Even though it has already half over, does anyone else feel like March is just beginning? Besides the Shamrock Shakes, what else is there to March? This afternoon I was taking a look at teams trying to decide which bubble teams I would put into the tournament. After removing the 28 automatic bids and the 28 locks, I was left with 9 teams. I chose: Akron, Texas A&M, VCU, Kansas St, Villanova, Arkansas, Arizona St, Ohio State, and random lower conference team. I was only half right (plus Southern Alabama ended up taking that 9th spot). I do not understand how Arizona gets the bid over Arizona St; they had one more conference loss and two more overall losses. Arizona St won both head-to-head matchups, destroyed Xavier, and split their matchup with Stanford (which Arizona failed to do). They have slightly more to complain about than Ohio State, who played the toughest schedule this year. They should have made it over Kentucky.
Let's move past that and look at the brackets. The most appealing first round matchup without a doubt is Kansas St/USC, which could feature the top 2 draft picks of this year. The Miami Heat already have their flight booked for the game that is, of course, on Friday at 7pm.
Most likely...
1-16 upset: Kansas/Portland St... ha!
2-15 upset: Texas/Austin Peay
3-14 upset: Stanford/Cornell
4-13 upset: Washington St/Winthrop (sorry for picking on all of the Pac 10 schools)
5-12 upset: Clemson/Villanova
6-11 upset: Oklahoma/St Joe's
7-10 upset: Gonzaga/Davidson
8-9 upset??: Arkansas/Indiana - they've lost everything
Biggest tournament slight - Conference: Big 10 - Wisconsin, Indiana, and Purdue were all seeded one spot lower than they should have been and OSU was left out. We were slotted one spot too high.
Biggest tournament slight - Team: Butler - How do they go 29-3, finish as the #10 team in the country and wind up with a #7 seed?
Best...
1st Round Game: Gonzaga/Davidson or Notre Dame/George Mason - I think they'll both be close and pretty exciting at the end.
Possible 2nd Round Game: Butler/Tennessee or MSU/Pitt
Possible 3rd Round Game: Wisconsin/Georgetown
Possible 4th Round Game: UNC/Tennesee
Favorite Sleeper: Georgia - you've gotta love the SEC Tournament story plus Xavier/Purdue/Baylor aren't the strongest first 2 round opponents.
1 comment:
Judging from your "most likely" list, I think our brackets might be a little different this year...well, at least leading up the final four.
Totally agree with biggest conference/team slights. The Butler one boggles my mind.
That Georgia tank has to be running on E. Buh-bye.
The only reasoning I can consider is that Kentucky and Arizona made it because of name recognition alone. They're going to get ratings...which is a bullshit reason. The only case I've heard against ASU is their RPI compared to AU's, and we all know that the RPI is a bullshit measuring tool to begin with. Kentucky on the other hand was 12-4 in a weak SEC (you can't deny that- and got bounced in their tourny by fucking Georgia) this year, and did terribly during their non-conference schedule.
But whatever, I'll just have them go out in the first round.
Post a Comment