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OPENING DAY FOR THE REGGIE BUSH LEAGUE, 2026¶
41 entries here for analytics¶
Once again we're running custom analytics for this year's Tournament. Unlike other sites, which keep track of your own scores and scoring opportunities, the Reggie Bush League recognizes that this is essentially a friendly competition, where your absolute score is less important than whether or not you land in the top three.
And this means you have to keep track of how everyone else is doing, and whether or not there are others who can block your path to the top.
HERE ARE THE 2026 ENTRIES, by predicted Tourney champ¶
CHAMP RUNNER-UP HANDLE
5 Bibeka Alabama Houston bammashamma
35 Sean Arizona Duke yiseowl
9 Celia R Arizona Florida Cee-inderllas
12 Dave Arizona Florida Long Live PDF Brackets
23 Matt Manderfeld Arizona Florida Mitt's Picks
39 Will Davis Arizona Florida DMV
16 Jason Matos Arizona Houston Jason Bracket
36 Shonak Patel Arizona Houston Naktothefuture
20 Kevin Broich Arizona Illinois Broichetology
10 Chris Leidel Arizona Kansas ChrisL
29 Paul Mazane Arizona Michigan State Basketpall
18 Joel Worthington Arizona UConn NIL'la Wafers
2 Ben Sampson Duke Arizona I Just Blue Myself
31 Peter Felion Duke Iowa State Steve Perry
1 Andrew Koziol Duke Michigan Boozers Ain't Loozers
13 G Holland Duke Purdue Teamocil
14 Griffin Gammill Duke Purdue Gammajamma
8 Casey Farrell Florida Arizona McNerves
0 Alex ML Florida Iowa State Terps
32 Rob Hamilton Florida Iowa State One Badger After Another
4 Ben Truboff Gonzaga Duke TRUBOFF
22 Lauren Wanski Houston Michigan Tulane All the Way!
3 Ben Sampson Iowa State Houston Fly Ovah State
26 Michael Tracy Iowa State Houston My Momcilovic
27 Nathan Rothstein Iowa State Houston 1toNIL
40 Wyatt Iowa State Houston heat map hero!
15 Hampton Barclay Michigan Duke WishWeHadCaleb
28 Nathaniel Michigan Duke Demented Sun Devil
34 Ross Michigan Florida UpsetFree
24 Matt Manderfeld Michigan Houston Mitt's Picks 2
11 Dan Rothstein Michigan Illinois The Unselds
6 Brett Michigan UConn Acuff is Enough
30 Paul Mazanec Michigan UConn Lombardhoopz
33 Robbie Michigan UConn Northampton D3
17 Jim Gammill Purdue Illinois Do the 'due
38 Susan Alexander UConn Arizona SHABOOZI
21 Kristen Carothers UConn Gonzaga Since Rookie Season
37 Steve Maltzman UConn Michigan Hurley's World
25 Matt Saldana UConn Santa Clara Husky Boys
7 Caroline Gammill UConn Virginia UConn't Tell Me Anything
19 Julia Barclay Virginia Duke Virginia is for Champions
FAVORITE PICKS: here's how we evaluated the field¶
A collective measure of how far we think each school is going¶
Across the 36 brackets submitted, this is a count, and average per player, of how many times each school is picked to win a game.¶
Remember there are six games in all up to the championship game.¶
1 ( 1) Arizona 159 3.9
2 ( 1) Michigan 158 3.9
3 ( 1) Duke 152 3.7
4 ( 2) Houston 134 3.3
5 ( 1) Florida 133 3.2
6 ( 2) UConn 128 3.1
7 ( 2) Iowa State 110 2.7
8 ( 2) Purdue 104 2.5
9 ( 3) Virginia 93 2.3
10 ( 3) Gonzaga 91 2.2
11 ( 3) Illinois 85 2.1
12 ( 3) Michigan State 82 2.0
13 ( 4) Arkansas 72 1.8
14 ( 5) St John's 67 1.6
15 ( 4) Alabama 61 1.5
16 ( 4) Kansas 60 1.5
17 ( 4) Nebraska 57 1.4
18 ( 5) Vanderbilt 54 1.3
19 ( 5) Wisconsin 48 1.2
20 ( 7) UCLA 44 1.1
21 ( 5) Texas Tech 42 1.0
22 ( 6) Tennessee 42 1.0
23 ( 6) BYU 41 1.0
24 ( 6) North Carolina 40 1.0
25 ( 7) Kentucky 34 0.8
26 ( 6) Louisville 29 0.7
27 ( 7) Miami FL 28 0.7
28 (10) Missouri 26 0.6
29 ( 8) Clemson 25 0.6
30 ( 9) Utah State 25 0.6
31 ( 8) Ohio State 23 0.6
32 (10) Texas A&M 23 0.6
33 (11) South Florida 22 0.5
34 ( 7) Saint Mary's 22 0.5
35 ( 9) Iowa 22 0.5
36 ( 8) Georgia 21 0.5
37 ( 9) Saint Louis 21 0.5
38 (10) Santa Clara 21 0.5
39 ( 8) Villanova 20 0.5
40 ( 9) TCU 19 0.5
41 (12) Akron 19 0.5
42 (12) McNeese 17 0.4
43 (11) Texas 16 0.4
44 (11) VCU 15 0.4
45 (11) Miami Ohio 15 0.4
46 (12) High Point 13 0.3
47 (13) Hofstra 9 0.2
48 (10) UCF 7 0.2
49 (12) Northern Iowa 7 0.2
50 (13) Troy 6 0.1
51 (14) Penn 6 0.1
52 (14) North Dakota State 4 0.1
53 (13) Hawaii 3 0.1
54 (15) Tennessee State 3 0.1
55 (13) Cal Baptist 2 0.0
56 (14) Wright State 2 0.0
57 (14) Kennesaw State 1 0.0
58 (15) Furman 0 0.0
59 (16) Siena 0 0.0
60 (15) Idaho 0 0.0
61 (16) Prarie View 0 0.0
62 (15) Queens 0 0.0
63 (16) Long Island 0 0.0
64 (16) Howard 0 0.0
THE UPSET MEASURE: Who likes upsets?¶
This score is the sum of the seeds for the picked school in each of the 63 games in a bracket.¶
Note that if you pick the better seed for every game, your Upset Score would be 203¶
Bibeka 354
Matt Saldana 349
Susan Alexander 316
Will Davis 299
Griffin Gammill 297
Nathan Rothstein 292
Peter Felion 282
Nathaniel 281
Andrew Koziol 276
Hampton Barclay 276
Michael Tracy 274
Dan Rothstein 273
Chris Leidel 272
Robbie 272
Rob Hamilton 268
Caroline Gammill 266
Jason Matos 261
G Holland 260
Ben Sampson 258
Casey Farrell 255
Ben Truboff 254
Kevin Broich 249
Kristen Carothers 248
Joel Worthington 246
Shonak Patel 243
Brett 242
Sean 242
Matt Manderfeld 241
Paul Mazane 241
Wyatt 241
Paul Mazanec 240
Celia R 238
Lauren Wanski 238
Ross 234
Steve Maltzman 234
Ben Sampson 231
Matt Manderfeld 229
Julia Barclay 228
Jim Gammill 217
Alex ML 213
Dave 212
And here are the top seeds (8 or higher) picked most often to lose in round 1¶
Villanova 23
Saint Mary's 22
Clemson 21
Georgia 21
Miami FL 21
Louisville 20
Ohio State 18
Kentucky 17
BYU 13
North Carolina 13
Tennessee 13
Texas Tech 13
Vanderbilt 13
Wisconsin 11
Alabama 9
UCLA 7
Illinois 6
Nebraska 6
St John's 5
Arkansas 3
Iowa State 3
Michigan State 3
Kansas 2
Gonzaga 1
Virginia 1
Arizona 0
Duke 0
Florida 0
Houston 0
Michigan 0
Purdue 0
UConn 0
WHO ARE YOU LIKE? WHO IS MOST LIKE YOU?¶
Each player's entry predicts the number of games each school will win. If you multiply your number of wins times another player's prediction, you'll get a big number (well, 36) if you both pick that team as the champ. You will get 0 if either one of you picks the school to go out in the first round -- EXCEPT if you both pick the school to go out in the first round, then you get 1 point for that call.
Now just add up this score for the two players for each school (from 0 to 36) for all the schools, and you get this measure of how much your entry is like someone else's.
The next table shows the highest score for each player, and the player (or players) that match that score.
A high score means your match is more like you than a lower score.
yeah, I know this sounds a bit confusing -- gotta try it out though....¶
score Player Player(s) most similar
191 Sean Shonak Patel
191 Shonak Patel Sean
190 Ben Sampson Julia Barclay
190 Julia Barclay Ben Sampson
188 Wyatt Shonak Patel
187 Celia R Dave
187 Dave Celia R
187 Jim Gammill Dave
187 Michael Tracy Wyatt
187 Robbie Steve Maltzman
187 Steve Maltzman Robbie
186 Alex ML Rob Hamilton
186 Rob Hamilton Alex ML
186 Ross Rob Hamilton
185 G Holland Julia Barclay
185 Joel Worthington Wyatt
185 Lauren Wanski Paul Mazanec
185 Matt Manderfeld Ross
185 Paul Mazanec Lauren Wanski
183 Brett Alex ML
183 Kevin Broich Ross
182 Caroline Gammill Robbie
182 Matt Manderfeld Brett
182 Nathaniel Ross
182 Paul Mazane Lauren Wanski
181 Kristen Carothers Steve Maltzman
180 Andrew Koziol Ben Sampson
180 Casey Farrell Dave
180 Jason Matos Paul Mazane
176 Ben Truboff Shonak Patel
176 Dan Rothstein Matt Manderfeld
174 Ben Sampson Alex ML
174 Chris Leidel Dave
174 Peter Felion Alex ML
173 Hampton Barclay Kevin Broich
172 Nathan Rothstein Shonak Patel
171 Griffin Gammill Lauren Wanski
166 Will Davis Casey Farrell
164 Susan Alexander Kevin Broich
153 Matt Saldana Robbie
149 Bibeka Lauren Wanski
WHAT MAKES A GOOD BRACKET?¶
Be different¶
In the Reggie Bush League, the big payoff is to come in first.
If you've picked Arizona to win it all, you have a lot of company -- and you will have to be pretty lucky in the early rounds to win the top prize.
In contrast, if you are the only one who picked a particular school to win, what happens in the early rounds is less inportant. You need your team to make it to the Final Four of course, but after that, your path to winning is a lot less complicated.
But pick favorites¶
The seeds carry a lot of information about value. Top seeds in general do better than lower seeds. Not all the time of course, but often enough to make me think that a bracket with a lot of upsets is likely to not win.
EXPECTED STARTING RANKINGS -- BEFORE THE GAMES BEGIN¶
It pays to not pick the Fan Favorites.¶
This next report captures these two ideas about who has a strong bracket this year -- those who have picked teams that are not favored by a lot of other players but still have a strong seeds.
I created a composite score to capture these factors, and have ranked the entries here.
1 Jim Gammill 6.44 Purdue Illinois
2 Lauren Wanski 4.85 Houston Michigan
3 Julia Barclay 4.52 Virginia Duke
4 Alex ML 4.38 Florida Iowa State
5 Paul Mazane 3.86 Arizona Michigan State
6 Ben Truboff 3.64 Gonzaga Duke
7 G Holland 3.48 Duke Purdue
8 Casey Farrell 3.05 Florida Arizona
9 Dave 3.05 Arizona Florida
10 Ross 2.94 Michigan Florida
11 Ben Sampson 2.88 Duke Arizona
12 Rob Hamilton 2.77 Florida Iowa State
13 Kristen Carothers 2.70 UConn Gonzaga
14 Griffin Gammill 2.66 Duke Purdue
15 Chris Leidel 2.62 Arizona Kansas
16 Celia R 2.42 Arizona Florida
17 Matt Manderfeld 2.36 Arizona Florida
18 Caroline Gammill 2.35 UConn Virginia
19 Andrew Koziol 2.28 Duke Michigan
20 Steve Maltzman 2.24 UConn Michigan
21 Sean 2.10 Arizona Duke
22 Kevin Broich 2.09 Arizona Illinois
23 Matt Manderfeld 2.05 Michigan Houston
24 Dan Rothstein 2.04 Michigan Illinois
25 Peter Felion 1.93 Duke Iowa State
26 Hampton Barclay 1.89 Michigan Duke
27 Paul Mazanec 1.86 Michigan UConn
28 Wyatt 1.85 Iowa State Houston
29 Brett 1.83 Michigan UConn
30 Nathaniel 1.82 Michigan Duke
31 Ben Sampson 1.61 Iowa State Houston
32 Shonak Patel 1.55 Arizona Houston
33 Will Davis 1.53 Arizona Florida
34 Joel Worthington 1.51 Arizona UConn
35 Robbie 1.45 Michigan UConn
36 Michael Tracy 1.43 Iowa State Houston
37 Jason Matos 1.34 Arizona Houston
38 Nathan Rothstein 1.26 Iowa State Houston
39 Bibeka 1.21 Alabama Houston
40 Susan Alexander 1.09 UConn Arizona
41 Matt Saldana 1.06 UConn Santa Clara
RANKING BY SIMULATION RUNS¶
A Simulation Run is doing a 'what-if' for all 63 games in the Tourney, keeping track of how many points each player would have scored in that run, and determining who would have come in first, second, and third.
Simulation Analysis does thousands, if not millions, of runs, and averages the results across all the runs. This lets us see the inter-related effects of each other's bracket choices, to see which brackets are more likely to have a path to the top of the scoring.
I ran this for 500,000 simulated paths -- that's 31.5 million random number draws, which my mac did in about three minutes. The results look somewhat similar to the rankings given above -- the simulations show that those who have brackets with less popular picks are more likely to win.
But no one should count their winnings until the games have been played.
E(value) Pr(1st) Pr(2nd) Pr(3rd) Avg-Win Best-Win
1 Jim Gammill 66.49 9.79 3.66 2.21 1160 1820
2 Alex ML 46.17 6.45 6.04 3.78 1206 1860
3 Lauren Wanski 40.11 6.05 1.78 1.43 1260 1820
4 Julia Barclay 38.38 5.56 2.32 2.16 1208 1830
5 Ben Truboff 35.68 5.36 1.51 1.23 1201 1810
6 Paul Mazane 33.74 4.77 2.77 1.90 1046 1820
7 Wyatt 29.99 4.00 4.02 2.89 1218 1830
8 Ben Sampson 25.78 3.30 3.60 3.41 1298 1810
9 Matt Manderfeld 24.80 3.25 4.22 2.94 1142 1830
10 Casey Farrell 24.17 3.29 2.87 3.59 1308 1810
11 Steve Maltzman 24.09 3.33 3.09 2.58 1253 1810
12 Dave 22.33 2.67 5.03 3.98 1093 1840
13 Caroline Gammill 21.98 2.66 4.40 3.56 1101 1780
14 Ross 21.76 2.96 2.82 2.94 1280 1800
15 G Holland 21.55 2.30 5.79 4.11 1204 1790
16 Kevin Broich 19.50 2.44 3.00 3.06 1175 1790
17 Kristen Carothers 18.95 2.25 4.42 3.15 1112 1770
18 Bibeka 17.63 2.66 0.72 0.40 1074 1640
19 Ben Sampson 17.44 2.13 2.65 3.18 1129 1780
20 Brett 17.41 2.27 3.14 2.68 1117 1820
21 Peter Felion 16.97 2.27 1.81 2.07 1221 1760
22 Chris Leidel 16.73 2.41 1.78 1.21 1013 1820
23 Rob Hamilton 15.68 1.73 4.15 3.85 1201 1750
24 Dan Rothstein 14.68 1.93 1.96 2.01 1099 1740
25 Andrew Koziol 14.34 2.00 1.41 1.50 1183 1770
26 Joel Worthington 13.69 1.90 1.62 1.81 1218 1800
27 Michael Tracy 13.61 1.53 2.77 2.82 1222 1780
28 Paul Mazanec 13.17 1.62 2.76 2.62 1191 1790
29 Shonak Patel 12.97 1.37 3.52 3.39 1268 1800
30 Sean 12.83 1.60 2.12 1.99 1281 1830
31 Matt Manderfeld 11.68 1.39 1.98 2.13 1068 1790
32 Griffin Gammill 11.61 1.03 3.66 3.81 1205 1740
33 Celia R 11.46 1.26 2.39 2.57 1266 1810
34 Hampton Barclay 9.14 1.12 1.67 1.58 1231 1760
35 Jason Matos 8.50 0.99 1.92 1.79 1100 1770
36 Nathaniel 8.33 1.01 1.57 1.58 1264 1810
37 Robbie 6.84 0.66 1.68 1.85 1269 1780
38 Susan Alexander 6.60 0.79 1.05 0.96 1289 1680
39 Nathan Rothstein 5.86 0.50 1.84 2.11 1180 1740
40 Will Davis 4.15 0.49 0.91 1.02 1153 1720
41 Matt Saldana 3.21 0.40 0.46 0.47 1049 1640
Those who've picked a favorite like Arizona, Michigan, Duke or Houston need to be extra lucky in the early rounds.¶
Why don't the probabilities add up to 100%? -- it's because of TIES
In the calculation of odds of coming in first, second or third, I give each player 'full credit' even if they tie. I figure you can claim bragging rights even if you tie for first place instead of win it outright. This is why the probabilities for first and second sum up to more than 100%. The third place probabilities happen to sum up to less that 100%, because even considering the possible ties for third, if there are ties for either first or second, there is no separate third place winner.
The E(value) calculation however takes ties into account -- if you tie for first, the two of you split 95% of the pool, as opposed to a single first place winner getting 80% and a single second place winner getting 15%.
LINKS¶
You will be able to find this page later at jgweb.info/2026/RBL-Day0.html.