That being said, here's my picks for the first round. I won't make any more predictions for the moment, but I will go out on a limb right now and say that I'm picking Georgetown to win it all. My Final Four are Florida, Georgetown, Kansas, and Ohio State. Feel free to kibbitz.
Midwest Region:
- Florida over Jackson State - Florida is the defending champ. They will be hard to beat in every round and might not.
- Arizona over Purdue
- Butler over Old Dominion
- Maryland over Davidson - fear the turtle, until they meet Florida.
- Notre Dame over Winthrop - C'mon, it's St. Patty's day, you got to pick the Fightin' Irish.
- Oregon over Miami (OH) - Can't afford to keep the Archives of the Archives listserve, can't play basketball (only archivists and readers of the new archives list will get this inside joke).
- UNLV over Georgia Tech - Best Friend went to University of Georgia, so it's anyone over Tech.
- Wisconsin over Texas A&M
West Region:
- Kansas over Niagara - I would like to see Niagara win, but I don't think it will happen.
- Villanova over Kentucky - possibly the best matchup of the first round, two teams that are both called the Wildcats.
- VA Tech over Illinois
- So. Illinois over Holy Cross - it would set up the matchup of Ill. vs. So. Ill. if Illinois can beat VA Tech.
- Duke over VCU - for now . . .
- Pitt over Wright St. - just for you, Ed!
- Gonzaga over Indiana - love those screamin' Eagles
- UCLA over Weber State - that one's for Cheryl and the fact that they're really, really good at this game.
East Region:
- UNC over E. Kentucky
- Marquette over Michigan State
- USC over Arkansas - the Razorbacks are not the team they used to be.
- Texas over New Mexico State - "Don't Mess With Texas" until they meet the Trojans.
- GW over Vanderbilt - The new DC Cinderella story, replacing last year's George Mason
- Washington State over Oral Roberts - not even He can help ORU in this one
- Boston College over Texas Tech - Maybe Bobby will throw some more chairs if he loses.
- Georgetown over Belmont - Belmont is only good for horse racing
South Region:
- Ohio State over Central Connecticut - the Buckeyes are no match for the not-Huskies
- Xavier over BYU
- Tennessee over Long Beach State - Long Beach, long shot
- Albany over Virginia - My alma mater! Go Great Danes!
- Stanford over Louisville - the wheels come off the bus with this pick
- Penn over Texas A&M - gotta root for the Ivy League
- Nevada over Creighton
- Memphis over N. Texas
4 comments:
As a CAA fan, I gotta pick ODU (aka Food Lion U) over Butler and VCU (one of my Alma Maters) over the Evil Empire.
Albany over UVA? Heart over head, right?
Thanks. You've made my ill-thought out and off-the-cuff picks look pretty good. I mean, I have no idea about USC basketball--and I think we've both picked them to go the same distance.
One of the rules that helped me win the pool way back when is that is called Something State can never win when that Something is NOT a state name. So UCLA will win over Weber State and TN will win over Long Beach State. In this theory, Albany (since it is never called Albany State) still has a chance.
Good luck.
OK - this is probably way too much for a comment and amounts to squatting on the Brave Astronaut blog. Maybe I do need my own blog or something...
I've got Kansas over Ohio State in the Final. Florida and Texas A&M in the rest of the Final Four. I like A&M's guard play - Texas also has good guards. Vanderbilt can shoot the lights out on any given day, so you can't really discount them. Other teams that could go deep are Wisconsin (though who really wants to watch a 50-49 game; they walk the ball up the court) and Washington State. Though I haven't seen much Pac10 play this season - those games are on way too late.
Post a Comment