The standings have been fixed. Also, a new menu item has appeared above and that is “Who’s Who” and that lists all our players in name order (last names hidden) and nickname order. So who is Little Luther who is tied for the lead? Who did your friend pick as a nickname so you can make fun of it. I like the pop culture references (e.g., Kylo Ren, Dagny Taggart) and creative name spellings (e.g., Billiam, Bwakewey) and of course, puns (e.g., Full Metal Bracket). No hard curse words so you can imagine what Aztecs Say FU MEChA originally was. We also have a limit of 21 characters in the nickname field so some had to be shortened. All CAPS annoy me but for some reason, 15-year vet PRIDE OF TROY was left alone. So enjoy! And if you want to explain some of the meaning behind your nickname, please do so!
Daily Archives: Saturday, March 17, 2018
Glitch in the standings
Maybe it’s because Dave is working on some A.I. that can’t process a 16 seed beating a 1 seed but the standings are stuck after 18 or 19 games. Thus, go here to find Friday’s standings: http://www.hwci.com/ncaa/2018/status0316.htm.
Issue # 3.1.2 “We are UMBC” (3/16)
4-way tie for first in crazy day with six upsets
EL SEGUNDO/CERRITOS, CA (smt)- It was bound to happen but never like this. With top teams losing players year after year to the pros and smaller conference teams keeping and maturing their players, something had to give. It was supposed to be MW-Penn catching Kansas off-guard (with Vegas money moving toward the underdog) or the fourth #1 seed W-Xavier to come short against Texas Southern. Not the #1 overall team in the tourney. Not in a blowout. Losing by 20 when you were favored by 20? I’m trying to figure out which is the more improbable scoreline: S-UMBC 74, Virginia 54 or recently Albany 83, UMBC 39? How does losing your 6th man (De’Andre Hunter) rattle a team’s psyche so much? If this were soccer, Virginia coach Tony Bennett would be sacked for inexcusably not preparing his team and suffering the most embarrassing defeat ever as the first #1 seed to lose in 136 tries. But oh, what a historical moment it was. Starting with UMBC’s (that’s University of Maryland-Baltimore County) Jairus Lyles who seemed to make everything, even ones after the whistle in jest. And he was cramping which will add to his legend to go with his 28 points on 9/11 shooting. It was bad enough for the Cavs that game was tied at 21 at the half but Bennett’s halftime pep talk was probably piss-pour as well as UMBC came out blazing with a 17-3 run to start the half. And amazingly, Virginia never did it back down to single digits for that one hope and a prayer. The top team in the country had no answer and kept shooting threes, at one point missing 13 straight.
So the two biggest hits to our pool were a #1 that lost by 20 points and #4S-Arizona team that lost by 21. Sheesh. Well, 15 other games were played and up to that historic upset, Continue reading
Issue # 2.1.1 “Buffalo Roams, Pac 12 Moans” (3/15)
In our 24th pool, we have 160 entries, our 3rd highest total
CERRITOS, CA (smt)- With #1S-Virginia down a top player, it seemed like the journey was made for #4S-Arizona to play with a chip on its shoulder to the Final Four. But Arizona is a Pac 12 team and with that curse, fell to#13S-Buffalo who won their first tourney game ever. Just like that, the Pac 12 fizzled 0-3 and matched the horrible post-season showing of its football teams who went 1-8 in bowl games. Buffalo’s win overshadowed #11S-Loyola-Chicago nailing a 3-pt near buzzer-beater (they put 0.3 sec back on clock) to advance to the Round of 32. Top seeds had lots of trouble but eventually #4W-Gonzaga, #1MW-Kansas (#16MW-Penn led 21-11 at one point), #5W-Ohio St, #8MW-Seton Hall, #5S-Kentucky, #6W-Houston, #3E-Texas Tech (holding #14E-Stephen F Austin to no FGs in last 5 minutes), and #3W-Michigan were victorious. #3S-Tennessee, #2MW-Duke, #1E-Villanova, and #6E-Florida had easy wins. The tourney started with a riveting match that #7MW-Rhode Island pulled out in overtime over a #10MW-Oklahoma team that Trae Young that singlehandedly kept them in the game. The other mild upset was #9E-Alabama, despite 15 losses as an at-large pick, winning by 3 over #8E-Virginia Tech.
For our 24th pool, we unofficially have 160 entries from 112 people. The is our third highest total (behind ’17‘s 178 and ’15‘s 161) and third-highest participation (behind ’17’s 124 and ’15’s 113). We tied a record with 72 entries (’15) on Wednesday. We also discovered that the comment section on our form doesn’t go anywhere and that ncaa<at>hwci.com has a very aggressive spam filter this year. Growing pains.
Kds911, SacKings4Ever, and M Star started off 13-0 but Continue reading