So Wild

We spoke about Wild Card selections that were so wild they were downright illegal, but we'll gladly mention those again: the Wild Card picks of Frame (Duke), Day (Ohio State), and M Wanger (Marquette) have been invalidated.

What about the other 96 contestants? Well, by far the most popular Wild Card in this year's contest is St. Louis, chosen by 27 entrants and graced with a #4 seed. #5 seeds UNLV (13 votes) and VCU (9 votes) were the 2nd and 4th most popular selections, respectively, and #11 seed Minnesota (11 votes) was exactly in the middle.

Six contestants' selections were so wild the committee didn't even invite the selected team to play in the NCAA tournament: Four people chose Virginia (Hahn, Leace, McKillip, Warner) and one each took Weber State (B Wright) and Loyola-Maryland (Kaelin). B Peloso is the only entrant whose Wild Card was selected but lost before the bracket pools are due, having chosen Tuesday night loser Middle Tennessee. Interestingly enough, B Peloso's wife, M Peloso, has St. Mary's -- the team that eliminated MTSU -- as her Wild Card. That must have been some living room in the Peloso household yesterday evening.

No other Wild Card got support from more than five contestants. Here's the list:

#6 UCLA: 5 (D'Zuro, Steitz, D Kedson, Kovolski, Selig)
#8 North Carolina State: 5 (Fitch, M Kline, Selarnick, R Simon, R Wanger)
#8 UNC: 4 (Su Leach, Martin, Pogach, Smith)
#10 Cincinnati: 3 (Cristinzio, R Kornfeld, Sanders)
#11 St. Mary's: 3 (D Kornfeld, J McAtee, M Peloso)
#9 Missouri: 2 (Brindisi, Rybaltowski)
#10 Iowa State: 2 (B Brenner, Grossman)
#7 Creighton: 1 (Watson)
#7 Illinois: 1 (Moscow)
#9 Wichita State: 1 (Sciarabba)
#10 Oklahoma: 1 (Sa Leach)
#11 Belmont: 1 (Rubinson)

So have a wild evening. The real games begin tomorrow at high noon.