Down goes Purdue, and lots of brackets

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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.

A different Mike Kotowski

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.

The Madness has begun, but still time to enter women’s bracket

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The 2023 Men’s Glimm Memorial is officially underway, and by the time I got a chance to write this, we’ve already had two major upsets: Arizona and Virginia are both out. That means 16 Glimmers lost their champion before sunset on the tourney’s first day.

If you’re one of those 16, fear not: You still have a chance at redemption. Enter the women’s pool by noon tomorrow to prove that this was a fluke. And if you’re not one of those 16? Enter the women’s pool anyway.

We officially have 258 entries in the men’s pool and 51 in the women’s pool – which means a lot of you have a bracket to fill out.

In the men’s pool, eight people picked the massive upset of Arizona by Princeton. That included Mike Kotowski and Liz Crago (RockyMtOysters), who are tied for first early in the tournament. But obviously, there is much more basketball to play.

And unlike most years, there is no heavy favorite pick: No team was picked by more than 20% of Glimmers to win the pool. Alabama (51) and Houston (49) were the most popular picks, but 28 different teams were picked to win the whole thing, including nine by at least 10 Glimmers.

As usual, theglimm.com will be your home for all things Glimm throughout the tournament – these periodic updates will go there, as well as updated standings and more. And while you’re there, fill out that women’s bracket! 

Glimm 2023: Get Your Brackets In!

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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.

Bohling, Lazarus Win 2022 Glimm Titles

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For Kelly Bohling, the NCAA tournament is personal. And by that, I mean her picks are not made based on knowledge of college basketball, but on personal connections.  

She picked UNC to make a deep run because her boyfriend is a die-hard UNC fan. But she didn’t pick them to go all the way because she “thought it would be funny” to pick against her boyfriend’s team. So instead, she picked Kansas.

Other picks used similar logic: She often decided who to pick based on who she knew that went to the schools in question.

“Just pure luck,” she said. “For real, considering I do not follow college basketball or watch it unless it’s March Madness.”

The pure luck worked: With Kansas’ win over UNC in Monday’s championship game, Bohling finished with 120 points to win the Glimm Memorial NCAA Tournament Pool.

She pulled off a rare feat: Winning the Glimm while only correctly guessing one Final Four team. She benefited from early round upset points, the best Elite Eight score in the field, mayhem in the final rounds and then getting the champion right.

Bohling beat out Kate Lord, a UNC alum and die hard Tar Heels fan who would have won the Glimm if her team won the championship. Instead, Lord slipped to sixth place.
Still, Lord took solace in UNC’s rivalry win on Saturday night.

“I’m ecstatic about beat Duke in the Final Four and officially ending Coach K’s career,” she said. 

Kids champion Ellery Kern (118 points), Joey Barnard (117), Brandon Curley (112) and Evan Kwarta (112 rounded out the top five).

In the middle of the bracket, Sharat Raju secured the Orlov with a 134th place finish. He was actually tied with eight others for 127th, but finished dead last among that group in the tiebreaker, dropping him down to the Orlov position. In honor of Rick Orlov, he will get his $5 back via the USPS, along with a hand-written note. 

Mrs. Glimm’s grandson Owen Lester finished in 15th place with 94 points – good enough to beat out all other Glimm relatives and win the Glimm scholarship. Mrs. Glimm herself finished in 71st place with 71 points.

In the women’s tournament, Mike Lazarus surged into first place with South Carolina’s victory over UConn. Defending champ Seth Rubinroit, who would’ve won with a Huskies victory, fell to third place. Lauren Kimball finished in second.

Rounding out the top five: Dan Stamm and another Kimball bracket.
Final standings for the men’s pool are available here, and the women’s pool are available here. 

The Sicily Redux

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Picture it. Houston. 2016. Villanova and North Carolina playing for the national championship. And Kate Lord, owner of five TAR HEELS brackets in the Glimm year after year, was torn.

Her beloved Tar Heels had a chance at a national championship. But her hopes at a first-ever Glimm championship needed Villanova to beat UNC.

We know the rest: Villanova won the NCAA championship, Lord won the Glimm championship, and a small part of her heart broke.

Six years later, Kate Lord has a chance to erase the bittersweet memory: Her Tar Heels are back in the championship game, and this time, her Glimm hopes ride with them and her TAR HEELS 1 bracket.

Opposing Kate/UNC? Kelly Bohling and the Kansas Jayhawks. A Jayhawks win tomorrow night gives Bohling the Glimm championship. 

Watching all of this from the sidelines? Evan Kwarta and his Markley bracket. Kwarta has been in first place since the end of the tournament’s first weekend, and remains there today. But his championship pick of Gonzaga is long gone, which means either Lord or Bohling will pass him; Kwarta has no chance at victory.

We already have one champion, though: Ellery Kern has clinched the Kids Championship! Ellery is in fourth place overall, and can move up to second if Kansas wins tomorrow. But with no kids picking UNC, she’s clinched the Kids title, beating out Penny Otter’s MagicPenny. 

The most competitive race, though, is not at the top of the standings but in the middle — the battle for the Orlov. With 269 competitors, the Orlov will go to whoever finishes in 134th place. There are currently eight people tied for 127th place – none can get any more points, so the order will come down to the tiebreaker (total score of the championship game). Whoever finishes worst of those seven will finish in 134th place and win the Orlov. In the running: Parker Sweet, Uma Subramanian, Sharat Raju, Nick Putnam, Asa Kleinbaum, Presley Kaniewski, Jim Catapano and Nevin Barich. 
But before the Glimm men’s championship wraps up tomorrow, the women’s championship concludes tonight.

Seth Rubinroit, who won the inaugural Glimm women’s championship a year ago, is going for his second consecutive title in his Rooting for the other USC bracket. But don’t be confused by the bracket name: Rubinroit, a graduate of the University of Southern California, should NOT be rooting for the University of South Carolina tonight. Seth correctly picked USC to reach the championship game, but he picked UConn over the Gamecocks in the title game. So Seth will not be rooting for the other USC.

Who will? Mike Lazarus. Like Rubinroit, Lazarus predicted a UConn-USC championship game — but he picked South Carolina to win it all, and if that happens, he beats Rubinroit for the Glimm title. 

The women’s championship is tonight, and the men’s championship is tomorrow. Check out theglimm.com for final standings.

Narrowing the Field

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We’re at the point in the Glimm when the standings are deceptive. Sure, in the men’s pool, Evan Kwarta’s Markley bracket remains in first place after he correctly picked two of the Final Four winners. But with his champion long gone, Kwarta can’t actually win the Glimm.

With three games remaining, only five people can win the Glimm men’s championship: Clare Bare Kern, Bess2, TAR HEELS 1, Kbohling1 and BillRusselandCompany. In fact, Michael Gerrity’s BillRusselandCompany can climb all the way from 42nd place if Duke beats Kansas for the title.

In the women’s bracket, we have six contenders: PeteCat1, LEK2, Rooting For The Other USC, Mike Lazarus, Cheering for the Ladies!, and Ed’s Gal Dad Bracket.

While much remains up for grabs at the top of the brackets, the bottom of the brackets are decided: Rose Varley wins the pity money in the women’s bracket, joining her mother Monica, who took last in the men’s pool. 

Full standings for the men’s pool are here, and the women’s pool are here. The Final Four kicks off on Friday — the women play Friday and Sunday, and the men play Saturday and Monday. 

The Fun of St. Pete’s

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They call it March Madness for a reason. I mean, who could’ve predicted St. Peter’s would become the first 15 seed ever to reach the Elite Eight?

Actually, three of you did:  Nevin Barich in his Nev1 bracket, Diane Otter in her Olives bracket, and Penny Otter (Diane’s 8-year-old daughter) in her MagicPenny bracket.
Now, the St. Peter’s pick didn’t help Nev1 much (174th place) or Olives (211th), but MagicPenny is in 7th place, and one of just 13 brackets that still have a chance to win the Glimm.

“We picked winners solely on which of the pairs’ names were more fun to say,” Diane Otter explained. “And (Penny’s) sister went to a school with ‘saint’ in it – so that seemed fun.

“My poor son, who did actual research!”

As we’ve all discovered, St. Peter’s doesn’t just sound fun – the team actually is fun. 

The mayhem in the tournament has left everyone with broken brackets – so just because your teams are struggling doesn’t mean you’re done. Evan Kwarta’s Illuminate’s food is worse than Markley’s bracket and Kelly Bohling’s Kbohling1 bracket both have lost two of their Final Four teams – and they’re tied for first. In fact, every Glimmer has lost at least one Final Four team, and all but five have lost at least two.

To see if you still have a shot to win the men’s Glimm, or finish in the top three, click here. Full standings are here.

In the race for some of the side pots:

* Ellery Kern, in third place overall, leads the Kids Championship. But she has some still competition: Three other kids are currently in the top 10 Penny Otter’s MagicPenny, Denver Kaniewski’s ChickenWing, and Rose Varley’s Agemini3. 

* Rich Lester’s Son In Law 2 bracket leads the race for the Glimm Scholarship. As the bracket name implies, Rich is Mrs. Glimm’s son-in-law.

* Monica Varley has clinched the pity money! Entering the weekend, Arizona was Monica’s last team alive, and her last hope at climbing out of the cellar. With Arizona’s loss in the Sweet 16, Monica clinches last place with 23 points. She beat out Lily Kleinbaum, who was astounded to see her bracket doing so poorly last weekend. “I don’t understand,” she told her grandfather, “I picked all of the teams with the high numbers. I picked the 16s!” 

While the men’s Glimm has narrowed significantly, the women’s Glimm remains wide open: Pete Catapano’s PeteCat1 remains in first place, but 23 brackets still have a chance to win, and all but five can finish in the top three. 

To see if you still have a shot to win the women’s Glimm, or finish in the top three, click here. Full standings are here.

Over the next few days, stay tuned to theglimm.com for the latest updates – the Elite Eight is played today and tomorrow in the men’s tourney, and the Sweet 16 concludes today for the women, followed by the Elite Eight tomorrow and Monday. 

Illuminate, Markley and Other Shenanigans

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If you look atop the Glimm men’s standings, you’ll see an unusually named bracket: Illuminate’s Food Is Worse Than Markley’s. 

The man responsible for this bracket is longtime Glimmer Evan Kwarta, who for years has made a habit of poking fun at me (or my family) with his bracket titles. This year, he took aim at my wife, Glimmer Nicole Kleinbaum, and her company, Illuminate Food. Kwarta’s other bracket names: That brown stuff in Illuminate’s food isn’t what you think it is; Is this Domino’s? Nope, it’s Illuminate; Illuminate’s terroir is a landfill; and Illuminate’s food is less healthy than Papa John’s.

So why is he targeting Illuminate, which (begin shameless plug) is actually an awesome company that delivers local, healthy, delicious food (end shameless plug)? 

“Nicole is a good sport,” Kwarta said. “Often I like to meld a current event with an insult. But this year there’s literally no good or even somewhat innocuous news. So like Reagan and the 2011 Republican Senate caucus, why not attack vegetables?”

His first-place bracket compares Illuminate’s food with that of the cafeteria at the University of Michigan’s Mary Markley Hall, the dorm where Evan and I both lived 25 years ago.

That is not meant to be a compliment.

“I’m lactose intolerant, so Markley got me lactose-free milk,” Kwarta said. “But not Lactaid brand, some ripoff brand that you couldn’t even buy at Meijer. It was spoiled 100% of the time. They made me show them the solids at the bottom of the carton on consecutive days in different cartons before they agreed to spend an extra 75 cents on non-poisonous milk.”

So Kwarta’s point: Purchasing food from Nicole Kleinbaum is akin to poisoning yourself.
But Nicole is undaunted.

“I’m looking at the Markley menu, and this food looks really good,” Nicole said. “Dal and samosas, sushi boss sampler, and chocolate eclairs. 

“And you can tell Kwarta this Vegan beat chickpea burger will firm him right up.”
This brings us to a point Kwarta made himself: As much as he pokes fun of others in Glimm bracket names, he’s on the receiving end, too – often around his bowel movements. Take these two brackets this year, from Jason Eckerling and Jon Karlin (who both also lived in Markley 25 years ago), respectively: Kwarta’s got the runs and Kwarta’s poop #2. 

“Admittedly,” Kwarta said, “there’s a lot of material to work with there.”

All of which is a long way of saying that Kwarta had a good start to the Glimm: In his Markley bracket, he correctly picked 12 of the Sweet 16 teams, giving him 70 total points, one ahead of Joey Barnard. Ellery Kern is in third place with 66.5 points.

In the women’s bracket, Pete Catapano’s PeteCat1 built off a strong first round to stay in first place with 64.5 points, but his lead is perilous: Three of his Elite Eight picks are already eliminated. Defending champ Seth Rubinroit’s Rooting for the other USC is in second with 59.5 points, and the husband-and-wife duo of Michael and Erin Rosenberg are tied for third with 58.5.

Full standings for the men’s pool can be found here, and the women’s pool here. Men’s games resume on Thursday, and women’s games resume on Friday.

And a final note: If you haven’t submitted your Glimm dues ($5 per bracket), please do so via Venmo at @Josh-Kleinbaum. 

The Balancing Act

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The key to success in the early rounds of the Glimm is a balancing act: You need to pick enough upsets to cash in on the bonus points, but not go so upset-crazy that you miss a bunch of wins by heavy favorites.

This year, nobody pulled off that act as well as Paul Mordarski. In his Mordyusa1 bracket, Mordarski correctly picked upsets by New Mexico State, Iowa State, Miami and Michigan. But he also had the highest pick % in the Glimm, nailing 87% of all picks.That combination put Mordarski in first place after the first round of the NCAA tournament, with 39.5 points. He’s one ahead of Curtis Benham’s Sparty bracket, and Joey Barnard’s self-named bracket. 

In the women’s pool, Max Rosenberg correctly picked two big upsets – Florida Gulf Coast over Virgina Tech and South Dakota over Ole Miss – to finish Day 1 in first place, with 20 points. Mike Lazarus, Pete Catapano and Lauren Kimball all trail by just a half-point. 

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

As the games resume, take some time to look over the standings and marvel and some of the creative entry names. That’s what longtime Glimmer Zeph Varley did yesterday.

“I love reading the crazy names of other brackets,” Zeph said. “You should do interviews with a few contestants to get back stories on the bracket titles. It’d be worth a chuckle.”

And Zeph is right. So if you are particularly proud of your bracket name, or there’s a good story behind it, please share it with me. I may reach out with some questions, and will aim to highlight some of those stories in upcoming updates.

Two more notes: 1) If you haven’t submitted your Glimm dues yet, please do so ASAP ($5 per bracket). You can vemno me at @Josh-Kleinbaum. 2) You may notice a lag in updates to the standings tonight/tomorrow morning. That’s because, along with a few other longtime Glimmers, I’ll be running in the NYC Half Marathon tomorrow morning. So late games tonight likely won’t be updated until mid-day tomorrow. But wish me, Jon Schwartz, Jeff Eldridge and anyone else running good luck!

And we’re off (part 2)!

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After an upset-filled opening day of the men’s Glimm (17 brackets have already lost their champion – including Nev1 and SheraDactyl, currently in first and second place), the women’s version is officially underway!

The women’s Glimm is certainly a more intimate affair than its men’s counterpart –  we have 39 brackets in the women’s Glimm. South Carolina is the most popular championship pick, coming in nearly a third of the brackets – but the maize and blue crowd in the pool is also strong – seven brackets picked three-seed Michigan to win.
Standings for both pools will be updated throughout the next three weeks at theglimm.com. 

And a friendly reminder: If you haven’t paid your Glimm dues ($5/bracket), please venmo me asap (@Josh-Kleinbaum on Venmo).