AUSTIN/SAN ANTONIO, TX (smt)- #1W-UCLA led a day of routs (embarrassingly holding #16W-Miss. Valley St. to just 29 pts) while cross-town rival #6MW-USC was one of only two teams upset on a long day of uneventful basketball.  #3W-Xavier, #1MW-Kansas, #5S-Miss. St., #6W-Purdue, #8MW-UNLV, #4S-Pitt, #3W-Stanford, #4E-Wash. St. (outscoring #13E-Winthrop 42-11 in the 2nd half to break a 29-29 tie at halftime), #7W-West Virginia, #3MW-Wisconsin, and #5E-Notre Dame all joined UCLA in double-digit wins as the favorites.  #2W-Duke got a couple of late breaks (amazingly, not from the officials, but from the opponent) to get the go-ahead basket and stop #15W-Belmont's upset bid, 71-70.  #11S-Kentucky lost an opening round game for the first time in the HWCI Pool era (was 13-0) in falling to #6S-Marquette.  Locally (here in Texas), #9W-Texas A&M was a mild upset win over #8W-BYU.

In the battle of the so-called elite freshmen, #11MW-Kansas St., a bubble team, ran away from USC with K-St's Michael Beasley (23 pts, 11 reb) out dueling USC's O.J. Mayo (20 pts, 5 asts).  The first three games all had the loser scoring 61 pts and local team (here in SoCal) #14MW-Cal St. Fullerton needed at least 70 for a chance and came up 14 pts shy.  Defenses kept three teams scoring 13 or less points in a half (Miss. Valley 13, Winthrop 11, & #9MW-Kent St. 10) while Xavier's defense helped them overcome an 11-pt 2nd half deficit in beating down a tired, tired #14W-Georgia team who was probably not used to 3 days rest after playing 3 games in 2 days.

In our 14th Annual HWCI NCAA Pool, we unofficially have 99 entries which tops last year's record 98.  We hope to get the final count done by the weekend.  The lack of drama on the court translated to the standings as 11 are tied for first with 30 pts (15-1 record) while 19 have 28 pts (14-2).  SPITAKULARR and JUNO INO got the first 12 games correct before #10W-Arizona's loss stopped them.  Twenty-one entries had started the day 8-0.  The unofficial team choice distribution and individual choice listing reports are on the web now.  Also, the unofficial Who's Who is posted, and if you don't see your name there let us know immediately.

Notes / Notas:  Seeing QUICKPICK MCGRAW last with just six wins on the day should make it obvious this is a ten dollar "quick pick" by Jake P. (he has two other entries, hence the experiment).  In normal action, four are tied with just 18 pts (9-7)... there are two Big Reds- BIGRED (Chris F.) and BIG RED (Patrick N.)- which just makes my life harder (and Patrick declined to change his nickname - with any luck, they'll be tied at the end)... there were two entries (MR F and DR. FUN) who we can't tie to actual people yet which is why they aren't included in the 99 entries; we hope to solve this case soon... if we do get an 100th entry, we will add a 5th place top prize... we have 10 people who submitted two entries and a record three people submitting the max 3; BTW, next year, the max entry will likely drop to two, which means Robinson C.'s usual third entry SAMURAI JACK will be retiring after 8 years...