It’s halftime of the first game of the 2024 NCAA tournament, which means the Glimm is under way! As the games begin, let’s take a look at key numbers for this year’s pool:

266: Number of entries into the Glimm men’s tournament

42: Number of entries in the Glimm women’s tournament (which means a lot of you need to submit a women’s bracket before games start tomorrow!)

91: The number of Glimm brackets that picked UConn to win the national championship

21: Number of different teams picked by Glimmers to win a national championship

13: Seed of Vermont, the lowest seed of a team picked to win it all. Stephanie Kleinbaum, my daughter, made the pick, because we went to Vermont (the state, not the school) last month and she loved it

12: Former Glimm champions in the pool this year, headlined by back-to-back definding champ Kelly Bohling.

16: Entrees competing for the Kids Championship (but defending kids champ Rose Varley must have aged out?)

7: Entries by Glimm family members competing for the Glimm Scholarship

4: Entries submitted by Evan Kwarta

2: Entries submitted by people other than Evan Kwarta with names related to Evan’s bowel movements

LESS THAN USUAL: Number of email updates you can expect to see during the Glimm this year, compared to past years. My kids’ spring break is smack in the middle of the tournament, which means I’ll spend a chunk of it on a beach in Mexico. I’ll do my best to keep the standings updated on theglimm.com, but probably won’t be as vigilant about sending my usual notes.

It’s the third Sunday in March, which means one thing: The Glimm is back! For the 32nd year, the Glimm brings you the best NCAA tournament pool in the land.

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.

The men’s pool is live now, so you can fill out your brackets. The women’s pool will go live tomorrow. 

WHAT: The 32nd Annual Glimm Memorial NCAA Basketball Tournament Pool

HOW: Fill out a men’s bracket here, and/or a women’s bracket here starting tomorrow evening, 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 1-2-4-8-12-16 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.

Caitlin Clark made history on Friday night. Thanks to the Glimm, she may have made a little money, too. 

Dan Stamm bet big on Clark and Iowa in his Glimm women’s bracket – even naming it Caitlin Clark’s NIL, perhaps an indication that he’ll donate any winnings to the Iowa star’s Name, Image and Likeness fund. 

The bet paid off. Clark scored 41 points on Friday night, the most ever in a women’s semi final, to propel Iowa past previously unbeaten South Carolina and to propel Caitlin Clark’s NIL atop the Glimm standings.

And while Clark and Iowa still have the championship game to play, against LSU, that will not matter for the Glimm: Stamm has clinched the title. He can add to his 120 points if Iowa wins, but he cannot be caught even if Iowa loses.

In fact, everything is now settled in the women’s pool: Francesca Catalano’s Walter White clinched second (119.5), and Paul Mordarski’s Mordyusa1 clinched third (113). Nicole Kleinbaum’s yamama bracket finished dead last, and Nicole will receive the pity money.

The men’s pool resumes tonight with the Final Four. Visit theglimm.com for full men’s and women’s standings. 

Of course, Brandon Miller’s Alibi is leading the Glimm.

Brandon Miller’s alibi — that he was just driving to his teammate, not accessorizing a murder, and it was just coincidence that the teammate’s gun was in the back seat of his car and that the teammate immediately used that gun to kill someone — is the reason Alabama is the #1 team in the country, and one of two #1 seeds still standing after the first week of the men’s NCAA tournament. 

In Alabama, delivering the murder weapon to the scene of the crime, apparently, isn’t a crime. As his coach said, Brandon Miller is a good guy who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. So Miller, the best player on the country’s best team, did not miss a game. The team earned a top seed in the tournament, won its first two games, and is poised to challenge for an NCAA title.

Arun Gopal is unfazed. He not only is willing to ride the Tide to the top of Glimm’s standings, but he also named his bracket Brandon Miller’s Alibi. And after 48 games, that bracket is in first place in the Glimm.

Gopal picked 75% of the games right in the tourney’s first two rounds, and his 63.5 points leads Mike Kotowski’s eponymously named bracket by 3.5 points. Justin Guenley’s KU back to back bracket sits in third (58.5), followed by Jason Eckerling’s The wrath of Kwarta’s toilet after mexican (57) and Lauren Kimball’s LK1 (55.5).

Penny Otter’s ITS PEN PEN bracket has fallen to seventh, but the 9-year-old still leads the  Glimm Kids Championship race, ahead of Grace Kern by one point.  

In the women’s pool, Francesca Catalano nearly pulled off a historic feat with her Walter White bracket. Catalano picked 15 of the Sweet 16 correctly – her only miss coming in Duke’s overtime loss to Colorado. 

That near-perfect round gives her 70 points and a commanding lead over second-place Jason Kaden’s Jiffo4 (62.5).  Jeff Keating’s jkedit (62), Adam Kleinbaum’s ThrowingDarts (59) and Michael Rosenberg’s Michael Rosenberg (57.5) round out the top five. 

In all, Catalano has picked 87.5% of the women’s games correctly. 

The men’s tournament resumes on Thursday, and the women’s tournament resumes Friday. In the meantime, men’s standings are here, kids championship standings are here, and women’s standings are here.

The first round of the NCAA tournament never disappoints. Unless, of course, you’re one of the 18 Glimmers who picked Purdue to win the whole thing.

For the third straight year, a highly seeded Purdue team was knocked out by a double-digit seed – this time, the Boilermakers became the second #1 seed ever to lose in the first round.

For Mike Kotowski, it was a devastating blow. Kotowski sat near the top of the standings for most of the first day of the tournament. But he picked Purdue as his champion, and his hopes at victory are now slim – by the end of the first round, he fell all the way to 14th place.

In all, 38 Glimmers have already lost their champion – most of them having picked Purdue or Arizona (who lost to Princeton).

Benefitting from the chaos?  Jason Eckerling and Penelope Otter. Eckerling’s The wrath of Kwarta’s toilet after Mexican bracket and Otter’s ITS PEN PEN bracket are tied for first after the first round, with 38.5 points. Eckerling picked 25 of 32 games right, including Princeton’s win over Arizona. Otter only picked 22 of 32 games right, but she nailed many upsets, including Fairleigh Dickinson’s historic win over Purdue. 

Gray Tjoe (Baby Tjoe), Chris Kern, Ramona Shelburne (Dragonfly), Jim Iovino (Trust the Process) and Arun Gopal (Brandon Miller’s Alibi) round out the top five (including a three-way tie for fifth). 

In the women’s pool, Zeph Varley’s ZXVW bracket held a slim lead over Dan Stamm (Clark is Iowa) and Adam Kleinbaum (ThrowingDarts) after one day of play. Jason Kaden’s Jiffo4 bracket is in fourth, and Jeff Keating (jkedit1), Pete Catapano (PeteCatWomenOne) and Francesca Catalano (Walter White) are tied for fifth.

Full men’s standings are here, and full women’s standings are here. 

The men’s second round kicks off at 12:10pm ET today, and the women’s first round resumes at 11:30am ET today.