The tournament is finally just a few hours away – less than 12 as I write this. That means that we are less than 12 hours away from the two best days there are in sports. I can’t wait. As we get ready for the big day(s) here are a few thoughts I have on my mind:<\/p>\n
1. I am an unabashedly, blindly loyal Michigan fan, so take this with the appropriate grain of salt – I love Michigan’s position in the bracket, and I think that there is a real chance that they will be alive on the second weekend. It would take a mild upset followed by a big one, but it is not the least likely possibility out there. I think that Clemson is not a particularly strong seven seed, and that Oklahoma is very vulnerable right now.<\/p>\n
2. I am very solid on 3\/4 of my Final Four – Louisville, Memphis, and Pitt. I think that Louisville is the best team in the country right now, and I have them beating Pitt in an all-Big East final.<\/p>\n
3. The South region is wide open. I don’t have a lot of faith in UNC right now with the Ty Lawson injury and their general instability. I like Oklahoma even less right now. They have one exceptional player and one very good freshman, but they just aren’t clicking. The problem with the region, though, is that I don’t know who is going to win. I think the top two seeds will lose one of their first three games, but who emerges? I kind of like Syracuse, and I like Illinois, too. I don’t trust Gonzaga much. I think Arizona State could do some damage if James Harden settles into hs game well. My bracket says Syracuse, but I am far from confident with that pick. I don’t think it matters much, though – Pitt will beat whoever emerges.<\/p>\n
4. The team at each seed most likely to be upset first – #1 – UNC, #2 – Oklahoma, #3 – Kansas, #4 – Xavier, #5 – Utah, #6 – Marquette, #7 – Clemson, #8 – LSU<\/p>\n
5. Most likely upsets from #11 or higher seeds – Arizona, Utah State, VCU<\/p>\n
6. Most overrated team – North Carolina<\/p>\n
7. Most underrated team – Arizona<\/p>\n
8. Best potential game on the board – I think that a Louisville-Memphis final four game would be an absolute classic. I would be torn in that one as I really like both teams.<\/p>\n
9. I’m going to miss Billy Packer.<\/p>\n
10. About 90 percent of my predictions will be proven wrong over the next three weeks. Thankfully, I will only remember the correct ones a year from now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The tournament is finally just a few hours away – less than 12 as I write this. That means that we are less than 12 hours away from the two best days there are in sports. I can’t wait. As we get ready for the big day(s) here are a few thoughts I have on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[9528,9,3],"class_list":["post-1323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-college-basketball","tag-college-basketball","tag-march-madness","tag-ncaa-tournament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1323"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1325,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1323\/revisions\/1325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}