NIT Level Intellect Applied to the NCAA Brackets

After the horror of last year when all the number 1 seeds made it to the final four, I’m betting this year gets us back to the days of upsets and multi-numerical final fours. Basically what I’ve done is fill out two brackets. The first is with Michael Orr from The AD Hall. I filled out that bracket Sunday night so that I could get the purest gut reaction. Then, just now I did a bracket with my group of best friends and used every ounce of basketball intellect I could muster. The idea is that between my gut reaction bracket and my highly analyzed bracket I’d be able to discern the truest predictions.

The result was actually somewhat surprising since my hyper analyzed bracket was basically identical to what I initially came up with just going on my gut. So for any of you struggling with your picks, I’ll highlight some points that I was faced with as I compared my two brackets.

Oh, but first you should probably read this article I did a while back: Fantasy Sports Morality. This is explains why, as always, I have Duke winning the whole thing.

Midwest

Louisville went from being way underrated to being way overrated. They lost to Western Kentucky (more on them later) early in the season and got blown out by UConn. And both those loses took place on their home court! Louisville only had to play UConn once and Pitt once because of an unbalanced schedule in the Big East. They’re good to be sure and play excellent defense, but they are very beatable. That said their bracket is pretty weak. So as much as I’d love to have them get upset, I don’t see anyone that can pull that off. In my gut reaction bracket I had them in the championship game and even when I analyzed the situation, I still had them in the final four.

Michigan State is in the same boat. They are streaky as can be but until them come up against Louisville it’s hard to see who could be them (although I was VERY tempted to pick West Virginia to upset them).

Arizona is in this regional and the fact that they made the tournament after losing 5 of their last 6 games is ludicrous. However, I feel like this might motivate them and that worries me because I think Utah could beat Wake Forest and make it to the elite eight so long as they don’t blow it in the first round against Arizona.

Ohio State versus Siena is the most difficult 8v9 game to pick. Ohio State was pretty bad and I like Siena just like I liked them last year. But the game is in Dayton, Ohio and Thad Matta has a good NCAA track record.

Mark my words, North Dakota St will give Kansas a run for their money.

West

UConn is the worst of the number 1 seeds. All year they had trouble scoring and they seem to get into foul trouble frequently.

Purdue and Washington are the real question marks. I have only seen highlights of Washington and Duke beat Purdue at Purdue pretty handily. Ultimately, I’m siding with the Huskies because against Duke the Boilermakers looked like a team that is too dependant on outside shooting and doesn’t play particularly great defense.

Utah State should be Marquette.

I watched Mizzou win their conference championship and was fairly impressed. However, they will run up against the team I’ve got playing in the title game; Memphis. I love that they got dissed by being given a number 2 seed. They are long, athletic, and their Freshman point guard is more than capable of leading this team back to the finals.

East

This is Duke’s region so of course I have them coming out as the winners of this bracket.

The other surprise is that I don’t like Pitt. Once DeJuan Blair gets in foul trouble they fall apart and you can count on them getting into at least one game where the fouls start to pile up. My bet is that FSU takes them on in a game with lots of interior play, which results in a lot of fouls. If Blair is in foul trouble then FSU’s Toney Douglas becomes the best player on the court and the Seminoles pull an upset.

Villanova seriously worries me. If I wasn’t a Duke fan, I’d pick Villanova to beat FSU and go to the Final Four. But since I am a Duke fan I’ve got Duke playing and beating FSU for a fourth time this year.

UCLA is terrible and will lose to VCU.

Wisconsin is in this bracket and shouldn’t have made the tournament. They never can score and this year they don’t play defense at all. San Jose State should be here instead of yet another inept Big 11 team (I refuse to call it the Big 10 conference because they have 11 teams).

South

Everybody and their brother has unc coming out of this bracket and even I can’t figure out how to make them lose to anyone before the elite eight. Usually a number 1 seed gets a tough matchup with the number 4 seed in their bracket. For unc, the number 4 is Gonzaga. What? They aren’t that good and if they are so good then why didn’t St Mary’s, who are in Gonzaga’s conference, get into the tournament? What’s worse is that the number 5 seed is Illinois, which gets me to the next point.

Illinois will lose to Western Kentucky. They are solid and can score, which Illinois can’t do. I love WK so much that I have them upsetting Gonzaga and thereby making unc’s path to the elite eight even easier.

I love both Arizona State and Temple. Whoever wins their game (I’m picking ASU) will beat Syracuse because I absolutely hate Syracuse.

Clemson is really scary. They haven’t won a tournament game since 1997 or something and I’m afraid that if they break through the first barrier they’ll hit their stride and go deep in the tourney. The only thing that prevents me from picking them to beat Oklahoma is that Clemson’s weak scheduling philosophy inadequately prepares them for tournaments. Nevertheless, you have to figure that they’ll beat Michigan.

I’m going out on a limb for former Duke player Jeff Capel, who is the coach of Oklahoma. He’s actually a very good coach and obviously it helps to have Blake Griffin. They started off amazing and then after Griffin’s concussion fell apart. But they’ve had a break and Griffin is fine now and so I’m betting that they return to early season form and end up beating unc to go to the final four.

Final Four

So the bottom line is that I’ve got Duke (2) v Oklahoma (2) and Louisville (1) v Memphis (2). Then I have Duke playing Memphis for the championship with Coach K ultimately cutting down the nets and Gerald Henderson declaring that he’s coming back for his senior season to defend the championship.

Sure that may sound crazy, but compared to Bill Simmons’ podcast about the brackets it is expert analysis (seriously Simmons, Klosterman was right, stick to the NBA because you just don’t get college sports).