Most Popular Picks By Seed:
1. Villanova with 13 picks. No real surprise here. Villanova is the defending National Champion, have been a top 3 team all year, and the Big East has been ravaged by injuries. They seem like a safe use of your number 1 seed.
2. Cincinnati with 14 picks. Again, no real surprise. The AAC has been a two headed monster with SMU and Cincy going a combined 33-3 in conference. Cincy and SMU split their head to head match-ups, but Cincy dropped a game at Central Florida to drop them to the 2 seed. SMU, despite dominating, attracted just 5 picks. UConn also attracted 5 picks as people look for them to make their typical miracle run through March.
3. UCLA with 19 picks. A runaway leader on the 3 line. UCLA has been a hype team all year. They have an amazing offense, and lately their defense has been OK...a major step up from early in the year. Cal attracted 5 picks as the 5 seed. Not a single person had any faith in Oregon as the 1 seed.
4. Rhode Island with 15 picks. I am basically convinced no one knew what the hell to do in the A-10, and just were left with Rhode Island. I don't think most people made this choice willingly. It's like when your kid is losing their damn mind about going to McDonald's so you suck it up for the night and have a Big Mac for dinner. You didn't want to. But, sometimes your hand is forced.
5. Duke....with....7 picks. The 5 seed was a complete mess. It's hard to have real faith in any of these teams. Duke held a very narrow edge of Michigan State (6 picks) and Cal (5 picks). Duke likely would've been more popular if EVERYONE didn't want to use Virginia as their 6...which brings us to...
6. Virginia with 23 picks. The most popular pick in the pool. There were actually 39 picks on 6 seeds, because a few people just didn't find any 5 that appetizing apparently. The ACC was basically all Duke and Virginia. Fellow ACC teams Virginia Tech, Louisville, FSU, North Carolina, and Notre Dame each were only picked ONCE.
7. Vanderbilt with 14 picks. The second most popular 7 was Xavier, selected 10 times. Vandy was the tepid pick in the SEC with UK the second most popular at 8 picks.
8. Michigan with 17 picks. Apparently, a lot of our participants don't mind that their plane went careening off the runway last night and they had to leave at 6 am this morning to play a noon game...that's how little everyone thinks of the Big 10. They think an 8 seed is still their best option even after the universe saw fit to crash their plane the day before the start of the tournament. Good job Big 10.
The most wide open conference based on our picks is clearly the Big 12. Baylor and Kansas each attracted 7 picks, to make them the most popular choices. After that, Texas Tech and Iowa State each had 5 selections and Oklahoma State and West Virginia were each picked 4 times. That basically makes the Big 12 the most important conference in this thing.
Good luck everybody!
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