Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Wild, Wild, Wildcards

Every year, at least one person attempts to pull a fast one by us, and this year was no exception. Only thing different is it was just a single scofflaw this year, as only Templeton had the unmitigated gall to pick an illegal wild card, in his case, Butler (#18 in the AP poll accompanying the entry form).

That said, it's almost as bad to pick a wild card that wasn't even invited to play, as eight (8) contestants decided to try:

Murray State (3: J Whiteside, Serri, Steinhardt);
Temple (2: Joe Mc, J Broder);
Iona (M Kleiman);
Pitt (R Simon);
Colorado State (Sciarabba).

Our top Wildcard was Michigan State, with 17 votes. San Diego State (an 8-seed) and Georgetown (the highest seeded wildcard, with a 4-seed) each got 13 votes. After that, not including the five uninvited teams above, it was a mish-mosh:

Providence (chosen by 6: D Kornfeld, C Whiteside, N Donadio, K Sullivan, Kovalski, Mash Leach);
NC State (5: Hahn, E Pogach, G Warner, S Smith, Fitch);
Dayton (3: T Joseph, T Joseph 2, Millan);
LSU (3: Gorenstein, Rubinson, Rybaltowski);
Xavier (2: S Leach, Geo B);
Iowa (2: Marshall, Burch);
Georgia (2: L Leach, B Whiteside);
Mississippi (T Cristinzio);
Oregon (Haklar);
Harvard (A Cristinzio);
Davidson (L Schlegel);

Overall, six (6) wildcards come from the East Region, four (4) come from the South, four (4) from the West, and none (none) from the Midwest Region.

Finally, though having absolutely nothing to do with wildcards, let's take a quick, last look at our contestants' conference champion prowess. Out of 79 entrants, a whopping 12 got more than half the conference champions correct:

E Leach, Dale Dye: 20
Doug Dye: 19
L Schlegel, Geo B, Haklar: 18
Crotty, D'Zuro, J Donadio, Sr., Blaine, Biebel, O'Brien: 17

The other 67 contestants shot 50% or worse on conference champs. Good thing the "No Child Left Behind" law doesn't apply to us, eh?

1 comment:

George Templeton said...

Nooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! First time I've done that! Damn!