2021 Bracket Challenge winner ...

Mike Kramer of Waukon displays his prizewinnings of $50 in Standard Bucks and his winning entry responsible for his championship effort in The Standard’s 2021 College Basketball Bracket Challenge. Kramer was one of 18 of this year’s entries to choose Baylor to defeat Gonzaga in winning the 2021 NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship, the Bears doing so by an 86-70 final margin. One of those other entries, Jen Moose of Waukon, also ended up with the same amount of total contest points as Kramer in this season’s Bracket Challenge, 144 points to top this year’s remaining contest field, forcing a tie-breaker to determine an outright winner of this year’s contest.

That tie-breaker was the combined total points scored in this year’s NCAA Championship Game, with that total ending up at 156 points between the Bears and Bulldogs. Kramer’s tie-breaker choice of 151 points was much closer to that actual game point total than Moose’s choice of 123 points, giving Kramer this year’s Bracket Challenge victory. Much appreciation goes out to the hundreds of entrants who took part in this year’s Bracket Challenge after its absence last year due to the early stages of the pandemic, as well as to all the loyal businesses who sponsored the contest to make it possible in the first place.