Tag Archives: 2022

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).

Glimm 2022: Enter your brackets for men’s and women’s tourneys!

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Yes, the Glimm is back for its 30th year! And this time, we’re taking what was a very last-minute, impromptu inaugural women’s tourney a year ago and giving it the full Glimm treatment.

So yes, you have two pools to enter this year. 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 you need to know:

WHAT: The 30th 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). 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 the past. 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: Back in the men’s pool for the third year: Any kid under Bar Mitzvah age that enters the Glimm (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.