Busted

So much for my bracket predictions, huh? On Friday, I made mention that my bracket suffered a few minor losses on the 1st day of the tournament, but it was in good shape overall. Most people probably felt similarly regarding their own brackets, as Thursday didn’t exactly produce a plethora of bracket-busting upsets. Friday was a different story though. I made it home just in time to see my pick to win it all, Missouri, fall to little known Norfolk St. Later that same day, Duke lost to Lehigh, meaning that only 6 number 2 sides had ever lost to a number 15, but that a third of those games happened on March 16, 2012. Friday was a veritable field day for double digit seeds though, as 13 seed Ohio won as well, knocking off Michigan. This actually seemed somewhat karmic though, as Michigan coach John Beilein deliberately refers to his conference rivals as “Ohio” instead of their actual school name.

Still, while my bracket is a mess from top to bottom, nothing stings quite like your predicted champ going down before you even get to the tourney’s 1st Saturday. I knew the risks of picking a team like Missouri going in. Their guard play and in-sync-ness was as good as any team in the country, but any team that plays a 4 guard lineup is obviously going to be susceptible on the glass and to hot shooting. A big, athletic, physical team that hounds you defensively can usually offset that. Even a hot shooting team will struggle when they can’t even get off good shots in the 1st place. Missouri’s lineup offered no such resistance. Norfolk St. shot the lots out (especially in the 2nd half), and there was nothing the Tigers could do to stop it. The Spartans banked in 3’s from the elbow. Their center was just seemingly throwing the ball at the basket like a toddler on 1 of those toy mini-hoops (without any arc or rotation on the ball at all), and everything seemed to drop. Even Norfolk St.’s winning basket, an offensive rebound tip-in/putt-back while getting fouled on an ugly airball, was about as lucky as you could get…all of which is the recipe for an upset. The Tigers may have played a little bit tightly at times in the 2nd half and hoisted up some bad shots of their own, but it’s hard to knock the offensive gameplan of a team that scores 84 points in regulation.

Wipe that smile off your face, Norfolk St.

In the round of 64, I actually picked well enough on the other games to tie for 3rd or 4th in a pool with 50-some bracket entries, but I knew that wouldn’t last. Sitting here on Monday, I am towards the bottom of my pool standings. Other things I missed on…I said that I didn’t see a deep run by any weaker seeds this year, but Xavier (ranked in the preseason), North Carolina St. (as hot as any team in the country right now), and even Ohio (the playing status of UNC point guard Kendall Marshall is currently unknown) all have matchups that could allow them to advance even further in the tournament. I saw the Big 10 being a big bust (aside from Michigan St.), but 4 of those 6 teams still remain. I also said Baylor, Indiana, and Ohio St. wouldn’t survive the 1st weekend, and I’m pretty sure all 3 are in this year’s Sweet 16. All in all, not a good year of bracket-picking by myself…at least maybe I can root for the Cinderella that upset my championship pick. Oh wait…Norfolk St. lost to Florida in their next game by 34. Where’s the justice in that?!? I guess like the bad state-name pun goes, Missouri loves company…better luck next year.