Friday, March 15, 2002                
Issue # 4.1.2 "Missouri Valley Pride..."
http://www.HWCI.com/ncaa

CERRITOS, CA (smt)- The Missouri Valley Conference flexed their muscle as #12MW-Creighton upset #5MW-Florida in double-overtime and #11E-Southern Illinois knocked off Bob Knight's #6E-Texas Tech. These were the only two upsets of the day although #15E-Hampton nearly provided their second straight upset of a #2 seed in as many years, losing to #2E-UConn. #7E-NC St., #7W-Xavier, and #8W-UCLA had strong second halves to advance. #1W-Cincy replicated Duke's effort in routing poor #16W-Boston U. #4MW-Illinois, #6MW-Texas, and #3S-Pitt won at "home" in the new Pod system. #2W-OK, #6S-Cal, #8E-Wisconsin, #3MW-Mississippi St., #1E-Maryland, and #3E-Georgia also won. The Pac-10 finished 5-1 and the ACC 4-0. This is the first time three #12 seeds advanced to the second round.

In the pool, FREE JINX (50 pts) went 15-1 to tie an all-time record for a Friday and go from tied for 39th to tied for second. He picked Creighton and So. Illinois but missed picking NC State. Just 12 picked Creighton and 16 picked the Salukis. In another split vote, 40 picked NC St. and 43 chose Xavier. The leader is RANDOM PICKS (52) who opened up the largest lead (4 pts) after one round in the history of the pool. NC St. gave PICKS the lead and Xavier's win gave him a 2-win margin and maintained it til the end of the day. Eight people are tied for second with 48 pts. SSLUK (46) had some hard luck and goes from tied for 1st to tied for 25th. Ten people went 14-2 while six went 9-7.

We are still in "unofficial" status as we try to verify everyone's entries. The sooner you send in your money, or tell us you'll be sending in your money, the quicker we can announce the prize money breakdown.