Well, apparently some stackers are better than the rest of us at selecting winners in March Madness games. We had 2/3 of the pool decimated in the first round and then all four remaining survivors sail through the second round with ease. A little turbulence for NC State but @pj's bold bet has paid off with a big tiebreaker lead. So congrats to @StillStackinAfterAllTheseYears @kr @Turdinthepunchbowl and @pj for making it to the Sweet 16 round. I will post the Sweet 16 round games, current tiebreaker scores and prize pool from @themadnessking account later today.

After the first round decimation there was talk of a pool fork, or a loser bracket if you will. So anyone who participated in the pool and was unceremoniously ousted in the first round if you want to run a side pool maybe starting in the elite 8 let me know. Keep in mind I will be rolling out the MLB survivor pool this week as well.

I believe @Undisciplined wants to run another pool for the NBA playoffs and I would like to do some kind of contest for the NFL draft, so there will be lots of opportunities to lose and maybe win (maybe) some sats in the coming months.

I have really been enjoying the March Madness tournament. It is high quality basketball but you can certainly see the gap between the college level and the pros. I think the biggest thing I've noticed is how the pros are so used to the big stage and the pressure that they seem to slow the game down. Many times watching these college games I have seen guys rushing shots, making bad passes, missing free throws at tense moments in the game. It makes me think back to my first corporate job out of college. I was working in the drug retail business (not on the corner- actual drug stores- like CVS) and I was a management trainee and they placed me in a new flagship store for the first couple months of it's operation before I got my own store. There was so much going on with the store opening and executives from all over the country flying in to see it. A big grand opening with media there. It was overwhelming at first and after a couple months I recall having a conversation with the district manager and him asking me how things were going and I said something to the effect "the store gets smaller every day". A couple weeks later I had my own store to run because he was confident I wouldn't get overwhelmed. Of course, even though I had just been put through the ringer as a management trainee, I did anyway. My first day in my own store I was so rattled with the seemingly million things I had to do that when I was leaving I scraped the side of my car on a pole in the underground parking lot. Which was actually a blessing in disguise because it made me realize I was out of control and needed to slow down. I didn't have tv cameras and screaming fans in my face as I took on my first big career opportunity, so I can imagine the pressure these kids are under and how fast things must be coming at them. The only path I see to achieving calm under pressure is: be in the arena, fail, self-correct, and get after it again until it eventually becomes second nature.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk. I don't know how I got off on such a tangent but I am sticking with it.

Sats for all, GR