for.
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 1-2-4-8-12-16 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 men’s pool (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 enter YES in the Kids Bracket field. We’ll see how many kids enter to determine if there will be a kids championship in the women’s pool…
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.