HWCI NCAA Pool Update

ST MARY'S RALLIES TO WIN, NEW MEXICO ADVANCES
Record 8 tied for 1st; 175 of 187 have Final Four Intact

HOME, CA (smt) - In a ho-hum tournament thus far, #7E-St. Mary's really became the only team to rally and win, coming from 12 down in the second half to beat #10E-Vandy 59-56. Other teams blew leads but still won as #9E-Baylor nearly blew an 11-point lead late to win by 3, #2E-Alabama blew a 10-point lead and actually trailed 65-64 with 7:10 left before winning by 9, #6S-Ole Miss nearly blew a 22-point second half lead (was cut to 2) before winning by 7.

#3S-Iowa St (27), #1E-Duke (44) (with Cooper Flagg returning), #4W-Maryland (32), #1W-Florida (36), #4E-Arizona (24), #2S-Michigan St (25), and #5E-Oregon (29) all won by 24 points or more and #3MW-Kentucky (who snapped a 2-game losing streak against 14/15 seeds) and #6MW-Illinois (making all 18 free throws) weren't challenged in the second half.

#12W-Colorado St ran away late. For ten minutes in the second half, neither #10-New Mexico nor #7-Marquette could build a lead bigger than 3 points before NM ended the game on a 18-8 run to win by 9. Two-time defending champion #8W-UConn actually trailed in the second half (47-46) for the first time in 11 games (2023 2nd Round game vs St. Mary's for 34 seconds (38-37)) but only for 17 seconds before ending on a 10-3 run to win by eight. UConn's streak of double-digit tourney wins ends at 12 but now have a 13-game tourney win streak (tying Duke 1991-93 for second best streak).

The SEC has already lost six teams (one in First Four) and we didn't get any of the 3 potential 2nd Round SEC match-ups. The 8 teams remaining matches the Big Ten who went 8-0 in the first round. The Big 12 went 6-1, the Big East 3-2, the ACC 1-3, the MWC 2-1, and the WCC 2-0. The former Pac 12 teams are 12-0 (UCLA (B10), Arizona (B12), Oregon (B10)).

Juggernaut 3 (9th-Tied, 54 pts; up from tied for 111th yesterday) and Pac 12 Forever!!! (23rd-T, 52; up from tied for 152nd) became just the 7th and 8th entries to go perfect (16-0) on Day 2. They nailed all 3 upsets (overall, 77 picked NM, 81 Colorado St, and 104 Baylor - all 3 were the highest picked #10, #12, and #9 seeds). 15 went 15-1. We have a record 8 entries tied for first with 56 points (28-4) (three times we had 5 tied for 1st) after the 1st Round.

Sandra-1 (1st-T), Bucketsandbeers (9th-T, 56), and Crash Out Crew (9th-T) were 20-2 at one point and The Gambler 1 (1st-T) and CanUBeatA12Grader (1st-T) were 25-3 at one point. The other five tied for first are DaBoys25, The Mighty Mobelfakta, Billiam, Honey Badger 2, and Eggman 2. Six went 9-7 with two of those, Captain Illini - 1 and Merman, tied for last with 36 pts (18-14).

So far, just Shake & Bake (149th-T, 44) is the only entry to lose their champion (Kansas). 175 of 187 entries still have all Final Four teams alive. 136 have all Elite 8 teams still and 17 have all Sweet 16 teams playing.

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Roy W (Krispy Kremer) enjoying first round game in Denver Tids & Bits - multiple 12 seeds won in the first round for the 3rd time in 4 years... three teams have won in the last six straight tournaments (Gonzaga, Houston, and Baylor)... four teams scored at least 90 points (none yesterday)... UNC lost in the first round for just the 3rd time ('99, '21)... was interesting to see St. Mary's and #16E-Mount St. Mary's playing at the same time... the tip off times for the second games at a site were moved by 5 minutes for all (e.g., 11:50 am vs 11:45 am PDT), maybe for TV to add 5 more minutes of commercials :-)... for just the second time, no First Four team made the 2nd Round ('19)... it's fun to see folks enjoying the tournament with Roy W (Krispy Kremer (23rd-T)) taking in a game in Denver... the top 17 teams in our team distribution are still alive (Kansas lost)... Mythical SeaBeasts (176th-T, 40) has just 10 of 16 Sweet 16 teams remaining and is 1 of 2 entries with just 5 Elite 8 teams remaining (Lady Chocolate (149th-T))... Lady Chocolate is one of two to just have two Final Four teams alive (lost UCSD & VCU) (Sunscar22 (102nd-T, 50) (lost Memphis & Clemson)... entries averaged 12.64 wins today (11.62 yesterday) and 24.3 overall, the 5th highest total and best since 2017 (25.2)...

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Max (streaming) has a cool feature of re-watching games that I missed but it is delayed a couple hours or so...
Scott