Okay, I've been mulling this over for awhile. In the past, it was easy. 65 teams, the play-in game is meaningless, everyone picks the 1 over the 16, pools aren't due until Wednesday night.
But now we will have two meaningful play-in games for 11-13 seeds. Potential play-in teams like Gonzaga, Alabama, Michigan State, and Memphis could have a legitimate shot at not just winning the play-in or their first round game, but making the Sweet 16, especially if they only have to go through a 5 and 4 seed to do it.
So my question, how do you handle it with the (strictly for fun) office pool? It's hard enough getting people to have their brackets in by Wednesday, now the bracket will be released on Sunday and meaningful games could be played as soon as Tuesday evening? So do you discount those games, or do you simply allow people to pick those teams through and it doesn't matter which one goes?
One thought, as I type this, maybe cut down point totals. How I've always ran brackets is that you get 1 point for a first round win, 2 for a 2nd, 3 for a Sweet 16 game, and so on. Instead, you could do this:
The play-in games are worth a bonus one point. Makes them meaningful, and if you turn in a bracket late (say Wednesday night) you just miss out on bonus points.
Here's a pod scenario: You have 4-seed Georgetown against 13-seed Missouri State and 5-seed Kentucky against 12-seed Michigan State/Gonzaga winner.
If you pick the correct team, say Michigan State, to win a play-in game, you get a bonus point. Then you continue to get points as normal for any Michigan State wins. You pick them over Kentucky, they get you 1 point, over Georgetown, they get you 2 points. And if they continue to knock off 1-seed Duke, you get 3.
But what if it's Gonzaga that makes the run and you picked Sparty? Well, you still get points for the seed advancing, but it's reduced by 1 each round. First, you miss the bonus point because you picked the wrong team there. Then you are penalized by one point per round. So if they beat Kentucky, you get nothing (1 - 1 = 0), but if they beat Georgetown, you get 1 point (2 - 1 = 1), and 2 for Duke (3 - 1 = 2).
Anyone have any other ideas? My guess is there will be a lot of hand-wringing from pool runners come Selection Sunday, and it's probably better to have a plan in place in advance.
