NCAA Tournament, Final Four picks: Lansing mayor's wife reaches elite ESPN mark

Lansing State Journal

LANSING — If you want to be a sports prognosticator, you may want to seek advice from Erin Schor, Lansing Mayor Andy Schor's wife.

Erin Schor's bracket placed 4,073 out of 17.2 million in ESPN's NCAA Tournament Challenge that ended Monday after the Texas Tech-Virginia national title game.

Her showing reached the 100th percentile among all brackets submitted in the pool, according to ESPN's website.

"I do it pretty quickly," Erin Schor said of her strategy picking teams. "I try to make sure I think with my head and not with my heart."

Schor picked the correct participants in Monday's national title game, Virginia and Texas Tech, and the champion — Virginia.

Schor's title game score: 88-67. The actual score: 85-77.

Erin Schor, wife of Lansing Mayor Andy Schor, had an NCAA Tournament experience to remember this year. She finished 4,000th in an ESPN pool of over 17 million participants.

Schor, a University of Michigan graduate, correctly picked Michigan State to reach the Final Four. But she selected Kentucky instead of Auburn to also make it to Minneapolis.

Apparently it wasn't difficult for Schor to go with the Spartans.

"It felt like MSU, as it often does, picked up some steam," Schor said of her feelings about the Spartans before the tournament.

It was unclear early Wednesday afternoon if Schor's finish in the bracket challenge was the best in all of Michigan.

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Kevin Ota, an ESPN spokesman, said in an email he would look into the matter.

The leaderboard for the entire field of 17.2 million brackets, posted online, indicates a person with the handle "espn96559700" currently sits in the No. 1 spot with 1,850 points.

Schor earned 1,590 points with her bracket named "Total Guesses."

It usually takes about two weeks for ESPN to confirm a winner in the tournament challenge and have that person vetted to make sure their selection process was legit, Ota said.

The challenge's grand prize winner receives a trip for two to the 2019 Maui Invitational basketball tournament in Hawaii, airfare for two to the event, five nights of hotel accommodations, tickets to the tournament and $10,000 in Amazon.com gift cards.

Sports family ties

Erin Schor, a Mount Pleasant native, isn't expected to receive any prizes from ESPN.

She won her tournament pool of 12 people, called "Parents VS Kids," but didn't receive any money because it was free to play.

The pool consisted of parents, including her husband and their children.

Former Detroit Tigers radio broadcaster Paul Carey is the uncle of Mike Carey, the father of Erin Schor. Schor is the wife of Andy Schor, Lansing's mayor.

ESPN's website indicates the Lansing mayor's bracket finished at 11.2 million overall, reaching the 35th percentile with 640 points.

"It's a lot of fun to beat your husband," Erin Schor said laughing.

She is far from a novice when it comes to sports. She's been around athletics most of her life.

Her father, Mike Carey, 69, was a sportscaster for Central Michigan athletics for more than 40 years.

Carey's uncle, Paul Carey, was a radio broadcaster for Detroit Tigers baseball games for 19 seasons. Paul Carey retired in 1991 and died in 2016.

Eric Lacy is a reporter for the Lansing State Journal. Contact him at 517-377-1206 or elacy@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @EricLacy.

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