When in doubt, pick the team with the cooler mascot

While driving to work this morning I found myself behind a car with the license plate “DR RE”. I can only assume that this is Dr. Dre’s less talented younger brother who moved to KC to get as far away from the whole East Coast-West Coast drama as is humanly possible.

Ok, let’s run through the rest of the brackets and another installment of No Depression Week:

South Region: First off, I’m going to have to go with St. Mary’s in the first round. I mean, I certainly didn’t expect the Smickers to put together such a strong performance this year and the Belles should be able to take Miami. Wait, you mean there is another St. Mary’s? What the hell, go with them anyway because Miami never wins at basketball. Other big upset will be Temple over Michigan State due to the way the Spartans just collapsed against Wisconsin in a way that was just embarrassing.

There are a few other interesting first round matchups. You have Cornell, who are the Big Red despite the fact that their mascot is a bear, going up against Stanford in Nerd Bowl 2008. Take Stanford because they really are a bunch of dorks. I mean, their mascot is a color. What is their fight song “Cardinal is an awesome shade of red?” (This from an Illini whose fight song consists of drunkenly yelling “Oskee Wow Wow” at random moments.) Oral Roberts features MC 900 Foot Jesus, which would seem to be an advantage until you realize that it is rather difficult to drop a ball 890 feet into a hoop. Go with Pitt in that one.

Basically I have no faith in Memphis in this bracket. Calipari seems to be a guy who chokes as a big game coach and I don’t see this as any different. I see Pitt beating them to make the elite eight where they lose to a Texas team playing in Houston. I don’t like Texas either but I’m just going to ride home court advantage on this one.

Midwest Region: This is the region I will get to know well because it is all anyone in this damn town will talk about for the next few weeks. I’ll start with Kansas State whose somewhat silly use of purple as a uniform color is offset by the fact that their logo is borrowed from the Thundercats. Personally, I feel Panthro’s play in the low post will overcome Mumm-Ra’s outside shooting and get them through to the second round where they lose to a Wisconsin team that plays the type of basketball that makes you want to gouge your eyes out due to boredom.

My favorite team name in the tournament is the UMBC Retrievers for two reasons. 1) UMBC sounds like the name of a bank that just purchased your mortgage and 2) They must have the most non-threatening mascots in the history of the world. They should at least be the Fighting Retrievers or the Hounds from Hell or something like that. They’ll get slaughtered by the Hoyas, whose mascot is a bulldog even though a Hoya is a latin phrase. I’ve got two overlooked teams to watch for in this bracket: Clemson and Davidson. Both played Duke and Carolina incredibly tough and might make some noise.

But this bracket is all about Kansas and I’m torn here. On one hand, Kansas is by far the most talented and experienced team in this region. On the other hand, Bill Self is a traitor and a coward who turned his back on Illinois and will suffer karmically for that for the rest of his career. (Not that I’m bitter about that or anything). But more importantly, Self just can not win an important game and I just don’t see that changing this year. I’ve got to go with Georgetown. I expect hate mail over this one.

West Region: I’ll start with my Blue Devils. I said it during the Carolina game, this looks like a Duke squad that is going to lose in the Sweet Sixteen. They still don’t have a guy that I want with the ball in his hands during crunch time. I know this breaks my tradition but they will lose to Xavier. Hate to say it but I don’t know how they make the Final Four with this squad.

Easiest pick in the first round is West Virginia over Arizona again due to karma. I can’t cheer for a team whose coach has taken more time off to deal with his divorce than he did for the death of his wife. In a feel good story take Baylor over Purdue (feel good in that coaches are no longer telling players to lie to cover up a murder charge). And just one random question, do we really need a Western Kentucky? Don’t we have enough states already?

This is the only bracket I’m confident in. UCLA is the team to beat and there isn’t anyone in their draw that worries me. Some people are worried because they’ve gotten a ton of lucky breaks recently but that should just give them confidence. Also be wary of people who assume they can pull off a miracle.

Final Four: North Carolina over Georgetown and UCLA over Texas in games with better name recognition than actual gameplay. UCLA to take it all because it just feels right. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to pick North Carolina to win anything.

No Depression Week: Have to feature one of my favorite people in the world (and someone I would marry just so I could hear her voice every day) in Neko Case. I talk/post/rant about her awesomeness a lot and I find it completely justified. It is true that all of my business school applications were written while listening to her CDs. I just find her voice amazing in the way that it sounds like Patsy Cline if Patsy Cline had spent a lot of time hanging out with Nirvana. Plus, I actually met her a few times in Chicago and she is just incredibly cool and down to earth.