Monthly Archives: March 2014

4th Annual HWCI NCAA First Four for Charity Contest

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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
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Local Representation

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SDGST CPOLYUCLASouthern 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

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CSTCAR MERCERThis 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.