IMPORTANT NOTE: As of January 2015 MGWCC is a subscribers-only crossword. The cost is $26 per year, and you can subscribe (or get a free trial month first) here:

http://www.mgwcc.com/

LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

We were looking for a fruit last week, and our six (downward, for which there must be a reason) theme entries were, from left to right:

3-D [It’s usually 15×15, as it is today (go ahead and count!)] = MGWCC GRID. So meta. And why did he tell us to “go ahead and count”?

33-D [Job interview papers] = UPDATED CV. Marginally a lexical chunk, as Joon noted at Fiend.

6-D [Connecticut-born gunsmith] = SAMUEL COLT

31-D [The River Walk is there] = SAN ANTONIO. I’ve walked it, it’s nice.

10-D [Turning the car around to head whence you came] = GOING BACK

35-D [Woody Allen movie of 1987] = SEPTEMBER

First insight: each of these entries suggests a number. The more obvious ones would be the Colt 45, CV being the Roman numeral for 105, and “going back” being a 180 (especially as described in that clue). And if you went ahead and counted the squares in a MGWCC grid as I suggested, you’d get to 225.

Second insight: Each of these numbers is evenly divisible by 15. This might have helped you puzzle out that SAN ANTONIO wants its area code, which is 210, while SEPTEMBER wants not its place among the months (nine), but rather its number of days, which is 30.

Now what? Third and final insight: if you numbered the letters in a 15×15 grid going across and down, then each of these six numbers would appear in the 15th column of the grid. So, in left-to-right order of theme entries, take the rightmost-column letter corresponding the each theme entries number. So the MGWCC grid has 225 squares, which would be the bottom-right square in the grid. That’s a Q. Next we have the 105 from UPDATED CV, and square #105 in this grid would be the U in STU/UPAT.

Keep going and you spell out contest answer QUINCE, a fruit which also happens to be the Spanish word for this puzzle’s key number, fifteen. 164 solvers got it; with one more we could’ve had a more fitting total!

There were some funny notes from solvers but I’m randomly xed out of my verification page at the moment so I can’t see ’em! Will try to get them up this weekend if that page feels like working again.

This week’s winner, whose name was chosen at random from among the 164 correct entries received, is L.N. In addition to a MGWCC pen, pencil, and notepad set, L.N. will also receive a 1-year subscription to Matt Gaffney’s Daily Crossword.

MONTHLY WINNERS:

Here are our 10 monthly winners for February, chosen randomly from among the 136 solvers who submitted the correct contest answers to all four of last month’s challenges (INFLUENZA, HARRY S TRUMAN, SASHA OBAMA, QUINCE):

John L. Wilson — Shoreview, Minn.

Congratulations to our 10 winners, and to everyone who went 4-for-4 in February.

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s contest answer is a famous NBA player of the past or present.

Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.