Category Archives: 2018

Your Glimm 2018 Champion: Nina Lin!

Leave a reply

As we’ve discussed before, Nina Lin had to be coaxed into joining the Glimm Memorial NCAA Tournament Pool. It’s not that she didn’t know about college basketball, she insists, but that she didn’t know about ‘this bracket thing.’

Now she knows about this bracket thing.
Lin dominated the 2018 Glimm, taking the lead in the second round and never giving it up. She had just enough faith in Sister Jean, picking Loyola to reach the Final Four but go no farther. She nailed the championship game, picking Villanova over Michigan.
In all, she picked 65% of the games correctly in her Any Team But Syracuse bracket, including six of the seven games in the final three rounds.
But she got a bit nervous during the championship game.
“I had to turn it off in the middle because I got so frustrated with the first four minutes of the game,” Lin said. “I turned it back on in the second half, and it was a very pleasant surprise.
“I really scared my husband when I was screaming last night.”
She scared her husband, but she ripped out the hearts of the Glimm’s Michigan faithful.
Well, most of them. Monica Varley, a first-time Glimmer (and wife of longtime Glimmer Zeph), graduated from Michigan in 1994, where she was a rower. Jeff Eldridge, a longtime Glimmer, graduated from Michigan in 1999. Both picked Villanova to beat Michigan in the championship game. Varley’s MLVarley bracket finished second, and and Eldridge’s The Red Wedding finished third.
Bob Bacon’s Bacon bracket finished fourth, and my Fake Eleanor bracket finished fifth.
Other prizes were awarded on Monday night.
Richard Lester, Mrs. Glimm’s son-in-law, used Villanova’s win over Michigan to jump to sixth place in his son-in-law-2 bracket. As the highest finisher related to Mrs. Glimm, he wins the Glimm Scholarship. He’ll get a free entry into next year’s Glimm.
Brendan Mordaski nailed just one of the Final Four in his brendanusa bracket, picking Villanova to reach the championship game but lose to Xavier. He finished in 142nd place – exactly in the middle, earning him The Orlov. He will get his $5 back, in cash, accompanied by a hand-written note.
Amanda Cadelago’s blondiebballin bracket got just two games right after the first round. She finished in dead last, so she collects the pity prize, getting her $5 back.
Finally, Glimm management is excited to introduce a new award for the 2019 Glimm: The Glimm Junior Championship. We’ve had an influx of children competing in the Glimm in recent years, and it’s time to give them a little more love.
Beginning next year, any Glimmers aged 12 and under are eligible for the Junior Championship. The top finisher in the group gets a $10 prize as the Glimm’s Junior Champion.
Two rules: The child has to fill out the bracket him or herself (no parents filling it out and putting their kids’ name on it), and once the kid hits Bar/Bat Mitzvah age, they’re no longer eligible.
Check out the final standings here, and thanks to everyone for a great tournament, and see you next year!

Glimm 2018: We’re off!

Leave a reply

Oklahoma and Rhode Island just tipped off, which means the 2018 Glimm Memorial NCAA Tournament Pool has officially started! And if you picked Oklahoma to pull off the opening game upset, you’re not alone: 47% of the 285 Glimmers picked the 10 seed (and one even picked Oklahoma to win the whole thing).

That’s right, there are 285 brackets in the Glimm this year, the largest field we’ve ever had. That means in three weeks, someone will get a nice payday.

A quick look at the field this year: The most-picked champion was Villanova (54 brackets), just edging out Virginia (49). But Glimmers picked 26 different champions, including Marshall, Butler and, yes, 16th-seeded Radford.

For the next three weeks, this is your home for all things Glimm. You can check here to see everyone’s brackets, updated standings and more.

Good luck (and Go Blue!).

It’s Back: Glimm Memorial, 2018 Edition

Leave a reply

You watched the selection show. You analyzed the bracket. You know which teams you think will live up to their high seeds and which teams will pull off the big upsets. Now, it’s time to fill out your bracket.

That’s right, boys and girls, it’s that time of year: The Glimm Memorial NCAA Tournament Pool, the only pool named for Alma Glimm, is back. Submit your picks, then spend the next three weeks watching basketball, rooting on your teams and reading my cheesy emails. It’ll be more entertaining than 95% of the movies in the theaters for about a third of the cost.

Full details:

WHAT: The 27th Annual Glimm Memorial NCAA Basketball Tournament

HOW: Click here to fill out a bracket, then send me $5 via venmo (username @Josh-Kleinbaum).

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

THE PAYOUT: The winner gets 70% of the pot, runner-up 20% and third-place person 10%.  To give some context, last year’s winner Kate Lord took home about $680. There are a few other prizes, 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), and the Pity Finisher (the last-place finisher gets his/her $5 back). On top of that, thirty bucks is coming out of the pot to pay for Glimm infrastructure, and I give myself 2 free entries.

SCORING: 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 (Note: This is a tweak from many previous years, when you got the full difference between seeds, not half). 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.

HOW TO PAY: Venmo (username @Josh-Kleinbaum). Yes, you’ll see a pic of an older woman at that account. That’s not a mistake. That is Mrs. Glimm.