Issue # 25.2 “25 Years: The Teams”

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). 

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. 

Issue # 15.6.1 “Freshmen Hazed”

Archive

2014 NCAA Champions
#7-East (New York, NY)	The University of Connecticut Huskies (32-8) 4th Title: ’99, ’04, ’11, ’14
2014 Winningest Conference
	The Southeastern Conference (11-3) 3rd time: ’06, ’07, ’14

CERRITOS, CA (smt)- The veteran starting lineup of #7E-UConn, some who stayed on despite the Huskies being banned from postseason last year, came out hungry against the all-freshmen starting lineup from #8MW-Kentucky jumping to a 30-15 lead and eventually hanging on to a 60-54 victory.  The Huskies never trailed in winning their 4th title (the same number as Duke!), all in the last 16 years and two years removed from retired coach Jim Calhoun and one year removed from a postseason ban due to academics.  While UConn was a perfect 10/10 from the charity stripe, Kentucky bookended 6/7 by missing 7 of their first 13 free throws and their last three (including a front end of a one-and-one).  Senior Shabazz Napier, while taking some ill-advised or quick shots, scored 22 pts and had 6 rebounds as he was one of the few who stayed on through the postseason ban.  This capped a wild tournament partially aided by bad seeding by the selection committee and that sometimes, just the name on the shirt (with a little luck) is enough to propel you to the finals.

In a strange twist, all 8 entries alive to win money were guaranteed to finish at least tied for 6th (before the dreaded tiebreaker), meaning two would lose the tiebreaker and go home empty handed.  But first, Read the rest of this entry »

Issue # 13.5.1 “#7 vs #8, Oy Vey!”

Archive

In a wild game that saw Kentucky go on a 15-0 second half run only to be answered by Wisconsin’s 15-4 run, Aaron Harrison made his 3rd straight go-ahead 3-pointer in 3 games, this time with 5.7 seconds left to give the Wildcats a 74-73 win over the Badgers.  The Kentucky freshmen (66 points, a Final Four record) once again Read the rest of this entry »

Issue # 11.4.2 “Big 10 Implosion”

Archive

MICHIGAN TEAMS FALL; UCONN & KENTUCKY BACK IN FINAL FOUR

#8MW-Kentucky rallied and beat #2MW-Michigan, 75-72, on Aaron Harrison’s 4th straight 3-pointer with 2.3 seconds left.  With the game tied and playing for the last shot, the long 3 wasn’t as ill-advised but it worked out (why Read the rest of this entry »

20 Years of Madness

2014 HWCI NCAA Logo

In a week, we will begin our 20th HWCI NCAA Pool.  From our humble UCLA beginnings in 1995, thanks to you all, we’ve consistently topped 100 entries the past six years coming from more than 90 people for the past five years.  In that time we have not changed our points system (it’s worked so well, I guess we were lucky), our entry fee, or our love for the pool.  Although in the 20 years, five NCAA teams have won the tourney twice (UConn 3 times), only one person (Robinson C) has won the pool twice (2001, 2005).

Since there are a lot of Apple fanboys out there who don’t know what a PC is, we are working on a backup alternative to submitting your picks in case the javascript is not agreeable.  But of course, you can always email a photo/scan of the bracket in.

We hope you will join us again for another round of frustration and fun!

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.

Ugly and classy?

UConn coach Jim Calhoun, in his always humble self, forgets to thank Butler.  Sheesh…

Ugly?

Seemed like it was 4-3 forever (as my son Spencer would say), but some good defense helped keep the score very low, as only 41 have been scored at the half (22-19).  Five threes have helped Butler compensate from a poor inside game while UConn is just struggling and picking up fouls.  Hopefully, the second half will pick up (especially for those in the tiebreaker who have a higher point total than their competitor).

Heartbreak for Harvard

March Madness will be soon upon us, minus one hour for daylight savings.  Well, the longest Division I tournament drought continues as Princeton beat Harvard on an incredible buzzer-beater in the one-game Ivy League playoff denying the Crimson an automatic bid (small chance they get in as an at-large considering the Ivy League has never had 2 teams in since the format expanded).  UConn did the improbable, winning 5 games in 5 days to not only win the Big East conference title but also showed that kids can be forced to work long, unreasonable hours and need to unionize.

We will still have the Most Wins in Conference tiebreaker but when you submit your bracket, it won’t be accurate until Thursday (due to First Four games between at-large teams).  Once we have everyone’s picks online, you can check to see how the First Four games tweaked your Most Wins in Conference.  Of course, no one cares about this until the last weekend anyway, so this isn’t a big deal.

David will be in Seattle starting Sunday and I’ll be in Phoenix starting Thursday noon but we’ll try to keep delays to a minimum.  The online bracket may not be up until Monday morning.

6 OTs?

And Syracuse and UConn had enough players at the end?