Bracketdoccio

I usually watch a lot of college basketball, but this year I watched A LOT of college basketball.  (Caps and underlined, bitch.)  I watched so much college basketball probably because we were good and I was just more interested in the sport in general...  But anyway, because my ego is big enough to think you might like to read something like this, here are my thoughts on the bracket.  Don't use this to gamble, because I am traditionally very mediocre at making NCAA tournament picks, but these thoughts are based on things I've seen with my own two eyes, not just regurgitating things I've read from elsewhere.  So hopefully you find it original.  Onward my cultish devotees!

South Regional


-- In case you're confused about this - and you really shouldn't be, unless you just crawled out of a hole, Gaddafi style - Kentucky is the best team in the nation.  Put them in your Final Four, else go ahead and stab your bracket up the ass... Gaddafi style.

-- UConn is going to lose to Iowa State in the first round.  Just a gut feeling on this.  The Huskies have kinda been mailing it in all season, it's hard to just flip the switch for the tournament.  And ISU is such a ho-hum opponent, it won't inspire the team with the championship hangover.  Plus, Calhoun is old and literally falling apart.  He's more leper than basketball coach at this point.

-- I don't like all of this pro-Wichita hype I've been hearing (screw "glam" mid-majors!), but I honestly want to see VCU lose in the first round more than I want to see Duke lose in the first round.  That is a powerful statement.  Hate from my heart to God's ears.  VCU must go down, and Smaka Shart must go to Illinois so I can stop hating the Rams!

-- Smoking-hot first round upset of the regional: New Mexico State over Indiana!  Actually, probably not, but this is a sensationalist's game, so I needed to add a little sensational!

-- UNLV to the Elite Eight.  Book it.

-- I like Baylor, I honestly do.  But this year's Baylor team just feels very... flawed.  Doomed.  Like every single year Wake Forest makes the tournament.

-- Notre Dame vs. Xavier in the first round.  Interesting game.  The winner gets the honor of upsetting Duke and making a surprise run to the Sweet Sixteen.  I honestly don't think the X or ND is very good this year, but both squads have overcome some form of adversity.  Slight nod to Xavier, who had to overcome the adversity of having Kenny Frease on the roster.

Herp-a-derp-derp-derp.  Screw you, Kenny.
Nice neckbeard, you braindead half-yeti.

-- Duke sucks.  This year, their best player is a one-and-done, me-first, freshman ballhog.  They'll roll Lehigh, then crap the bed against Xavier in the second round.  ACC REPRESENT!


West Regional


-- Yes, I know Tom Izzo is college basketball Jesus when the calendar flips to March, but I just don't love this year's Spartans.  Not saying they'll go completely belly-up, but I don't feel a Final Four run here.  Maybe they'll lose in the Elite Eight to Marquette or Mizzou, or maybe in the Sweet Sixteen to New Mexico or Louisville... or maybe in the second round to Memphis.

-- Speaking of, I love this Memphis team.  Will Barton is legit.  Like two giant testicles, swinging around like wrecking balls legit.  The 8-1 upset in the second round seems imminently possible.

-- New Mexico, New Mexico, New Mexico.  Yes, I hate mid-majors, but... New Mexico.  Total man crush.  Drew Gordon is this year's Kenneth Faried.  (Besides, is the Mountain West really "mid-major?"  I don't think so.  MWC, Atlantic-10, these two are low-level power conferences, not mid-majors.)

-- Louisville is a nice little team, but when Peyton Siva is your offensive catalyst, you might be a little bit doomed.  I like Siva, but he's nothing more than a smaller, Big East finesse version of Jontel Evans.  Let that sink in before you use a pen to scribble the Cardinals into your Sweet Sixteen.  In fact, don't be shocked if Davidson springs the first round upset.

-- I can't wait to watch Murray State crash and burn.  Can Colorado State take them down?  I think maybe.  But if not, Marquette will do the deed in the second round.

-- Marquette has a cakewalk to the Sweet Sixteen.  Once there, they'll get WRECKED by Virginia.  Just kidding.  I like Marquette to "upset" Missouri and slide on along to the Elite Eight, and probably onward to the Final Four.  And it's not like I'm so very bullish on Marquette.  I just think they're the best, most explosive, battle-hardened team in a very shaky regional bracket.

-- We're going to beat Florida in the first round, but rubber legs will do us in against a Missouri team that plays at supersonic speeds.

-- Mizzou...  I like the team a lot.  A LOT.  But the Frank Haith factor... yikes.  This team is like an F-15 piloted by - that's right - Kenny F#cking Frease.

East Regional


-- Poor Fab Melo.  He doesn't get to enjoy Syracuse's chicken bone choke in the Sweet Sixteen.   I generally like the 'Cuse, but this year just seems like a smoldering dumpster fire for some reason.  Great season, but something stinks.  Just wait until this baby bursts into flames!

-- K-State vs. Southern Miss might be my biggest head-scratcher of the first round.  How did a Jacob Pullen-led K-State team slip to an 8-seed?  What?  Pullen is gone?  Oh.  And what the hell is Southern Freaking Miss doing in the NCAA tournament?  Is Larry Eustachy actually a good coach and not just a drunk dude who likes to fondle co-eds?  Let's just say he's both and be on our merry way.

-- This is the kiss of death for the 'Dores, but I like Vanderbilt a lot in this part of the bracket.  I tend to favor teams that can put a really elite-level perimeter shooter on the floor during tournament time, and John Jenkins might be the best shooter in college basketball.  Jeffrey Taylor and Festus Ezeli are seniors, and they have the bad taste in their mouths from losing by one point to 13-seed Murray State in 2010 and by three points to 12-seed Richmond in 2011.  This team is too talented and well-coached (and hopefully, hungry) to tank a third-straight NCAA tournament.  They are due.  And you know what?  I have them in the Final Four.

-- Cute of the committee to pit Harvard against Vandy in the first round.  Gotta bounce the smart schools off of each other, I guess.  The selection committee is just a bunch of Alpha Beta Ogres.

-- Wisconsin is Virginia after a decade-plus of letting the systems take root.  I'm not sure why I always pull against them in the NCAA tournament.  Will they lose to Montana in the first round?  A lot of people seem to think so.  I do not.  Wisky >>> Weber.

-- Cincinnati/Texas is an interesting first round game.  Cincy is obviously streaking right now, but how much does momentum really matter in this environment?  You might think it means a lot, but the statistics don't bear that out.  In a lot of ways, the slates are clean once the tourney begins... and Texas has a lot thicker chalk.

-- I'm looking forward to Florida State vs. Vanderbilt in the Elite Eight.  The Semenholes' penchant for turnovers (both created and coughed up) will make all of their tournament games entertaining.  They have the goods to make a deep run, provided Michael Snaer keeps channeling his inner Toney Douglas.

-- I hate Gonzaga.  It's West Coast Duke, and that three word phrase adds up to a whole lot of shit I dislike.  But I also feel icky pulling for West Virginia, ever.  (Like popping wood when watching that scene in Deliverance, you know what I'm talking about.  The "squeal like a pig" scene?  No?  Well, you're not giving me much to work with here.)  Who do you pull for when two arch-villains do battle?  You pull for a meteorite to hit the coliseum.  Luckily, this game is being played in Pittsburgh, so no great loss there.  Hell, just go ahead and nuke the city at 7:20 PM on Thursday.  Leave a blank line on your bracket and amaze your friends and co-workers.

-- Ohio State is just about the dullest college basketball superpower I can remember.  Yeah, Jared Sullinger.  I liked him better when he was Marcus Fizer.  Even better when he was John Wallace.  The point is, we've seen this before.  Stud power forward with limited lift surrounded by a ho-hum supporting cast.  Glass ceiling in the NCAA tournament.  The team got fat off its own hype, and will lack the edge it needs to advance past the Sweet Sixteen, especially when playing against a team that will climb up into your jock and pinch your nuts like FSU.


Midwest Region


-- Does John Henson need a healthy wrist in order to flop around like a 21st century Cherokee Parks?  I'm guessing no.  But all the Roy Williams plaid jackets and Kendall Marshall forearm shivers in the world won't be able to will a clutch three-pointer into the basket when they need it.  And for that, Carolina misses the Final Four.

Douche.

-- I don't want to hear about Creighton.  I DON'T!  Doug McDermott looked great going bombs away against the likes of Evansville, Illinois State, and Houston Baptist, I'm sure.  He'll go supernova against 'Bama in the first round, too.  No doubt.  But is he enough to beat UNC?  I have my doubts.

-- Temple vs. Cal or USF in the first round.  It feels like I ate a bowl of alphabet soup and shat out that first round pairing.  Just weird.  For some reason I like California to get to the second round here, not sure why.  Maybe it's just too hard to accept that the Pac-10... er... Pac-12 is really this bad at basketball now.  In unrelated news, Mike Montgomery looks like the dad on Teen Wolf (the Michael J. Fox movie, not the shitty MTV series.)

Cal coach Mike Montgomery or Teen Wolf dad?  You decide.  YOU DECIDE!

-- No but seriously, Mike Montgomery really does look like the Teen Wolf dad, without all of the werewolf hair and whatnot.

-- Once upon a time, we saw a John Beilein team led by Kevin Pittsnogle make a miracle run to the Elite Eight.  There is no Pittsnogle on this Michigan team, but there is a Smotrycz, and I think that's good enough for me.

-- NC State is going to make a run in this tournament.  And no, this is not ACC homerism.  I just think those bigs, plus C.J. Leslie, plus Scott Wood's shooting is a recipe for success in March.  Plus, they have a really easy path.  SDSU?  Georgetown?  These teams don't scare me.  The only team that could stop a Sweet Sixteen run for the Wolfpack is Belmont.

-- That's right, I just said Belmont.

-- Scalded-dog first round upset of the regional: Belmont over Georgetown.  I could type more and explain myself, but instead I'm just going to ask you to trust me on this one.  Leap of faith.  If you read this far, I already know I have you by the short curlies, so just go ahead and succumb to my madness.  Belmont over Georgetown, you hear it in a whisper, it dances across your consciousness.  Belmont over Georgetown.  In your dreams, staring out at you from behind the fuzzy wall.  Belmont over Georgetown.

-- Belmont over Georgetown.

-- Flip a coin on St. Mary's vs. Purdue.  Whatever you do, don't just pick the Boilermakers because you feel bad for Robbie Hummel.

-- Kansas is going to the Final Four.  I don't like it any more than you do.  But the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight games are being played in St. Louis.  It's an unfair advantage for the Jayhawks, and if I didn't hate UNC with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns, I might bring it up.


There you go, kid.  Now I grant you permission to fill out your brackets.  You can thank me later --- I prefer hand-written notes.  You'll have plenty of time to bust out the calligraphy after you've ripped your brackets to shreds sometime around 5:00 PM on Thursday.  You're welcome.



PS:

Victory is mine!