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April 6, 2022 |
 The
NCAA Basketball Tournament ended earlier this
week, as the South Carolina Gamecocks Women’s
team and the Kansas Jayhawks Men’s team emerged
as National Champions 2022 in their respective
tournaments.
And with the close of
the Tournament, the high-octane Boundary County
Live NCAA Tournament Bracket Contest also ends.
Just before the Tournament began, Boundary
County Live announced on our Facebook page that
entries were open in our contest for the best
bracket predicting winners in both the Women’s
and the Men’s championship tournaments. We set
up groups in the ESPN tournament bracket system
and invited all to join in with their best and
most ambitious brackets. For the winners: a
Grand Prize of $50 going to the owner of the
best bracket submitted in the Women’s Tournament
and another $50 going to the champion bracket in
the Men’s Tournament.
When the final game
was played this past Monday, our contest ended.
And our winners?
Under the rules of
the contest, everyone was permitted to submit
brackets for either the Women’s or the Men’s
tournaments, or both. Many of our contestants
chose to participate in both. And it turns out
that the same contestant swept both the Men’s
and Women’s tournaments, winning the $50 Grand
Prize for each contest, for a total contest haul
of $100!
The 1st Place
Champion Winning Bracket for both of our
contests: John Pakiz.
Congratulations, John, on your winning brackets
in the Boundary County Live NCAA Tournament
Bracket Contest 2022!
Mr. Pakiz, whose ESPN
Screen Name in the contest was CreightonFan 1973
really is from Nebraska (home of Creighton
University). Along with participating in the
Boundary County Live contest, Mr. Pakiz also
participated in his family contest, where he
joins with his children is filling out brackets
with the whole family following along with the
Tournaments.
 And
Nebraska? Mr. Pakiz tells us he does not have a
direct connection with Boundary County (which is
totally fine, as our Boundary County contest is
open to anyone in the world). However, he has
been through Boundary County one time twenty
years ago on his way to a vacation in Canada.
Little did he know back then, as he drove
through on Highway 95, that he would one day win
beautiful Boundary County’s own NCAA bracket
contest. He learned about our Boundary County
contest through an internet search, looking for
NCAA Tournament bracket contests he might enter.
He came across our contest, and of course
couldn’t resist entering—who could?
Aside from that long
ago trip through Boundary County, he does have
other interesting ties with North Idaho. A
cousin of his wife lives in Wallace. He also
recounts that his grandfather, R.C. Brown, was
assigned to the Farragut Naval Training Station
for basic training in the United States Navy as
a teenager during World War II. “My grandfather
reminisced more often about his time at Farragut
than perhaps any other aspect of his wartime
Navy service, even though he saw action in Iwo
Jima and Okinawa. He had good memories from
Farragut of meeting several eventual shipmates
who became lifelong friends, and of the natural
beauty of Lake Pend Oreille and the Idaho
mountains,” said Mr. Pakiz, who was able to
visit Farragut himself in the 1990s, and saw his
grandparents names written in an old guest
register from when they had returned for past
visits there.
What is his winning
tournament bracket strategy? For the Women’s
Tournament, Mr. Pakiz says “There are always a
handful of teams with more height, strength, and
speed than most. So it's a low-risk strategy to
pick most or all of the top four seeds to
advance to the Sweet 16, and the 1 and 2-seeds
to go to the Final Four.”
For the Men’s
Tournament, his strategy is a little more
complicated. “On the men's side, especially in
larger contests, you have to take more chances.”
“Typically the
champion will be a team ranked in the top 20 in
both offense and defense in the KenPom
rankings,” he said, “so I choose my Final Four
teams out of this group.”
He picks won of the
better teams each year to win the Tournament,
but tends to stay away from the most popular
selections to win that are trending on the ESPN
site. “If you go with the top [trending] picks,
you'll have to be almost perfect in the early
rounds to beat everyone else who are picking the
top picks.” That’s why he selected Kansas as his
Tournament winner, a team that was good, but was
only the third most popular pick for all
entrants nationwide in the ESPN contest.
“Any team that's been
consistent throughout the season against a tough
schedule and has got experienced players with an
experienced coach has a good chance of going
far,” he said.
Thank you to everyone
who entered the Boundary County Live NCAA
Tournament Bracket Contest. Keep an eye out for
our 2023 Bracket Contest, coming up in about one
year.
P.S. Mr. Pakiz had quite a few additional
details on his philosopohy and methods for
selecting a winning bracket, beyond what is
detailed in the story above. If anyone
would like to see his full thoughts on this,
please e-mail us at:
9blive@gmail.com
We will get that additional information to you.
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