March Madness Bracket Suggestions?

[Ulysses]

Anybody got any? Yeah, yeah, Clarkmeister likes Illinois a lot. Anything else?

[JTG51]

UConn is a lock to win it all.

[Clarkmeister]

The only thing I feel very strongly about so far is that Okie St. will get to the final four.

[Mike Gallo]

Gonzaga baby /images/graemlins/smirk.gif

[JTG51]

Interesting. After watching Pitt give UConn everything they could handle three times this year, I'm pretty confident they're going to make it out of the East (Rutherford) region.

[Clarkmeister]

I think they are screwed playing Wisconsin on the road.

[JTG51]

I think they got screwed also, but I still think they'll win the game. Pitt is very, very tough. Not the kind of team to be rattled by playing in a hostile envrionment.

[Ulysses]

Come on, guys, someone give me some juicy upset picks or something. Which sleepers (that aren't being touted everywhere as sleepers) do you love? Which close mid-seed matchups aren't really that close at all? Who is going to knock Stanford off (if that happens and I pick it, it will be huge, as everyone out here will have Stanford going very far)?

[J.R.]

some ramblings

MD is not a good 4 seed (they are way to young and rode emotion in the ACC tourney) but there region is soft and they can beat stanford if they get past syracuse/byu, if not UConn stops the cardinal in the regional final

BYU is good and will give syracuse a run for its money,

North Carolina could cause problems at a 6, texas could lose to princeton and NC will beat them if texas makes the second round,

Kansas is a weak 4 seed (they can't shoot from outside and have no depth) and Providence should beat them,

Richmond is better than people think and plays well on the road, so the wisconsin game should be good, St. Joe's gets beat by a Texas Tech, Ok. State might be the best team in the tourney but should have a great sweet 16 match with Pitt, the winner of whom takes the region, Florida is not that good

Illinois should beat Duke, Cincinnati should not be a four seed, Miss. State will be hungry and should do well,

Kentucky really did get the softest region.

Mich. State is a far better team than there record and has only lost two tough games to wiscosin and had one bad game v. illinois the past 2 months, they can beat the zags in the 2nd round

s.illinois beats alabama

[pudley4]

Kentucky (def Ga Tech)
Pitt (def Wake Forest)
Stanford (def W. Michigan)
Miss St (def Duke)

Other upsets -

Mich St over Gonzaga (rd 2)
Manahatten over Florida (rd 1)
Utah over BC (rd 1)

[bugstud]

My nutcase bracket, only to elite eight thus far:
Pacific or Providence
Wake Forest and Wisconsin in the elite eight
U of I over Arizona and Xavier over Texas to get into elite eight
I like BYU to win two games, I'm waffling on whether or not Dayton wins one game or three.

as far as final four, I like the team advancing out of the GT/zaga side to take Kentucky out, coinflip on wisconsin and wake, Illinois and Xavier is probably another coinflip, and as of now NC State over stanford (?)

FLAME AWAY /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Schaefer]

Local Views from the Northwest:
(1) Washington over UAB is the easiest 8/9 game on the board. No need to say but they have zero chance in the second round because they have no size and KY will kill them. As a current Husky, it will be painful to watch. The pure fan part of me is saying They beat Stanford, they can beat anyone! but the reasonable person sees the painfully obvious truth.
(2) EWU one and done. OK State is GOOD.
(3) People saying that Michigan State will take out Gonzaga are crazy. Gonzaga has proven that can win in the tourney and this is the best team they have ever had. I like GT a lot but Gonzaga will take them out in the sweet 16. Kentucky may be rested because I don't see a tough game for them until the elite 8 vs the Zags but this could be the best game of the tourney(rambling sentence). Gonzaga has great size and great outside scorers. I think they will be in the Final Four and I've convinced myself that it's not merely a homer pick.

[Big Al]

Okafor has to remain healthy for UConn to win it all. He has had back spasms throughout the season. Its no secret that back spasms rarely disappear without weeks, if not months, of rest and therapy...

[KUJustin]

Not playing homer here (I promise) but I have to comment on your thoughts about Kansas.

Kansas *can* shoot from outside and *is* deep. We started off with horrendous shooting, absolutely, and that's why we're at a 4 and not a 1 or 2 frankly. But JR Giddens is shooting **50%** from behind the arc since conference play started and hit 6 out of 7 *in one half* a couple weeks ago. The other guys have stepped it up as well. Otherwise, I'd say we'd be 1 and done.

Also, Kansas has more depth than they did last year and we all know how they did last year.

The reason Kansas is off is two-fold. 1, we dont' have Collison or Hinrich, that's the big one. 2, we shot poorly to start the season.

This team is top 16 RPI, top 16 polls or close to it so the 4 is desrving and they're "peaking at the right time" as the saying goes.

I expect them to easily handle Providence and certainly give Kentucky a run for their money. However, Kentucky will advance... in my bracket at least.

[J.R.]

Miles has improved a lot and hit a big shot against Mizzou at the end of the year but he can't shot, Langford is a slasher, not a shooter, Lee might be a shoter but doesn't get much time, Simion is a beast but an inside player along with Graves and Padgett, I agree Giddeon is good, he looks like Syracuse's Hakim Walker with more of an outside game but that's it.

They go 7 deep and Padgett and Graves are more there for 5 fouls and 4-5 boards a game. The Jayhawks game is inside and they suffer against a zone team or a team that plays big inside. They also have some ballhandling questions. Playing in Kansas City is huge. Opponents will take notice of the way Texas shut down Simeon and make the rest of the team beat them.

[WarDekar]

Have you seen Illinois play? They have no inside presence, and they run the same offense no matter whether it's working or not (a lot of times not). Case in point, this past game vs. Wisconsin and the time earlier in Madison. Provided Brown, Head, and Williams don't all have amazing shooting days, Cincy should be able to dominate them up and down the court. Cincy can get into foul trouble depending on how the game is called, but that's because they play a physical game that Illinois will not be able to handle. All Huggs has to do is pound the ball inside with Maxiell, Hicks, and Johnson, and make sure White and Kirkland do a nice job penetrating. Williams and Bobbitt as outside threats to top it all of, Illinois won't stand a chance. No good inside scorer, no good inside defender. Nick Smith? Give me a break, he will get pushed around all freakin' day.

[J.A.Sucker]

The Big East teams are horribly overrated, and most will bow out early. UConn is tough if Okefor can stay healthy, but he may not. Seton Hall is a joke. Pitt is streaky as hell, and won't put it together.

Other misc. ramblings:

BYU is tougher than people think.

Providence is going to lose in the first 2 rounds.

Nevada is pretty good.

Okie St is perhaps the best team in the country.

Gonzaga has 2 NBA players... who else does?

Wisconsin is very tough at home, and basically plays at home for 2 rounds.

[J.R.]

There's no doubt Illinois is weak down low. Next to duke, Cincy is my most hated team, but they do play a style that is very effective, if not pretty. They play tough D. If they get ahead, slow the game down and stay with the press, things could be tough for Illinois. I thought Cinncy played weakly down the stretch, but they came together in the Co. USA tourney.

[Clarkmeister]

Next to Bob Knight, Cinci might have the worst tournament coach in the last 10 years. Their guards are severely overmatched and honestly, I think CUSA as a whole is a joke this season. Provided they get by ETSU (a big if) I think they get crushed by U of I and I'm generally fairly pessimistic about our team.

[Chris Daddy Cool]

Random thoughts,

St. Joe's has the easiest bracket out of all the 1 seeds. Watch out for Michigan State. Pittsburg got absolutely screwed by the committe and is likely to lose to Wisconsin, and if Stanford meets UAB later, UAB can give them trouble.
Oh yea, and the ACC is terribly overrated, but they have so many teams in, its likey couple of them will make it pretty far.

[Chris Daddy Cool]

[WarDekar]

I wouldn't blame Huggins for Cincy's lack of tournament success, if you can even call it that. In the past 4 years they haven't fared any worse than they should have really. Last year they got beat by Gonzaga in a tough 8-9 game and Gonzaga then gave 'Zona a run for their money. Year before they were a 1 seed with a tough UCLA second round matchup losing in 2OT, but they never really warranted a #1 seed to begin with. Logan was pretty much their only weapon that year. 2001 they made the sweet 16 with a pretty inferior team as a #5 seed. Year before that Martin gets hurt - can't blame their 2nd round exit on Huggs when they lost the player of the year. 97-99 were their bad years in the NCAA, exiting in the 2nd round each time as a #2 seed once and #3 seed twice. In the years before that they were not that bad, elite 8 in '96, mid range seeds in 94-95 nothing out of the ordinary. Elite 8 in '93 and Final 4 in '92. I don't see how people rag on Huggs for being a poor tourney coach when yes he hasn't really overperformed their seed often but he hasn't really had them underperform either.

As for J.R., they had a rough stretch when they lost their confidence, but they were pretty solid down the stretch other than their loss to DePaul at DePaul, and then won out the C-USA tourney without too many problems along the way. Every game they lost to this year was to NCAA teams.

As for Illinois, I'm also a big Illini fan since I attend UofI, but I've seen my fair share of both teams play this year and I just don't think UofI will be able to keep up with the athletes that Cincy has. Like I said, the guards are going to have to do an amazing job of shooting the rock if they want a chance at the sweet 16. I don't think it's a coincidence that the Illini have struggled with Wisconsin this year - they just can't handle teams that play good defense because once they get down they can't recover. Once the Illini get down by 10 they give up it seems like, not running their offense (well, if you can call it an offense to begin with) and taking stupid, stupid shots. Not to mention my complete hatred of Weber, oh there's a bad call and what does Bruce have to say? /images/graemlins/shocked.gif, and that's about it. For the love of god, get mad for once, yell at some people!

[Clarkmeister]

Man, if you don't like Weber, you haven't been paying enough attention. He's had a phenomenal first year.

[Homer]

I have Oklahoma State beating UConn in the championship game, which means....nothing.

[mikelow]

I like Kentucky and Oklahoma St. Kentucky is playing as well as anybody right now and Oklahoma St. is the kind of team that could win it all.

[JTG51]

Okafor has to remain healthy for UConn to win it all. He has had back spasms throughout the season.

Heh yeah, living in CT and being a UConn alum, I think I heard about that once or twice this year. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[WarDekar]

That doesn't mean I have to like him as a coach, I think his style sucks. Look at SIU this year, was it really him that made them good? Maybe, maybe not, hard to tell. I don't like his system and I don't like his stupid gaping looks anytime something bad happens, he has no emotion what-so-ever. And for God's sake, please tell Nick Smith (and sometimes Ingram) to stop shooting 3's! Smith makes them occassionally, but I cringe anytime he shoots it further than the FT line.

[Ed Miller]

Most of you guys probably know this already, but I thought I'd mention it anyway...

You should not always pick the team that you think is more likely to win a game. That's because it may be much more likely for the underdog team to REACH the game than the favorite.

For instance, I have Maryland beating Syracuse in the second round. I did not really evaluate that game very carefully headsup because I think Maryland is significantly more likely to MAKE that game than Syracuse is.

Maryland is much more likely to beat UTEP than Syracuse is to beat BYU, IMO.

Even if Syracuse were a slight to moderate favorite over Maryland, I would still pick Maryland.

[Uston]

Pitt is streaky as hell

They lost four games all season by a combined total of ten points and two of the losses were in overtime. Every team that beat them is in the NCAAs as an eight seed or better. Real streaky.

Gonzaga has 2 NBA players... who else does?

Well, UConn has two sure-fire lottery picks in the 2004 NBA Draft and two guys on their way to being lottery picks in the 2005 (Villanueva) or 2006 (Boone) NBA Draft.