Let's Dance!

It's tourney time, baby!  March madness is upon us, and I'm pumped.  I've finally finished filling out my bracket, and as usual, I have zero confidence in it.  The only college basketball I watch before the tournament is game highlights on Sportscenter, so this is not my forte.  But doing the brackets is so damn fun, I have to keep coming back year after year.  Let me first show you my bracket, then I'll do a little explaining about my picks.

Surprise, surprise, I picked Kentucky.  I'm sure I'm the only person in America who did that.  Listen, they're really freakin' good.  There is, however, a very small part of me that thinks they'll lose in this tournament.  But as I was filling the bracket out, I just couldn't write another team's name instead of theirs.  So as far as Kentucky goes, I won't be surprised if they win or lose.  Well, if they lose in the first 2 rounds I'll be surprised.  But that's it. 

For the most part I went chalk.  Every year I try to predict all of the upsets, and just end up getting upset myself because I got them wrong.  So this year, I limited myself to only a few, especially in the 1st round.  I took Buffalo over West Virginia, Texas over Butler, and Ohio State over VCU (though that doesn't feel like much of an upset).  Buffalo apparently plays at a pretty high tempo, which could cause problems for the Mountaineers, and according to several experts, Texas is more talented than Butler.  Ohio State isn't as good as they've been in previous years, but D'Angelo Russell is fantastic, so that's enough for one win. 

There are two trendy upsets that I chose not to roll with: Eastern Washington over Georgetown, and SF Austin over Utah.  Actually, there are three, but I'll get to the third in a second.  Georgetown doesn't have a good track record for getting out of the 1st round as of late, but I think that's exactly why they will this time.  And so many people are picking SF Austin, that I think I'm in the minority by picking Utah, and that's fine with me.  In fact, several "experts", from a site that will go unnamed, had Austin going several rounds.  I've been down that road before with the likes of Belmont and a few others, only to see them get knocked out in the 1st round.  Lesson learned.  Go Utes.

 The third "upset special" that I was referring to was BYU beating Xavier, and possibly advancing several more rounds.  I actually laughed this morning when I saw that they didn't even win their "play-in" game against Ole' Miss.  Now it is possible that the Rebels could take down Xavier, but anybody that submitted brackets with BYU going far has got to be pulling their hair out. 

 In the second round, I have Wichita State beating Kansas, and Providence beating Oklahoma.  Oklahoma was just a gut call, but Kansas was a no-brainer to me.  They're always supposed to be great and end up getting ousted fairly early.  And this time around, they're playing a really good team in Wichita State.  The Shockers went into last year's tourney undefeated and barely lost to eventual runner-up Kentucky.  Apparently they're still really good, and that's reason enough for me to have them beating the Jayhawks. 

Quite a few people have Michigan State making a deep run, and I can't blame them.  Tom Izzo's squads always show up in the tournament, which really hurts me as a Michigan fan.  But I think this is the year where they exit on the early side (2nd round).  And all I'm hearing is how good Gonzaga is, and this is their year.  Really?  Every year is their year, until it's not.  I'm not buying into the Zags anymore.  I don't care how good their offense is, they're not making to the Final 4 on any of my brackets.  Hell, they're not even making it to the Elite 8. 

Except for Arizona (2), my Final 4 consists of all 1 seeds.  I'm starting to learn that going chalk is sometimes the best strategy for a person like me who doesn't know a whole lot about college hoops.  I mean, hey, they were seeded like that for a reason, right? 

As annoying as it is to keep putting X's on my sheet, I still love the NCAA Tournament.  It has so many upsets, close games and buzzer beaters that you can't help but be excited with almost every game.  So fill out those brackets and enjoy some good basketball.  I'll be writing again soon to talk about some of the early round action.