PoliticalGrrl Leads 2016 Campaign

Family Feud

Make Travis Great

Make Purdue Great Again?

PoliticalGrrl (Stephanie Hilton), who thought just making her picks on a real computer was an accomplishment worth celebrating, finished Thursday 15-for-16. She correctly picked all seven upsets and leads the field with 22 points. Her only miss was her upset pick of Chattanooga over Indiana. Hilton is in her fourth year of competition. She finished 117th in 2014, but last year she finished 12th and had a chance to win it all with two games left.

The Madison, Wis. lawyer will need more upsets to go her way Friday if she wants to wear the Grand Prize T-Shirt down State St. She is one of only three players with Holy Cross (15-19) over #1 seed Oregon tomorrow. The other two are Bone and the ominously-named ihavenoideawhatimdoing.

Four players are tied for second with 20 points, with each missing only the Purdue game.

Three of them are from the same family. The first two, Titus Andromedon and Lillian Kaushtupper, are a husband and wife duo from Valparaiso, Indiana.

Titus, in his fourth season, is the player formerly known as Pooty Lederhosen. The reason for the name change is unclear, but my understanding is Titus likes to lounge about in luxurious crimson silk pajamas (go ahead, click on it), which is definitely an upgrade from pooty lederhosen. Titus has a shot at his first season atop the leaderboard if he can keep his bracket (and his pajamas) nice and clean.

Titus and Lillian are joined in second place by their brother-in-law, ILLINIT, the defending champ. He has six upset picks on the calendar Friday to go with the six he picked right Thursday. Another good day will make him the frontrunner to retain his crown.

The fourth player in second place is idoawfuleveryyear (Travis Rogers). Travis is right. He does do awful every year. Now in his 12th Chippens season, Travis’s best finish is 36th in 2013. His lifetime average place is 55, but that’s mostly because there were fewer competitors 10 years ago. He finished last in 2006 and 2007. But, thus far, his only blemish is Purdue, and he only had them winning one more game. In short, this could be Travis’s year to achieve the greatness that only comes with winning a Chippens title.

Speaking of Purdue and greatness, rookie player Make Purdue Great Again (Craig Dykes) had a rough start to his Chippens career. Craig’s hopes for Purdue were so high that he had them advancing all the way to the Final Four. But the Boilermakers had other plans, choosing instead to not advance at all. And by “not advance at all,” that means not even advance the ball. With the game tied. With 5 seconds left.

Friday’s games offer many opportunities for advancement for all players. Results will be updated throughout the day as close to real time as possible.