Tomorrow is the big day. Typically the NCAA tournament is reason enough for a four day weekend for me. It is the single male’s version of Spring Break made only better when it directly corresponds with St. Patrick’s Day. Sadly this year I will be spending the first round in my office. There are two very good reasons for this: 1) I now have a much more important task to use my vacation days for and 2) There are like three dozen televisions in my office so I won’t even have to move from my desk to watch the games.
Anyway, as is tradition I will now diagnose all of the brackets for those of you who still haven’t; made your picks. It is interesting to note that since I was flying home on Sunday night this marks the first time, well, ever, that I did not write out the brackets in a notebook as they were announced. Keep that in mind while analyzing my choices.
Midwest Region: I’ve got Siena in the 8/9 game just because I appreciate any school that names itself after a Crayola color. The easy upset selection here is North Dakota State over Kansas. Game is being played early in the morning in Minneapolis and the entire state of North Dakota has tickets apparently. I believe that will fill up a row. While tempting, avoid choosing Robert Morris as your upset selection as I can never bring myself to pick any school whose name reminds me that I should call my lawyer. I have Wake Forest in the Sweet Sixteen thus continuing my longstanding tradition of continually losing money by picking Wake Forest to do well in the tournament. (I’m telling you, I could put a kid through college based on what I lost on Tim Duncan. And don’t even get me started on Randolph Childress.) Really this is Louisville’s bracket to lose as the only team I like is West Virginia and I can’t bring myself to pick a Bob Huggins team because if I do I have to spend the next three hours in the shower and it’s the type of dirt that just doesn’t wash off.
West Regional: I love the fact that we have first round matchups in Boise. For some reason every year there are games in Dayton and in Boise, the land of the multi-color key and freaky bounces. There are always a few good upsets in that town. Take Mississippi State as your upset special (Washington really isn’t anything special) and keep an eye on Utah State, the school that always makes you ask “They need two state schools in Utah?” I would take Cornell over Missouri only if there was a Quiz Bowl held at halftime that would be added to the score. Purdue versus Northern Iowa is one of those games I would always end up having to watch while living in the Midwest based on the fact that television networks believed that we all enjoyed watching rather boring basketball played by teams in states that bordered ours. This is an interesting bracket as you have Uconn and Memphis and then not much of anything. Illinois ran Missouri out of the building earlier this year so I can’t really put much behind them. I’m going with Memphis, they might not have played anyone but I just don’t think Connecticut is that good of a squad.
East Regional: Have to love some of the teams in this region. You’ve got Portland State, which isn’t a state, and Binghamton, which sounds like the name of some snotty prep school whose kids complain because they didn’t get a Lexus for their eighteenth birthday. You also have American, the school you must cheer for lest you be considered unpatriotic. (Ten bucks says that on the American University promotional video they play “Proud to be an American” and “Coming to America….Today!” in the background.) Some of these games (like UCLA – VCU) sound like a good game to watch while others (Wisconsin versus Florida State) makes you wish they were being played in the Capital One Bowl. Who do I have winning this bracket? For the twenty third consecutive year I have placed Duke in the Final Four. I don’t even look at matchups anymore. I just pencil them in. To be honest I’m not even that big of a fan of this squad or any of the recent squads. These aren’t the cool nineties teams anymore. No Christian Laettner proving to be the most awesome human being on the face of the earth. No Trajan Langdon making me think that being from Alaska is cool. They just happen to be better than Pitt and that is all they need to be this year.
South Regional: My Illini made the tournament! And we somehow have a fifth seed which means that everyone on the planet has us losing to Western Kentucky in the first round. I don’t see that happening unless their Grimace cousin of a mascot is allowed to play. I’d even try to write Illinois into the Sweet 16 but they won’t be able to get past Gonzaga in Portland. (Also, when I first when through the brackets I thought that it said that Gonzaga was playing Akon. That is a sign that I really did spend too much time selling ringtones.) North Carolina will make it past their first round opponent in Radford even though Radford is so rad they put it in their name. My favorite team in the entire tournament: “Stone Cold” Stephen F. Austin. I assume that they are referred to as either the Texas Rattlesnakes or the Bionic Rednecks or possibly both. Look for a stunning upset of Syracuse in the first round. Interesting that Oklahoma gets to play in Kansas City but Kansas doesn’t. In reality this bracket looks pretty easy as North Carolina should just walk through it. There isn’t a team in the bracket that I think could match them on a good day.
Final Four: Being held in Detroit this year, which makes me wonder what the shots from the Goodyear blimp are going to look like. “As you can see outside the arena next to the Fan Fest the recently foreclosed residents have constructed a shantytown.” Louisville and Memphis will have one of those classic Metro conference games from back when the Metro conference actually existed along with the added benefit of possible punches being thrown between Pitino and Calipari over who has the better hair. Louisville has the better team and makes it to the finals. Duke and Carolina finally meet in the Final Four (which has never happened) and therefore start a second Civil War in the state of North Carolina. The Tar Heels win this one. I’m a fan but hey, while the race isn’t always to the swift and the battle not always to the strong that is how you should bet. In the championship game as much as I hate to say it I have to go with Roy Williams and the Tar Heels. They are just the best team in the country and they know how to win. I think that is all they need to be.
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