Issue # 4.1.2 “Big 10 Dominates, Pac 10 Struggles” Awesome day for nearly everyone (five went 15-1) as only one person lost a Final Four team. Who? The Downtown Fiction is an incredible 30-2 (which ties a record). Who? Click on the link above…
Also, if you want to see a matrix of everyone’s picks and who got what correct, here’s the pdf of one of the many worksheets I use. BTW, after Sunday’s games, we’ll know which entries are eliminated… nervous time!
Only Florida St managed to pull off the upset in the first half of games. Arizona survived a scare.
What the hell? CBS cuts away for Obama’s speech in the last seconds of the Texas-Oakland game and says coverage will switch to TNT, but TNT is still showing George Mason-Villanova! Why can’t you you mute Obama on the split screen and have audio for the Texas-Oakland finish?
Issue # 3.1.1 “Morehead St.: Bracket Buster”
We have received a record 126 entries which will be unofficial until Monday. You can now view the standings, team distribution, individual choice distribution, everybody’s bracket, and who’s who. Mini updates will be on our homepage (blog) and discussion can occur on our Discussion Forum or Facebook.
Five of the first 8 games were decided by 3 points or less but only UCLA nearly blowing a 23-point lead prevented the last 8 from being all victories by 5 or more. The Downtown Fiction leads getting 15 of 16 games correct with 4 others tied with 14. Five bring up the rear only getting half correct (8). Standings are posted every game night and if you want to see yours or someone else’s bracket, click on the Your Picks menu option.
BTW, we did have a winner of the First Four for Charity and that will be announced later this weekend though you could figure it out (only one person went 4-0).
The only two big upsets of the first half of games today (i.e., the only two I missed) occurred at the Denver site (where Krispy Kremer is supposed to attend the games) which means #12SW-Richmond will meet #13SW-Moorehead St. Saturday.
I got to Phoenix and apparently the hotel won’t let you browse more than a few pages at a time before they limit you. Ridiculous. Of course, it’s free internet, so you get what you pay for, but I’d rather pay for it.
I won’t have standings info til later tonight. I need to sleep.
Unofficially, we have 126 entries, topping last year’s record of 117. We won’t be official until Monday after I get everyone sorted out. But in the meantime, you can view yours and others picks here (after selection, hit “Go”):
http://www.hwci.com/ncaa/2011/picks.asp
Now I gotta pack for an 11:50 flight!
David (The Mighty Mobelfakta) and mine (The Fabone NC-17, Thomas Chuggington) are now online:
You can review your picks now at: http://www.hwci.com/ncaa/2011/picks.asp
We’re at 106 entries at 4 am…
VCU pulled away from USC to win the #11SW seed and maybe changed some minds as well (and for the Pac-10). I wonder how many updates I’ll get to picks?
We got a record 23 entries for a Tuesday and are at a record-setting pace with 41 entries overall – which is odd, since I thought with the First Four most people would enter later rather than earlier. But in any case, you can always edit your picks later (email is preferred if it is just a couple changes). Of the 34 people, only two are new which will make it hard to top our record of 117 entries last year without new blood. Remember the deadline is 9 am PDT Thursday.
As for the First Four for Charity contest,22 correctly picked Clemson over over-rated UAB. The 18-point margin of victory (70-52) was larger than most optimistic Tiger fan (12 pts). Halfway through the inaugural First Four, 13 people are 2-0. Cliff T was one of three who had Clemson by 12 and now leads with a +8-point differential. Vi N and Kevin T are tied for second with a +9. Van P and Doug H are tied for 4th with a +11. In the rear is Ford R with an 0-2 record and +42. Five are 0-2.
Four (Kevin T, Keith J, Y W, Sant C) correctly picked UNC-Asheville to win by 4 points and are off to a great start. Sixteen picked UNCA who rallied from an 11-point deficit to win in OT over UA-Little Rock, 81-77. Samer S and Ford R have a lot of ground to make up by not only being down 1 game, but off by 13 points.
Wow… UNC-Asheville rallies to tie up UALR and force OT in the first game of the tourney. Maybe expanding to 68 wasn’t a bad idea after all (though the crowd is DEAD).
Well, Ark-Little Rock has jumped to an 11-point lead midway in the first half over UNC-Asheville for the right to lose to Pitt. And with that, the First Four for Charity contest is closed. I got 30 entries in just over 24 hours, so thank you to all! And since it seems silly, that in my email, that if I only got 24 entries, I’d double it to $48 and if I got 26 entries, it would be only $26, I am doubling it anyway. So over the weekend I’ll donate $60 to the American Red Cross (despite what this bozo says) to help those affected by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and the Pacific on behalf of the HWCI NCAA Pool.
USC was the overwhelming favorite being picked 25 times. Clemson received 22 picks while there was a toss-up in the two 16v16 games: UNC-Asheville and Alabama St. both got just 16 of the 30 picks. The biggest margin of victory was Deven K picking USC by 16 (I have them winning by 15). 12 of the 16 possible combinations were picked with UNCA/CLEM/UTSA/USC being the most popular with 8 picking it. Six picked UALR/UAB/ALST/USC. 7 combinations have just one person picking it (so no tiebreaker in play if that person goes 4-0).
After the jump, here are all 30 picks: