2010 HWCI NCAA Pool Update. Standings, who’s who, team distribution, choice distribution all updated. For who’s who, feel free to post your comments on which nicknames you like/dislike or to explain why you chose that nickname (for some of the obscure ones).
Edit: Link fixed!
EastCoastBias is all alone in first. Sneak peak here. Note we are unofficial until Sunday.
Wow. Six upsets in the first 12 games. That’s more than we had in all of 2007 (5 in 32 games). No one picked Ohio U. to beat down #3MW-Georgetown, meaning Sexual Napalm’s win streak ended at 10. He then didn’t pick Washington (Go Pac-10!) which now puts him in a 5-way tie for first and a 2-game losing streak :-). Just 40 picked Washington while 67 picked Northern Iowa. 83 have more than 6 wins, so pat yourselves on the back.
Jonna Rocks and Droppin’ Dimes (which he has now lost 2 of his Final Four (Notre Dame)) lost their champ, the Hoyas, while three more lost them in their Final Four. And curiously, #1 had UTEP in his Final Four.. whoops.
Three (Random, David’s Lighter, and EastCoastBias) still have their Sweet 16 intact so they avoided the Hoya hype.
Three (EMAW, You’re My Boy Blue, Sexual Napalm) have jumped to an early lead, winning all 7 early games thus far. 11 are tied for last with just 3 wins (Villanova (barely), Kansas St., and Baylor). I heard the buzzer beater by Murray St. but wished I could’ve seen it live, as buzzer beaters have been a rarity the past few years.
Another Two-Peat played his heart and lost his champ Florida. 27 picked Old Dom, 25 picked Murray St., and 55 picked St. Mary’s upset (though a favorite to do so).
Well, Florida and Robert Morris ran out of gas but put up valiant efforts. #15 Robert Morris had the lead for most of the game, but when it reached overtime, fatigue and foul trouble (though the ‘Cats tried to help them late in OT with poor free throw shooting). Will this help or hurt Villanova?
Below is the portion of the unofficial team distribution list:
| Team | # of players who chose team to | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Win it All |
Win 5 Games |
Win 4 Games |
Win 3 Games |
Win 2 Games |
Win 1 Game |
Win 0 Games |
|
| KANSAS | 64 | 19 | 13 | 15 | 6 | 1 | 0 |
| KENTUCKY | 24 | 41 | 17 | 23 | 12 | 1 | 0 |
| SYRACUSE | 8 | 7 | 49 | 43 | 10 | 1 | 0 |
| DUKE | 4 | 18 | 27 | 49 | 10 | 10 | 0 |
| VILLANOVA | 4 | 7 | 38 | 32 | 28 | 9 | 0 |
| KANSAS ST | 4 | 3 | 28 | 39 | 34 | 10 | 0 |
| OHIO STATE | 4 | 3 | 7 | 61 | 30 | 12 | 1 |
| W VIRGINIA | 2 | 14 | 13 | 60 | 23 | 6 | 0 |
| GEORGETWN | 2 | 0 | 3 | 29 | 62 | 22 | 0 |
| MARYLAND | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 58 | 47 | 8 |
| FLORIDA | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 36 | 79 |
I’m surprised so many people picked Kansas… thought we would have more variation.
Wow, they were right about ND playing themselves up to a 6 seed which is probably too high… unfortunately, both of my brckets had ND :-(. And OT for Florida-BYU!
Unofficially, we have 118 entries, which tops last year. Still working out final details and hope to have some info up later today.
Okay, I gave my son a cookie (it has fruit in it :-)) to give me a little time here to submit my second entry, Deemed to Win, courtesy of Pelosi & Reid. So even if my bracket doesn’t actually win, since I deemed it so, it’s like it did win. Right? This one is more loopy with Duke winning it all as the cookie didn’t last as long as I thought and was distracted while entering towards the end.
With about 10 minutes left til the deadline, it looks like we’ve hit the magical 115th entry. I’ll be taking my son to school soon so I may not be able to update the right side of this blog til later this morning.
Just got up. Okay, my son woke me up. Well, about 40 minutes left til 9 am and a quick check shows 109 entries! Thanks for pushing us over 100. There seems to be at least another four in process so there is a chance we could meet or top last year’s record 114.
I guess the first game is BYU-Florida so we are starting off with a possible split vote now. Usually, it seems the first game is a 13, 14, or 15 seed and not very interesting.
Okay, finally made my picks, boring as heck. All four #1 seeds. Too tired to think. You can view my pick, Sweet Fabone, here. I’ll see if I want to donate another $10 to the winner by creating a second entry after some sleep.
2010 HWCI NCAA Pool Update. Deadline is 9 am!
Eight hours remain til the 9 am PDT deadline. Note: We will accept brackets til tipoff, which is 9:20 am, but the entry form will be disabled just past 9 am, so if you get to the java bracket, you can still enter your picks but make sure you submit it before 9:20 (we have a timestamp on the file you submit). If you think you may not make it, scan and email your pencil-written bracket or fax it to me.
Currently, we have 89 entries including 53 that came in Wednesday. That is short of our record 62 we got last year so topping 114 doesn’t look good, but there is still time. Best of luck to everyone!
David F. (The Mighty Mobelfakta) has submitted his bracket. We will post both his and my bracket (when I get a chance to fill it out) before 9 am tomorrow so you can laugh at us (and also for verification purposes). You can view his bracket here. (Hint: Once viewing David’s, you can then view your bracket in case you lost your printout).
As of 4 pm, we are at 53 entries which 7 more than we had at this time last year. But last year’s pace went at a torrid rate as the evening rolled on and into the morning, so although we are likely to top 100 entries (and therefore, a 5th place prize), it’ll be hard to top the 114 entries we had last year. A lot of regulars are now starting to enter with 10 of the past 17 entries having been with us for at least EIGHT years.
PayPal apparently now charges fees for receiving money of any type if you click their button. They even take fees for donations! Apparently the charitable giving is to PayPal, not the recipient. Don’t know how long this has been going (I checked last year’s payments and they didn’t do this then) but I found out by accident because PayPal doesn’t SHOW you they took fees, just what the “gross” amount is. So when I’m seeing $10 across the board, everything looks fine. Click on details, and presto, halfway down the page, -59 cents for fees. I’ve contacted those who aleady paid and asked them to volunatarily make up the difference (purely optional on their part, their entries still count and I’ll absorb the fees).
The website should be updated, but if you just want to send just $10.00 (no credit card payments), you have to do it the old fashioned way and log in to PayPal, click Send Money to “[email protected]“, choose a PERSONAL reason (not a PURCHASE reason) such as Gift, and send.
If you don’t mind paying $10.61 (regardless if it’s PayPal funds, eCheck, Credit Card or personal bank account), click the PayPal button on your web bracket confirmation page.
Despite all this, PayPal is still the easiest and most convenient solution out there and it allows us to accept credit card payments. Just wish they weren’t all Pelosi-Reid about this.
First off, congrats to Arkansas-Pine Bluff for making the REAL part of the bracket. Have fun losing to Duke.
We got a record 23 entries for a Tuesday (topping 2006’s 21 entries) for a total of 32 thus far (in 2008 we had 39 at this point). Our mainstays are slowly coming in. We have nine new entries (from six people). Three have entered twice and one trying their luck with the max 3. Though history shows us that since 2005, you have higher percentage of winning one of the top prizes with one entry than with 2 or 3 (5.1% vs. 2.8%). However, one person has won something the past 3 years so maybe you feel lucky? Also, of the 91 times people have submitted multiple entries, just 3 of the 11 who have won something did so on their 2nd or 3rd bracket (meaning if the other 8 just entered one bracket, they would have won anyway). But it does pump up our entry count, so thank you!