The first two rounds are in the books. For the first time ever I watched more basketball in one week than I slept, literally. I’ve been told that’s nothing to be proud of. I say nay. The tournament provided what it always does; it dealt its share of upsets, leading to busted brackets, leading to the exposing of ignorant “experts”.
On the other hand I was quite pleased with my picks. In my official Sports Illustrated bracket I make every year I was 26/32 in the first round and 13/16 in the second round making me 81% so far. That’s not bad at all. Also most notably I had both Davidson beating Georgetown and West Virginia beating Duke. I still have all 8 of my elite 8 in. I’m rollin’.
In the Sweet 16 I would look for:
1. UNC to struggle some with Washington State but ultimately pull it off.
2. Tennessee to definitely struggle with Louisville and quite possibly lose even though it kills me to admit. On the contrary to the Tennessee negativism floating around the media, Louisville has only beaten Boise State and Oklahoma to get to where they are. Both were blowouts but Louisville has shown signs of inconsistent play over the season losing at home to BYU, Dayton, and Cincinnati as well as on the road at Seton Hall. That may be a little far fetched of an argument seeing that they've also now won 12 of their last 13 games (with the one loss being at Georgetown) but who knows. I'm just saying it happens. And maybe Tennessee's luck streak will continue to thrive and Rick Patino will collapse from malnutrition over on the sideline...I'm just sayin'...(I started to make a white suit joke here but Bruce likes to sport the orange sport coat a couple times a season so I'll refrain)
3. Kansas to manhandle Villanova after a close first half. Scottie Reynolds is terrific but he doesn't have enough of a supporting cast to get past a very deep and talented Kansas team.
4. Wisconsin to probably slide past Davidson but I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see Davidson slip into the Elite 8. Stephen Curry is obviously going to be the key. As he has proven it won’t matter how the first half goes. That kid can turn it on and shoot the lights out when it comes time for it.
5. Memphis to beat Michigan State fairly convincingly. The score may be fairly close (under 10 points) but I think Memphis will control the tempo and thus the game. Free throws once again will be the only thing keeping this game within reach for Michigan State but Memphis will be too powerful aside from that for the Spartans to find an upset.
6. Texas to squeak past Stanford in a very close one. The Lopez brothers will be just about enough to give Stanford a huge win, but not quite. The guard play for Texas is just too strong and too consistent for Stanford to be able to pull it out.
7. UCLA to cream Western Kentucky because, well, it’s UCLA verse Western Kentucky and Cinderella doesn’t wear a size 12 very often (though I would be thrilled to no end to see UCLA beaten by WESTERN KENTUCKY). If UCLA were to lose this game I would think it would have to be one of the biggest tournament upsets ever given UCLA’s joke of a path to the Final Four.
8. Xavier to roll against West Virginia. Coach Huggins and West Virginia put up a valiant effort and knocked out Duke but this Xavier team is much better than Duke in my opinion. Duke was a 2 seed because their jerseys say “Duke” and they had a “successful” season. Xavier should win in a similar way to Memphis beating Michigan State.
If you survive another couple rounds of the same mind numbing commercials over and over then it should be quite an interesting Final Four shaping up.
And what a Sports Illustrated cover if I do say so myself...
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