The Living Room Times

The overwhelming favorites in both the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments, Kentucky and Baylor, won their respective national championships Monday and Tuesday — and in the process clinched Living Room Times pool championships for Tim Donahue of Elizabethtown, KY and Michael Holtsberg of Broomall, PA.

Donahue, a Louisville alum and huge fan of Rick Pitino’s Cardinals, clinched the 17th annual Living Room Times men’s NCAA pool when Louisville’s archrival, Kentucky, followed up its win over the Cardinals by capturing the national title over Kansas. Donahue, who predicted a perfect Final Four and title game, finishes with 378 of a maximum possible 477 points — the third-highest winning point total in LRT men’s pool history, trailing only Arash Markazi’s 409 in 2007 and Alex Whitfield’s 392 in 2008.

Brian Kiolbasa, the 2005 champ who holds the fifth-highest point total ever (362), finished second with 355 points. Adam Feldman (347 points), Chris Bossman (342) and Rachel Wetherill (332) came in third, fourth and fifth, respectively. Abby Newbold, who would have won the pool if Kansas had upset Kentucky, finished sixth with 328 points. Joshua Guiher (327), Michael Holtsberg (326), Zach Bloxham (324) and Jeremy Kidd (323) round out the Top 10. Full standings here.

Meanwhile, in the 15th annual Living Room Times women’s pool, Michael Holtsberg is your champion for the second time in four years, having won the 2009 women’s pool as well. And this time, he won in record-setting fashion — or at least record-tying.

Holtsberg’s 421 points (also out of a possible 477) tie him with Rick Boeckler in 2003 for the most points ever in any Living Room Times pool. His bracket contains just 9 errors in the tournament’s 63 games: he missed 5 first-round games, 2 second-round games, and 2 Sweet 16 games. His picks for the rest of the tournament were perfect.

Holtsberg, a Penn alum, ties Boeckler in another category as well, as they are both among the six two-time LRT pool winners over the pools’ 17 years of existence. The double champions are Jenn Castelhano (2001 women’s, 2002 men’s), Todd Stigliano (2001 women’s, 2005 women’s), Boeckler (2003 women’s, 2006 women’s), Matt Kagan (2004 men’s, 2004 women’s), Gary Kirby (2007 NIT, 2008 NIT) and now Holtsberg (2009 women’s, 2012 women’s).

Finishing second behind Holtsberg was Carol LaPlante was 414 points, followed by Alex Talcott (411) and Jeff Morrison and Randy Styles (406). Mike Bonfanti (403) was sixth, Ken Stern (402) was seventh, Colin Pedicini and Derek McDonald tied for eighth (392), and Lauren Fowler (386) rounds out the top ten. Joe Hiegel, who would have won the pool if Notre Dame had prevailed Tuesday night, instead finishes eleventh with 385 points. Complete standings here.

Holtsberg, incidentally, was the only contestant to finish in the top 10 of both the men’s and women’s NCAA pools this year. (Pedicini and Stern were also in the NIT pool top 10.)

The 17th annual Living Room Times men’s NCAA pool is down to a two-way battle between Tim Donahue of Elizabethtown, KY and Abby Newbold of Boston, MA.

Donahue, a Louisville alum and huge Cardinals fan, stayed alive (and in first place) because his team lost to its archrival today, just as he predicted. Now he needs the Wildcats to finish the job with a win over Kansas on Monday.

Newbold, a Villanova alum and the wife of my high-school classmate and long-time pool contestant Brian Newbold, jumped into second place Saturday and will win the pool if Kansas wins Monday.

After 11 years and 32 tries, Mike Wiser is finally a Living Room Times basketball pool champion.

Wiser, a 2003 USC and 2006 Stanford alum and current Michigan State Ph.D. student who has competed in every single LRT pool since he and I were USC sophomores in 2001, clinched victory in the 8th annual NIT Pool when his grad-school alma mater, Stanford, crushed Minnesota for the NIT championship, 75-51.

Had Minnesota won, UConn senior and Newington High School alum Dan Dinunzio, who started the day with the lead, would have won the pool.

Wiser’s 31 pools without a win prior to yesterday (including this year’s men’s and women’s NCAA pools, from which he has been mathematically eliminated) placed him fourth on the all-time list for most LRT pools participated in without a win, behind Kevin Hauschulz (36), Josh Rubin (34) and Becky Loy (32).

(I hold the record for most pools participated in, having been in all 40 of them — 17 men’s NCAA, 15 women’s NCAA and 8 NIT — but I won the first-ever women’s pool, in 1997, which had only ten contestants. Including Rubin and Hauschulz. 🙂 That said, I do also hold the record for most losses in my own pools, with 39.)

Stanford led Minnesota by just 6 at halftime, 31-25, setting up a somewhat eerie parallel to the Wiser’s closest near-miss in an LRT pool. In 2001, his first year as a contestant, Wiser was somewhat famously 20 minutes away from winning the women’s NCAA pool, which would have made him the first-ever non-Newington winner in the then-6-year history of the pools. Wiser needed a Purdue win in the national title game to capture the pool championship, and the Boilermakers, having led by as many as 11 in the first half, were ahead of Notre Dame at halftime by an almost identical score to Stanford’s halftime margin yesterday — 32-26. But the Fighting Irish, led by Ruth Riley, stormed back, and Newington High School alum (and then-Providence College sophomore) Todd Stigliano won the pool, extending Newington’s dominance in the LRT pools.

The first non-Newington winner would emerge two years later, in 2003, and now there hasn’t been a Newington winner since 2005 (coincidentally, Todd Stigliano, winning his second women’s pool title). But yesterday, Wiser was yet again facing a title-game showdown with Newington High alum, and yet again the team he needed to win the championship game was ahead by 6 points at halftime. But this time, there would be no comeback to derail Wiser’s pool championship. The Cardinal outscored the Golden Gophers 44-26 in the second half, and Wiser jumped from 3rd place to 1st, winning the pool with 186 of a possible 317 points.

Dinunizio and Don LaPlante of Cheektowaga, NY, the only contestant besides Wiser to pick Stanford as the NIT champ, tied for second with 171 points. (Wiser, incidentally, is originally from nearby Kenmore, NY.) Tommy Lemoine of Manchester, NH was fourth with 164 points, and J. Scott Fitzwater of Ohio was fifth with 161 points.

Rounding out the top 10 were Colin Pedicini (160 points), Larry Caplin (147), Ian Auzenne and Jeff Poor (tied with 142) and a four-way tie among Greg Kagan, Ken Stern, Kelly Strutz and Lisa Velte (140). Full standings here.

Six contestants are still alive in the 15th annual Living Room Times women’s NCAA pool heading into the Final Four — a new LRT record for any pool, I believe, and just two shy of the theoretical maximum (barring ties) of eight — as all four #1 seeds have advanced to Denver, creating a wide variety of outcomes for a pool field whose picks vary substantially from this point forward.

Currently, Bethel College ’03 and Indiana ’10 alum Randy Styles of South Bend, IN has the lead. But he will win the pool only if UConn upsets hometown team Notre Dame and its South Bend-born star, Skylar Diggins, and plays Baylor in the title game. If that happens, it won’t matter if the Huskies win or lose against Baylor; Styles would clinch on Sunday. (He is the only contestant who can potentially clinch before the title game.) Other scenarios:

• If ND wins the championship (regardless of whether it’s over Baylor or over Stanford), Joe Hiegel of Greenfield, WI will win the pool.

• If Baylor beats ND in the title game, 2009 women’s pool champ Michael Holtsberg of Broomall, PA will win again.

• If Stanford beats ND in the title game, Amy Booth of San Diego, CA will win.

• If Stanford beats UConn in the title game, Yvette Webster of Round Hill, VA will win. Webster is also in contention for the men’s pool championship heading into the Final Four; she’ll win that pool if Louisville plays Kansas in the title game.

• Lastly, if UConn beats Stanford in the title game, Gary Kirby (gahrie) of San Bernardino, CA will win.

Meanwhile, in the 8th annual Living Room Times NIT pool, Stanford’s win over UMass last night in the semifinals kept USC & Stanford alum (and current Michigan State Ph.D. student) Mike Wiser alive, while Washington’s overtime loss to Minnesota eliminated previous leader Tommy Lemoine and elevated UConn senior (and Newington High alum) Daniel Dinunzio into first place.

Dinunzio will win the pool if Minnesota beats Stanford. Wiser will win if Stanford wins.

If Wiser wins, it would be his first-ever victory in an LRT basketball pool, after being a regular contestant for more than a decade. If Dinunzio wins, it would be the first win for someone from Newington, CT, where the pools originated 16 years ago, since Todd Stigliano won the women’s NCAA pool in 2005.

With the Final Four half set, a whopping 12 contestants are still mathematically alive in the Living Room Times women’s NCAA pool. But any one of them could be eliminated tonight. It’s a high-stakes Elite Eight finale!

Presently, as you can see on the possible outcomes page, a dozen contestants — Randy Styles (1st in the current standings), Michael Holtsberg (3rd), Cam McLachlan (T-4th), Joe Hiegel (T-4th), Becky Loy (6th), Gary Kirby (T-11th), Rick Boeckler (T-11th), Amy Booth (T-11th), Yvette Webster (14th), David Kreutz (17th), Michael Walsh (21st) and Kevin Hauschulz (31st) — have a chance to win.

Holtsberg, who won the women’s pool in 2009, might be considered the favorite to do so again, as he will win if all the expected results happen: Notre Dame beats Maryland and UConn beats Kentucky tonight, Notre Dame and Baylor win in the national semifinals, and Baylor wins the championship. That said, he’d be eliminated tonight if Maryland upsets Notre Dame. So would the current leader, Styles (who has UConn upsetting ND in the semis, but needs the Irish to get there).

Meanwhile, Cam McLachlan and Becky Loy both face an unusual situation tonight: they’ll either take the lead (if Maryland upsets ND, in McLachlan’s case; if ND wins and Kentucky upsets UConn, in Becky’s case) or be mathematically eliminated.

Here’s an overview of tonight’s scenarios:

• If Notre Dame and UConn win, creating an all #1-seed showdown in Denver, we’d head into the Final Four with 6 pool contestants still mathematically alive, which I think would be a new LRT record. Those contestants would be Styles, Holtsberg, Hiegel, Kirby, Booth and Webster.

• If Maryland and UConn win, we’d have 5 still alive: McLachlan, Boeckler, Kreutz, Walsh and Hauschulz.

• If Notre Dame and Kentucky win, the pool would have a “Final Four”: Loy, Styles, Holtsberg and Booth.

• If Maryland and Kentucky win, we’d be down to just 3: McLachlan, Boeckler and Kreutz.

With Becky and me having tickets to the Final Four next weekend, I confess I’m a bit torn about whether to root tonight for the team I grew up cheering for, UConn (though I’d be rooting against them if they play my law-school alma mater, Notre Dame, in the semis), or to instead root for my wife to have a shot at the pool championship. It would be fun to have a Becky’s pool fortunes riding on Notre Dame’s success as we watch them next weekend. But it would also be fun to watch the fourth game of the season between the Irish and the Huskies. Ah, well. I’ll look at it as a no-lose situation, I guess. (Well, “no-lose” unless Maryland upsets ND!)

Tim Donahue and Zach Bloxham went 4-for-4 in predicting the men’s Final Four of #1 Kentucky, #2 Kansas, #2 Ohio State and #4 Louisville — the first time anyone has picked a perfect Final Four in a Living Room Times men’s pool since 2009, when Matt Scarborough did it. The feat helped Donahue maintain his lead in the pool, and if the overwhelmingly favored Wildcats win the national championship, Donahue will earn “eternal glory” as champion of the 17th annual LRT men’s NCAA pool.

But that would presumably be a bitter consolation prize for Donahue, a self-described “big-time Louisville Cardinal fan” who just returned from Phoenix, where he and his youngest daughter watched the Cardinals reach the Final Four. He has come this far in the LRT pool thanks in part to his faith in Rick Pitino’s team, which is the Final Four’s biggest surprise. But now his pool fortunes depend on archrival Kentucky (which most of Donahue’s family roots for) beating Louisville and winning the national title.

Bloxham, for his part, can finish no higher than third. He’s in seventh place now, but he is too far behind leader Donahue to catch up, even if he gains points from their differing picks for national runner-up (Donahue says Kansas; Bloxham, Ohio State); and he cannot gain any points on sixth-place Michael Holtsberg because their picks are identical from this point forward.

Three others, though, are still alive to win the pool. Chris Palmer, currently in second place, will win the pool if Ohio State wins the title, or loses the championship game to Louisville. Yvette Webster, currently third, will win if Louisville plays Kansas in the title game, regardless of the outcome. (She predicted Kansas over Louisville for the title.) And Abby Newbold, currently fourth, will win if Kansas beats Kentucky for the championship.

That means the pool will go down to the wire if Kentucky reaches the title game, but if Louisville upsets the Wildcats in the first national semifinal, the pool champion will be determined by the second semifinal between Kansas (Webster) and Ohio State (Palmer).

Full standings here and possible outcomes here. You can also scroll through the “what-if scenarios” using the drop-down menu at top right of the standings pages.

A bit of background on each of the “Final Four” in the pool:

• Tim Donahue, of Elizabethtown, KY, found the Living Room Times pools last year via a Facebook search, and entered again this year when I invited all of last year’s participants. He said he “just enjoyed the tone and friendliness of your pool, so wanted to give it a try again.”
• Chris Palmer, of Long Valley, NJ, is a Vermont alum, a fellow Mid-Majority reader and owner of two Ballys, and a friend of mine on Twitter, where he goes by @chrispalm.
• Yvette Webster, of Round Hill, VA, found the pools via Rachel Wetherill, a long-time blog reader and pool contestant. Webster entered using the “mascot bracket,” proclaiming “I do not know a thing about basketball.”
• Abby Newbold, of Boston, MA, is a Villanova alum and the wife of my high-school classmate and long-time pool contestant Brian Newbold.

Meanwhile, in the women’s pool, with a “chalky” Elite Eight set — all four #1 and #2 seeds made it — the pool remains very competitive, with 17 of 78 contestants still alive to win.

The current leader is Randy Styles, with 281 points; he has a Final Four of all #1 seeds, with Baylor beating UConn for the title. Ken Stern is presently second, just four points back, but with an identical prediction to Styles’s, he cannot win.

Michael Holtsberg, the 2009 women’s pool champ, is presently third with 272 points, and can still win because he has Notre Dame, instead of UConn, losing to Baylor.

Cam McLachlan and Joe Hiegel are tied for fourth with 269 points, and have identical picks to Styles except that Hiegel has Notre Dame beating Baylor for the title, while McLachlan has the Irish losing to Maryland in the Elite Eight tomorrow.

Becky Loy and Kevin Curran are tied for sixth with 268. Becky’s picks are identical to Hiegel’s, except she has Kentucky upsetting UConn on Tuesday. Curran cannot win, as his surprise Final Four pick, St. John’s, was already eliminated, and his picks are otherwise identical to Styles’s.

Also still mathematically alive to win: Michael Walsh, Gary Kirby, Amy Booth, Kevin Hauschulz, Rick Boeckler, Ken Wagner, Yvette Webster (the only contestant still alive to win both the men’s and women’s pools), David Kreutz, Mike Tran, Diane Krause, Josh Rubin and Bonnie Stone.

Full standings here and possible outcomes here.

With half of the Elite Eight set, Tim Donahue of Louisville, Kentucky has taken the lead in the 17th annual Living Room Times men’s NCAA pool.

Donahue, who does not know me personally but found the LRT pools via Facebook last year, is one of three contestants — the others being Zach Bloxham (currently 11th) and Ben Eng (17th) — who picked both #2 Ohio State and #4 Louisville to reach the Final Four. (For the record, Donahue has Kansas and Kentucky tomorrow, as does Bloxham; Eng has UNC and Kentucky.)

Donahue has 265 points. Chris Palmer is next with 263. Then comes Yvette Webster with 253, Abby Newbold with 248, and 2005 pool champion Brian Kiolbasa with 242. Complete standings here.

Donahue, Palmer, Webster and Newbold are still alive to win the pool, as is Eng. Also still alive: Vicki Huffman, Brian Neudorff, Amy Booth, Nick Manzione and Kristy McCray. Possible outcomes here.

My 2 1/2 year old, “Loyacita,” was eliminated when Syracuse lost to Ohio State. But she is still alive in my law firm’s office pool; she will win the $80 first prize if Kansas beats UNC tomorrow and Kentucky wins the national championship. Go Loyacita! Ha!

Meanwhile, in the women’s pool, with three of eight Sweet Sixteen games complete (Stanford-South Carolina is underway as I write this), the Top 5 right now are Karen Torgersen, Michael Holtsberg, Randy Styles, Joe Hiegel, and a tie between Kevin Curran and Dan Dinunzio. All of them, and 25 others, are still alive to win.

The first night of the Sweet Sixteen was a dramatic one in the 17th annual Living Room Times men’s NCAA pool.

When the day began, Yvette Webster had the lead. But when Syracuse edged Wisconsin in the night’s first game, Elizabeth Styles took the lead. Webster, who had picked the Badgers, fell to 4th place.

However, an hour or so later, when Louisville upset Michigan State, Webster, who had picked the surprising Cardinals, re-took the lead; Styles fell to 2nd. Meanwhile, my 2-year-old daughter “Loyacita,” who also picked Louisville(!), started to creep up the leaderboard, jumping from 12th to 5th.

Then, when Ohio State beat Cincinnati, Jen Deschenes took the lead, while Steve Vivier and Loyacita moved into a tie for second place. Webster fell into a 4th-place tie with Chris Palmer and Randy Styles. Elizabeth Styles, Randy’s wife, fell to 7th.

Finally, when Florida upset Marquette, Palmer and Webster moved up into a first-place tie — the third separate time Yvette Webster had led today. Deschenes fell to 3rd, Vivier & Loyacita tied for 4th. The Styles duo remains 6th and 7th (but are mathematically eliminated from winning).

Here are the full standings. And here are the possible outcomes. Twenty-nine contestants are still mathematically alive to win — including Loyacita, who has a greater than 10% chance on paper, and possibly even better in reality, considering she will win the pool if Kansas goes to the Final Four and Kentucky beats Syracuse in the title game. (That’s not her only path to victory, but it’s a shockingly plausible one.)

The NIT Final Four at Madison Square Garden next Tuesday is set — UMass-Stanford at 7pm Eastern, followed by Minnesota-Washington at 9pm — and the 8th annual Living Room Times NIT Pool is down to a Final 3: Tommy Lemoine of Manchester, NH (a Michigan State alum), Dan Dinunzio of Storrs, CT (a current UConn senior), and Mike Wiser of Lansing, MI (a USC and Stanford alum and current MSU grad student).

Lemoine is an 800 Games Project participant who goes by @hoopthink on Twitter. Wiser is a friend of mine from USC’s Trojan Hall and a long-time contestant in my contests for more than a decade, and is trying to win his first Living Room Times basketball pool. Dinunzio is a fellow Newington High alum and, currently second place in the women’s pool, is gunning for a rare double pool championship.

Here are the current standings. Lemoine is first with 164 points. Dinunzio is second with 152. Jeff Poor is third with 151, but is mathematically eliminated. Wiser is tied for fourth with J. Scott Fitzwater at 141, but Fitzwater is mathematically eliminated; Wiser is not, because of his prediction that his alma mater Stanford will win the championship.

Here is how the scenarios play out:

* Wiser wins the pool if Stanford wins the title.
* Lemoine wins the pool if Washington wins the title, or loses the title game to UMass.
* Dinunzio wins the pool if Minnesota wins the title, or loses the title game to UMass.

This means that, next Tuesday, if UMass wins the first semi, Wiser will be eliminated and the second semi will decide the pool — Lemoine wins if Washington wins, Dinunzio wins if Minnesota wins. But if Stanford wins the first semi, Wiser will stay alive, and the second semi will merely decide which contestant, Lemoine or Dinunzio, gets to essentially face off against Wiser in the title game for the pool championship.

In other news, the men’s Sweet 16 starts tonight. Here again the current standings and victory scenarios in that pool.