Final Four 2011: How Good Have Expert Predictions Been so Far?‏

I feel like a prize fighter that has just walked out of the ring with a black eye, a bloody nose and a few teeth knocked out. Clearly I have taken a severe beating. When told that I look terrible by all of the on-lookers my only response is this, "If you think I look bad, you should see the other guy." It is like a pair of heavyweight champions that beat the living snot out of each other for 12 rounds. Someone walks away having "won" the fight, but in the end no one was truly victorious. Our brains are like a big bowl of mashed potatoes and my face has managed to become even uglier than it was.
 
To put it quite simply: all of the experts took a punch to the mouth this March Madness.  You can review my expert predictions here; http://bleacherreport.com/articles/634318-march-madness-2011-expert-bracket-predictions-a-guide-to-winning-your-pool. I explained how you can expect to land in the top 10 percent of your pool if you hit 75 percent of your picks every round and pick the champion. Most years I accomplish this or come darn close. This year marks my second flop in the past 14 years.  I failed to hit 75 percent in any round. Before you line up to mock me take this into consideration. Not a single expert hit 75 percent in the Final Four. Not a single expert hit 75 percent in the Elite Eight. Not a single expert hit 75 percent in the Sweet 16. That is absolutely absurd. 
 
The only round where some experts hit 75 percent was the first round. The first round was one of the chalkiest I can ever remember. That is a death sentence to the top sharks.  Remember that the point structure of the shark pool favors picking upsets. If you go chalk there is at least a 90 percent chance that you are going to lose. The chalk picks held up to an uncanny degree. President Obama, who is the king of chalk picks, went 29-3 in the first round for crying out loud. 
 
Apparently the basketball gods of March Madness had enough of the chalk diet after the first round. Upsets were off the charts crazy for every round since then. Not a single No. 1 seed made the Final Four. Three of the No. 1 seeds failed to make the Elite Eight. It isn't just the No. 1 seeds that failed to live up to their seeding. All of the favorite seeds struggled as a whole. The Final Four consists of No. 3 Connecticut, No. 4 Kentucky, No. 8 Butler and No. 11 VCU. Raise your hand if you had three of those four correctly in the Final Four.  No one will have their hand raised. I doubt virtually anyone even had two of those four correct. Hell, most won't even have one of those correct.
 
Here is the breakdown by percentage of the sharks who had each of those four teams in the Final Four. Not a single shark had VCU in the Final Four. Why would they? They were one of the last four teams to get in as an at large team. I liked VCU more than most people. I had them beating USC in the play in game AND called them beating Georgetown as well. However, they went on to beat Purdue, Florida State and Kansas. Read that again. I've never seen a low seed play as well as they have these last few weeks.
 
Only one shark had Butler in the Final Four. I would be shocked by the pick if not for the rest of that shark's picks. He had less picks right by round than me each and every round with the exception of the Final Four (Butler was his only correct pick). In a way, his selections were crazy like a fox. Butler landing in the Final Four netted him 64 points (8 point multiplier x 8 seed status). It made him jump from 158th place all the way up to 10th. He picked craziness every round and whiffed on almost all of them. However, if you swing for the fences and connect just a few times it can make your tourney. Butler's run is going to single handedly make his March sweet.
 
Eleven sharks had Kentucky in the Final Four.  That is a grand total of 5 percent. The vast majority went for Ohio State. They were the heavy favorite to not only win the region but to win the entire tournament. The rest almost all went for North Carolina or Syracuse.
 
Connecticut was the team picked correctly most often by the teams that made the Final Four. Just shy of 18 percent correctly called Connecticut in the Final Four. They were a fairly reasonable selection. I favored Duke as did 60 percent of the other sharks. About 10 percent liked San Diego State. Another 10 percent liked Texas.
 
Look at those numbers again. 18 percent, 5 percent, less than 1percent and 0 percent. This is unprecedented. I saw a stat on SportsCenter that only two people out of all of the millions that entered had the Final Four picks correct. I would bet a fortune that they are a homer from either Butler or VCU.
 
Obviously, no one is going to look good based on a win-loss percentage basis. However, let me point out a few big predictions that I did nail. The biggest one I nailed is that No. 1 seed Pittsburgh would lose in the second round. The only problem is that I called Old Dominion knocking them off. I predicted Old Dominion making a run to the Elite Eight.  They lost on a buzzer beater to Butler who not only made a run to the Elite Eight but have now made it to the Final Four. If Old Dominion had won that game and went on that same run, I would be in a totally different position.
 
I also called No. 2 Notre Dame not making it to the Elite Eight. Noticed a trend yet? I sniffed out the Big East as a mediocre conference. They got a ton of buzz for putting 11 teams in the tournament field. I think they deserved all 11 of those slots. However, I felt there were 11 pretty good teams and no great teams. I predicted none of them would make it to the Elite Eight. While I was wrong about that (Connecticut foiled me), I did correctly predict Connecticut to win the Big East tournament as a nine seed winning five games in five games. I also called them to make the deepest run of all the Big East teams in the Big Dance. They simply exceeded my expectations.
 
I correctly predicted that a team no one saw coming would win the Southeast Region. I knew Pittsburgh and Florida were overrated. I went for BYU. Butler obviously qualifies as a team that nobody saw coming.
 
All of the experts, myself included, took a punch to the face this year. I stood and took the criticism just like I said I would. I can handle having just my second bad year out of 14 this year, especially since all of the other experts fell on their face this year. I plan on getting off the mat, dusting myself off and coming back next year with my A game intact. A true champion believes in themselves even during the tough times.