Saturday, March 22, 2025 
Issue # 4.2.1 "St. John's is the First to Fall"
[   | | | | Updates | Standings ]

LONG BEACH, CA (smt) - Excitement is back.  #5S-Michigan rallied from 10 down with 13:53 left and outscored #4S-Texas A&M 21-9 down the stretch to win 91-79.  John Calipari's #10W-Arkansas finished with a 11-4 to win by 9 over Rick Pitino's #2W-St. John's.  St. John's was #326 in three-point percentage and it killed them this game as they went 2/22 (of course, Arkansas was just 2/19 but didn't need to take threes at the end).  #8MW-Gonzaga, in trying to make their 10th straight Sweet 16, trailed by 11 with 2:30 left and got within one with 21 seconds left but fell to #1MW-Houston, 81-76.  Houston made their 6th straight Sweet 16 and needed a stuff on a game-tying three point attempt with 3 seconds left to survive.

#6E-BYU were cruising but nearly blew a 11-point lead with 4:40 left as #3E-Wisconsin got within three with a minute left.  BYU held out 91-89 in the highest scoring game thus far (180 points).  #4MW-Purdue, #2MW-Tennessee, and  #3W-TexasTech never trailed in the second half in their easy wins (#7MW-UCLA only lost by 9 to Tenn but they were down by 19 at one point).  #1S-Auburn allowed #9S-Creighton cut their 14-point lead with 6:20 left to 7 in just two minutes but never let them get closer than 6 in their 82-70 win.

The Big Ten were 10-0 (a record for any conference start) before losses by Wisconsin and UCLA (still hard to think of them as a Big Ten team).  The Big 12 went 3-0 (9-1 overall) and the SEC 3-1 (11-6 overall).  The Big East went 0-2 (3-4 overall).

Kds911-2 (4th, 73 pts; up from tied for 23rd) and Tiniest Prancers (30th-Tied, 67; up from tied for 130th) went 7-1 for the day.  Billiam, DaBoyz25, and The Mighty Mobelfakta are tied for first with 74 points.  The Mighty Mobelfakta was alone in first from the first game until he lost Wisconsin.  Janicki Alex (183rd, 49) went 1-7, the 14th entry to do so (one did go 0-8), but we have a 3-way tie for last with Ally Zapping, Mythical SeaBeasts, and Bang Bang Strike with 46 points.

37 entries had St. John's in their Final Four and 7 lost them as their champion (Honey Badger 3 (54th-T, 65) the highest entry who lost St. John's).  Two lost Wisconsin (Charlie Hustle (114th-T, 61) and Avery 2 (139th-T, 58)) and one each lost UCLA (RobynK (150th-T, 57)), Gonzaga (Jonna (172nd-T, 52)), and Drake (Lady Chocoholic (170th-T, 53)).

After tomorrow, we will know which entries have been eliminated from finishing in the top 7 money spots.

We are now on Twitter (@HWCI_Pools) and Discord.  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.  Here you can join the group and meet your competitors, make new friends, set up NCAA watching gatherings, and post stuff to the wall (pictures, witty comments, etc.). 

   Tids & Bits - you can nearly always count on the Zags shooting well as they were 50% from the field (both games >=50%) and were perfect from the free throw line (15/15)... Calipari made his 16th Sweet 16 but first since 2019... Creighton led Auburn at the half (37-35) thanks to 9 three-pointers (12 for the game)... Wisconsin' John Tonje had 37 points and the refs seemed to help with a flagrant 2 foul on a BYU player trying to escape a double-team... also, Wisconsin can score more than 200 points... Purdue will have a home crowd playing Houston but remember Louisville was playing in Lexington and lost... Jonna (172nd-T, 52) (Gonzaga, St. John's) and Sleepy (177th-T, 51) (St. John's, Wisconsin) lost both their finalists (and both just have 1 Final Four team alive)... 174 picked Auburn, 167 Houston, 162 Tenn, 138 Texas Tech, 79 Purdue, 73 Michigan, 36 BYU, and 5 Arkansas... entries averaged 4.46 wins today... 

--------
Haven't been to Acapulco in a long time; not bad though I hate the "service charge" due to CA's high costs...
Scott