24 people signed up for a chance to become The Best Bocce Player in Syracuse and tonight at Apex Entertainment, we drew the brackets.
We are going to be using the group play format this year so every player needed to be randomly selected to one of six groups.
Here is how we did it. Every player was assigned a number based on the order in which they registered. These numbers were recorded on a piece of paper, and kept secret. Then, we filled a bucket with 24 numbered ping pong balls. Everyone in attendance chose a ping pong ball at random out of a bucket and dropped it in a pint glass of their choice. There were six pint glasses to choose from. Under each glass was the letter of the corresponding group. This was also kept secret.
Once each glass had 4 ping pong balls. We revealed which glass corresponded to which group and which number ball corresponded to which player. It was all filmed on Facebook Live … which had a glitch … darn. We had some Oscar winning material, trust me. Anyway we still got pictures of the end result. See the groups and numbers for yourself.
Here is the number each player was assigned:
- Paul Colabufo
- Mike Burkett
- Angelo Isgro
- Scott Mead
- Andrew Pierce
- Greg McGee
- Amy Bramhall
- Andy Ingalls
- Bernard LeVine
- Chelsea Colon
- John Bauman
- Linda Radford
- Kevin Lamson
- Derrick Russell
- Corey Bramhall
- Renee Williams
- Laurie Connor
- Brandon Connor
- Jim Rogalavich
- Bryan Mullane
- Rob Calvani
- Greg Griffo
- Garth Coviello
- Ryan Moulton
And here are the groups:
Group A
Paul Colabufo
Scott Mead
Corey Bramhall
Laurie Connor
Group B
Chelsea Colon
Linda Radford
Ryan Moulton
Rob Calvani
Group C
Greg McGee
Amy Bramhall
Garth Coviello
Brandon Connor
Group D
Kevin Lamson
Jim Rogalavich
Angelo Isgro
Derrick Russell
Group E
Renee Williams
Bernard LeVine
John Bauman
Greg Griffo
Group F
Bryan Mullane
Andy Ingalls
Andrew Pierce
Mike Burkett
Everybody is going to play everybody else in their group (one game up to 11) so everybody will play a minimum of 3 times. Once everybody has played everybody else the player with the best record will move on to the knockout stage of the tournament. Head to head victory will serve as the tie breaker. In the case of a 3 way tie the player with the most total points will move on.
In addition to the 6 group winners, 2 wild card winners will move on to the knock out round. The wild card winners will be the 2 players with the highest point total who did not win their group. If there is a tie here it will be broken with a single shot Turbo Round.
The two highest point total group winners will play the two wild card players, and the rest of the people who advance will be placed in alphabetical order according to their group. These final 8 players will play a single elimination knock out bracket until there is one champion.
So there will be no byes, no waiting, everybody gets to play at least 3 games, and nobody has to play more than 6 games. The whole tournament should only take 3 to 4 hours to play. Its going to be a FUN day! Remember, we start at 11 am SHARP tomorrow! Oh yeah, and free beer tomorrow compliments of Talking Cursive Brewing!
After we drew the brackets, everybody in attendance got 1 free hour of games, and then we watched Boeheim’s Army win in the TBT. The next TBT game, FYI, will be during our tournament. I will try to have the broadcast playing over the speakers.
If you missed the games at Apex you missed out! Roaming around playing every game for free was fantastic and the Mario Kart competition was almost as hot as the bocce competition will be tomorrow! Also, shuffleboard!
So who do we think has the bracket of death? Group E probably. But Group F is really tough too. And Groups D and B are looking really even. There is going to be a brutal fight for those 8 knockout round spots! See you tomorrow!
