Our 2025 Conference Tournament Champion: Tim Husted (Pool Closing & Payouts)

In back-to-back years, we have had great B1G games to cap off conference our tournament pool, with today seeing (3) Michigan beat (5) Wisconsin. in a close back and forth game. Congratulations to Tim for winning the 2025 conference tournament pool, a day early, and without needing to use any tiebreakers! His final tally was 20 points and a 58.1% accuracy. Tim now joins me as the only 2x champion in this pool. 🏆

Below are the final 2025 conference tournament championship standings:

1. Tim (20 points)
2. Robb (19 points with 19 wins)
3. Sohler (19 Points with 18 wins)
4. Rory and Webb (18 points)

Now for the fun part, the payouts. The screenshot below shows how much money everyone is owed, and you can open the final standings here (or use the attached spreadsheets if you're reading the e-mail) to see the detailed breakdown. All winners, please reach out to me and confirm how you would like to be paid out. The money was more concentrated on fewer players this year, but we're still getting 5 people paid out . Hoping everyone had fun and can't wait to do it again next season! 💰

Standings Link

2025 NCAA Basketball Conference Tournament Pool

Next, if you are interested in a bracket pool, you can join via this link and the details are below. For those that have money coming, I can hold $20 if you'd like for the bracket pool.

Selection Sunday 2025!

We made it to Selection Sunday and it's time to review our standings and possible scenarios for those in contention for the top 4 spots today. Tim was on fire Saturday and now has a significant lead, we'll break down if anyone can catch him. A whole bunch of big name 1-seeds took care of business today including Duke, Houston, St. John's and Akron. And the biggest "long shot" conference tournament winner today came in the MAAC where (6) Mount Saint Mary's took the championship. Congratulations to B.I., The Diddlers and Tim for locking in the Lowest Winning Seed money. On a side note, this was Tim's second 6-seed he correctly picked. 🏀 

              

Spoiler Alert: Pending the official audit later today, it does look like Tim locked up 1st place in the pool. Before I do any sort of congratulations let's let today play out, we'll go through the audit, and then welcome Tim to the two-time champions club. For now, we'll focus on 2nd - 4th place. I was not able to run every scenario, but we do have a unique combination of picks + tie breaker that could help sneak anyone from 5th - 13th into the 3rd and 4th spots, which means a a small pot of money and a free entry into the 2026 pool is still at stake. 🏆

Standings Link

2025 NCAA Basketball Conference Tournament Pool

The first championship game starts at 11:00 AM CST today over in the Ivy League with (1) Yale taking on (2) Cornell. Since everyone in contention is on Yale, this one does not mean anything to the overall outcome of our pool. However, the SEC championship game that tips off at noon CST today is our first significant matchup where (2) Florida plays (4) Tennessee. Pickle My Ballz is the only one on Tennessee, and with a win they would move from 13th to 6th place. 

Our 3rd game of the day in the Atlantic 10 is only meaningful to Pope's Blessing, where he needs (1) VCU to lose to (2) George Mason to have an outside chance of hitting 4th place with a tie breaker, and everything else falling into place in the other games.

Finally, our last two games are the big ones. In the American Athletic (1) Memphis plays bonus point pick (3) UAB at 2:00 PM CST. If Memphis wins, many in that top 13 are eliminated from the top 4 positions, but if UAB wins, it both freezes the standings and gives a win to Wolf and Pickle My Ballz, making the last game of the day meaningful. Also, at 2:00 PM CST, bonus points will get handed out in the B1G when (3) Michigan plays (3) Wisconsin. With so many other scenarios needed to be played out before we know what this game means, the only takeaway is that 7 of the top 13 have Wisconsin, 1 has Michigan, and 5 are already eliminated. This could, and should, be the game that shuffles around the top of the standings.

This is the last entry that breaks down 2025 conference tournament games, the next update from me will be announcing the overall pool winner and going over the final payouts. I will keep the standings updated all day as each game ends, so make sure you're checking that link above.

Happy Selection Sunday! 🏀

Saturday Afternoon Dancing: Bryant and Norfolk State

The America East crowned our first champion of the day on Saturday when (1) Bryant blew the doors off of (3) Maine, handing out a win to 43% of our pool, making the top 4 richer. A few hours later (1) Norfolk State started out cold, but made an incredible comeback in the second half, with a wild finish, against (2) South Carolina State to win the MEAC tournament championship. 🏀

              

Looking at a few of the early non championship conference tournament games that impacted our pool, (1) Yale held off (4) Princeton as the Ivy League finally tipped off after relentless study sessions this past week. And the nerds at (2) Cornell easily defeated the dweebs at (3) Dartmouth. In non-nerd games, Wisconsin, VCU and Tennessee all advanced to the championship game on Sunday in their respective conferences. Have at it with the updated standings through the early afternoon. Grimmer and B.I. have been mathematically eliminated from being able to finish in the top 4. 😿

12 Conference Tournament Championships Saturday

Saturday brings us 12 conference tournament championship games, starting as early as 10:00 AM CST, and running well past midnight central time. I will highlight the top 3 championship games to watch for our pool, and after today is over we'll have a good idea on which people can win the pool this year. Over the last 48 hours I have been keeping the standings current, everything is now accurate through all of Friday's action. I normally try to post 3-5 standings updates throughout this Saturday, as people will slowly start to be eliminated from the Top 4 spots and we'll see significant separation with the pool contenders. While almost all the championship games today are important, below are the top 3 that could move the top half of our pool standings around early this afternoon. 🏀

America East

This will be the first conference tournament championship game played today, tipping off at 10:00 AM CST. The top 4 people in our pool are all on (1) Bryant who will be playing against (3) Maine. A few people in the top 15 are on bonus point pick Maine, which if they win, will ensure the top 4 don't move up and gives everyone else a chance to catch up. This is a great first game for that reason alone. Now on to the bad news for most of the pool, Bryant is a 7.5-point favorite, so I would not expect Maine to pull out a victory.

MEAC

In this conference, 29 of 30 people are still alive, sorry B.I. with that (4) Howard pick, and we have a nice split between (1) Norfolk State vs. (2) South Carolina State. This is our first mention of the MEAC in the 2025 blog, but we can see why as it's been all chalk and not really impacting the pool. Like the America East, the top 4 people all have Norfolk State, which means a South Carolina State win will allow the rest of the pack to catch up. I expect this to be a close game as Norfolk State is only a 1.5-point favorite, this should be a fun one.

Mountain West

The 3rd conference tournament championship game I chose is (2) Colorado State vs. (5) Boise State. The top 6 people in our pool are already eliminated and in our top 15 we have 4 people on bonus point pick Boise State. This game has the biggest potential to bunch up our standings, this is what I root for in the pool every year. Vegas has Boise State as a 1.5-point favorite, which is wild for a 5-seed to be a favorite, but they have been hot towards the end of the regular season and obviously in this conference tournament. A Boise State win, along with some other morning and early afternoon games breaking the right way, Cox, Pope's Blessing, Heffron and Sully could make a late run.

As time allows throughout the day today, I'll post a few blog entries highlighting the conference tournament championship games to keep an eye on from a pool perspective. It doesn't make sense to hit on games later this evening because they may not matter depending on how the afternoon goes. This weekend is typically one of the more fun weekends in college basketball with all the marquee matchups, Cinderella stories, bid stealers, buzzer beaters and season long storylines coming to an end for many teams. Enjoy the games! 😍

Montana Grizzlies Dominate for Our 14th Ticket Punched

In the Big Sky conference tournament championship game late Wednesday, (2) Montana dominated (1) Northern Colorado to give us our 14th punched ticket. Although bonus points were not on the table, 11 people checked another one in the win column tonight. It is sad that we have to put away the phrase #starchmadness for a year. Sohler still has sole possession of 1st place, but he has 5 people breathing down his neck and I'd guess that 75% of the pool is still in contention for 1st place.

The Patriot League is officially in the running for having the most uninteresting conference tournament championship game, both for our pool, and it was just a boring, one-sided affair. (2) American sank (5) Navy, giving Drew and Chris the only wins in our pool, making their point total more respectable. Here are the current standings at the conclusion of Wednesday's action. As a reminder, we will not have any championship games played on Thursday or Friday, which means all that will happen is we will all rack up losses. I likely won't post any blogs the next few days, but I'll keep the standings updated with all the losses that we are about to accumulate. On Saturday and Sunday, we will have 17 championship games, so buckle up! 🏀

Will Wade Returns to the NCAA Tournament and a SWAC Massacre

I had time for a bonus blog update before the evening games begin, so let's cover the first half of today's action and look at the current standings. I completely forgot the Southland conference championship game was today, but it really did not matter since 80% of the pool picked the same team. As expected, Will Wade led (1) McNeese State beat (2) Lamar in what was a closer than expected game. Looking at our top 15, it was only Andrew and Hunkey's Mom that lost out on this conference. It's hard to win the pool when you lose easy conference picks like this one. 🔻

In the SWAC quarterfinals this afternoon, presented by Cricket Wireless and Pepsi, we had a huge upset as (8) Grambling State knocked off (1) Southern, along with eliminating 60% of our pool picks. The SWAC now becomes a conference of interest as it could be extremely pivotal for our pool standings. Outside of that game, nothing else of note occured for our pool from this afternoon, so enjoy the remaining games tonight! 🏀

Starch After Dark: Big Sky Championship Game Preview

We have 2 conference tournament championship games on Wednesday, the first tipping off at 6:00 PM CST in the Patriot League and then at 10:30 PM CST over in the Big Sky. The Patriot League game is almost meaningless to our pool, except for Chris and Drew hanging out towards the bottom of the standings, so I'm not going to cover that one, but the Big Sky will have significant impacts to our standings. Before I jump into the Big Sky preview, I wanted to cover a few items as we head into the home stretch. 🏀

11 out of 31 conferences are now complete, so we are over 1/3 of the way through conference tournament season. 3 out of the 11 champions were a 3-seed or lower, so we're a little behind pace with bonus points, but sometimes the larger conferences help there. I would not consider anyone eliminated at this point, but for those hanging around 3 points or less, if you don't rack up a win (or two) tonight we're getting to the point where it may be mathematically impossible to win. Without any championship games on Thursday or Friday, after tonight it becomes 48 hours of trying to avoid losses. Although Tim may have locked up the Lowest Winning Seed bonus money, even if you're towards the bottom of the standings, you have a lot to play for. We do have 8 teams picked, and still alive, in the pool that can beat or tie Tim for that bonus money. 💰

• (1) Most bonus points - The person with the most total bonus points (picking 3 seed or lower winners) will win $150. 

• (2) Most power conference points - The person with the most power conference points (wins + bonus points) will win $150. The power conferences will be identified on the entry sheet for anyone unfamiliar with which conferences are considered power conferences.

• (3) Lowest winning seed - The person who has the lowest winning seed conference tournament champion wins $150.

• (4) Closest SEC championship game score - The person with the closest SEC championship game score wins $50. This is typically one of the last conference championship games, taking place on Selection Sunday, so even if you're in last place with no other wins, you will have the opportunity to recoup your $50.

Big Sky

Back to the games, let's break down this #starchmadness matchup between (1) Northern Colorado and (2) Montana which will be played at 10:30 PM CST. Northern Colorado is only a 2.5-point favorite, so expect this to be a close game, and for most of us that means staying up well past midnight. In our pool, 14 people picked Northern Colorado, while 11 people picked Montana, we are almost evenly split in this conference which means a win has a massive impact on the standings. Especially since 3 people in the top 15 have already been eliminated from this conference. A Northern Colorado win increases Sohler's lead, but it also moves 13 more people up in the standings, while a Montana win bunches up the top 4 spots. 🥔

I can't promise I'll have it in me to write or post a blog after midnight, but I will update the standings throughout the day and at the conclusion of the Big Sky conference championship game. We have dozens of non-championship games starting as early as 10:30 AM CST today, with many of them having impacts to our pool. 🏀

4 More Conference Tournament Champions Crowned Tuesday

4 more tickets to the NCAA Tournament were handed out Tuesday night, starting with (3) St. Francis PA beating big Vegas favorite and pool favorite (1) Central Connecticut State in the Northeast Conference. Nobody won this conference in our pool! Also, I hate Frankie the Friar, it seriously pisses me off. The Horizon League was much less exciting with (1) Robert Morris easily blowing by (3) Youngstown State. This was a huge win for Robb as he was one of the few people on Bob Morris. Our 3rd finish came in the Coastal Athletic conference where we saw (2) UNC Wilmington hold off the Fighting Blue Hens of (12) Delaware. We almost had a 12-seed win a conference tournament! This win really tightened up the standings since so few people were on the 2-seed. 🏀

                          

Finally, in a big-time matchup in the West Coast conference, we were treated to an incredible slow and low scoring game with (2) Gonzaga taking down (1) Saint Mary's for the championship. 60% of our pool selected Gonzaga, not believing in the Gaels, so plenty of wins were handed out in this conference.

                           

Here are the current standings with only one, but very important, Big Sky game currently still in progress tonight. We only had one game today that was a true upset by a seed and betting perspective In the America East (3) Maine absolutely blasted Vegas favorite and popular pool pick (2) Vermont. Sohler is in the driver's seat, with incredible accuracy, but it is tight within the top half of the standings. Robb, Izzy and Tim are only a bonus team win away from co-leading the pool, and then we have 11 people right there with 4 points. Based on max points, people like Heffron, Sam I Am and Hunkey's Mom are in a good position to make a run. 🏅

The Wofford Terriors and Troy Trojans are Dancing (And so is Tim)

Oh my goodness these conference tournament championship games were great tonight! The Southern Conference wrapped up first and (6) Wofford made it past (5) Furman in a game that was super faced-paced, and both teams were canning threes all night long. The game went down to the wire. In our pool, only Tim picked Wofford, and he was rewarded with a win, a bonus point, and sole possession of the Lowest Winning Seed bonus pot of money. What a great result for Tim. In the Sun Belt, (3) Troy pulled away from (4) Arkansas State late, but for 37 of the 40 minutes the game was incredible. Sohler was alone on Troy, taking home both a win and a bonus point. ➕

             

Here are the current standings with only a few games remaining tonight. Tim and Sohler are leading the way with 5 points. We did have a few surprises occur outside of the two championship games tonight as the first two games of the evening we saw (12) Delaware knock off (1) Towson in the Coastal Athletic conference semifinals, and (4) Northwestern State beat favorite (5) Texas AM-Corpus Christi in the Southland Conference quarterfinals. In the late Coastal Athletic game (2) UNC Wilmington held off (3) Charleston in an epic battle that went down to the last shot. Several games are still being played as I published this blog, so if the standings don't look completely up to date, I'll take care of it Tuesday morning.

Starting Tuesday we will be at the point where so much action is going on that I cannot keep up. If the blog updates become scarce please continue to check the standings as I will keep those updated. 🤞

Southern Conference and Sun Belt Championships Monday

My pet peeve when it comes to these low major conferences, tipping off their conference tournament championship games at the same time when we only have 2 championships scheduled tonight. Can these conference commissioners not get together and stagger the tip times by at least an hour? Tonight, both the Southern Conference and Sun Belt will play at 6:00 PM CST and we have a lot on the line in our pool. Below is a full breakdown of both championship games. 🏀

Southern Conference

Jenn and B.I. will be backing 2-point betting favorite (5) Furman while Tim is on (6) Wofford. We will have our first bonus point(s) given out Monday, and this possibly clinches the Lowest Winning Seed bonus pool. If Wofford pulls out this win, Tim jumps into 1st place by himself, leapfrogging his brother. On the other end of the spectrum, Jenn and B.I. are both in last, a Furman win would help salvage their pool. This is a huge game tonight. 💰

Sun Belt

In another huge conference tournament championship game, Sohler backed (3) Troy plays Vegas favorite and popular pool pick (4) Arkansas State. Both conferences tonight will have bonus points awarded to the winner, which means we will see some significant separation in the standings. 36% of our pool is an Arkansas State, so I wouldn't call this unexpected or an upset, but for those without Arkansas State, a win by the Red Wolves will hurt. If Troy wins, Sohler jumps into 1st place, either tied with Tim or all by himself. Either way, we have a ton to watch tonight. 🌞

In addition to these championship games, we have 10 other matchups ranging from 3rd round action to semifinals battles. As a reminder, all games from here on out are conference tournament games. Out of the 31 conferences, 5 are complete (16%), 10 are in progress (32%) and 16 have not yet started (52%). If you are off to a poor start in the pool, rest assured knowing that more than half the conference tournaments have not even tipped off yet. The next update will come late-night tonight after the championship games and few other key conference tournament games are final. 🟢

Omaha Wins the Summit League Tournament

Even though they already had their ticket punched as of yesterday, (1) Omaha destroyed (2) St. Thomas to win the Summit League tournament. It did get close a few times, but that only helped the over, Omaha was never at risk of losing the game. Great job by Jack and Chris not overthinking this conference and being the only people in the pool to pick the 1-seed. 🎫

The standings are now completely updated with Omaha's win and all the other conference tournament action we had this evening. (9) Pepperdine kept their magical run going by beating (4) Santa Clara, delivering a pool related blow to Andrew in 1st place, and The Diddlers, who are lower in the standings. Also, popular pool pick (2) James Madison was smashed by (3) Troy in the Sun Belt ladder of doom. Additionally, all the seeding for every conference is now locked in. We saw some movement in bracket seeding and a few teams moved in/out of bonus point picks for the remaining conferences that I finalized tonight. 🏀

3 More Tickets Punched Sunday Afternoon: High Point, Lipscomb and Drake

All 1-seeds won their conference tournament championships this afternoon starting first with (1) High Point in the Big South, then (1) Lipscomb in the Atlantic Sun and finally (1) Drake in the Missouri Valley. We now have a total of 4 tickets punched to the NCAA Tournament. Lipscomb and Drake were in control of their games, but for a while it looked like (3) Winthrop was going to take the Big South championship. Tonight, we still have a championship game in the Summit League with (1) Omaha vs. (2) St. Thomas, which will be played at 8:00 PM CST. 🏀

      

In addition to championship games today, we had several other quarterfinal and semifinal games being played in numerous other conferences. Some popular bonus picks and several big favorites lost today. I have updated the standings to reflect this afternoons action. Andrew is the only one in our pool that is perfect thus far, going 4 for 4 over the last 24 hours. 10 people are on his heels with 3 points, and every single person in our pool has a win. This may be the earliest that we've ever seen everyone on the board this early in the pool, but I guess that happens when it's all chalk winning. 🎉

Today is the last day that any regular season games will be played, so my hope for the next update tonight is to have all conference seeding finalized on the sheet. Good luck over the next week, it's great to see everyone is in the running and nobody has been left in the dust yet. If anyone noticed any inaccuracies in your picks/seeding, has any issues accessing the blog and standings, or has any questions please let me know! 

4 Championship Games: Atlantic Sun, Big South, Missouri Valley and Summit League

Sunday brings us 4 conference tournament championship games and when the final buzzer sounds, we will be complete with 16% of our pool. No matter where you end up in the standings by the end of the day on Sunday just know that we have a long way to go. Every year we see people in last shoot up the standings with a few bonus point winners, and we also see people get off to a hot start and then go cold. Below is a breakdown for each of the 4 conference tournament championship games on Sunday, in order of tip off time. 🕑

Big South

At 11:00 AM CST today (1) High Point will match up against (3) Winthrop in the Big South championship game. High Point is a 7.5-point favorite, which is a large spread for a championship game, telling me they shouldn't have any trouble dealing with Winthrop. 70% of our pool picked High Point, while 6 people are on bonus point pick Winthrop. The last 3-seed to win this conference was Coastal Carolina in 2015. #MountainSouthMadness 🌄

Atlantic Sun

In an all-chalk championship game (1) Lipscomb plays (2) North Alabama at 1:00 PM CST with the 1-seed favored by 4.5 points. 67% of the pool selections are backing Lipscomb, but 4 people did pick North Alabama. For the last 8 years this conference has been won by a 1 or 2 seed, no surprises here. Congratulations in advance to the winner that gets to go get sacrificed to Duke or Alabama. 🌞

Missouri Valley

We almost got a wild matchup here, but in the end, we're getting all chalk when (1) Drake plays (2) Bradley at 1:10 PM CST. Not sure why the 1:10 start time, but I think I like it. Only a few people were eliminated already, but we're fairly evenly split between Drake and Bradley, with Drake having a slight edge. Drake has won the championship the last 2 years, can they make it a 3-peat? 🏅

Summit League

While I love that this game is being played at 8:00 PM CST on a Sunday night, I hate that the outcome is already pre-determined. When (1) Omaha takes on (2) St. Thomas, no matter who wins Omaha is advancing to the NCAA Tournament because St. Thomas is ineligible. I prefer the old rule where a conference would not allow ineligible teams to advance, because now we are getting too many of these scenarios and it's not fun. St. Thomas is a really good team and favored as the 2-seed. From the lens of our pool, the majority of our picks have already been eliminated as we definitely overthought this one. Jack and Chris are on Omaha, while 4 other players are on St. Thomas. This is going to be a nice win for 2 or 4 people in our pool. ⛪

                    

The majority of conference tournament seeding is now finalized after all the games yesterday and I updated the standings to reflect that. While some seeding has changed and it impacts where your team is in its respective bracket, only a few teams in the MAAC, Mountain West and SEC have moved in/out of bonus points, so check your picks. You will notice the standings have slightly changed based on these updates due to max points changing for some people. Enjoy the 4 championship games tonight and look for a late-night blog update. 🏀