First of all, thanks for being in the pool.  Forty of us, what a good crowd!

Now, down to brass tacks here.  We have a huge proportion of people who took highly ranked teams all the way through, and a huge proportion of people who, as a result, have the Frozen Four intact, or three of the four.  Combine that with the large number of entries and, uh, well, let’s just assume that I’m going to be able to determine a winner from among all this . . . .

Please see the interesting statistical note about our entrants, that appears right below the list of individual standings.  I think you’ll get a kick out of it.

So, here goes, here are the standings in the pool after all twelve games played in the first two rounds.  The highest possible number of correct picks at this point is twelve:

10: Holte, JSchreader, Sell, Toohey

9: Allen, Fairbrother, Hollywood, Kaycie, Mattson, O’Brien, PReichel, TShymanski, Speare, Sweeney

8: Bogosian, Carlisle, Cattermole, Harris, Huberty, Peterson, Ryan, Schmidt, DShymanski, Smigielski

7: Cruz, Krajan, Kramer, McLean, MReichel, OSchreader, MShymanski, Wienbar

6: Breen, Ramsey, GSchreader

5: O’Connell, Rarden

4: Pastor

3: Slaughter

2: Bettendorf

Now, a statistical note of interest.  Of the forty entries in the pool, only nine are women.  And do you know where they stand in the pool?  Well . . . . not one of them has less than seven correct picks.  Of the four leaders with ten correct picks, two are women.  Of the ten entrants currently in second place with nine correct picks, two are women.  Of the ten with eight correct picks, four are women.  And one of the women is among the seven entrants with seven correct picks.  A woman won the inaugural pool back in 2000, and again in 2005.  It’s been a while, will it happen again?  It’s a hard pool to win, and the numbers in this crowd are pretty much against the women to win, statistically speaking. But this year they’re off to a heck of a start, and we’ll see, soon enough.

That’s all for now.  Stay tuned, and go Terriers!

— Tom