Category Archives: HWNCAA Pool 18

Issue # 4.2.1 “Buzzer Beater Madness” (3/17)

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**HAPPY ST PATRICK’S DAY**

TENN AND HOUSTON SHOCKED BY LAST MINUTE BASKETS
M Star shoots back to top as 18 go 7-1

Houston-Michigan Buzzer BeaterCERRITOS (smt)- We got our first true buzzer-beater as a great designed play got the ball to Jordan Poole who fired off a spread-eagled three before the buzzer and nailed it to give #3W-Michigan a one-point 64-63 victory over #6W-Houston.  Houston missed both free throws before the play and couldn’t extend a two-point lead with 3.6 seconds left and they did not guard the inbound pass (I thought the famous ’92 Duke buzzer-beater made teams start to guard the inbound pass).  that wasn’t the only late-game drama as #11S-Loyola-Chicago blew a 10 point lead with 4 minutes left and trailed by 1 with 21 seconds left.  Clayton Custer took an off balanced jumper that hit the front of the rim, then the backboard, and then into the rim with 3.6 seconds left to give the Ramblers a 63-62 win over #3S-Tennessee.  The Vols, with no timeouts, took the inbound and actually had a great look at a 3 that was just long.  The South has now lost its #1, #3, and #4 teams.  Watch out #2S-Cincinnati.

#5S-Kentucky (ending game on 21-6 run after #13S-Buffalo got within 3), #1E-Villanova, and #2MW-Duke dominated second half for an easy win while #1MW-Kansas, #4W-Gonzaga, and #3E-Texas Tech all held on to narrow wins.  Six top seeds won today.

M Star was one of 18 to go 7-1 today to take the lead with 75 pts.  Wuk2 and Bwakewey 1 are Continue reading »

Standings fixed, Nicknames added

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The standings have been fixed.  Also, a new menu item has appeared above and that is “Who’s Who” and that lists all our players in name order (last names hidden) and nickname order.  So who is Little Luther who is tied for the lead?  Who did your friend pick as a nickname so you can make fun of it.  I like the pop culture references (e.g., Kylo Ren, Dagny Taggart) and creative name spellings (e.g., Billiam, Bwakewey) and of course, puns (e.g., Full Metal Bracket).  No hard curse words so you can imagine what Aztecs Say FU MEChA originally was.  We also have a limit of 21 characters in the nickname field so some had to be shortened.  All CAPS annoy me but for some reason, 15-year vet PRIDE OF TROY was left alone.  So enjoy!  And if you want to explain some of the meaning behind your nickname, please do so!

Issue # 3.1.2 “We are UMBC” (3/16)

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FOR THE FIRST TIME IN FOREVER, A 16 BEATS A 1
4-way tie for first in crazy day with six upsets

Headline - UMBC v VirginiaEL SEGUNDO/CERRITOS, CA (smt)- It was bound to happen but never like this.  With top teams losing players year after year to the pros and smaller conference teams keeping and maturing their players, something had to give.  It was supposed to be MW-Penn catching Kansas off-guard (with Vegas money moving toward the underdog) or the fourth #1 seed W-Xavier to come short against Texas Southern.  Not the #1 overall team in the tourney.  Not in a blowout.  Losing by 20 when you were favored by 20?  I’m trying to figure out which is the more improbable scoreline:  S-UMBC 74, Virginia 54 or recently Albany 83, UMBC 39?  How does losing your 6th man (De’Andre Hunter) rattle a team’s psyche so much?  If this were soccer, Virginia coach Tony Bennett would be sacked for inexcusably not preparing his team and suffering the most embarrassing defeat ever as the first #1 seed to lose in 136 tries.  But oh, what a historical moment it was.  Starting with UMBC’s (that’s University of Maryland-Baltimore County) Jairus Lyles who seemed to make everything, even ones after the whistle in jest.  And he was cramping which will add to his legend to go with his 28 points on 9/11 shooting.  It was bad enough for the Cavs that game was tied at 21 at the half but Bennett’s halftime pep talk was probably piss-pour as well as UMBC came out blazing with a 17-3 run to start the half.  And amazingly, Virginia never did it back down to single digits for that one hope and a prayer.  The top team in the country had no answer and kept shooting threes, at one point missing 13 straight.

So the two biggest hits to our pool were a #1 that lost by 20 points and #4S-Arizona team that lost by 21.  Sheesh.  Well, 15 other games were played and up to that historic upset, Continue reading »

Issue # 2.1.1 “Buffalo Roams, Pac 12 Moans” (3/15)

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DARK HORSE ‘ZONA OUT, TOP SEEDS STRUGGLE
In our 24th pool, we have 160 entries, our 3rd highest total

Loyola-Chicago near buzzer beaterCERRITOS, CA (smt)- With #1S-Virginia down a top player, it seemed like the journey was made for #4S-Arizona to play with a chip on its shoulder to the Final Four.  But Arizona is a Pac 12 team and with that curse, fell to#13S-Buffalo who won their first tourney game ever.  Just like that, the Pac 12 fizzled 0-3 and matched the horrible post-season showing of its football teams who went 1-8 in bowl games.  Buffalo’s win overshadowed #11S-Loyola-Chicago nailing a 3-pt near buzzer-beater (they put 0.3 sec back on clock) to advance to the Round of 32.  Top seeds had lots of trouble but eventually #4W-Gonzaga, #1MW-Kansas (#16MW-Penn led 21-11 at one point), #5W-Ohio St, #8MW-Seton Hall, #5S-Kentucky, #6W-Houston, #3E-Texas Tech (holding #14E-Stephen F Austin to no FGs in last 5 minutes), and #3W-Michigan were victorious.  #3S-Tennessee, #2MW-Duke, #1E-Villanova, and #6E-Florida had easy wins.  The tourney started with a riveting match that #7MW-Rhode Island pulled out in overtime over a #10MW-Oklahoma team that Trae Young that singlehandedly kept  them in the game.  The other mild upset was #9E-Alabama, despite 15 losses as an at-large pick, winning by 3 over #8E-Virginia Tech.

For our 24th pool, we unofficially have 160 entries from 112 people.  The is our third highest total (behind ’17‘s 178 and ’15‘s 161) and third-highest participation (behind ’17’s 124 and ’15’s 113).  We tied a record with 72 entries (’15) on Wednesday.  We also discovered that the comment section on our form doesn’t go anywhere and that ncaa<at>hwci.com has a very aggressive spam filter this year.  Growing pains.

Kds911, SacKings4Ever, and M Star started off 13-0 but Continue reading »

Welcome to our pool!

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Unofficially, we have 160 entries from 112 people.  We should finalize everything by Saturday.  You will notice three new menu items at the top.

Standings – The current pool standings are updated by the next morning (usually late that same day though).

Team Dist – Who did everyone pick to win it all?  18 teams were picked.  How many picked Arizona to make the Final Four?

All Picks – This is everyone’s picks sorted by champion.  You can find out who were the 7 people who picked Buffalo to beat Arizona.  Who is that one person who did not pick Xavier to make the Round of 32?  Amazingly, for the first time ever in 24 years, we have two entries with the exact 63 picks (they differ on total points though).  CryingJordans and AlfordBlows will be forever tied as we move through the tournament.

Soon, the Nicknames will be up so you can see who is who in the pool.  And Your Bracket has been up since Wednesday so you can print out your bracket if you forgot.

Issue # 1.0.1 “The Following Takes Place Between 9am Monday and 9am Thursday”

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Monday, March 12, 2018  **HELP support World Vision (deadline Tue 3:40 pm PDT )**

VIRGINIA SECURES TOP SEED WHILE PAC 12 IS KICKED TO THE GROUND
For pool # 24, events occur in real time

Seed ListBUTTE, MT/CERRITOS, CA (smt)- S-Virginia steam-rolled in the tough ACC winning the regular season and tournament to get the tournament selection committee’s top #1 overall seed with a 31-2 record.  Two Big East teams (E-Villanova and W-Xavier) and Big 12 champ MW-Kansas got the other three #1s.  This was the second straight year Kansas got a 1 seed despite 7 losses but at least this year they won their conference tournament.  The Cavs led the ACC contingent who got a record-tying 9 teams while the SEC got a record 8 teams (was 6) but none higher than a 3 seed (S-Tennessee).  The Big 12 got 7 of its 10 teams in (with early hopes for 9) and the Big Ten got four, who played their tournament a week early in order to have their games at Madison Square Garden.  That leaves the Pac 12 as the last of the Big 6 conferences and they were treated that way by having their conference & tourney champ Arizona seeded 4th and in the South, two others only getting to the First Four (#11bE-UCLA and #11aMW-Arizona St), and their conference runner-up and tourney finalist USC getting left out entirely despite an RPI of 34 (record for lowest RPI not to make tourney since ’11).  Notre Dame was actually the first out and they can blame #12S-Davidson’s upset Atlantic 10 final win over #7MW-Rhode Island for stealing a spot on Sunday.  A record five teams had 8-10 conference records and made the tourney (Notre Dame was also 8-10 while USC was 12-6) albeit two face each other in the First Four (Arizona St and #11bMW-Syracuse) and #9E-Alabama was comfortably in despite losing a record-tying 15 games (Vandy in ’17).  Five at-large berths were given outside the Big 6 with the American and Atlantic 10 each getting two and the Mountain West getting one.

The selection committee (BTW, why the $%#! was the selection show not on CBS???) seemed to emphasize wins equally throughout the season, which is great except that if you lose 11 of 15 games to end a season including the first game of your conference tournament, sorry, #10MW-Oklahoma, you were not deserving of a bid and should’ve played yourselves out of a spot.  HOWEVER, for these last at-large bids I’m okay for TV reasons to choose a team with a star player like OK’s Trae Young but the committee should just admit that over whatever baloney they tried to convince TNT’s Charles Barkley with.  Quadrant wins were also a factor putting less emphasis on RPI for the first time.  But then again, if you can’t schedule teams in Quadrant 1, how could you ever pick up Quadrant 1 wins, so it seems to benefit the big conferences more.  I really hope Syracuse’s inclusion wasn’t due to all their complaining about missing the tourney last year.

Locally, UCLA snuck into as one of the last four while USC missed the cut after Continue reading »

8th HWCI NCAA First Four for Charity (Due 3:40 pm PDT Tuesday)

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While you decide who will win the tourney, for the 8th year I’m doing the HWCI NCAA First Four for Charity, where I will donate $2 per entry to a charity, this year to World Vision, which is a non-government organisation (NGO) that works with people around the world to help eliminate poverty and its causes. It is working with the United Nations and other NGOs to help achieve the Millennium Development Goals. World Vision was founded in the USA during the Korean War in the 1950s.  This was a recommendation from one of our players and if you have an idea, please let me know for next year.  This First Four for Charity is free and you just have to submit (you can comment on this post to enter, email, post to Facebook, tweet @HWCI_Pools) who the four First Four winners will be and by what point margin. For example: LIU by 3, UCLA by 25, Tx-Southern by 1, Syracuse by 8.   The four games are LIU-Brooklyn vs Radford, St. Bonaventure vs UCLA, NC Central vs Texas Southern, and Arizona St vs Syracuse.  Get your entry by 3:40 pm PDT Tuesday.  As a bonus, in the end, if we top our record of 178 entries this year, I’ll donate an additional $25.  Also, invite your friends and people can enter (since it’s free) this charity contest but not our main pool.

Congrats to Fullerton!

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Well, with UCLA and USC doing well in the Pac 12 tournament, they should be in. But they will be joined by local Cal State Fullerton who beat the other local team, UC Irvine, in the Big West Tournament Final to make the tourney for the 3rd time and first time since 2008.  With the brackets coming out tomorrow, expect our website to be up very late Sunday or early Monday.  As usual, all the rules remain the same ($10/entry, max 3 entries, deadline 9 am PDT Thursday).  Spread the word to your friends and family and let’s see if we can top the 178 entries we got last year.  Feel free to follow us on Twitter or Facebook.