Kruse wins Bracket Challenge
The 2018 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is now officially over, with Villanova winning this year’s tournament championship. Likewise, the 180 entries in The Standard’s 2018 Basketball Bracket Challenge have also played out to one single champion, that being Jamie Kruse of Waukon.
But, quite the opposite of the NCAA Championship game’s final result, a sizable 79-62 victory for Villanova, Kruse just narrowly edged out three other entries by just a single point to win this year’s Bracket Challenge. Kruse ended up with 136 points to finish just in front of Jim Winters, Marlene Houg and Austin Troendle and their Bracket Challenge totals of 135 points each. Those three finished tied for second place in that order listed above based on their championship game combined point total tie-breaker selections of 140, 146 and 148 points, respectively, with Villanova and Michigan combining for 141 points in Monday’s championship game.
The final results of the tournament have produced the following top-20 final entries for this year’s Bracket Challenge:
Jamie Kruse 136
Jim Winters 135
Marlene Houg 135
Austin Troendle 135
Hunter Hammel 133
Heather Delaney 128
Annabelle Dibert 127
Jim Baxter 119
Dan Denk 119
Julie Bloxham 118
Wayne Hirth 117
Darrel Wicks 117
Jaxon Brinkman 116
Gary Bruess 116
Ellen Lenth 115
Janessa Weymiller 115
Gary Houg 114
Logan Delaney 112
Jerry Keenan 110
Kole McCormick 110
Villanova and Virginia were each the most selected team to win this season’s NCAA Tournament by this year’s Bracket Challenge entries, 33 entries doing so this year for each. On the other side of the championship game bracket, only seven of this year’s entries chose Michigan. In all, there were only seven entries who chose both Villanova and Michigan to play in this season’s championship game, with the top five entries above obviously having chosen Villanova to top Michigan for this year’s title and just one of the top-20 entries listed above, Ellen Lenth, hanging in their, point-wise, with her selection of Michigan to defeat Villanova in the season finale.
