First of all Happy March Madness to you all! This is the greatest time of the year for me and for all college basketball fans and I hope you enjoy it! My original thoughts on the brackets just getting released are:
1. Rock Chalk Jayhawk! As a Jayhawk fan, I'm excited about our number one seed and I think our bracket is fair. It doesn't seem to be the hardest or the easiest, but I like the match ups from first glance in our region. Since I live in Illinois, a lot of my friends are Fighting Illini fans and if both Kansas and Illinois win their first round games, they could be playing each other on Sunday!
2. All the analysts are talking about the bubble teams that got left out right now, but in my opinion, no teams that deserved to get in were left out. With the recent expansion to 68 teams, the bubble was weaker already this year. Colorado, Virginia Tech, Missouri State, and even Cleveland State were teams left out of the field of 68. Yes, these teams may have won some good games and beat some tournament teams, but if you did not make this field of 68 teams, then go win the NIT tournament and prove the selection committee wrong.
3. Once the full bracket came out, I went and printed off a bracket and filled it out within ten minutes just as a first instinct bracket. Many times I think people over think their brackets and mess it up. They listen to too many analysts and change their minds on teams. Make your picks and stick to them! Do not be afraid of your gut instinct! My final four on first glance is Ohio State, Texas, Kansas, and St. Johns. My first number one seed to lose in my bracket is Duke losing to number four seeded Texas in the West Region. The other number one seed to not make the final four is Pittsburgh, whom I have losing to St. Johns, a six seed, in the Elite Eight which is in the Southeast Region.
4. My last original thought on this bracket is about Florida getting a number two seed. I'm not sure how that happened after watching them struggle throughout the whole SEC championship game today against Kentucky, who got a 4 seed in Ohio State's bracket, the East.Of the number 2 seeds, Florida seemed to sneak in that region, possibly because it is the Southeast region, which favors Florida fans and the team traveling. Notre Dame certainly deserved a number two seed and so did San Diego State, a team that only has two losses on the year. North Carolina won the ACC regular season, so they deserve a two seed as well.
That is all for the original thoughts, I will write more tonight and definitely tomorrow after digesting all this information! Enjoy the Madness!
Derek
DUKE will not be the first out!!
ReplyDeleteSolid pick with St. J, that region has the potential for chaos with all the undeserved rankings. (PITT, Florida, etc.) Especially with a tough K state in the mix too, even if you don't want to admit it u crazy KU fan. I picked OSU, KU, UCONN, and St. J. With KU over OSU in the final. But I would not be surprised in the least for OSU to go home with it, that final was my hardest pick on my bracket.
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