Sunday, March 28, 2010

My NCAA bracket

I've just about finished my NCAA bracket. It's a little late to submit to any of the contests online and stuff but I thought I'd show off my excellent prognosticating abilities.

Round 1:
Have to go with the #1 and 2 seeds to advance. I like the #3 seeds with the exception of Georgetown. I can't see them stopping the vaunted Ohio offense.
The four seeds look good but Vandy is a bit of a coin flip against Murray State. I call heads and am predicting that Murray State edges out Vanderbilt.
Temple is a 5 seed? They'll be upset by Cornell who looks like one of the most vaunted Ivy League teams in memory. I wouldn't be surprised to see Cornell advance at least another round. I'll take Cornell and the other five seeds.
The 6-11 games all look pretty evenly matched. I fully expect to see most, if not all, of these games to be decided by a basket or less. I'll take Tennessee and Xavier to advance and Washington and Old Dominion in upsets.
The seven seeds are all vulnerable. Brigham Young is the best of the lot and the only one I'll take. I'll take the 10 seed in the other games.
8-9 matchups are always pretty even. Go with Wake and Northern Iowa, Gonzaga and Cal.

Round 2:
I had all the 1 seeds moving on before but I feel an upset brewing here. I just have this sense that Northern Iowa can knock off the #1 overall, Kansas. I'll take the other #1 seeds to move on, though.
Likewise, I can see St. Mary's riding momentum and knocking off #2 Nova. I'll keep the remaining trio of two seeds.
That's eight of the matchups. Here's my picks for the other 8.
Michigan State over Maryland.
Tennessee squashes Ohio.
Murray State over Butler. No, wait, I'm taking Butler. Close game but Butler pulls it out.
As much as it pains me, Pitt always sucks in the tournament so we'll call the upset here rather than later.
Baylor and Purdue move on in the South.
Cornell and Washington upset in the East.

Sweet 16:
I think it's pretty obvious that Michigan State and Tennessee are the top teams remaining in the Midwest. They both move on to the Elite Eight.
I'm going to go bold in the West. Kansas State moves on by being the first team in the tournament to score 100 points in a game. Butler upsets #1 Syracuse.
No boldness in the East and South. Kentucky, Duke, West Virginia and Baylor will move on the elite eight.

All for now. I should have the rest of my bracket completed next Monday night or Tuesday morning.

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