Sunday, March 25, 2001                      http://www.HWCI.com/ncaa
Issue # 12.4.2 "Five fouls and you're out..."


2001 HWCI NCAA TOURNAMENT POOL
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LA MIRADA, CA (smt)-- Yesterday set up an all-ACC matchup between Duke and Maryland in the semifinal. Today, there was hope that there would be an all-Big 10 matchup between Michigan St. and Illinois. #1S-Michigan St. did its part, holding off a #11S-Temple team that would not die, 69-62, the first time in 10 NCAA tournament games the Spartans didn't win by double figures. Temple, which won their previous 3 games by an average of 15 points, found themselves behind by 12 early and could never get closer than 3 points. Michigan St. became just the third team since the field expanded to 64 (now 65) teams to reach the Final Four three years in a row.

#1MW-Illinois tried to follow the Spartans' lead but fell to #2MW-Arizona, 87-81. Illinois had a 56-54 lead but the Wildcats scored 10 straight points en route to a 73-62 lead with two minutes left. Illinois put up a fight hitting five 3-pointers but could not overcome Arizona's free throws (getting as close as 74-71 with 1:38 left). Six, I said six, Illinois players fouled out and Arizona took 56 free throws (making 43, or 77%). There were 59 fouls (36 on Illinois) and 81 free throw attempts that made the last five minutes last an eternity. Arizona is the lone Pac-10 survivor after USC and Stanford were knocked out yesterday.

Like LIL PQ before him, NICKNAME (9th-Tied, 112 pts) went from on top of the world to being eliminated in two games. Arizona's win sealed his fate as well as four others. Michigan St.'s earlier win eliminated JINX, TABBY, and JAYBIAN V. BINGO (1st, 120) and PEEPS (10th-T, 110) became the first HWCI NCAA pool players to ever get all four teams right in the Final Four (now just 2 of 212 entries have done so). UTHPOPE, PATTOMAN, PINEAPPLE PRINCESS, and DYLAN became the 15th-19th people to ever get none of their Final Four teams right. Thirty-three people have already reached 100 points (a record, of course). BINGO still has a chance to tie the all-time record of 148 points set by the original BIX PIX in 1995.