Monthly Archives: March 2020

Issue # 25.2 “25 Years: The Teams”

Posted on by

Archive

Tuesday, March 24, 2020
25 YEARS:  281 TEAMS HAVE MADE PROPER 64 IN OUR POOLS
Ignoring Opening Round and First Four losers, we have seen at least one new team each year

EL SEGUNDO, CA (smt)- In the final AP pool, teams 2 through 7 are not your usual suspects with only Florida St (ACC), Baylor (Big 12), and Creighton (Big East) coming from the Power 5 conferences.  Gonzaga (WCC), Dayton (Atlantic 10), and San Diego St (Mountain West) would have provided some much needed parity.  But alas, none of those teams will count.  So without a tournament, here is another 25 Year retrospective, this time focusing on the teams who have made the tournament (the proper 64 that is). 

Top Seed in NCAA Tournament
Top Ranked Team to Win it All

So when the NCAA tried to mess up brackets by adding a 65th team (Opening Round 64v65) in 2001 due to the new Mountain West Conference taking away an at-large bid or when they added three more at-large teams to create the First Four (well, the First Round until 2016) in 2011, we ignored them.  The proper 64 bracket that starts Thursday at 9:15 am is what matters in this pool.  If you pick your bracket early you’ll just select “Team A/Team B” to advance and as always, you can change your picks up until the deadline.

Duke has been the top seed (#1 overall) 6 times including four in a row from ’99-’02  with Kentucky (4) and Kansas (3) right behind as shown in the table on the left.  From ’95-’03 the top seed was determined by the final AP pool before the tournament and from ’04-present the top seed is announced as part the NCAA’s ranked seeds listing.  UMass (’96) is probably the oddest top seed and local favorite UCLA was only the top seed in our first pool in ’95.  Five top seeds went on to win the tournament (’95 UCLA, ’01 Duke, ’07 Florida, ’12 Kentucky, ’13 Louisville).  Only twice did the top 2 seeds make the final (’99 Duke v UConn, ’05 Illinois v UNC) and twice did none of the top 4 seeds make the Final Four (’06, ’11).   UConn, however, has won the most titles (4) with Duke, UNC, and Kentucky winning 3 each in the past 25 years.  A #1 seed has won the title 17 times with UConn (#7E) the worst seed to win the title. 

Continue reading »

Issue # 25.1 “25 Years: The Entries”

Posted on by

Archive

Wednesday, March 18, 2020  **HELP support Direct Relief’s COVID-19 Response Fund (deadline Thu 9:15 am PDT) **

25 YEARS:  365 PEOPLE HAVE PLAYED IN OUR POOLS
As deadline nears, we can predict how many entries we might get

EL SEGUNDO, CA (smt)- Could a non-power 5 school such as Dayton, Gonzaga, or San Diego St have won it all?  We’ll never know.  Well, Sportsline ran a simulation and Dayton won (yay, Flyers).  This is the start of a series of updates reflecting on the 25 years of our HWCI NCAA pool and a peak behind the curtain of how the pool is run.  Kind of a nice number to do so, so thanks NCAA for cancelling this year’s tournament due to coronavirus disease (COVID-19) concerns.  Whereas pro athletes can wait this out and as leagues have previously self-inflicted on their seasons voluntarily (NBA lockout 8 months in 2011-12 (82->66 game season), NHL lockout 1994-95 (84->48 game season), NHL lockout 2004-05 (cancelling entire season and Stanley Cup), MLB strike in 1994 (cancelling the World Series!), NFL strike 7 weeks in 1982 (16->9 game season)), these amateur athletes have worked hard for years for an opportunity to play in March Madness and will move on to their next phase in life (attempt to go pro, graduate school, the working world).

When CBS (or that awful year it was on TBS) finally gets through announcing the bracket on Selection Sunday, where feasible, David and myself are busy reading up the homepage (http://www.hwci.com/ncaa) for people to enter their picks.  Sometimes, this is very late Sunday (or very early Monday) and sometimes, like in 2006 where a hard drive crash kept the online entry disabled until 1 pm Monday or in 2014 where java security errors kept the updated form down until 2 am Tuesday, we experience anti-technology days that wreak havoc on our sanity!

Table of entries since 1999
Continue reading »

10th HWCI NCAA First Four for Charity

Posted on by
Direct Relief
COVID-19 Response Fund

Wow, in a span of a couple days, dominos fell and hit every corner of the sport world, with the NCAA cancelling March Madness on March 12.  Today was supposed to be Selection Sunday and the kickoff for our 26th HWCI NCAA Pool.  So the 26th will have to wait until March 18, 2021.  BUT, I have decided to continue with the free 10th HWCI NCAA First Four for Charity where we have raised $1,158.08 to 9 different charities including a record-breaking $460 last year to the Boys & Girls Club of America.  

So I want every one of you to reply (Comment, Email,
post to Facebook, tweet @HWCI_Pools) with the TEAM you were going to pick to win the tournament (Kansas #1 AP, Gonzaga #1 NET, Dayton the darling fav).  Deadline will be the 9 am PDT Thursday.  Goal is 25+ replies!

For every reply back (anyone can reply, friends, family, etc), I will donate $2 to Direct Relief’s COVID-19 campaign where they are coordinating with public health authorities, nonprofit organizations and businesses in the U.S., China and globally to provide personal protective equipment and essential medical items to health workers responding to coronavirus (COVID-19). This is one of the highest rated charities that has a way to direct the donation directly to the response to the coronovirus.

Also, I don’t want to be the middle man with no pool, so if you donate to Direct Relief yourself, please email me the amount (up to $10) and I will include the numbers in the final total.

As a bonus, in the end, if we top 25 replies 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. Last year, we not only set a record of $230 in donations from myself and fellow pool players, my company was able to match (such a painful process and never did see the final confirmation) making the donation total $460!

#NotMe! See you in 2021!

Posted on by

Less than a day after announcing going ahead with the tournament without fans, the NCAA decided to pull the plug and cancelled March Madness. After the NBA had suspended play due to a Utah player testing positive for the coronavirus, Duke and Kansas strongly hinting they wouldn’t travel for the NCAA tournament, and after major leagues such as MLS and NHL paused their regular seasons (even minor ones like XFL), it was only a matter of time before everyone else followed suit. No one wants to be the “one” league that was defiant and then had an incident where players, coaches, and fans were exposed to the coronavirus. Better to be safe than sorry. Whether you agree or disagree, having a united front makes these decisions easier and will help slow the spread of the coronavirus. For some reason the USA cases went down 44 to 1,268 now (was 1,312). The USA only has 0.9% of all confirmed cases but that is likely to go up as more people get tested.

Despite California Governor’s call for no mass gatherings, after filling up gas I walked into Costco in Hawthorne, and they are definitely not following the rules! More than 150+ people packed like sardines, most standing in line all the way to the back of the store, everyone less than 6 feet from each other!

I am impressed with both the NCAA (all sport tournaments in Winter/Spring were cancelled as well) cancelling their big moneymaker (though the cynical side says it would have cost them more headaches and money holding games in empty arenas) and the lowly XFL which says they will still pay players and allow them to sign early with the NFL. Very classy.

Of course, thousands of athlete’s dreams (especially those who weren’t going to go pro) were crushed (#1 Kansas might get the title?), lots of Average Joes/Janes are now out of a job, and coaches may not get their postseason bonus money. Okay, that last one I don’t feel too sorry for.

As for our 26th HWCI NCAA Pool, the 26th will now be in 2021. At least the cancellation came before Selection Sunday so I don’t have to refund payments. Turning lemons into lemonade, this will give me a stress-free opportunity to reflect on the 25 years of the pool and will post periodically throughout March.

Also, while there is no First Four, there will still be the 10th HWCI NCAA First Four For Charity and an email will go out on no-longer-Selection Sunday on details on the charity and how I/you could donate to it.

Oh, Hi, Oh, Sorry, No Fans Allowed

Posted on by

Active COVID-19 Cases in USA

Coming off the heels of the Ohio Governor banning large gatherings in the state (affecting Dayton’s First Four and Cleveland’s 1st/2nd Round games), the NCAA followed suit announcing (3/11/20) all March Madness games will be played without fans (in addition to all other NCAA sport tournaments such as the Frozen Four). This extreme precaution is an effort to not inadvertently contribute to mass community transmission of the coronavirus (aka, COVID-19) which has more than 126,000 confirmed cases and killed 4,638 people around the world (about 2/3rds from China). The USA has seen steady growth of daily cases and are now up to 1,312 (42 deaths, about 70% from Washington). Other sporting events have been affected as well.

Now big schools like Duke and Kansas will know what it feels like to be the Florida Marlins, Jacksonville Jaguars, or Ottawa Senators playing in front of sparse crowds with just essential staff, select media, and limited family members attending the games. The NCAA still sees incredible value for the athletes and teams who have worked hard for 1-4 years to make the big dance that, for now, the games will go on (unlike the Ivy League which just awarded Yale their entry, cancelling their conference tournament – sorry Harvard, Princeton, and Brown players). This offers the best chance at completing the tournament even if panic and chaos surrounds them in the next few weeks.

So how will this affect our 26th HWCI NCAA Pool? Nothing changes (for now) unless it is shown the virus can be transmitted via internet web entry submissions. However, possible clarifications will be:

  • For a given game, if one team forfeits (e.g., a team doesn’t want to travel), it counts as a loss just like any other outcome and their opponent will be the “winner”.
  • For a given game, if both teams forfeit, whatever method the NCAA uses to advance one of the teams to the next round (e.g., better seed advances, coin toss, coolest mascot) will be the “winner”.
  • If the tournament is postponed or paused, we will monitor and make a determination (e.g., if NCAA postpones Regional Finals/Final Four by a week or two to move into smaller arenas, we will just wait a week or two; if NCAA postpones until start of fall season (November), then we will probably refund).
  • If the tournament is cancelled, I have to go through the painful process of issuing refunds to everyone 🙂

Let’s hope and pray the coronavirus can be mitigated long enough (and hope it’s like the flu and is seasonal) for a possible vaccine next year. In the meantime, take precautions yourself and read about the latest at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention website.

IEEE & Rutgers

Posted on by

IEEE, the largest professional engineering society in the world with more than 400,000 members, is headquartered in Piscataway, New Jersey. So at times, when we have IEEE-related meetings, in order for as many staff to help us, we stay in New Brunswick, New Jersey several miles away. Here, is the home of Rutgers University within walking distance from the Hyatt Hotel we have our meetings at. It’s a pretty campus with old classic buildings.

Well, the Rutgers Scarlet Knights may have just secured their first tourney appearance since 1991 guaranteeing that every year of our pool has seen at least one new team. Rutgers’ overtime road win over fellow bubble team Purdue gave them a key 2nd road victory (yes, just 2), a better than .500 Big Ten record (11-9), and their first 20-win season since 1983 to go along with their top 35 NET. Their at-large bid moved from probable First In/Out to just “In”.

Meanwhile, a pair of late 3s provided drama as Utah St secured a berth by beating #5 San Diego St. and USC stunned UCLA by two in their rivalry game. SDSU won their first 26 games before ending the season 4-2. Utah St was likely out but are now in the tourney, meaning one less at-large berth available (since SDSU will get one). UCLA had a chance for the share of the Pac-12 title but fell short, and with their 70s NET and some really bad losses, will need a good showing in the conf tourney to solidify their spot in the First Four In rather than First Four Out. USC is likely in with the win.

Our 26th HWCI NCAA Pool begins next Sunday (yikes, just lost an hour right now… it’s 3 am)!