Tuesday, March 14, 2000
March brings out pool madness
Methods diverse as participants
BY TANYA ALBERT
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Cheryl Wherle doesn't pay much attention to men's college basketball during the regular season, but when that NCAA tournament bracket sheet crosses her desk each March, she chips in a couple of bucks to be a part of the fun.
The method to the Procter & Gamble Co. employee's March madness? It depends.
Maybe the team is named after a saint. Maybe the team's home is close to Cincinnati. Or maybe it's the way a team's name sounds.
“Pepperdine, it just rolls off the tongue,” said Ms. Wherle of Bridgetown, who began filling out her brackets Monday.
Monday, the day after 64 teams were selected to play in the NCAA men's basketball tournament, the office-pool season tipped off. Here's how most pools work:
On a bracket listing the 64 invited teams, participants select the winners of all 63 games. The more correct picks, the higher your score.
Office pools are legal as long as all the money collected is paid out to the winners, Tristate legal experts said.
Ms. Wherle's method has fared pretty well. Last year she finished 10th out of about 50 people in the winner-takes-all pool.
Winning it all isn't easy.
Dennis Mosby of Clifton has usually seen every team in the tournament play, at least on TV. His theory: Teams with the best point guards are going to win.
Despite extensive research, Mr. Mosby has yet to win any money in a bracket pool.
If someone were to simply flip a coin to pick winners, the odds of getting all 63 tournament games right is 1 in 10 quintillion, says David Flaspohler, professor of mathematics and computer science at Xavier University.
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