Josh Huffman is an ardent Pitt basketball fan.

And that usually is a detriment when it comes time to fill out his Butler Eagle March Madness bracket.

“It was kind of nice not having them in the tournament,” Huffman said, laughing. “I always pick them. I always pick with my heart instead of my mind.”

With the Panthers out of the NCAA Tournament, Huffman no longer had that obstacle to overcome.

Huffman, 24, drove from his home in Knox to Emlenton to pick up his Butler Eagle with the bracket, filled it out and watched as his Final Four picks all survived.

By picking the final score of the championship game exactly right — Duke beat Wisconsin 68-63 — Huffman won a tiebreaker and placed first out of 1,255 entries to win the grand prize of $500.

“Honestly, I only did two brackets this year instead of the five or six I usually do in various contests,” Huffman said. “I kept it simple.”

He watched a lot of Big Ten basketball this season and said he particularly liked the way Michigan State and Wisconsin were playing down the stretch.

Those two teams reached the Final Four.

Huffman shared that belief with the man he ended up in a tie with atop the Eagle’s March Madness standings, Leon Sopel of Butler.

Both ended up with 97 points.

Sopel, 40, said he watched a lot of basketball this season.

“I’m a sports junkie,” Sopel said.

Sopel, though, waited until the last minute to fill out his bracket, which was unusual for him.

“I filled it out at 7 a.m. the morning of,” Sopel said. “I just went right through it and I didn’t even make a copy. I had no idea who I had picked. I did know who I had in the Final Four, but that was about it.”

Sopel said he had filled out an Eagle March Madness bracket for “at least 10 years.”

“I’ve been in the first column before,” Sopel said. “But never that close to winning. It’s really neat.”

Sopel won $250 for his second-place finish.

Both Huffman and Sopel had Wisconsin beating Duke in the title game.

“I really wish Wisconsin would have won,” Sopel said. “Not to win the contest, but so I would have got my bracket right.”

Megan Shulik of Butler placed third with 94 points. She vaulted into the top three on the strength of picking Duke as the champion and earning the 10 points in the sixth and final round.

She won $100.

Some notes about the contest:

Of the 1,255 entries, only 78 had Duke winning the national championship. ... The lowest placer with Duke as the champion finished 1,196th. ... Jeffrey Allen Jr. had the best first-round score with a 29. He finished in 163rd place. ... Only 14 brackets had all four Final Four teams and 52 had the championship match-up.