Scoring - 2026

Happy 41st Anniversary to the Maguire/McDonagh Invitational. In one of the few changes made to this historic invitational in its history, we'll be upping the ante this year from $10 to $20. An opportunity to win more but also lose a bit more. This was Maguire's call and you have to respect the aggression. Unfortunately, another aggressor, the Tommies of St. Thomas were knocked out in the semis of the Summit League Tourney and weren't able to make it in during their first year of eligibility. On the other end of the spectrum, Duke is in for the 46th time.

RULES BELOW/PAYMENT LINKS THROUGH MMINVITATIONAL.COM ARE BELOW:

Pick one of each seed: so you have one #1 seed, one #2 seed, one #3 seed
etc. etc. until you have 16 teams. Points are added up at the end of each
round. A victory in round 1 is worth 1 point; a victory in round 2 is worth 2
pts; a victory in round 3 is worth 3 points etc. etc. We'll send out updates
after each 2 rounds.

We choose to ignore the play-in games, however you DO NOT have to wait until those games are played to pick your teams! You can pick either team before the game is played if you want that slot, and the site will automatically pick the winning team for you after the play-in game is played.

Enter your picks here:
https://mminvitational.com/Madness/TeamEntry.

Team entry window is open now until round 1 games begin 12:00PM ET on Thursday.

Payments: Send payment to Matt, Chuck or Kevin.

Matt McDonagh
1102 Wittenberg Rd.
Mt Tremper, NY 12457
Venmo: @Matt-McDonagh-5
Paypal: matthew.mcdonagh@gmail.com

Charles Maguire
5933 Oakland Avenue
Minneapolis, Mn 55417
Phone: 612-382-0341
Email: cmaguire1958@gmail.com

Kevin Busch
Venmo: @Kevin-Busch-2
Paypal: kevin@kevinbusch.com

Payouts:

• 1st Place - 70%
• 2nd Place - 20%
• 3rd Place - 10%

Good luck!

It seems like just yesterday that I was in Ames, IA with my roommate and M&M Invitational devotee, Mike Bergan. His best pal from high school was this guy they called The Mayor, Fred Hoiberg. We went out like college kids do but this was different: at the restaurant, I had to sneak beers to Fred under the table to make sure no one saw "The Mayor" having a few beers. Now look at him: he's in the Sweet 16 with his son and the Cornhuskers. Iowa vs Nebraska was not a game I was counting on in the Sweet 16.

Speaking of coaches: my son's coach at Onteora High School in Boiceville, NY is the one leading this year's tourney with 26 points. Mark Wilens is his name and after coaching Onteora to their first section title in 25 years, perhaps this is where he deserves to be. Right behind him is a scrappy Twin Cities lawyer who may hold the record for all-time wins in anything related to March Madness. Keep an eye on Jimmy Sticha folks.

Nice to see a few other St. Paul names in the mix. A couple of Twombley's, a Garrity, a Devine and even our webmaster, Kevin Busch is on the leaderboard.

Good luck to everyone this coming week. It should be another amazing week of games.

Not much to say other than WOW after that UConn game last night. What an unbelievable game, shot and overall March Madness moment. It's hard to imagine a coach having 2 worse losses than Scheyer these last 2 years. Sometimes you should just take the foul, people.

Also, did anyone see the highlight of Hurley head butting/touching the ref post-game. That dude is nutz, but he wins.

An additional WOW is the leader board heading into the Final Four. A lot of personalities up top with Coach Mark Wilens and his former Pt. Guard disciple, Lucia McDonagh both in interesting positions to bring it home. Also in the mix are a couple of M&M Invitational devotees, Jimmy "All I do is Win" Sticha and Shawn "Hips" Devine. It should be interesting to see who brings it home next Monday night.

Jeff Siedlik and David "Why am I still in Ohio" Garrity put up an impressive fight but it doesn't look like they have a path to winning. The beauty of the M&M Invitational is there's always next year and we appreciate the fight you showed. Speaking of next year: outside of Lucia, my entire extended family is looking toward next year. Poor showing, family.

Lastly, the magic of March Madness is truly global: I am in Argentina with my family and we exploded when Mullins hit that shot. The Argentians didn't seem to know what they were cheering for but they joined us in screaming. Pretty magical.

WOW!