Wild, Wild South

The award for highest seeded wild card goes to the 14 people who chose UCLA, the 4-seed in the South. The runners-up in the same competition were the six people who chose VCU, the 5-seed in the South.

See the trend here? Three of our top six most popular wild cards came from the South Region, along with two other selected wild cards, meaning that one or more persons chose the #4, #5, #7, #9, and #12 Southern seeds as their wild card. And that's pretty impressive, considering that the #1, #2, #3, and #6 seeds in the South were in the forbidden AP Top 25, so nobody could take those teams...

Whoa there, Cowboy, not so fast. We couldn't help noticing that one nefarious entrant attempted to illegally select the 1-seed in the South, Florida, as his wild card, despite the Gators' position as #3 in the AP Top 25 in question. It is our understanding that this particular individual prefers to remain anonymous, and we respect that. Though of course we don't respect it enough not to shout his name out to anybody who'll listen. Thus it is that we hereby out Watson as the scofflaw in question, the wild card criminal who selected an illegal, immoral, and otherwise no-chance-we're-counting-it wild card.

We're not sure which bothers us more, the idea that Watson thought he could sneak an illegal wild card past us or the fact that he took the 3rd ranked team in the country and was not the contestant who chose the most highly ranked wild card. No, that honor goes to A Cristinzio, who tried to slip Arizona by us, #2 in the AP Top 25 at the time the pool was posted.

Not to be outdone by his kin, T Cristinzio also chose an illegal wild card, going with #15 Michigan. Rounding out the Commissioner's Most Wanted list were Crotts, who took #10 Cincinnati, and Parisi who selected #9 Michigan State.

Within the bounds of the law, if not common sense, were four entrants who chose wild cards who didn't even get invited to the NCAA tournament. And while these four probably also wish to remain anonymous, we all know the odds of that are approximately the same as the odds of any of these folks getting any wild card points, right? So, say hello to M Wanger (Florida Gulf Coast), Steitz (Indiana), L Schlegel (St. John's), and Babenzien (Green Bay). For all the good it did them, they might as well have chosen Florida.

Our most popular wild card was North Carolina, the 6-seed in the East. And, for full disclosure's sake, there were seven people who chose Oklahoma, the 5-seed in the West, and thus tied for 2nd place in the wholly fictional competition referred to in the first paragraph of this post.

The full list of legal wild card choices follows here:

North Carolina (taken by 33), E6
New Mexico (15), S7
UCLA (14), S4
Oklahoma (7: Colleran, Hahn, Isdaner, T Joseph 1, T Joseph 2, Serri, G Wright), W5
Oklahoma State (7: Gorenstein, Hammer, D Kedson, L Leach, Lenok, Millan, Rybaltowski), W9
VCU (6: Blane, Case, Corey, Lenok2, M Pogach, Templeton), S5
Gonzaga (2: M Kleiman, J Whiteside), W8
Massachusetts (2: Baumgarten, Steinhardt), M6
Delaware (B Wright), E13
Baylor (M Josephs), W6
Harvard (Urban Angels), E12
Kansas State (Sanders), M9
Pittsburgh (Crotty), S9
St. Joseph's (McKillip), E10
Stephen F. Austin (George B), S12
Mercer (Sciarabba), M14
Florida Gulf Coast (M Wanger), oops
Indiana (Steitz), oops again
St. John's (L Schlegel, oopsies
Green Bay (Babenzien), oopsarama

More fun tomorrow. See ya.