Bye Bye Dukie

Duke’s loss drops WOKIM to 3rd, allowing BIG HURT and FLYIN’ HAWAIIAN to just into a tie for 1st… Wisconsin’s win leaves BIG HURT all one in 1st and drops WOKIM down to 6th… just 3 picked Wisconsin & West Virginia (KOOL KATS and FC RACINE 1634 the other two)…

What a difference a day makes

Six upsets… four in Tampa… I missed the Drake upset (on plane coming to LA) but caught the last few minutes plus overtime of the UConn loss.  Wow.  So we have a #9, 10, 11, 12, and 13 seed in the 2nd round.  Great stuff.  We not only have a new leader, but a sole leader, as WOKIM leads with 54 pts after going 27-5 in the 1st round.  It’s still early though.   Fortunately for most people, the 12 and 13 seeds were won in the same part of the bracket so it’s almost a wash (unless you had the #4 or 5 seeds getting to the Elite 8).

Pl Name # Correct
by Round
Cur
Pts
Pos
Pts
1 2 3 4 5 6
  1
Wokim
27
0
0
0
0
0
54
183
                 
  2
Big Hurt
26
0
0
0
0
0
52
178
                 
 
Juno Ino
26
0
0
0
0
0
52
178
                 
 
Custard_Pie
26
0
0
0
0
0
52
178
                 
 
Flying Ace
26
0
0
0
0
0
52
178
                 
 
Flyin' Hawaiian
26
0
0
0
0
0
52
171
                 
  7
Spitakularr
25
0
0
0
0
0
50
176
                 
 
Shriner
25
0
0
0
0
0
50
176
                 
 
Back2backhopefully
25
0
0
0
0
0
50
176
                 
 
Santana
25
0
0
0
0
0
50
173
                 
 
Samuari Jack
25
0
0
0
0
0
50
169
                 

After 8 games today

BIG HURT, SPITAKULARR, KRISPY SECONDS, and FLYIN’ HAWAIIAN are all tied for first with 42 pts (21-3 record).  9 are tied with 40 pts.  QUICKPICK MCGRAW (random picks) is last with 20 pts with YANKEEAGLE occupying # 100 of 101 entries with 24 pts.  39 picked Davidson’s upset, 17 picked Western Kentucky, and 3 picked San Diego (CROW2BUGS, XK2XBOILX, and BIGRED (not to be confused with BIG RED).

Unofficially Up

I’ve posted the unofficial standings and team & individual choice reports on Scott’s Update Page.  As soon as we sort out some items (DR FUN, MR F, payments), we’ll make it official.  If you don’t see your nickname on there, please let us (ncaa(at)hwci.com) know immediately.  If you haven’t paid yet, please make arrangements with us immediately.

Poor USC

Someone had to choke, and for UCLA fans, having USC lose and UCLA win must be a blessing.  I will have an update tomorrow morning if the internet works in the hotel (I’m losing this connection pretty soon…)….  If DR. FUN, MR F, or Meisha Collins mean anything to anyone, please contact ncaa(at)hwci.com ASAP.

Unofficially, 11 are tied for 1st going 15-1 today.  SPITAKULARR & JUNO INO won their first 12 games before Arizona lost.

No Variation

Prelim analysis…  of the 99 semi-confirmed entries, 43 picked UCLA.  Only 7 teams were picked, which seems low — maybe I should’ve picked Duke instead of UCLA … nah.

Going to downtown Austin then to San Antonio (maybe).  Will miss watching a lot of the games, including the USC-Kansas St game (maybe I’ll catch the ending).   Tried to post using my cell phone and it wouldn’t let me in 🙁

Team # of players who chose team to
Win
it
All
Win
5
Games
Win
4
Games
Win
3
Games
Win
2
Games
Win
1
Game
Win
0
Games
UCLA 43 21 20 9 5 1 0    
N CAROLINA 29 30 14 20 4 2 0    
KANSAS 7 11 37 34 9 1 0    
MEMPHIS 7 9 22 32 27 2 0    
TENNESSEE 7 8 5 44 24 10 1
TEXAS 4 5 29 31 27 3 0
GEORGETWN 1 4 27 31 21 14 1
TEXAS AM 1 0 0 0 0 61 37
DUKE 0 6 2 48 24 17 2
STANFORD 0 2 12 11 56 15 3
WISCONSIN 0 1 5 14 34 44 1
PITTSBURGH 0 1 3 17 45 30 3
BUTLER 0 1 0 4 5 68 21

If at least 1 of the 2 entries pans through, then we’ll have a 5th place prize… otherwise, we will have a top 4 (plus Bonus).

Deadline has passed

Now sorting through the entries begins… if everyone pays (and I think everyone is pretty much accounted for, even if we have to strongarm a couple of old-timers), we’ll have either 99, 100, or 101 entries (not including any that could come through the mail – which I don’t think I’ve received any in years).

Here in Austin, we get the stinkin’ Kansas game.  Why not Xavier-Georgia?  Well, I guess I’ll try March Madness on Demand…

Caught Up….

It’s 5 am here in Austin, and after only 1.5 hours sleep the past 48 hours, I’m bushed… and I still have to make my picks.  BTW, as an unstated policy, we’ll be posting David and my picks before 9 am PDT (which is 11 am here!).  Here is David’s:

http://www.hwci.com/ncaa/2008/picksprintPaypalconf.asp?entries=The+Mighty+Mobelfakta

We have either 87 or 88 entries so far which puts us back on pace as last year so we may not top 100 entries.  There’s still the chasing down the money part, but we should have a clear idea of the number of entries by Friday night.

Austin or Bust

After missing our 6:50 am flight by being early by 43 minutes (more on that later), we are finally in Austin in our hotel at 2 am in the morning.  Which means I’m about 50 entries behind… it’ll be a long night…. please be patient….

Mid-Week Status

Here’s a sneak peak in what the 40 entries have picked to win thus far (as you can see, no one has picked Cal State Fullerton yet):

2008 Choice Distribution Report
(# entries=40) 03/18/08

Team # of players who chose team to
Win
it
All
Win
5
Games
Win
4
Games
Win
3
Games
Win
2
Games
Win
1
Game
Win
0
Games
UCLA 17 8 8 4 2 1 0    
N CAROLINA 12 11 7 7 3 0 0    
KANSAS 4 5 16 9 6 0 0    
TENNESSEE 3 3 2 19 10 2 1    
MEMPHIS 2 4 11 11 12 0 0
TEXAS 1 2 10 13 11 3 0
TEXAS AM 1 0 0 0 0 27 12

So far we’re ahead of the pace of last year but we shall see how many entries we get Wednesday (we got a record 58 last year).  Also, if we top 100 entries, we will likely add a 5th place prize, the first time we’ve added a top prize since we added a 4th place prize in 1998 (Year 4).  Of course, we take from the rich, so 1st/2nd/3rd/4th places will be a slightly lower % (but still a good payday).

Remember, if you need to make a small correction to your picks, email us (ncaa(at)hwci.com)… if you need to make bigger corrections, re-submit your bracket (call it YourNickname 2 or YourNickname-Update).

I’m off to Austin so hopefully all will be well.

Joost it Up

From Don M. (WOODEN_SOLDIER):

Hi Scott & David,

Might want to pass on to the pool, perhaps some people may not know
about this:

http://www.joost.com/featured/marchmadness/

It will operate similarly to the CBS MMOD online feed I’m told, but it
uses P2P to help increase bandwidth so it will likely be a more
reliable connection & might not need to use a “VIP waiting room”.
(The latter is just a guess, but an educated one).  🙂

Best,
Don

Reminders…

I’ll be flying out to Austin tomorrow morning so I’ll be out of internet range til 2 or 3 pm  CDT, but I’ll still be able to check my email on my phone… just replying will be tough since I’m not a texting expert yet.  But I should be online Wednesday night and Thursday morning (til tip-off, 11 CDT/9 PDT) and if you have any questions, you can gmail chat me at smt0222(at)gmail.com.

Also, please let David or I know if you are mailing a check (and for that matter, let us know you are paying your fee at all ;-))  as soon as possible.  The quicker we can confirm everyone’s paid up, the quicker we can get the pool info up (such as prize breakdown).

Always check this blog for the latest info. Also, you can see on the right side I have given a status on who’s paid and which brackets we haven’t got yet.  You can also see the nicknames, so you can discuss the ones you like/don’t like here.  I like a lot of the new nicknames so far and am afraid to ask where Beefmaster came from.  Remember, try not to use punctuation (e.g., $, &, ‘) in your nickname, if possible.  Also, there is a 21-character limit and no profanity (Fern).

Right now, there’s a discussion on how far UCLA will go.  Feel free to post other comments or brag how good your picks are on the discussion board.

We have 31 entries thus far, which is outpacing 2007’s record breaking year.