Matt Holthe's Fleeting Thoughts

Just counting home games, Illinois was tenth in attendance at 15,851 per game. Kentucky was first at 23,603 per game. If you count all games (home, road, neutral) then was one of 12 schools (including BYU) who had over a half a million people watch them (505,094 total, just ahead of Duke). Kentucky also lead in that category at 755,748. Colorado was 77th at 7,014 per game. Colorado St was 4,879, but posted the eighth highest increase in attendance from 2010, going up 1,487 per game. BYU was tops in that category, going up 4,685 per game to 18,714. Denver University was tenth in that same category, going up 1,409 per game to 3,388. The Big Ten had the highest average attendance at 12,826 per game. The Mountain West set an attendance record with 1,322,705 fans and was sixth in the nation. The Big 12 was fourth in the nation, but their attendance dropped to 10,716 per game. For the conference tournaments, the ACC was tops with 23,381 per game. For the NCAA tournament, Cleveland had the hi...

Tim and I ended up picking all 67 games in the NCAA tournament. We didn't each all pick all the lines and totals, but alternated all the time as I've described in my earlier posts. So we each had 67 picks made (67 lines, 67 totals). I started out 6-12-2, but ended up 37-28-2, which is a respectable 56.7% Tim ended up 29-37-1, which is 44.03% Looking at tip-time lines and totals, for the entire tournament favorites were 31-35-1. Out of the 67 games, 28 went over, 36 went under, and there were 3 pushes. If you had blindly picked the under on every game, you would have won almost 56% of the time, so you would have made a little bit of money (or come close to even after the vig).

Saturday morning, I sent Tim a text saying that I didn't like any of the available bets for the Final Four. But since we had picked every game so far, there was no stopping now. I started and picked Kentucky/Connecticut over 140. That was a loss. Tim then picked VCU/Butler under 134. That was a win. Then I picked VCU +2.5 against Butler. That was a loss, so I went 0-2. Finally, Tim picked Kentucky -2 against Connecticut. That was a loss, so Tim went 1-1. For the national championship game, Tim started with Connecticut -3.5. He won that. Then I picked Butler/Connecticut under 129.5. I won that. For the final four, I was 1-2 and Tim was 2-1.

Well, it's April Fools Day. A quarter of the year is complete. Time to see how I'm doing towards keeping my Hilton Diamond and American Airlines Platinum status for another year. Hilton Diamond: I need 28 stays or 60 nights to maintain my status for next year. So far I have 7 stays and 12 nights. I'm right on pace (but with no room to spare) for the stays, and behind on the nights. I think I'll need to pick it up a bit in the future quarters. American Airlines Platinum I need 60 segments or 50,000 miles to maintain my status for next year. There is little chance I'll reach that miles total since I don't do any long trips (nothing overseas). 60 segments is what I shoot for. I have 19 segments so far this year, which is a good pace. I have a bit of room to spare, but I can't slack off. I have 11,043 miles toward my platinum status.