March Hare contemplates his bracket picks.
What a start the 2009 NCAA Basketball Championship Tournament is off on!!! For those looking for a real Cinderella story, this is definitely not the year. The only team that could qualify is Arizona, a #12 seed, who will face top seed, Louisville in the Midwest regional in Indianapolis. Arizona beat #5 Utah to face Cleveland State, perhaps the ultimate bracket buster, who defeated #4 seed, Wake Forest, a team many of the expert chatter brigade saw as a team that could upset Louisville and steal the bracket.
This has been a miserable tournament for the ACC. Not only was #4 Wake Forest eliminated from the Midwest bracket, so was #7 Boston College. In the East, #10 Maryland advanced one round to be slaughtered by #2 Memphis, the team many felt were slighted out of a #1 seed. Out west, ACC tournament finalist, #5 Florida State fell to #12 Wisconsin. While in the South, though playing in territory much closer to their rival's home Michigan in Dayton, Ohio, Clemson was no match for the Michigan Wolverines. That leaves Duke alive as a #2 to face the #3 Big East rival, Villanova while North Carolina looked energized with Ty Lawson return dominating play in the 2nd half of their win over LSU will face #Gonzaga in the South.
Looking at the field of sixteen, it will be up to the remaining competitors to prove this is not the Big East's year. Never before has one conference had five teams make it to the regional rounds of competion. Louisville is ready to move on to the round of eight playing the lowest seed still alive, Arizona in the Midwest. Out west, Connecticut soldiers on against #5 Perdue. Pittsburgh faces #4 Xavier while Villanova challenges Duke. Down south, the Big East sends #3, one of this year's most pesky teams against #2 Oklahoma. it would be hard not to pick the Big East choices to advance to the field of eight with Villanova's fight against Duke being the most formidable challenge. #2 Memphis faces #3 Missouri (cut the Mizzou crap) completing the picture in the West. Memphis would appear to be the stronger team in this showdown. The final match puts last year's champ, #3 Kansas with few remaining soldiers faces #2 Michigan State in a contest we'd pick Michigan State but honestly have to call a toss up.
In what must be driving bracketology students crazy, those who made their picks going with the favorites based on seedings right now are only down two with Arizona advancing and Perdue, a #5 considered by many an easy pick to beat the #4 Washington, holding on to make the field.
In a year with so few conspicuous upsets so far outside of that sinking feeling for ACC fans not wedded to arch rivals North Carolina and Duke, the real story is the quality of play, how many games played down to the final seconds with lead changes swapping back and forth through out the action. For all the upheavel in the final games of the regular season and the conference championships, the tournament has settled down to just good, highly competitive play.
Much could change in the next series of action at the four regional outposts, but for number fours to beat number ones is not that unusual a feat and surely no one would ever be shocked to see a two lose to a three. only two games don't feature such matchups as play begins Thursday afternoon.
No comments:
Post a Comment