[pjmpjm]

Medals so far awarded at the 2018 Winter Paralympics

[WordDiva]

LOWEST POINTS CONTEST
Atlanta Hawks
Lowest score 88 points

[pjmpjm]

Australian alpine skier Melissa Perrine has won bronze at the Winter Paralympics in the vision-impaired super-combined, Australia's second medal of the Pyeongchang Games.

The 30-year-old sat 5.66 seconds (factored) behind in sixth after the super-G stage of the race, but produced a clinical slalom run to shave off the required time to reach the podium. She finished 3.1 seconds behind gold medal winner Henrieta Farkasova from Slovakia, with silver going to Menna FitzPatrick from Great Britain.

Perrine produced the fastest slalom time (55.32 secs) in the eight-woman field, with three DNFs from the super-G.

She sat in gold medal position for most of the second stage before Farkasova and FitzPatrick overtook her with the last and second-last runs respectively.

Perrine, who has congenital vision-impairments and manages epilepsy, registered fifth placings in the downhill and super-G on the first two days of competition, the latter achieved while battling illness.

She broke through for her first medal at her third Games, following promising results at Vancouver 2010 with a series of DNFs and disqualifications in Sochi four years ago.

She was guided down the Jeongseon Alpine Centre course by sighted guide and coach Christian Geiger, who led alpine skier Jess Gallagher to bronze in the giant slalom in Sochi four years ago.

Perrine's result comes a day after Simon Patmore won gold in the snowboard cross to already ensure the Australian team eclipsed their performance in Sochi, where they claimed two bronze medals.

Meanwhile, standing skier Mitch Gourley finished fifth in the men's super-combined.

Gourley was ranked third after his first round super-G run, but managed only the eighth-fastest time in the slalom to drop out of the bronze medal position.

[johngriffen]

Thanks for the updates on the Paralympics. I was looking at doing some contests based around the events, but I had a hard time finding any supporting documentation. None of the standard Book Making sites are providing the odds, and most of the stories are just local feel good pieces.

[johngriffen]

SPORTS CENTER CONTEST #16
PICK’EM

Time to introduce you to yet another gambling term… PICK’EM
It’s really a very simple made up word. It means, these two teams are so closely matched that either team has an equal chance to win. Or in other words, we have no clue which team will win
When it comes to PICK’EM games, many gamblers rely on arcane knowledge to select a team to bet on. Like: which school did I go to; I like the colors of their uniforms; which team has better cheer leaders; I hate or like that team; my wife likes that team. You get the idea. So whenever you look up the odds for any given event, and the results come back PICK’EM, you now know what that means. FLIP A COIN!

INFORMATION
To get everybody ready for the NCAA TOURNAMENT, and to give me time to do all the work needed for the MANY upcoming events, we give you a simple one today that didn’t require any research on my part.
The Syracuse basketball team will face Arizona State in one of the First Four Games of the NCAA Tournament at 9:10 p.m. on Wednesday. The winner of this game will move on to face No. 6 TCU when the “real” tournament begins. This is your classic PICK’EM game with neither team favored. Just flip a coin to make your pick.
And for a chance at a 25 WRZ$ bonus, I want you to post a reason why you selected them. It doesn’t have to be real or even make sense. I’m looking for creativity here.
I will award 25 WRZ$ to reasons that I like. It will just be my opinion (But I will also ask Ice if she likes any of them as well). All decisions will be final with no whining allowed. So come on folks, let’s get creative.

What is it?
Pick either Syracuse or Arizona State to win this game.
And for a chance for a bonus, give us a reason for your selection.

How do you play?
To enter this contest, you will need to post the following:
PICK’EM CONTEST
Pick either Syracuse or Arizona
Post your reason why.

EXAMPLE POST
PICK’EM CONTEST
Syracuse
I once drove by that school and thought it would be a great place to go to college

Rules:
Pick the winner of this matchup
Only 1 post per person for this specific contest, anymore and all of your posts will be disallowed.
To win the bonus, you need to give us a reason we like. Be creative

ALL PICKS MUST BE MADE PRIOR TO THE FOLLOWING TIMES:
Wed 8 PM Chicago (UTC -5)
Thur 1 AM GMT UTC +0)
Or - 36 hours from the time of this post.
Any picks made after this deadline will simply be ignored.
Any edits after this deadline, and your post will be disallowed.

Reward:
Correctly pick which team will win and share the 1000 WRZ$ pool.
Make up a reason why you picked them for a chance at 25 WRZ$

You don’t have a lot of time to make your picks.
So start making your picks.

NEW... for an index of open events and a directory of recent contest results, go HERE

Bringing you 24 hour 365 days a year sports coverage

Sports Center is ON!

[johngriffen]

PICK’EM CONTEST
Arizona State
My daughter graduated from ASU a year ago. Besides the fact that we have ASU decals on all of our cars, and that I've given them so much money that THEY OWE ME, my daughter would kill me If I didn't pick them
TRUTH

[Alessa9]

LOWEST POINTS CONTEST
Atlanta Hawks
Lowest score: 90 points

[jychung93]

PICK’EM CONTEST
Syracuse
I fliped a coin. Head Syracuse. Tail Arizon.

[jychung93]

LOWEST POINTS CONTEST
Atlanta Hawks
Lowest score: 88 points

[Alessa9]

PICK’EM CONTEST
Arizona State
I went “eenie meenie miney mo...”

[anna1561]

PICK’EM CONTEST
Syracuse

I like their mascot, Otto the Orange

[pjmpjm]

PICK’EM CONTEST
Syracuse
Because my father was born in NY . . .

[NeneJa]

Pick'Em
Arizona State
Reason....reason...reason, OK to steal one of Ice's moves here, because I dont like people who Syracuse others.... that is so cheesey we're gonna have mice in this thread soon

[johngriffen]

MARCH MADNESS SQUARES FYI

WHAT ARE CONSIDERED "GOOD" NUMBERS FOR A SQUARES POOL?

One of the most frequently asked question in Squares Pools is:
Did I get GOOD numbers?

And that is a great question. It's such a good question that many research studies have been done to answer that question specifically for the NCAA Tournament. (Some people have WAY TOO TIME on their hands)

So what were the results.
1) All number combinations can produce wins... DUH!
You still have 63 chances to win no matter what your numbers are.

2) One combination of numbers does have a significantly lower chance of winning than other combinations.
And that would be "paired" numbers. If you think about it, it just makes sense (and they needed a study to determine this)
A combination like 4-4, 1-1 or any other paired numbers is a problem. Since games can't end in a tie, one team has to beat the other by 10 or 20 (or so on) points for your numbers to come into play. Most games are closer than that. However, after saying that, one of the best combinations last year ended up being 1-1, so go figure.

3) The best combination is usually a higher number paired with a slightly lower number. 7-5, 9-8, 2-1. Again, this makes sense. Since the first number is the winning team, it needs to be higher than the second, and usually, the games are close.
However, pairs like 1-9 and 0-8 also work for the same reason. A team could win 71 to 69 or 70 to 68.

4) Most other combinations share about the same odds, and are only "slightly" worse than Point # 3

5) One study based on comparing the final scores of 10,000 NCAA Basketball games showed one number on either side of the pair to produce less wins. And that is the Number 8. But then again, nobody could explain why

So in summary:
Any number can win.
Paired numbers aren't as good as other combinations.
Close numbers with one higher than the other is slightly better.
The number 8 may suck.

So there you have it. I hope I have answered that HUGE QUESTION that I'm sure all of you were asking

And I will finish up with a few fun facts to show just how big MARCH MADNESS is in the US:

It is estimated that 37.3 million Americans fill out brackets for the Annual NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship Tournament, better known as March Madness.

It is estimated that this annual distraction costs American business 1.7 Billion dollars in lost work time during the multiple week event.

Other surveys show that 30 million American workers also participate in office pools, like our squares contest.

All of this just more proof that Americans are Crazy

So, in case you missed the post that has YOUR NUMBERS and the payouts per round... HERE

GOOD LUCK TO ALL. AT THIS POINT, YOU ALL STILL HAVE 63 CHANCES TO WIN!

[rchhuon99]

Pick'Em
Arizona State
my loyalty to the pac 12