NCAA Tournament Preview: Here We Go

I usually get pretty hyped filling out my NCAA bracket, but this year I just don’t feel great about it. Maybe it has to do with a somewhat odd college basketball season. Every team, even the really good ones, seems flawed in some way, shape, or form. There is no dream matchup that everyone really wants to see like Ohio St.-Florida from a few years back or Arizona-Duke from even further back than that. Consequently, I went through my bracket without much conviction on any of my picks. Before the brackets came out, I did have my eye on a few teams regardless of seeding including Michigan St., Missouri, Marquette, and Louisville…and of course those teams all ended up in the same region. Thanks a lot, NCAA selection committee.

I didn’t pick many upsets, which made for a pretty boring looking bracket to be honest. I can see the possibility of quite a few early round surprises, but I see mostly chalk as we get to the later rounds. Part of the fun of a VCU or George Mason breaking through is that no one sees it coming, so it’s unlikely that I would correctly predict a Cinderella story like that anyway, but I really don’t see a deep run by a weaker seeded team this year. There just seems to be such a gap between the best 5 or 10 teams in the country and everybody else. What other things do I see in my crystal ball? I see the Big 10 flopping like usual (except Michigan St., like usual). I see teams like Indiana, Baylor, and Ohio St. failing to advance past the 1st weekend. And I see 3 number 1’s making it to the Final 4. My Elite 8 is equally boring with all 4 top seeds, 3 number 2’s, and a 3. This wasn’t so much based on my confidence in the top teams as my lack of confidence in the rest of the field (kind of keeping in the theme of what I said before). Even the news that Syracuse will be without the services of Fab Melo only caused me to take them out 1 round earlier than before (losing in the Final 4 instead of the final game).

Could we see a similar scene in NO?

Lastly, I see Missouri cutting down the nets in New Orleans. This is probably somewhat of a risky choice, as the Tigers style of play lends itself susceptible to a team with the right gameplan and personnel (and some cold shooting on their own part). This Mizzou team plays such a quirky, unorthodox style (their small-ball lineup resembles some of the Villanova teams that made deep tourney runs several years ago) that most teams probably won’t know how to handle them though. Couple that with the fact that they play together as well as any team in the control, and they should be difficult for most teams to handle. Anyway, tipoff of the real 1st round is in about half an hour, so it’s time to wrap this little preview up, and enjoy the show. March Madness…the most wonderful time of the year.