Welcome To Josh's Blog O' Thoughts: March 2010

Earlier this month, I released version 2.0 of my NCAA basketball tournament bracket spreadsheet. The v2.0 update contained the functionality to grant bonus points for correctly choosing an upset win.

Unfortunately, it has been called to my attention that there is a bug related to the bonus point calculations in the Excel version of the file. I created the sheet in OpenOffice and then exported to Excel format. Apparently one of the formulas I was using worked a little differently in OpenOffice than in Excel. I have since corrected the file and updated it to v2.1. Please go to the original post to download the update. Please DO NOT use the v2.0 file which was available from Mar 12, 2010 - Mar 20, 2010.

How To Fix The Problem If You Are Already Using the v2.0 File For Your 2010 Pool

If you downloaded the v2.0 EXCEL file (OpenOffice file is fine) between Mar 12 and Mar 20, 2010, are currently using that file to run your pool, and are using the bonus points feature, you will probably want to run the following fix to correct the problem.

Instructions for fix:
1. Download this file: Fix_Excel_Bonus_Points.xls
2. Open the Fix_Excel_Bonus_Points.xls file
3. Go to Tools->Macros->Security and set macro security to Low.
4. Open your master bracket file.
5. Go to Tools->Macros->Macros
6. In the Macros In box near the bottom of the screen, make sure All Open Workbooks is selected.
7. Select the macro Fix_Excel_Bonus_Points.xls!Fix_Excel_Bonus_Calc
8. Click Run
9. Wait for message box saying Done
10. Save master bracket file
11. Close both files.
12. Your master bracket file should now be updated with corrected formulas for bonus point calculation.


Next year, download and use the fixed v2.1 file.


I apologize for the error. Hope you still can find the file useful.

I have updated my original bracket spreadsheet post to include sheets pre-filled with the 2010 field of teams. To download the 2010 bracket or the blank template spreadsheet, go to http://josh.breittechnologies.com/blog/2009_03_13_NCAA_Basketball_Tournament_Bracket_Spreadsheet_File

Last year my NCAA basketball tournament spreadsheet was quite a hit. To make it even more popular, I have added the ability to score bonus points for upsets. Bonus points can be awarded based on the difference in seeds between the winning and losing team. If an "underdog" team wins, you can give whatever amount of bonus points you want depending on how much of an underdog they were (a 16 beating a 1 deserves more bonus points than a 9 beating an 8).

See the instructions in the original post and in the spreadsheet file for more details.

http://josh.breittechnologies.com/blog/2009_03_13_NCAA_Basketball_Tournament_Bracket_Spreadsheet_File