Pool bulletin April 3, 2001 12:32 AM CASTELHANO WINS MEN'S POOL TO COMPLETE AMAZING TWO-TOURNEY RUN Jenn Castelhano completed the most successful year of tournament prediction in Living Room Times NCAA pool history Monday by winning the Times's sixth annual men's basketball pool after finishing third in the women's pool a day earlier. Castelhano, a UConn sophomore, secured her victory over classmate Kevin Hauschulz when her national champion pick, Duke, defeated Hauschulz's champion pick, Arizona, 82-72 in the national title game. It was her first Times pool championship in six appearances. Castelhano's first-place finish in the men's pool, coupled with her third-place finish in the women's pool, created the most potent such combination in Times history by far. Claudio Gualtieri finished first in the 1998 women's pool and seventh in the men's pool the same year, and Bindee Chokshi was second in the women's and eighth in the men's in 1999. But neither compared to Castelhano's dual-scoreboard domination this year. Castelhano briefly led both the men's and women's contests at the same time, and always remained a contender in both. At the end of the second round in both tournaments, she was first in the men's pool and second in the women's; at the end of the Sweet Sixteen, she was first in both; and at the end of the Elite Eight, she was once again first in the men's and second in the women's. On the men's side, she finished with 334 points out of a possible 477, tying her for the second-highest point total in men's pool history. (Claudio Gualtieri also scored 334 points when he finished second in the 1996 men's pool. Lou Ruggiero scored 354 in winning the 1996 pool.) Hauschulz, who would have won with 353 points if Arizona had been victorious Monday, dropped to third place as Boston College sophomore Beth Milewski, who picked Duke, leapfrogged into second place with 330 points, four behind Castelhano. Hauschulz was third with 328, followed by USC junior David Kirschner with 322 points and Boston University freshman Anna Najdzion with 320. Todd Stiglilano, the women's pool winner, finished tenth with 283 points. Women's runner-up Mike Wiser was twelfth with 266. And Brian Newbold, who last week jokingly demanded a prize for being in last place, indeed finished at very bottom with 208 points. "IMPORTANT UPDATE: Villanova sophomore Brian Newbold is STILL in dead last place. What a sucker," Newbold wrote in an e-mail Saturday. Castelhano knew nothing of such struggles in either of her pool runs. Her only disappointment was falling just 20 minutes short of winning the women's pool when Notre Dame mounted a furious second-half comeback to defeat her national champion pick, her own school's Huskies, in the Final Four. In the men's pool, Castelhano suffered an apparent setback during the Final Four as she fell back into second place when Hauschulz picked both of the finalists, when she had only picked one. (Castelhano's choice for runner-up, North Carolina, was eliminated in the second round.) But Duke's win in the title game, which is worth more points than any other game, allowed her to make up that lost ground. In the game, Duke trailed early by as much as 11-6, and Arizona stayed close throughout the first half even after losing what would prove to be its final lead with 9:33 to play in the half. The Blue Devils took the lead for good on a Jason Williams jumpshot with seven seconds to go in the half, and held a two-point edge at halftime. They then jumped repeatedly took double-digit leads, only to see the Wilcats rally to within two or three points. But Duke never fell behind in the second half, and the third-time champs pulled away in the waning minutes to earn the ten-point victory. It is ironic that Castelhano, as a UConn student, would clinch victory with a Duke win. The Devils had long been considered the tournament nemesis of the UConn men's basketball team, until the Huskies finally beat Duke when it mattered in the 1999 national championship game. For Duke's older players, Monday's win was redemption for that loss, which ended a year in which Duke had been considered possibly one of the most talented teams of all time. For Hauschulz, Monday's result was less irony and more agony -- the agony of defeat, that is. The 2001 men's pool is Hauschulz's ninth consecutive Living Room Times pool loss, which ties him with Maryland sophomore Josh Rubin for the most appearances without a win in Times history. But the story of this year's pool, of course, was Castelhano, who went 45-18 overall in predicting tournament games. She was 23-9 in the wild first round, then excelled in the second round at 12-4 and went 6-2 in the third round. She picked just two of the Final Four teams and just one of the two finalists -- as opposed to Hauschulz, who got them all -- but she had enough steam from her earlier successes to eke out the victory when Duke won the final. Milewski, who was a contender to win the pool until Arizona beat Michigan State on Saturday, was 44-19 overall. She was 24-8 in the first round, a notch better than Castelhano, but went just 10-6 in the second round and 5-3 in the third round. She picked three of the Final Four teams, but only one finalist, Duke, and of course the champion. Hauschulz, in third, was just 43-20, but he his victories were more concentrated later in the tournament, thus keeping him close. Like Castelhano, he was 23-9 in the first round, but he barely broke .500 in the second round at 9-7 and in the third round at 5-3. He excelled from that point on, however, picking all of the Final Four teams and both finalists. He is believed to be the only contestant in Times men's pool history ever to do that. But, of course, he was wrong on his pick for champion, which ultimately cost him the pool and the championship t-shirt which Castelhano will received from Pick65, the website hosting this year's pool. Although Hauschulz didn't predict it, Duke's championship win was hardly a shocker. Six of the 19 pool contestants -- Castelhano, Milewski, USC sophomore Yvonne Ngai, Bentley sophomore Brenden Roche, Fordham sophomore Milan Cisar and Northeastern sophomore Ryan McBride -- had picked the Devils to win it all. Six other contestants thought they would lose in the final, and three more thought the Devils would make the Final Four but lose in the national semifinals. Only four thought they would miss the Final Four altogether. Arizona was also picked as champion by six contestants. Two thought the Wildcats would lose in the title game, as they in fact did, and four thought they would lose in the Final Four. Although her dual men's and women's performance was staggering, Castelhano's men's pool win was not exactly a dominating one in its own right. Her margin of victory, four points over Milewski, was the third-slimmest ever, and the ratio of her point total to the pool's average point total indicated that her victory was somewhere around ninth out of ten on the all-time "dominance" scale. But it was a victory nonetheless, and a dramatic one at that. This was the third consecutive year that the men's pool championship was decided in the championship game, and Arizona's refusal to go away quietly made the pool's outcome as suspenseful as that of the NCAA season. As a whole, the tournament proved relatively easy to predict -- or the contestants just did a very good job of predicting -- judging by the scoring totals as compared to previous years. The average score, 280.8 out of a possible 477, was the fourth-highest in pool history, and the second-highest in men's pool history, trailing only the 1996 average of 305 points. That is despite the fact that the first round was the most upset-prone in history, with 13 lower-seeded teams advancing, including teams like #15-seed Hampton, #13-seeds Indiana State and Kent State and perennial Cinderella Gonzaga. Even the Sweet Sixteen featured three double-digit seeds. But apower-packed Final Four -- with two #1-seeds, a highly-regarded #2-seed and a very well-respected #3-seed -- made up for many of the first-round point losses.