My NCAA picks, and a few thoughts about brackets

My friend Michael Kruse, a Davidson grad who wrote a great book on the Wildcats' 2008 run to the Final Eight, isn't fond of March Madness brackets. "The thing is the thing. Your brackets are not," he says, meaning we should watch the games and enjoy them for what they are, not for whether some last-second shot means you rise or fall in the office pool.

Michael is almost always right, and he's right about this, too.

Mostly.

I'd just make two small observations:

1) For a lot of people, the brackets are the ONLY reason they watch. The St. Mary's-Purdue game is not naturally gripping to them because sports aren't naturally gripping to them. The brackets give them a reason to care. And maybe, along the way, the grip takes hold.

2) For a lot of other people, the brackets are a way to catch up on a regular season they've missed. I keep up with the major conferences, but don't watch nearly much college hoops as I used to. Is Wichita State really that good? Can Harvard make a run? The brackets start to organize the stories in our heads.

As I've said many times, the first two days of the tournament are my favorite days of the sports year, and maybe 10 percent of that is because of the brackets. I don't know many true fans who care more about their brackets than the games. I'll take a great finish over my pick anytime.

Having said that, I'd be fine with going 63-0.

I think you can find my full bracket under my name over at the Observer's contest, but I'll put the picks here, too. Upsets are marked with an exclamation point.

SOUTH
First round: Kentucky over W. Kentucky, UConn over Iowa State (!), Wichita State over VCU, Indiana over New Mexico State, UNLV over Colorado, Baylor over South Dakota St., Xavier over Notre Dame (!), Duke over Lehigh.

Second round: Kentucky over UConn, Wichita State over Indiana (!), Baylor over UNLV, Duke over Xavier.

Sweet 16: Kentucky over Wichita State, Baylor over Duke (!).

Elite 8: Baylor over Kentucky (!). Kentucky is the big favorite to win the whole thing, but Baylor is just as athletic and a little deeper. Baylor is one of those teams that could, on a given night, either beat an NBA team or lose in the first round. I've got a weak spot for those kinds of teams. Which means my bracket could be blown to bits by the weekend.

WEST
First round: Michigan St. over LIU-Brooklyn, St. Louis over Memphis (!), Long Beach State over New Mexico (!), Louisville over Davidson (I thought hard about this one, but couldn't pull the trigger...), Murray St. over Colorado St., Marquette over BYU, Florida over Virginia, Missouri over Norfolk State.

Second round: Michigan St. over St. Louis, Long Beach over Louisville (!), Marquette over Murray St., Missouri over Florida.

Sweet 16: Michigan St. over Long Beach, Missouri over Marquette.

Regional final: Missouri over Michigan St. (!)


EAST
First round: Syracuse over UNC-Asheville, Southern Miss over Kansas St. (!), Vandy over Harvard, Montana over Wisconsin (!), Cincinnati over Texas, FSU over St. Bonaventure, West Virginia over Gonzaga (!), Ohio State over Loyola (Md.).

Second round: Syracuse over Southern Miss, Vandy over Montana, FSU over Cincy, Ohio State over West Virginia.

Sweet 16: Vandy over Syracuse (!), Ohio State over FSU.

Regional final: Ohio State over Vandy.

MIDWEST
First round: UNC over Lamar/Vermont winner, Alabama over Creighton (!), Cal/South Florida winner (I'm thinking Cal) over Temple (!), Ohio over Michigan (!), San Diego State over NC State, Georgetown over Belmont, Purdue over St. Mary's (!), Kansas over Detroit. Lots of upsets here.

Second round: UNC over Alabama, Ohio over Cal/South Florida winner (!), G'town over San Diego St., Kansas over Purdue. Ohio is my other big sleeper. I just want ONE team named the Bobcats to win a couple of games.

Sweet 16: UNC over Ohio, Kansas over G'town.

Regional final: UNC over Kansas in the Roy Williams Invitational.


FINAL FOUR

Missouri over Baylor
Ohio State over UNC

TITLE GAME

Missouri 73, Ohio State 62


Let the mocking begin!

March Madness picks

Somehow I forgot to take today off -- an unforgivable mistake on my part. But we do have TVs around the newsroom. And driving around uptown this morning, I saw a couple of fans in Michigan gear wandering around. They're in the right place.

By the way, there's a post from a couple days back on how we'll know when your team is in town... still time to drop in a comment.

After all that, I have to subject you to my picks. If you want to see them in bracket form, they're in the Observer's bracket contest (my username is "tomlinson"). But here's a list, by region, with a few comments. Asterisks = upsets.


EAST
Ohio St. over San Antonio
George Mason over Villanova
West Va. over Clemson
Kentucky over Princeton
Marquette over Xavier*
Syracuse over Indiana St.
UGA over Washington* -- Look, I went to UGA. You have to ride with your guys at least one round.
UNC over Long Island

Ohio St. over George Mason
Kentucky over West Va.
Syracuse over Marquette
UNC over UGA -- a rematch of the 1983 regional final, which UGA won after Sam Perkins admitted he didn't know which conference the Dawgs were in. I doubt that'll happen this time. And if it does, it won't matter.

Ohio St. over Kentucky
Syracuse over UNC -- this was the hardest pick in the tournament. Carolina has come so far, and on talent alone they're Final Four-ready. But sometimes they fall into a mass coma on court... they were down double digits in every ACC tournament game, and never got close to coming back against Duke. Three straight big wins seems too much for them at this point.

Ohio St. over Syracuse and into the Final Four.

WEST
Duke over Hampton
Tennessee over Michigan*
Arizona over Memphis
Texas over Oakland
Missouri over Cincinnati*
UConn over Bucknell
Temple over Penn St.
San Diego St. over N. Colorado

Duke over UT
Arizona over Texas*
UConn over Missouri
San Diego St. over Temple

Duke over Arizona
San Diego St. over UConn

San Diego St. over Duke and on to the Final Four* -- They're not much fun to watch, but San Diego State is REALLY good. They lost just twice all year, both times to BYU, and then they killed the Cougars in the Mountain West final. They can grind even a good team into dust. Duke is a good team, and with Kyrie Irving they might be great. If he's at full strength, Duke could easily win the whole thing. But I think it ends for the Blue Devils here.

SOUTHWEST
Kansas over Boston U.
Illinois over UNLV*
Vandy over Richmond
Louisville over Morehead St.
Georgetown over VCU
Purdue over St. Peter's
FSU over Texas A&M*
Notre Dame over Akron -- the Gerry Faust bowl!

Kansas over Illinois
Louisville over Vandy
Purdue over Georgetown
Notre Dame over FSU

Louisville over Kansas* -- Kansas always breaks my brackets. Might as well get rid of them now.
Purdue over Notre Dame*

Purdue over Louisville and on to the Final Four.
SOUTHEAST
Pitt over UNC-Asheville
Old Dominion over Butler*
Utah St. over Kansas St.*
Belmont over Wisconsin* -- yeah, going a little crazy on the upsets here. But Belmont lost just four times this year -- twice to Tennessee, once to Vandy and once to Lipscomb. And Lipscomb doesn't really count. There is a Lipscomb in all our lives, just waiting to trip us up.
St. John's over Gonzaga
BYU over Wofford -- although if Wofford wins, alum Jerry Richardson might be giddy enough to broker a deal between NFL players and owners. Yeah, probably not.
Michigan St. over UCLA*
Florida over UC-Santa Barbara

Pitt over ODU
Utah St. over Belmont
St. John's over BYU*
Florida over Michigan St.

Pitt over Utah St.
St. John's over Florida*

Pitt over St. John's and on to the Final Four.

FINAL FOUR
Ohio St. over San Diego St.
Pitt over Purdue

Ohio St. over Pitt, 71-67, for the title.

So that's 16 upsets overall, but just one real sleeper in the Sweet 16 (Utah State). Two #1 seeds, a #2 and a #3 in the Final Four. Not as risky as I'd like. And surely not as wise as your picks. Tell me where I went wrong.

How do we know your team's in town?

Long Island University is the Blackbirds. I had no idea. Hampton's the Pirates, and if you follow March Madness, you might remember their big upset over Iowa State back in 2001, which led to the wonderful image of their coach impersonating a dead bug. But other than that, I don't know much.

So here's the question, for fans of the eight schools playing here in the NCAA regionals this weekend: How will we know your team's in town?

Here are the teams coming to Charlotte, by the way -- I'm going to put them in alphabetical order to eliminate any bias: Georgia, Duke, Hampton, Long Island, Michigan, North Carolina, Tennessee, Washington.

OK, see, I'm biased already.

Georgia is my team. I went to school there. I left several million brain cells scattered around campus. I still daydream about going back and becoming a perpetual grad student. These are my people.

Here's how you know Dawg fans are in town:

-- ABC stores suddenly low on Jim Beam; CVS stores suddenly low on BC powders.

-- Hotel-lobby debates about whether Herschel Walker could play college basketball (yes), and how many points he would score (164 a game).

-- Lots of body-painting going on... but not as erotic as it sounds.

Now then... both Duke and North Carolina are also headed this way. I could say that you know Duke fans are in town when the parking lot is full of Jersey plates. I could say that you know Carolina fans are in town when you see people counting the Jersey plates in the parking lot. But I would never say such things, because I know you Blue Devil and Tar Heel fans will step up.

(Of course, it's possible that you might actually say something about the other team, rather than your own. There's no way we can stop that. But of course none of you would do such a thing. Hint. Hint.)

But we're looking to hear from all of you. Michigan, Tennessee, Washington, Hampton: What should we look for from y'all? And you Long Island Blackbirds... is anybody coming? Because we need to talk. Clearly, the Long Island Expressway would be a much cooler name.

Have at it in the comments...

It just so happens that MY team is in town, so I'll go first.