SAN FRANCISCO/CERRITOS, CA (smt)- I know I was gone the whole weekend (and most of the year), but who is Memphis? And how did UCLA get a two seed and get to play another team nicknamed the Bruins? Bruins squared? The Missouri Valley Conference, whose tournament was going on when I was in St. Louis last weekend ("Arch" Madness.. heh... and BTW, avoid the drunk female Saluki fans in the bar at Union Station) gets four teams while Conference USA with #1 Memphis gets just two? I guess we know which conference will get the most wins as the Big East got a record 8 teams (of 16) in the tourney, but how many will that be? And we'll get to see powerhouses Michigan, Florida St., and Maryland... in the NIT? And easy picks to lose in the 1st/2nd round no matter how high a seed, Stanford and Cincy, are out of the tourney as well. But we still have Florida and Gonzaga :-). Let the madness begin.

Villanova (MW), whose only notoriety was upsetting Georgetown in the final in '85, and Memphis (W) (who are they again?) get their first-ever #1 seeds while Duke (S), who gets their record 10th #1 seeding and 3rd straight, and UConn (E), getting their 8th #1 or #2 seed in the past 12 years, took the other two top seeds. Duke is 1A (best overall). Arizona extends their consecutive tourney streak to 21 and is one of three teams (Kansas and Kentucky, with 17 and 14 straight, respectively) to be in all 12 HWCI NCAA tournaments pools (Stanford and Cincy did not make it this year, ending their streaks at 11).

For us local SoCal people, we again have UCLA to root for and San Diego St. We have great pods (teams very close to host cities) for Duke, Villanova, Texas (#2S), Ohio St. (#2MW), UCLA (#2W), and Florida (#3MW). For simplicity, I'm using the traditional region names (West, Midwest, South, East) but our entry bracket will have the "official" regional names (Minneapolis (MW), Oakland (W), Atlanta (S), and Washington DC (E)).

And we apolgize for getting this site up and running 18 hours late. The hard drive our HWCI server is on decided to sleep... forever. David reconstructed backups from backups and I captured as much data to restore the site. Thanks for your patience.

Alas, it's time to take out your frustrations on the 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper holding the your key to hundreds of dollars. If you've been with us since the beginning, that's $110 down the drain. Or about 40 gallons of gas. So what do you say? Deal... or no deal?

WHAT:        12th Annual HWCI NCAA Tournament Pool
RECRUITING
INCENTIVE:   None (but still recruit!)
DEADLINE:    9:00 a.m. PST on Thursday, March 16, 2006
ENTRY FEE:   $10.00 per entry (max 3 entries per person)
PREV CHAMPS: 2005- FLIP FIGHTERS, $400 (82 entries)
             2004- FABIO, $370 (79)
             2003- BIG LUTHER, $280 (63)
             2002- THE FABON8ER, $400 (80)
             2001- TEAM SAMURAI, $280 (59)
             2000- MORALES' MOUNDS, $180 (36)
             1999- SHARY BOBBINS, $180 (36)
             1998- ANNA COME LATELY, $150 (28)
             1997- MAX, $125 (22)
             1996- JAYBIAN, $110 (19)
             1995- BIX PIX, $70 (12)
RULES:       Check http://www.HWCI.com/ncaa/rules.html for more info
ARCHIVE:     Check http://www.HWCI.com/ncaa/history.html
FORUM:       Click on "Discussion Board" at http://www.hwci.com/ncaa
NOTES:       All fee money goes back into prizes
             At least four winners (top prize about 40-50%)
             Set points are awarded per game (2/3/4/6/8/12 for the 6 rnds)
             Two went 16-0 on the first 1st Round day in 2003
             Only 2 people (both in 2001) have picked all 4 Final Four teams
             Just 95 of 516 entries have picked the correct champion
             Points possible:   196
             Most points ever:  148 by BIX PIX in 1995
             Least points ever:  49 by GOBAY, HENDO in 2002