RMN Bowl Pick Update: And a Champion is Crowned

First off, allow me to thank everyone for participating this year. 160+ folks is a pretty special number to me because it represents the growth this community has experienced in just five short years. Let me also thank Bill who worked as hard as Bill ever works on spreadsheets (no one really knows how hard that actually is I suppose) to put together a tool which really did make this possible. Also thanks to MUPete for the occasional statistical augmentations. Everyone's effort was greatly appreciated.

To the fun stuff, congrats to our winner, smbz5b, who came from behind and won the only way he could, with Alabama and the Under, finishing with a 43-27 record. I have no idea what your prize could possibly be. We had a three-way tie for second place, with mizzou2396, optiger and TigerBartender, who were one game back at 42-28.

Other finishes of note:

• The Beef with 39 wins
• RPT and The Tailgate Queen with 38 wins
• MU1839 also with 38 wins, becoming our all-time leader in wins
• Pat Forde with 37 wins (dude was at the bottom early on)
• Mrs. Bill C with 36 wins
• Coin Phlip with 35 wins (that is the break even point for those of you scoring at home)
• ESPN Sim Center with 33 wins
• M7Tiger with 32 wins, likely not making him the winning percentage leader anymore
• Bill C. with 31 wins...ouch

As was determined a few days ago, Grrrrr.... was our bottom of the barrel leader at 25-45, two games "better" than anyone else. Congrats on your...um...achievement. For the group, the contest finished at 5571-5769, for a winning percentage of 49.13%. We had our chances, that is for sure. All-time, the contest now sits at 13995-14361, for a winning percentage of 49.35%. Every year we dont get back to .500 makes it all the tougher, but if the contest continues to grow, we still have a shot.

I will do my best to update the all-time stuff in the coming weeks (which means I will forget until about Dec. 4th of 2012, and by then the world will be about three weeks away from ending, so no one will care at that point).

As always, you can check my math or access your picks and all the totals (located at the bottom of the page) by clicking on this link. Be on the lookout for the annual Bracket Challenge in the coming months.