Michael C, Albert H, and JaMIe A lead the First Four For Charity contest with 3 wins with Michael, who exactly picked VT by 12, in first with a 10 point differential. But it’s a battle between only Michael and Jamie. If Cal wins, Bear alum Jamie will win the 2nd HWCI NCAA First Four For Chairty contest. If South Florida wins, Michael takes the crown. No tiebreaker involved here. This is after Vermont took down Lamar (only 10 picked VT). This is just the 2nd year, but if Cal wins, David A, who was the only one to a perfect 4-0 last year will go 0-4 this year. Currently 4 are tied at 0-3 including Jamie’s squeeze Fern (who wisely sided with her and did not pick against Cal).
Category Archives: HWNCAA Pool 12
Signs and Portents
Half the First Four done. So Western Kentucky rallies from 16 points with 4:52 left to beat Mississippi Valley St. Then BYU rallies from 25 points with 4 minutes left in the 1st half to beat Iona. Both games weren’t pretty to watch (lots of turnovers, lots of missed free throws, lots of bad decision-making), but crazy is good.
As for the First Four For Charity, 7 are 2-0 with Albert H. in the lead with a point differential of 10. Seven are 0-2 and would need lots of help. Standings below…
| FIRST | LI | Wins | Pts Diff |
| Albert | H | 2 | 10 |
| Eric | C | 2 | 18 |
| Ken | B | 2 | 18 |
| Michael | C | 2 | 22 |
| Tim | W | 2 | 24 |
| Chris | B | 2 | 26 |
| Jaime | A | 2 | 44 |
| Paul | T | 1 | 13 |
| Kevin | T | 1 | 16 |
| Darryn | B | 1 | 18 |
| Vi | N | 1 | 18 |
| Michael | G | 1 | 19 |
| Yoh | W | 1 | 19 |
| Craig | S | 1 | 20 |
| Yumi | S | 1 | 20 |
| Eric | F | 1 | 25 |
| Scott | T | 1 | 26 |
| Samer | S | 1 | 28 |
| Roy | W | 1 | 32 |
| Wendy | B | 0 | 23 |
| Ron | E | 0 | 30 |
| David | A | 0 | 32 |
| Fernando | B | 0 | 37 |
| Justin | P | 0 | 37 |
| Andy | F | 0 | 43 |
| Deven | K | 0 | 47 |
Melo ex-‘Cuse-d
Biggest news today was the academic suspension of Fab Melo of Syracuse for the tournament. How will this change your picks? Will the Orange rally around this or will they falter early. Could go either way. BUT, if you want to change your picks, you are able to up until the deadline of 9 am PDT Thursday. If it’s a simple change, email me. Or, you can resubmit your bracket with your SAME nickname + update (e.g., Nickname-update or Nickname-up or Nickname-rev).
First Four For Charity Under Way
Wow… a 16-point lead with 4:52 left? Easy. Not so. 15-18 Western Kentucky just outscored Mississippi Valley St. 22-5 at the end to advance to lose to Kentucky. WKY has now won 7 straight after being 9-18. Two more wins and they’ll reach .500.
We got 26 (we had 30 last year) in the 2nd HWCI NCAA First Four for Charity meaning I happily get to donate $52 to Relay for Life Alhambra (American Cancer Society). And that number could grow as others have pledged money. Thanks, everyone! Here are the picks I got (and hopefully translated it correctly) — BTW, 12 picked WKY (BTW2, David A, who was the only person to pick all 4 games correctly last year, missed this one!): Continue reading
A nice pace so far
We tied a record with 2 entries on Sunday and set a record with 20 entries on Monday — for a total of 22 entries which is 7 ahead of last year’s pace to a record 125 entries. The not so good news is that only 2 new people have entered so we need more fresh blood (preferably those who pick Beach (LB State) to win it all). I am not sure why people feel really good about submitting their entry this early, but you all obviously know something I don’t (which ain’t very hard).
Don’t forget to quickly send an email or post a comment on this blog or a comment on Facebook for your First Four for Charity picks (free!). Have family members submit a free entry. Deadline is 3:30 pm today! And don’t forget to watch the games on TruTV.
Issue # 2.0.2 “First Four For Charity – Relay For Life”
http://hwci.com/ncaa/2012/n2012_02.html
For the second straight year, we are doing a short contest for the First Four which starts 3:40 pm PDT tomorrow (Tuesday). For the past several years, I’ve participated in Alhambra, California’s Relay for Life to benefit the American Cancer Society (link: http://main.acsevents.org/goto/tamashiro). If you could indulge me, please send your picks for the four First Four games and margin of victory for each (e.g., BYU by 10 pts). Your entry is free and for every valid entry I get, I’ll donate $2 per entry (I’ll donate a minimum $50) on behalf of HWCI NCAA Pool (I’ll use this as my middle name and hopefully my credit card will still go through). Even if you don’t care about bball, just send in your picks anyway. Last year, 30 entries were received (some who didn’t even enter the regular pool) so $60 was donated (turned out, at the end, with other’s help, $100 total was donated!). Best of all… no nicknames to come up with! I probably won’t have time to figure out the winner til the weekend but it will help if you reply directly to this email or put in the subject line “First Four picks”. Deadline is 3:30 pm PDT Tuesday (tomorrow)! I’ll post my pick on the website (http://www.hwci.com/ncaa) later tonight.
———–FORM————-
NAME (First, Last):
WINNER & MARGIN OF VICTORY: Mississippi Valley (MVS) vs Western Kentucky (WKY)
WINNER & MARGIN OF VICTORY: BYU vs Iona
WINNER & MARGIN OF VICTORY: Lamar vs Vermont
WINNER & MARGIN OF VICTORY: California vs South Florida
———-END———-
Thanks! The winner gets bragging rights as the second HWCI NCAA First Four Champion. Winner is the most correct picks with the tiebreaker the lowest margin of victory difference (above or below).
You can also just comment on this post and put your picks there. Simple and for a good cause.
Issue # 1.0.1 “The Pool is Legal – 18 and Counting”
It’s here! Site is being updated, you can enter now, and here is the first update!
New ways to pay
Now, besides mailing a check or P.P, you can send 
money via your smartphone and pay no fees! Use Discover Money Messenger (your Discover app) or Chase Person-to-Person QuickPay (your Chase app) and send your $10 (per entry) to “hwci<at>hotmail.com” — just make sure you put your NAME and NICKNAME in the notes section so I know who it’s from.
Web entry ready
Seems to work on Chrome but I am only a sample of one. Let us know of any issues with the java bracket entry. Official email to come early tomorrow morning. Spread the word. Click on WEB ENTRY in above menu.
Brackets?
Why haven’t the NCAA or ESPN sites posted printable brackets yet?
Check spam folders!
Well, that time is nearly here. So if you don’t get an email from me by late Sunday night, check your spam filter! Can we top 125 entries? We shall see. Meanwhile, UConn’s incredible postseason streak ended at 13 (5 in 5 days in Big East ’11, 6 wins to champ ’11, first 2 wins in Big East ’12) while the Pac-12 is embarrassing to watch. 15 teams are officially in the field of 68 with 12 more conference champs to be crowned on Saturday.
Discussion Board Retired
In starting the process of updating the site, I noticed no one posted on the discussion board last year. With social media, old-school kinda goes away. So the discussion board is no more (archives as always, are available to see what crazy post you did five years ago) which is one less thing for me to worry about updating. But you can still discuss and banter amongst yourselves by either commenting to a post (like this one) or posting your thoughts on our Facebook page. So please keep the discussion going and feel free to insult each other or to put bounties on each other (for fun, of course).
Harvard’s L’in
March Madness is here… congrats to Jeremy Lin’s alma mater Harvard making the tourney for the first time since 1946. Also, the state of South Dakota finally puts a team in (SD State over another hopeful first-timer Illinois St) with Loyola, not of California, but of Maryland, making our tourney (they last made it in 1994– we started in 1995).