Bracketology

Today is the start of the biggest two weeks in college basketball. March Madness, a time when US corporate productivity drops and computer networks are overloaded with people watching games on-line. This should be an interesting tournament as parity is the prevailing word this season. We had several different teams ranked number one and a couple of teams that were number one more than once. The most exciting thing for me so far was Baylor's run in the Big 12 Championship. Baylor had a very disappointing regular season with a lot of close losses, so the only way they could make the NCAA tournament was to win the Big 12 Championship outright. They made it to the final game by beating top ranked Kansas and 5th ranked Texas. Unfortunately the run ended in a tough loss to Missouri.

So back to the NCAA Tournament. Louisville, North Carolina, Pitt and UConn are the top seeds. The only controversy I see here is Memphis who could have been in that group; they are a very good team and I think we'll see them in the final four. If Lawson is healthy, I am thinking UNC wins it all, but I am not 100% on that yet. A few early upsets I am feeling:

Arizona (12) over Utah (5) - solid, pick it
USC (10) over BC (7) - solid, pick it
W. Kentucky (12) over Illinois (5) - possible
Va Comm (11) over UCLA (6) - possible
Michigan (10) over Clemson (7) - possible
Marquette (6) lost their best player, I am leaning towards Utah St. (11)
I think Kansas (3) will struggle with North Dakota State (14), but I am not ready to call this an upset yet.

Texas has a tough opening game against Minnesota, if they get past that game they could face Duke. Duke has struggled in the last couple of years in the tourney, but I think I have to go with my head not my heart and pick Duke. I will post my bracket on Wednesday, so you can see all my picks.