Welcome to the 2001 Hoops Challenge!

Final Scores
East
1	Duke	79
6	USC	69
Sat Final

2	Kentucky	76
6	USC	80
Thu Final

South
1	Michigan State	69
11	Temple	62
Sun Final

7	Penn State	72
11	Temple	84
Fri Final

Midwest
1	Illinois	81
2	Arizona	87
Sun Final

1	Illinois	80
4	Kansas	64
Fri Final

West
1	Stanford	73
3	Maryland	87
Sat Final

1	Stanford	78
5	Cincinnati	65
Thu Final

Welcome to the 2001 Hoopville Challenge! This year's contest should be even better than last year's, when we had online standings. As promised, the 2001 Hoops Challenge is all digital, from team selection to text paging with the result of the final scores. Check out our What's New page for more information. Good Luck!

Printable Brackets are available to get a lay of the land. For users with multiple entries, it may be necessary to Log Out to switch between personalized services. Be sure to check 'The Very Latest Indeed' for the obvious.


	Thursday, March 29 [ 8:02 AM MST ] Greetings, all. Hoops here. Well in probably the most evenly-balanced Final Four in a while, Hoops decided to go where the action is. No, not to Minneapolis - they still have snow on the ground. Nope, Hoops is going to Vegas, baby, Vegas! That's where the real action is. Maybe I'll pull me a Fredo, and they'll give me the Rain Man suite! I'll be sure to post from the road. Good Luck!! Tuesday, March 20 [ 2:03 PM MST ] We have a few new features to crow about. Our standings page is new-and-improved. First, we project the maximum number of possible points for each bracket. Then, we've developed the capability to sort the standings by column. Just click on the column heading, and you'll be able to tell where you rank in terms of first or second round score or possible points! It's easy! Saturday, March 17 [ 9:54 AM MST ] A graphic representation of the First Round. Well that was fun. 14 bona-fide upsets out of 32 games. 9 double-digit seeds still alive. The 8-seeds are gone (as are the 16's). Only 2 of the usual 5-12 upsets happened (Utah State and Gonzaga). Hampton became the 4th 15-seed to make it to the second round. ACC-power Wake Forest was held to 10 points in the first half!. Indiana State guard Kelyn Block lost 3 teeth at the end of regulation, and then went to score 5 points in overtime to lead the Sycamores over the Sooners. Most games went down to the wire. Some were blowouts - for the underdogs. The only thing certain was that the #1 seeds didn't have to break a sweat. The West Region is featuring a 10 vs. 15 matchup (Georgetown vs. Hampton), and the South has a 12 vs. 13 (Gonzaga vs. Indiana State). Stick around for all of the action in the second round, which Dick Vitale previews for us. And let's just say UCLA was lucky in downing the Hofstra Pride, who was leading the game until the 2:00 minute mark, when the Bruins rolled 13 points up on the board. Thursday, March 15 [ 10:48 PM MST ] Wow! What a finish! For those that didn't catch the action, Thursday was an amazing day. First off, the Big Ten lost three of four games, being upset by Kent State, Utah State, and Georgia State, all in close games including the day's only Overtime action. If that weren't interesting enough, Georgetown, Missouri, and Hampton (Hampton?) all won on game winners with less than 4 seconds remaining in each game. In fact, 9 of the 16 games were decided in the last 30 seconds, and 5 on the last play of the game. And hows this for a statistic: of the 4 games played in the Boise West Region, the combined margin of victory was only 7 points. More great hoops action tomorrow, so stick around. Thursday, March 15 [ 2:17 PM MST ] Well, after three games, there's been two upsets. Looks like a fun tournament so far. The Big Ten Conference saw two of its seven bids ousted in the first three games. Nice showing. Thursday, March 15 [ 9:31 AM MST ] The Sign-Up period has now ended. Thanks to all that have signed up, and Good Luck! The first game starts in about 50 minutes, with 16 games slated for today, and 48 games will have been played by the end of the weekend. Enjoy! Wednesday, March 14 [ 11:20 PM MST ] I've done a little more searching, and Hofstra is getting all kinds of props, this time from CBS Sportsline.com. Also, may I suggest you all visit FinalFour.net. It's the official site for the NCAA, and though not as slick as this website, it is powered by Quokka.com. Quokka has fallen on hard times after the Olympic Webcast for NBC, with their stock around 1/8 since October, but they're headquartered near Pacific Bell Park in San Francisco, and employ a cute receptionist. Wednesday, March 14 [ 10:33 PM MST ] Well, we've got a little less than 12 hours to go! To get you up to speed, ESPN's Dick Vitale has previewed Thursday's games for us. Hoping to spark the Spartans, Tom Izzo has questioned the desire of the defending National Champions. In a follow up to Tuesday's article, ESPN's Andy Katz comments on small schools making it big. Page 2 has provided the Tournament All-Name Teams, and we couldn't leave one of Hoopville's favorite teams out of the picture. We present, An Ode to Hofstra, the Pride of Long Island. Wednesday, March 14 [ 12:40 AM MST ] Unfortunately, the biggest story wasn't on the court last night, it was on the sideline. CBS/TNN analyst Rick Pitino was the subject of rumors and conjecture over where his next coaching assignment will be. If you're not familiar with Rick Pitino, he has coached Providence to prominence, the Knicks to respectibility, and Kentucky to a National Champtionship in 1996. He recently resigned from the Celtics, and was offered the UNLV opening. He then turned them down, but when Denny Crum of Louisville retired last week, Pitino was the primary candidate. Twelve hours ago, Michigan fired head coach Brian Ellerbe and is now in the running for Pitino as well. So you can see how all this could be distracting when covering the 64th and 65th teams . . . Tuesday, March 13 [ 11:22 PM MST ] Well if that first game is any indication, we're in for a good Tournament. The game was pretty close, but Northwestern State held off Winthrop 71-67 to win the Play-In Game. Winthrop at one time hit 10 consecutive three-point attempts, but couldn't make it happen, as the Demons sank free throws with 2 seconds left to clinch it. Northwestern State hangs in Dayton until they play Illinois at 10:15 am Arizona time on Friday. Maybe they'll visit the Wright-Patterson US Air Force Museum. Or maybe not. Tuesday, March 13 [ 4:47 PM MST ] Sometimes the geography of the Tournament just doesn't make sense. Tonight's game, for instance, features Winthrop, from South Carolina, and Northwestern State, from Louisiana. So why are they playing in Dayton? And George Mason and Maryland, which Washington, DC calls their own, finally meet for the first time this week. In Boise. ESPN's Bob Stevens tries to regionalize the Regionals by bringing up these and other geographical mis-matches in his most recent column. Tuesday, March 13 [ 2:29 PM MST ] All sorts of discussion is happening this afternoon. While most people around here are bemoaning the Phoenix Coyotes trading their Captain, Keith Tkachuck [don't look for a link - this is a Basketball Site], several talking heads are offering their notions for upsets. Dan Patrick offers his projections on upsets, such as Butler over Wake, Xavier over the Golden-Domers, and Georgetown, Georgia State, and Gonzaga to go gangbusters on the upsets. And I personally like Hofstra over UCLA, but too bad they changed their name from the Flying Dutchmen. And ESPN's Andy Katz wrote an interesting article on how this Play-In game is only about money. Four hours until the Play-In Game! Tuesday, March 13 [ 11:03 AM MST ] For your lunchtime reading pleasure, the AP ran this article on the trials that Winthrop and Northwestern State had to endure to even get to Dayton. Also, read up on tonight's game. Monday, March 12 [ 3:34 PM MST ] To show you what a class-act this 2001 Hoops Challenge really is, we've done some comparison shopping. Not one of the other major brackets lets you select the Play-In Game. Not ESPN.com, not CNNsi.com; not USA Today, and not CBS Sportsline. But we have recognized the importance of determining exactly which team gets the opportunity to try and shock top-seeded Illinois, and we have designed our bracket accordingly. Early Bird Special! Choose the Play-In Round correctly, and you get 5 bonus points, which beats a tie-breaker any day. Deadline for the Play-In Game is Tuesday at 6:30 PM. (you must have your entire bracket completed). Sunday, March 11 [ 7:56 PM MST ] We're up and running! After a few hours of entering the brackets into the database, everything is aces - knocking on wood, of course. To all visitors, please visit the What's New page to find out just how nifty this year's tournament will be. Now to do a little testing before announcing to the world how good this Hoops Challenge is (and check out what the boys at ESPN.com have up their sleeves . . .) Sunday, March 11 [ 7:39 PM MST ] This 2001 Hoopville Challenge is brought to you by Andrew Flynn and Barry Stahl, who didn't sleep much while creating this whole thing over the weekend.
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