Last year’s bracket was a disaster for me. With my winner, Missouri, dropping to a 15-seed in round 1 (the real round 1), I was pretty much relegated to spectator very early on in the pools I was in.
Ugghh, why did I have to remind myself...
What’s funny is that last year I was fairly confident about my predictions. This year, I have no idea what I’m doing whatsoever. Maybe that is for the best, as often times when you are filling out your bracket, the less you know the better you will be…but it’s not exactly confidence-inspiring to go into the tournament thinking that any 1 of about 20 schools has about as good a chance to win the whole thing as anyone else.
Take the 4 number 1’s for example…aside from Kansas, I wouldn’t exactly say that any of them are that rock solid. Gonzaga, as good as they are, is still somewhat untested, and they often disappoint come tournament time. Indiana spent most of the year looking like they would be the number 1 overall seed in this tournament, but they actually backslid into their seeding thanks to a brutal Big Ten schedule, and they have lost 3 out of their last 6 games. And while Louisville had a great season, I must confess that I wasn’t even aware they were ranked as highly as they were until this past Sunday night…and they are the number 1 overall seed in the whole tournament!
So, with all that being said, I used past coaching success in the tournament as my ultimate tiebreaker throughout my bracket. And despite the fact that I think the Big Ten is overrated every year, I still think the conference was that much better than the other conferences to warrant 3 Big Ten teams in my Elite 8, and 2 in my Final 4. With no dominant teams out there, I went with teams that I thought were built for this kind of tournament setting: Tom Izzo and Michigan St. seem to have a formula to advance far into this thing year in and year out; despite how much I despise Aaron Kraft, Thad Matta and the Buckeyes’ style of play lends itself to a possible deep run; Brad Stevens and Butler have shown for several years now that they are a program that might not necessarily be built for the regular season, but other teams will not want to see them over the next few weeks.
And to me, Bill Self and Kansas have been the most consistently good team in the country since everyone’s conference schedules began. And that’s why I’m riding the Jayhawks to the championship game and beating out Michigan St. in an instant classic.
Kansas looks like it has what it takes to cut down the nets this year.
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