M BRENNER is the winner of the 2006 Pac-10 Hoop-Pundits Pool. Brenner, who finished 7th in both 2003 and 2004 and 37th last year, is a UC Davis graduate (class of 1993) who grew up in the East Bay rooting for the California Golden Bears since the late 70s. He lives in San Francisco and is a graphic designer/web developer.
His comments on the contest: Thanks for running such a great contest. Following Pac-10 hoops is my favorite sports entertainment, and this contest is a fun way to follow along throughout the season. Strategy? Well, I thought Stanford would be worse than the media projected (likely due to injuries) and USC would be slightly better. Other than that, I feel like I picked pretty modest margins of victory -- as the season proved most teams were capable of winning either home or away. I guess what really pushed me over the top were my conference tourney projections -- I thought this would finally be Cal's year to make some noise down there.
CONTEST FACTS AND FIGURES:
A Calvo had the most Conference Leader questions correct with five. To see how our picks compared with the actual category winners, denoted with a (*), go to Summary of Picks (down the page). The toughest category turned out to be National Champion, where nobody had Florida and Most Retrogressed with 11 picks for Arizona. The easiest was Most Improved team with 38 having California.
Team Standings - total of top three from each school (best individual)
Jeff Schloss is a repeat winner and Tim Verceles won in 2003 and 2005.
UCLA fans dominated the contest this year with five of the top eight places.
Most exact margin picks: 8 (Jeremy S)
Fewest exact margin picks: 0 (David Lombard, Ryan McMcllen and Mick Stapleton)
Best winning percentage: 76.3% (71-22) (Tom M)
Worst winning percentage: 52.1% (49-45) (Chris H)
Previous winners:
First ten to send in entries averaged 940.3.
Last ten to send in their entries averaged 986.0.
Best Last year/This year: Jeremy S #1/#5, Tim Verceles #5/#17, Edmund Johnson #10/#25
Most consistent: Larry Harris, who finished 12th, 11th, 22nd, 27th from 2001-2004 was 30th this year.
Football/Basketball expert: Nobody had a high finish in both the football and basketball pools this year.
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Most Improved Tom M #105 last year to #3, Mitchell Brisacher #82 to #8
Biggest drop: Howie Ludwig #2 last year to #89 this year and Kev Hayashida #4 last year to #76 this year.
Congrats to the winner of the NCAA Tournament Pool , Korri Anderson.
FINAL STANDINGS: all ties broken by (1) winning pct; (2) exact picks
| # | NAME | W-L | (E) | TOTAL | 1 | M Brenner (Cal Bears) | 67 - 27 | 4 | 1146 | 2 | A. Calvo (UCLA) | 65 - 28 | 2 | 1118 | 3 | Tom M (ex Illini) | 71 - 22 | 3 | 1105 | 4 | John Thornquist (ASU) | 68 - 26 | 3 | 1098 | 5 | Jeremy S (Ucla) | 64 - 30 | 8 | 1088 | 6 | Michael Bartlett (UCLA 1990) | 62 - 32 | 3 | 1088 | 7 | Richard Brisacher (UCLA '88) | 64 - 30 | 2 | 1086 | 8 | Mitchell Brisacher (UCLA Class of 2016) | 65 - 29 | 4 | 1084 | 9 | Ken C (CAL/Hotb) | 65 - 29 | 3 | 1064 | 10 | Ryan F (Washington) | 63 - 31 | 4 | 1064 | 11 | Matt Shaw (PLU'92) | 67 - 27 | 5 | 1061 | 12 | Bob Ford (UCLA) | 68 - 26 | 5 | 1060 | 13 | Phil D. (UCLA) | 66 - 28 | 2 | 1058 | 14 | Tyler S | 62 - 32 | 1 | 1058 | 15 | Lance P (UW) | 64 - 30 | 6 | 1056 | 16 | George R (Arizona '90) | 62 - 28 | 5 | 1055 | 17 | Tim Verceles (Stanford) | 67 - 27 | 5 | 1053 | 18 | Chris Piscitelli (FUTURE ALUM) | 65 - 29 | 7 | 1053 | 19 | Ryan A (none) | 63 - 31 | 2 | 1051 | 20 | Michael K (UCLA Alumnus) | 67 - 27 | 1 | 1042 | 21 | Mark Piekarski (UCI) | 64 - 30 | 3 | 1041 | 22 | Julie Yabu (Cal '90) | 65 - 29 | 5 | 1035 | 23 | Mark R (UA '91) | 65 - 29 | 2 | 1035 | 24 | Juan S (UCLA) | 64 - 29 | 1 | 1031 | 25 | Edmund Johnson (UC Berkeley) | 65 - 29 | 3 | 1024 | 26 | Matt Ross (UCLA STUDENT) | 66 - 28 | 4 | 1023 | 27 | Matt Tiano (huge UCLA fan) | 67 - 27 | 4 | 1019 | 28 | Jim R (UCLA '62) | 62 - 32 | 3 | 1014 | 29 | Stu T (none) | 62 - 32 | 2 | 1013 | 30 | Larry Harris (USC) | 63 - 31 | 4 | 1012 | 31 | Josh Siefried (UCLA) | 62 - 32 | 1 | 1011 | 32 | Steve Moore (Cal Alumnus) | 58 - 36 | 3 | 1009 | 33 | Chris G (cal) | 63 - 29 | 2 | 1007 | 34 | Trevor Vallow (USC) | 63 - 31 | 4 | 1006 | 35 | Bill Allen (UCLA Alum) | 64 - 30 | 1 | 1005 | 36 | Scott Cooper (UofA '00) | 63 - 31 | 6 | 1005 | 37 | Steve McCanse (Arizona) | 67 - 27 | 3 | 1004 | 38 | David Lombard (UCLA) | 66 - 28 | 0 | 1004 | 39 | Mike O (Oregon) | 62 - 31 | 2 | 1002 | 40 | Mike R. (ASU) | 64 - 30 | 4 | 993 | Ben Lawrence (Arizona 2001) | 64 - 30 | 4 | 993 | 42 | Devin M (Cal '06) | 62 - 32 | 5 | 992 | 43 | Shawna Nomura (Oregon) | 60 - 34 | 1 | 992 | 44 | Philip H (UCLA'89) | 62 - 28 | 1 | 989 | 45 | Richard Lee (Cal) | 64 - 30 | 3 | 988 | 46 | Scott Carpenter (ASU '05) | 61 - 33 | 5 | 987 | 47 | Jeff Schloss (OSU '94) | 64 - 30 | 4 | 986 | 48 | Dale Wheatley (UCLA Alum) | 60 - 34 | 3 | 985 | 49 | Gino B (usc) | 60 - 34 | 1 | 984 | 50 | Marc Rubin (ASU LAW) | 62 - 32 | 5 | 975 | 51 | Paul Frickey (Cal 1988) | 62 - 32 | 3 | 969 | 52 | Ben R (Cal '07) | 65 - 29 | 4 | 965 | 53 | David A (ucla fan) | 60 - 34 | 4 | 963 | 54 | Don Crowley (WSU/UI) | 55 - 39 | 5 | 963 | 55 | Korri Anderson (WSU) | 56 - 38 | 4 | 961 | 56 | Morgan R. (ASU) | 60 - 34 | 3 | 960 | 57 | Philco D (UCLA) | 66 - 28 | 5 | 959 | 58 | Ken N (OSU) | 60 - 34 | 3 | 956 | 59 | Wes Tanac (Oregon) | 59 - 35 | 4 | 956 | 60 | Big Al (USC) | 62 - 32 | 2 | 955 | 61 | Ryan McMcllen (ucla) | 64 - 30 | 0 | 954 | 62 | Steve M (Cal) | 61 - 33 | 2 | 951 | 63 | Logan L | 58 - 36 | 1 | 950 | 64 | Patrick S (Pope) (ASU) | 62 - 32 | 5 | 949 | 65 | Mark Cluff (Arizona80) | 60 - 34 | 2 | 948 | 66 | Danny Kim (Cal '03) | 64 - 30 | 4 | 945 | 67 | DaBruins Madoyan (UCLA) | 60 - 34 | 2 | 941 | 68 | Jay Ramos (ASU) | 61 - 33 | 4 | 938 | 69 | Mark Weller (UW/CWU '97) | 63 - 31 | 3 | 934 | 70 | Mel Avanzado (UCLA) | 59 - 35 | 1 | 933 | 71 | Jason Sherr (CAL Alum) | 58 - 36 | 5 | 933 | 72 | James Passannanti (BEAR DOWN ARIZONA) | 58 - 36 | 3 | 926 | 73 | Bill L (CalPolyBruin) | 59 - 35 | 2 | 922 | 74 | Timothy S. (UCLA / Cal Tech) | 62 - 32 | 3 | 919 | 75 | Ben Browdy (UCLA) | 58 - 36 | 2 | 919 | 76 | Kev Hayashida (ucla 87) | 57 - 37 | 3 | 919 | 77 | Erik Skopil (oregon) | 62 - 32 | 3 | 917 | 78 | Brian Odle | 57 - 36 | 4 | 917 | 79 | Doug M | 56 - 38 | 2 | 911 | 80 | Ron Y (asu sun devils) | 56 - 38 | 2 | 906 | 81 | Doug I (Arizona '94) | 59 - 35 | 2 | 899 | 82 | Kenny Lehmer (UCLA '83) | 55 - 39 | 4 | 890 | CDR Tony Deaville (Cal '90) | 55 - 39 | 4 | 890 | 84 | PalousePuma (Cougzone.com) | 56 - 38 | 1 | 889 | 85 | Gordon P (Washington State) | 57 - 37 | 2 | 888 | 86 | Paul M (NorthBeachSFDuck) | 54 - 39 | 3 | 886 | 87 | John Dmohowski (usc) | 55 - 39 | 2 | 883 | 88 | Thomas Graf (OSU Beavers) | 59 - 35 | 1 | 879 | 89 | Howie Ludwig (California) | 58 - 36 | 2 | 871 | 90 | Corey Crowley-Hall (Linfield/WSU) | 53 - 41 | 4 | 869 | 91 | Scott Canfield (UW 2007) | 57 - 37 | 4 | 864 | 92 | Bryan R (Cal Golden Bears!!!) | 57 - 37 | 3 | 862 | 93 | Frederick R (Cougar) | 53 - 41 | 3 | 862 | 94 | Mick Stapleton (Stanford/Santa Clara) | 56 - 38 | 0 | 853 | 95 | BigJim Bronco (Santa Clara) | 54 - 40 | 1 | 852 | 96 | Brian Birgen (Wartburg/Cal) | 58 - 36 | 4 | 850 | 97 | Patrick Thrapp (dawgman.com) | 55 - 39 | 3 | 838 | 98 | Steve Bryan (usc) | 57 - 37 | 1 | 832 | 99 | Mike Bowles (USC) | 54 - 40 | 4 | 831 | 100 | Doug Big Dog M (Cats '87) | 54 - 40 | 2 | 831 | 101 | James Aiken (Go Ducks) | 53 - 41 | 2 | 795 | 102 | Chris H (WSU) | 49 - 45 | 1 | 777 | 103 | Jimmy N (osu) | 53 - 41 | 2 | 770 | 104 | Manjinder Rai (Washington State) | 52 - 42 | 2 | 759 | 105 | David Sidle (Palo Alto High '84) | 46 - 38 | 1 | 756 |
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