Monthly Archives: March 2018

Welcome to our pool!

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Unofficially, we have 160 entries from 112 people.  We should finalize everything by Saturday.  You will notice three new menu items at the top.

Standings – The current pool standings are updated by the next morning (usually late that same day though).

Team Dist – Who did everyone pick to win it all?  18 teams were picked.  How many picked Arizona to make the Final Four?

All Picks – This is everyone’s picks sorted by champion.  You can find out who were the 7 people who picked Buffalo to beat Arizona.  Who is that one person who did not pick Xavier to make the Round of 32?  Amazingly, for the first time ever in 24 years, we have two entries with the exact 63 picks (they differ on total points though).  CryingJordans and AlfordBlows will be forever tied as we move through the tournament.

Soon, the Nicknames will be up so you can see who is who in the pool.  And Your Bracket has been up since Wednesday so you can print out your bracket if you forgot.

Issue # 1.0.1 “The Following Takes Place Between 9am Monday and 9am Thursday”

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Archive

Monday, March 12, 2018  **HELP support World Vision (deadline Tue 3:40 pm PDT )**

VIRGINIA SECURES TOP SEED WHILE PAC 12 IS KICKED TO THE GROUND
For pool # 24, events occur in real time

Seed ListBUTTE, MT/CERRITOS, CA (smt)- S-Virginia steam-rolled in the tough ACC winning the regular season and tournament to get the tournament selection committee’s top #1 overall seed with a 31-2 record.  Two Big East teams (E-Villanova and W-Xavier) and Big 12 champ MW-Kansas got the other three #1s.  This was the second straight year Kansas got a 1 seed despite 7 losses but at least this year they won their conference tournament.  The Cavs led the ACC contingent who got a record-tying 9 teams while the SEC got a record 8 teams (was 6) but none higher than a 3 seed (S-Tennessee).  The Big 12 got 7 of its 10 teams in (with early hopes for 9) and the Big Ten got four, who played their tournament a week early in order to have their games at Madison Square Garden.  That leaves the Pac 12 as the last of the Big 6 conferences and they were treated that way by having their conference & tourney champ Arizona seeded 4th and in the South, two others only getting to the First Four (#11bE-UCLA and #11aMW-Arizona St), and their conference runner-up and tourney finalist USC getting left out entirely despite an RPI of 34 (record for lowest RPI not to make tourney since ’11).  Notre Dame was actually the first out and they can blame #12S-Davidson’s upset Atlantic 10 final win over #7MW-Rhode Island for stealing a spot on Sunday.  A record five teams had 8-10 conference records and made the tourney (Notre Dame was also 8-10 while USC was 12-6) albeit two face each other in the First Four (Arizona St and #11bMW-Syracuse) and #9E-Alabama was comfortably in despite losing a record-tying 15 games (Vandy in ’17).  Five at-large berths were given outside the Big 6 with the American and Atlantic 10 each getting two and the Mountain West getting one.

The selection committee (BTW, why the $%#! was the selection show not on CBS???) seemed to emphasize wins equally throughout the season, which is great except that if you lose 11 of 15 games to end a season including the first game of your conference tournament, sorry, #10MW-Oklahoma, you were not deserving of a bid and should’ve played yourselves out of a spot.  HOWEVER, for these last at-large bids I’m okay for TV reasons to choose a team with a star player like OK’s Trae Young but the committee should just admit that over whatever baloney they tried to convince TNT’s Charles Barkley with.  Quadrant wins were also a factor putting less emphasis on RPI for the first time.  But then again, if you can’t schedule teams in Quadrant 1, how could you ever pick up Quadrant 1 wins, so it seems to benefit the big conferences more.  I really hope Syracuse’s inclusion wasn’t due to all their complaining about missing the tourney last year.

Locally, UCLA snuck into as one of the last four while USC missed the cut after Continue reading »

8th HWCI NCAA First Four for Charity (Due 3:40 pm PDT Tuesday)

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While you decide who will win the tourney, for the 8th year I’m doing the HWCI NCAA First Four for Charity, where I will donate $2 per entry to a charity, this year to World Vision, which is a non-government organisation (NGO) that works with people around the world to help eliminate poverty and its causes. It is working with the United Nations and other NGOs to help achieve the Millennium Development Goals. World Vision was founded in the USA during the Korean War in the 1950s.  This was a recommendation from one of our players and if you have an idea, please let me know for next year.  This First Four for Charity is free and you just have to submit (you can comment on this post to enter, email, post to Facebook, tweet @HWCI_Pools) who the four First Four winners will be and by what point margin. For example: LIU by 3, UCLA by 25, Tx-Southern by 1, Syracuse by 8.   The four games are LIU-Brooklyn vs Radford, St. Bonaventure vs UCLA, NC Central vs Texas Southern, and Arizona St vs Syracuse.  Get your entry by 3:40 pm PDT Tuesday.  As a bonus, in the end, if we top our record of 178 entries this year, I’ll donate an additional $25.  Also, invite your friends and people can enter (since it’s free) this charity contest but not our main pool.

Congrats to Fullerton!

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Well, with UCLA and USC doing well in the Pac 12 tournament, they should be in. But they will be joined by local Cal State Fullerton who beat the other local team, UC Irvine, in the Big West Tournament Final to make the tourney for the 3rd time and first time since 2008.  With the brackets coming out tomorrow, expect our website to be up very late Sunday or early Monday.  As usual, all the rules remain the same ($10/entry, max 3 entries, deadline 9 am PDT Thursday).  Spread the word to your friends and family and let’s see if we can top the 178 entries we got last year.  Feel free to follow us on Twitter or Facebook.