The NCAA March Madness”Sweet 16″ is set, and a few surprises (Florida Gulf Coast University?? What??) mean that most of our brackets are busted. That said, we still have a good game going, with plenty of players still in contention.

Right now MSNBC’s Bill Wolff is all alone in leading the pack. CNBC’s KC Sullivan is close behind, and “Sqauwk Box”‘s Joe Kernen hot on his tail. A number of other participants are also within striking distance. At the bottom of the board is Fox News Channel’s Anna Kooiman and TVNewser’s Alex Weprin, whose plan to let a computer randomly generate his way to victory does not look good right now.

The full standings are after the jump.
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“First Thursday,” the big kick-off for March Madness, is over, and with it the 2013 TVNewser March Madness bracket challenge really gets started.

This early in the game everyone is really close, but a few people have separated themselves from the pack.

CNBC’s Brian Schactman leads the way, with his colleague Joe Kernen and CNN’s Brooke Baldwin right behind him. Right now Lisa Sylvester, Wolf Blitzer, Gayle King and Norah O’Donnell are at the bottom of the pack, but there is plenty of time for a comeback.

Take a look at the full standings, after the jump.
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Edward Burke can thank CNBC and some new rules for taking home a half million dollars today.

Burke, a 54-year-old jazz musician from Shippensburg, PA, won the 2008 CNBC.com Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge. The announcement was made on Power Lunch this afternoon, and Burke received his check from CNBC anchor Brian Schactman.

Burke is a cancer survivor, and received stem cells from his brother Paul, who he thanked on air, in the late 1990s.

His strategy was to take advantage of currency trading, new this year in the CNBC Challenge. He made 700 currency trades in four days at one point. He would wake up at 4amET every day to watch CNBC’s Worldwide Exchange to get a jump start on the global markets.

Last year, the network launched an investigation into the trading of some of its finalists, although no violations were found.

More than 254,000 contestants participated in this year’s contest.