Saturday, March 23, 2019

Give me Liberty! (said nobody in our contest)

Yeah, we were going to talk about all the savvy contestants who had the guts and foresight to take Liberty as their wild card, except no such people existed. So we'll have to talk about failure instead.

Those who chose our two most popular wild cards appeared in good shape when Mississippi State (taken by 11) got a 5-seed and Cincinnati (also selected by 11) got a 7-seed. Well, after 30 years you probably know the drill: both teams lost their first-round game, thus bestowing exactly zero (0) wild card points on those who chose them. VCU (picked by 3: Atkinson, M Josephs, Templeton), Syracuse (2: E Pogach, Rubinson), and Utah State (1: Warner) also dropped their first-round contests, bringing the total of entrants who got nothing and liked it to 34 (including our two entrants who chose illegal wild cards (J Broder and R Simon), our three entrants who picked non-dancing wild cards (Doug Dye, M Kleiman, Kirchoff) and the one unfortunate who picked a wild card who lost in the play-in round (Avila).

Of course this leaves 24 cagey contestants who've received at least one wild card point: the nine (9) who chose Wofford, the seven (7) who took Auburn, the five (5) who went with Washington, as well as Steinhardt (Murray State), L Leaach (UCF), and Sup Leach (Oklahoma).

All four #1s, #2s, and #3s won, plus three of the four #4s. But that didn't keep Booth (Wisconsin) or Rybaltowski (Nevada) from sacrificing a Final Four team after the first round. A total of 25 Elite Eight picks are also down the proverbial tubes after just one game, thanks to: Marquette (9: Baum, Biebel 2, M Josephs, J McAtee, E Pogach, Rubinson, Rybaltowski, Steinhardt, Templeton 2); Nevada (7: Doug Dye, M Kleiman, L Leach, Marshall, Paston, Rybaltowski, Serri); Wisconsin (2: Booth, L Leach); Kansas State (2: Marshall, Sciarabba); Iowa State (2: Atkinson, Sup Leach); Cincinnati (J McAtee); and VCU (Templeton 2). Special mention goes to K Ripley, who took uninvited NC State into her Elite Eight.

More games today. Seeya.

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