Hawkeye & The Rat Pack are tied for 1st
Issue # 3.1.2 “Four Point Play and Duke Away”
Hawkeye & The Rat Pack are tied for 1st
Category Archives: HWNCAA Pool 14
Hawkeye & The Rat Pack are tied for 1st
Issue # 2.1.1 “Overtime & Perfection”
(Now complete!) Archive
Hawkeye & FC Nordsjaelland are perfect; Record 138 entries received
EL SEGUNDO, CA (smt)- Where to begin? The NCAA Selection Committee should just admit they are seeding to get good matchups instead of actually ranking the teams as most of the double-digit seeded teams held their own making for exciting basketball but one has to question the seeding system. Just because a #12 has won almost every year doesn’t mean it HAS to. There were 3 upsets early (#11S-Dayton, #9S-Pitt, and #12E-Harvard) with the latter two not surprising most people. Top seeds struggled with #1S-Florida, #4MW-Louisville, #4W-SDSU, and #5MW-St Louis all holding on to victories. Only #2W-Wisconsin, #3S-Syracuse, #4E-Michigan St, #2MW-Michigan, #7W-Oregon, and #2E-Villanova pulled away to easy wins. The last 8 games saw four overtimes Continue reading
Full disclosure, my dear Watson
In the nickname links are my two entries in the pool, a hard earned $20 going to someone else. In celebration of the 20th year, The Fabone XX is poised to give false hope early before crashing down hard. And Elim the Impossible, with inspiration from Sherlock Holmes (with the great series Sherlock as well as Elementary), figures to either fight for the top or fight for the bottom. There is no middle. BTW, you can view your own bracket as well.
Edit: Dave’s pick, The Mighty Mobelfakta, just came in! We now have 121 entries so hopefully we can get at least 14 in the morning to set a new record.
Issue # 1.0.1 “Double X”
Our HWCI Pool XX could be wide-open; java applet is reaching end-of-life
With more flexibility in allowing a re-match or re-re-match to happen (a three-re-match not so much) and allowing conference teams to meet a round earlier than usual, the bracket this year better reflects a team’s true seed (except for Louisville fans). Kansas’ Joel Embid’s injury (out at least the 2nd & 3rd rounds) is of interest but they still got the #2 seed. The Big 12 (ten teams) got 7 teams in while the ACC, Big 10 (twelve teams), Pac 12, and Atlantic 10 each got 6 teams in. If you were to combine the old Big East, they got 8 teams (4 new Big East, 4 American Conf). So I guess this year there are 7 power conferences (vs 6) which meant only 7 at-large bids did not go to them. If you consider the Atlantic 10 a new power conference, then only San Diego St. and #10W-BYU (controversial as well) got at-large bids. Oddly, three of the 4 First Four matches are in the Midwest which benefits Wichita St. but that is quickly countered by traditional powers at the 2 (Michigan), 3 (Duke), and 4 (Louisville) lines.
Our HWCI NCAA Pool is no longer be a teenager as we’ve hit our 20th year. Last year Continue reading
If you didn’t know, one day down
So this is interesting. We got a record 42 entries on Tuesday, shattering the previous record of 25 (2011). Maybe the java issues prompted people to enter earlier than usual. We now have 60 entries, which considering we typically get just 30% of our final total by this time, that would mean we’d have 200 entries. We won’t get close to that, but we have a pretty good shot of surpassing 2012’s record total of 134. So keep spreading the word.
Yes, two games were played today (I’m so tired I thought all 4 were being played today). 8 correctly picked NC State and Continue reading
First Four Underway
I think I’ve captured all the email, Facebook chat, Facebook comment, SMS, and Blog comments for the 4th HWCI Final Four For Charity. We have 22 entries, which is two more than last year (our high was in ’11 with 30). So that’s $44 I will donate to Friends of Renee. But there’s at least $15 donated by others in the pool so the total is at least $59. Thank you.
No one picked all the lower seeded teams (designated away team) and just two picked all the higher seeded teams (designated home team). Four picked Albany/Xavier/Cal Poly SLO/Iowa. No one had a larger point margin than 16 in their picks. 15 picked Albany, 14 picked Xavier, 12 picked Cal Poly SLO (they are 13-19), and 12 picked Tennessee.
Below is everyone’s picks followed by the current standing (3-way tie for first) after Continue reading
Please try again.
Thanks for everyone’s patience with our java bracket. Despite that, we have 18 entries (3 hand-filled (1 jpg, 2 pdf), 1 ESPN screenshot, 10 CBSSports via our alternate HWCI group, and 4 somehow got java to work) which is only 2 off of last year’s pace with a working site. So now, if the java bracket doesn’t show up, the #1 suggestion on the page is to use our new alternate bracket entry. Looks different but should work on all browsers (in fact, I just submitted a bracket on my iPad Air! — yes, I’m not always anti-Apple). You’ll find the link after submitting the info form at Web Entry. If it’s a wild success, we’ll just replace the java applet with this (reduces 1 click-thru). Alternatively, you can email (ncaa<at>hwci.com) a copy of your completed bracket (phone picture, scan) with name, email, nickname, and total pts in final.
PLEASE JUST SEND A QUICK EMAIL W/FIRST FOUR PREDICTIONS BY 3:40 PM) I will donate $2 per entry to a charity which will be Friends of Renee (previous were MathCounts (a record $103 donated by myself and others), American Red Cross, and American Cancer Society). Again details can be found on our homepage but basically, reply to this email the winners of the First Four (4 games: Albany vs Mt St Marys, Cal Poly vs TX Southern, NC St vs Xavier, Iowa vs Tenn) and margin of victory of each (e.g., Xavier by 4 pts).
Lastly, you can now view your bracket (if you emailed it to me or submitted via CBSSports, give me a while). This is important if I entered your bracket, so double-check I didn’t put Tulsa winning it all. Until things are official, nicknames may be funny or slightly off but you should be able to find it in the dropdown box. If you can’t let us know.
4th Annual HWCI NCAA First Four for Charity Contest
For the 4th straight year, we’ll be using the First Four games as a little friendly competition for charity. For every entry (1 per person but it’s free so invite your significant other or friends and family), I’ll personally donate $2 to a charity. This year, we’ll be helping a fellow participant (Eric F) raise money to cover his friend’s enormous medical costs due to the effects of chronic Lyme disease, which if you don’t know you have it, is hard to detect and treat early. The Friends of Renee committee (mission statement below) helps bring awareness of Lyme disease, which is the fastest growing infectious disease in the United States. I remember going on a hike in Sequoia National Park and my wife’s sister was warning us about ticks. I thought it’s just a bug bite, but she pointed out they carry diseases such as Lyme disease and I never thought of hiking in forests the same way again.
Last year, $103 was donated (odd number due to additional donations by generous people) to MathCounts. In 2012, $83 was donated to the American Cancer Society. In 2011, $100 was donated to the American Red Cross for the tsunami and earthquake relief. It’s easy to enter. Just comment to this post or send an email to scott(at)hwci.com with the 4 First Four winners and the winning margin. Example: Albany wins by 4 points, Texas Southern by 15 pts, Xavier by 1 pt, and Iowa by 8 pts. Simple. Here are the First Four matchups (deadline 3:40 pm PDT Tuesday):
#16S Albany vs Mt. St. Mary's
#16MW Cal Poly SLO vs Texas Southern
#12MW NC State vs Xavier
#11MW Iowa vs Tennessee Continue reading
Local Representation
Southern California will have 3 teams in the tourney, though none will be the University of Southern California, who despite the hot coach with the hot wife, finished last in the Pac 12. But their rival, UCLA, will be in the tourney after beating #4 Arizona for the conference championship. The Pac 12 won’t get any respect though, so don’t expect UCLA to be ranked too high.
And in the biggest surprise of the conference championships, Cal Poly San Luis Obsipo (SLO) began the tourney 10-19 and proceeded to rout #2 Santa Barbara, upset #1 UC Irvine (my wife’s alma mater who was also trying to make the NCAA tourney for the 1st time ever), and outlast Cal State Northridge in the Big West final. Their first-ever appearance in the NCAA tourney, they are a shoo in for the First Four, so they probably won’t make the proper 64.
Finally, despite losing in the Mountain West final, San Diego St. will be in the tourney. So three local teams aren’t bad. But I am not picking Cal Poly SLO if they somehow did make it the proper 64!
Five Will Try
This is our 20th year and we have had 256 teams make the tournament (the proper 64) during that time. So far, Coastal Carolina and Mercer will add to that total, meaning every year we had at least one new team in the tourney. In 2011, if it weren’t for Northern Colorado, we would’ve been blanked. There were quite a few teams trying to make our pool for the first time at the start of last week but several, including #1 seeds (such as UC Irvine… poor Anteaters) have failed. Today (Saturday), five teams (Stony Brook, Cal Poly SLO, LA Tech, Toledo, and NC Central) are hoping to win their conference championship and earn a bid into the tourney. Pretty exciting. Stony Brook and LA Tech start at 8:30 am PDT. Local (relatively) team Cal Poly SLO, a #7 seed who beat the Anteaters, will play at 7:30 pm PDT. Also, previously ranked SMU will likely make the field for the first time since 1993 adding to our total.
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!