![[Scott's Pool Updates]](images/hw-banner.jpg)
Friday, March 28, 2014 Issue # 9.3.2 "Usual Suspects" [ Home | Blog | Twitter | Facebook | Updates ]
9 MILES FROM 5.1 EPICENTER, CA (smt)- For all the talk of the narrowing of the gap between the elite traditional teams and the mid-majors, it'll be #7E-UConn (2 titles, 4 Final Fours since '99), blue-blood #8MW-Kentucky (3 titles, 5 Final Fours since '96), and #4E-Michigan St. (1 title, 6 Final Fours since '99) going to the Elite 8 and not better seeded #3E-Iowa St, #4MW-Louisville (despite being defending champion), and #1E-Virginia. Those traditional elite teams played clutch down the stretch while the three losers committed costly turnovers, took bad shots and missed key free throws. UConn hit 11 of 12 free throws in the last 47 seconds, Kentucky hit 6 of 7 in the last 2:12, and Michigan St. hit 5 of 6 (before missing the last one intentionally) in the last 33 seconds to seal their wins.
In the first game of the day, #11MW-Tennessee had a chance to go up by 1 in erasing a 8-point deficit with 2 minutes left and 5-point deficit with 32 seconds left. A controversial charge stopped that and overly great defense by the Vols actually cost them nearly 6 seconds leaving them only 3 seconds at the end - too little, too late, as #2MW-Michigan is one of 3 Big Ten teams in the Elite 8. Seriously, there were way too many delays for 50/50 calls on balls that went out of bounds. The replay should be used to reverse obvious INCORRECT calls, not ones where you have to analyze who's fingernail it went off of.
Beyond Elite 8 was the only one to go 3-1 to go from a tie for 46th to a tie for 7th (99 pts), and over the whole Sweet 16, leapt from a tie for 65th. He was also the only one to go 6-2 for the Sweet 16. But for the sixth straight gameday, Hawkeye is in 1st with 108 pts. He is followed by Bigtenfan2 (104), Wooden-Soldier (103), and Nwspring 1 (102). First Four Out was one of 26 to go 0-4 today but is just the 4th entry ever to go 0-for-the-Elite 8. He is now one of 6 that will go 0-for-the-Final-Four. However, kind of like the 76ers, despite this run of futility (Milwaukee is the worst), he is not in last as that honor goes to Go Deep (63), who got 1 of 8 Elite 8 teams.
Despite being in 1st, Hawkeye is only 3rd (13.3%) in the chance to win the pool's record prize of $555. Bigtenfan2 (32.8%) and Wooden-Soldier (15.6%) have a better chance. All three have a better than 60% chance to win money. 46 still have a chance for money and only 14 can win the pool.
Just 66 are still eligible
for the $40 Bonus. The Big 10 has come
on strong and leads with 9 wins (I remember some analyst saying the Big 10 will
fizzle and that stuck with me... darn) with the Pac 12 and SEC with 8 wins each
(remember, First Four wins do not count). With the current matchups, the
possible winning conferences could be the Big 10 (11-15 wins), the Pac 12
(10-11), or the SEC (10-13). There is also a chance there will be a tie
between conferences and if someone doesn't pick ALL tied conferences (or no one
gets the correct conference and wins), then we would go to
Bonus2 (total pts in final), putting a
bunch of entries back into the mix.
![[Twitter]](../archive/icon_twitter.png){kind=icon}
We are now on Twitter (@HWCI_Pools).
Please follow! I will post using
#hwciNCAA
mini-updates during the day so you can follow without being on Twitter (and if
you are, please use #hwciNCAA).
Please join our
Facebook HWCI NCAA
Pool Group or post comments on our
blog.
--------
Spencer's first real earthquake and he
still wanted to continue to watch "The Pirate Fairy" (I was watching NCAA on
Moto X); Ava's first, too, but too young (more frazzled by our actions) ...