To know a bracket

It's that time again, time for me to completely crap the bed on my bracket projections. And although I already got Niagra right, I am fully aware that there are 32 games for me to get wrong over the next 48 hrs.

Last year my final 4 was LSU (check) UCLA (check) OSU(nope) and UConn (maybe, I dont remember, but it was certainly not George Mason)

I had UCLA winning it all.


Without further ado, away we go:

First Round Winners:


Midwest:

Florida
Arizona
ODU
Davidson
Notre Dame
Oregon
UNLV
Wisconsin

Great, I take Winthrop to win every year, just missed the last two, and now they are prime for the upset and they play a team that I think is crazy underrated in Notre Dame. Hey, at least the Eagles will probably get it done this year. And, oh yeah, Maryland and Butler suck.

West:

Kansas
Villanova
Virginia Tech
SIU
Duke
Pitt
Indiana
UCLA

Going chalk here except for Villanova, and kinda except for Duke since everyone is picking VCU. Pitt might have issues with Wright State if they aren't careful. Indiana should have a walk if they actually realize that DJ White is around


EAST:

UNC
MSU
USC
Texas
Vandy
Wash St
BC
Georgetown

Thanks to John Glassaway and tempo free statistics in aiding me on the BC pick. Go ahead, pick Knight and the Red Raiders. BC is hella efficient this season and they'll get the win. Also, Vandy sucks...but so does GW. GW should be a 13 seed, tops. Man, if only Winthrop could have drawn Vandy


SOUTH:

OSU
BYU
Tennessee
Virginia
Stanford
Texas A&M
Creighton
Memphis


Wow, I really didnt take a lot of first round upsets this year- that means they will be abundant. Xavier really stinks, I like BYU to own them, but not as bad as Creighton will own Nevada. Also, Albany has no business being a 13 seed, especially when matched against another team I would have normally picked against, in Virginia



2nd ROUND

Midwest:

Florida
ODU
Notre Dame
Wisconsin

Yeah, Oregon is going down, they had their peak last week in LA. Florida escapes a tough one against Arizona to get a cake walk against ODU

WEST:

Kansas
SIU
Pitt
UCLA

All four teams are just simply better than their opponents


EAST:

UNC
Texas
Wash State
Georgetown

Some interesting matchups here- Gtwon/BC could be a classic as both teams maximize their posessions, UNC and MSU could be a backyard brawl, and is Wash St/Vandy first to 35 might win


SOUTH:

OSU
Tennessee
Texas A&M
Creighton

Creighton nips Memphis to be this year's Wichita State and get all of the ink with ODU in what will be a rather uneventful first weekend, which is fine, since I think the next weekend will be freaking amazing.


SWEET 16:

Florida
Wisconsin

Kansas
UCLA

Texas
Wash State

OSU
Texas A&M

Look at all the great teams, coaches, programs, players still left.

Durant, Oden, Horford, Tucker, Law, Aflalo, Noah just to name some of the players. Wash State ruins a lot of brackets with their victory over Georgetown. If you were to ask John Thompson III which team in the lower half of the bracket he wants nothing to do with its Wash State. Heck, he might not want anything to do with them in any bracket. Badgers play a solid game to beat a solid Irish squad. OSU and Tennessee have another thriller and Ben Howland takes out his old team.


And your final 4:

Florida
UCLA
Texas
Texas A&M

Florida beats Wisconsin in a game reminiscent of UNC/Wisc in 04, UCLA uses the home court to get back to the final 4. Durant remains the man as Tony Bennett has no answer. Oden and Co. lose out to the law in Texas.

UCLA over Florida as the Bruins get revenge

A&M over Texas again as player of the year Acie Law IV make people forget about spring football in a win over Frosh of the year Kevin Durant


And your 2007 National Champion who will for the second straight year be susceptible to the TR curse: U...C...LLLLLLLL-A!

Go Pac 10!


P.S. MLR takes Florida, UCLA, UNC, OSU with UNC over Florida to win it all.

Spring Break for Football

Lance Smith is apparently getting the bulk of the backfield carrries with PJ Hill out with a shoulder injury. Hill's recovery, along with the arrival of John Clay should make for a talented and competitive committee come Sept. My hope is that Clay gets his share of carries. I'm not sold on Smith yet, although I believe he has more talent than Hill, but PJ proved he could move the chains when it counted last season.

Tyler Donovan is taking snaps with the 1st team, Evridge the 2nd as expected. I wouldn't dismiss the possibility of a platoon.

I forgot about the return of Chris Pressley, and expect Hodge to be an upgrade at Mike.

Tickets

If anyone needs tickets to friday's game let me know. I have 3 extra session 1 tickets. I'm asking face value of $79 ticket. They are in section 303, row 5.

Badgers National champs

Well, after looking at the bracket I really don't see the badgers losing before the final four. I have them playing Georgia Tech, Winthrop and Maryland. Easy road to the final 4. Final 4 match up against UCLA. Heck, I have them going this far I might as well take them to the championship game against OSU. This time we embarrass them with a Taylor last second basket. Badgers win title 65-64.

Broken Brackets

Unfortunately I think there is a 97% possibility that Wisconsin will be a #2 seed even if they beat the Buckeyes for the championship today, although I hope I am wrong.

Quick shout-out to Jim Delaney: thanks for taking the big pile of cash from CBS to render your tournament championship game irrelevant most years (except for those times when a team needs to win to get in the tourney). To me it is a shortsighted decision because success in the NCAA tournament is worth more in exposure than the television revenues from a conference championship game. And success in NCAA tournament is certainly boosted by your conference teams receiving higher seedings. And your teams can't get higher seeds if the last game that two of your teams played isn't considered by the committee.

I also want to give a shout-out to the conference committee. If you do take the easy road and don't consider every game (and that includes the result from the Big Ten Championship), that is very cowardly. You guys have been sitting in a hotel room since Wednesday and you are telling me that you can't do two brackets: one if OSU wins and one if Wisconsin wins. CBS has paid $6 BILLION for the rights to broadcast the NCAA tournament 1999 through 2013 ($400 MILLION per year). Spend a little more money on assistants and computers and stop complaining about time constraints.

Now let's focus on the probable top 4 seeds in each region. Joe Lunardi has released his latest brackets and if Wisconsin is a #2 seed, I would be alright with this bracket. Here are how the regions would break out:

East
1. UNC
2. Georgetown
3. Texas A&M
4. Wazzu

South
1. Kansas
2. Florida
3. Oregon
4. Notre Dame

Midwest
1. OSU
2. Memphis
3. Pitt
4. Texas

West
1. UCLA
2. Wisconsin
3. Southern IL
4. UNLV

I really like how Wisconsin would match-up against Southern Illinois in a potential Sweet 16 game and UCLA in a Regional Final. Southern Illinois is a great defensive team, but can struggle on offense. In addition, they don't have alot of height upfront. Their two best players are their PG Tatum and PF Faulkner. Flowers can cover Tatum and the Badgers could rotate big guys on Faulkner.

UCLA is very small and they would be the smallest team to win the title. UCLA's best big guy is Lorenzo Matta and that is by default. Matta only averages 22 minutes a game and shoots very poorly from the line. UCLA struggled playing teams with height, losing to Washington and California in their last two games.

If the Badgers do get a #2 seed, they need to be paired with UCLA. I don't want to see Kansas, Florida or North Carolina before the Final Four.

Shoot to thrill

If you guys aren't checking out deadspin, you need to start- unless you don't want to get fired since you'll start spending hours of your day at work reading deadspin once you get hooked.

Anyways, they had a post today on the West Virginia mascot with a shout out to the Badgers

Check it out

http://deadspin.com/sports/west-virginia-mountaineers/you-know-whod-make-a-great-terrorist--this-guy-243239.php