NCAA Tournament Thread

[Butterscup1679666578]

My first-round upsets are Albany over Virginia, Illinois over Virginia Tech, VCU over Duke, Texas Tech over BC, ODU over Butler and Creighton over Nevada.

 

In terms of upsets by seedings I have:

9 Purdue over 8 Arizona

12 ODU over 5 Butler

11 Winthrop over 6 Notre Dame

10 GT over 7 UNLV

11 VCU over 6 Duke

9 Michigan St. over 8 Marquette

11 George Wash. over 6 Vanderbilt

 

I don't really consider 8 vs. 9 upsets though.

 

And I just realized I have three 11 seeds winning...hrm.

[Chris]

Alright, that's two entries!

 

Who wants a chance to beat 1908 and I? :D

 

In that case I'll let my 8 month old make my picks...

[Andy]

I love this - with a ton of experts picking Winthrop (except apparently Hubert Davis, who agreed with me and put ND in his Elite 8), there's no way we'll come even close to taking the Eagles lightly. :D

 

BTW, schedules are now up on Sportsline if you want to see when your favorite team (or biggest upset pick) is playing in the 1st round.

[Chris]

oops, forgot the :wink:

[CubColtPacer]

IU has to play the last game of the night-again. I think that's 7 straight times that they've made the tournament where they played one of the last games of the night-I'm not exactly sure why that is.

[MPrior]

First: I'm a complete UNC homer.

 

But doesn't it seem to anyone else that the East is the most difficult bracket by far?

[BleedCubbieBlue81]

First: I'm a complete UNC homer.

 

But doesn't it seem to anyone else that the East is the most difficult bracket by far?

Yeah, it looks to be the toughest by a decent margin, at least in my eyes.

[CubColtPacer]

We all know that one half of one region blows up every year. What are the candidates this year?

 

For me, it's:

 

the bottom half of the Midwest-IMO, Wisconsin, UNLV, Georgia Tech, Oregon, Notre Dame, or Winthrop could possibly all come out into the Elite 8.

bottom half of south-you have Memphis, A&M, Louisville, Nevada, Creighton, Stanford-all of those teams are talented enough, but they are all beatable as well.

honorable mentions: top half of West, top half of East.

 

My two most likely choices for the bracket to stay relatively clean are the top halves of the Midwest and South-don't see too many upsets happening in those two sections.

[NCCubFan]

I don't really consider 8 vs. 9 upsets though.

Neither do I, and I don't consider 10 over 7 to be a major upset.

[NCCubFan]

Alright, that's two entries!

 

Who wants a chance to beat 1908 and I? :D

I'll join, since you can have up to five different brackets this year. In one of my brackets I have Albany over Arizona for the championship (I decided it would be fun to see how I do automatically picking the first team alphabetically for every game :D ). That's not in one of the NSBB groups.

[rawaction]

IU has to play the last game of the night-again. I think that's 7 straight times that they've made the tournament where they played one of the last games of the night-I'm not exactly sure why that is.

 

Yeah, what the hell is that? Always the 9:55 start. And they seem to always be among the top 5 teams in distance traveled to their first round game.

[EricG]

They are playing 4 games in Sacramento. 2 for the east and 2 for the west. Every site is doubled up like this. Usually a site is for only one region.

[NCCubFan]

Usually a site is for only one region.

Not for the past few years. When they implemented the pod system for the first two rounds, they did away with tying them to a specific region. The reason for that is so that as many teams as possible play close to home for the first two rounds regardless of what region they're in.

[rawaction]

I seem to be the only one that thinks this is gonna be as straight forward a tourney as we've seen in a while. Sure, I'm sure there will be a lot of minor upsets, but I wouldn't be surprised to see all the #1s in the final four. At worse, maybe a couple 2 seeds.

 

The top teams are all hot right now. Florida has dominated completely since back-to-back losses. Ohio St. hasn't lost since January. G'town has won 15 of 16. UNC breezed thru the ACC. Kansas has lost, what once since January? I don't see much stopping Ohio St. in the South. I don't see anyone in their pod stopping Florida from the Elite 8. Wisconsin doesn't have an easy road, but them playing in Chicago probably gives them the edge if they face Oregon. In the west, Kansas has a tough team in Villanova, but that's really the only team that I can see even having a shot to stop them from the Elite 8. In the other half, I see UCLA having their toughest time with Gonzaga (in world beater mode again) or IU (best defensive team they will probably have seen to that point all year) in the 2nd round. But they should breeze thru Pitt or Duke if they come out.

 

The East is obviously tough throughout. And the bottom of the South has a bunch of decent teams, and I could see all but Penn and North Texas coming out of that pod.

 

Funny, because this was supposed to be the year for parity.

[Burtonbell]

Alright, that's two entries!

 

Who wants a chance to beat 1908 and I? :D

 

I will be on my honeymoon the next 2 weeks so that way I dont want to know how bad I will do this year! Last year was brutal...

 

 

 

 

 

Stupid George Mason!

[rocket]

i have wright st. in the sweet sixteen, but then losing to ucla.

 

it's so crazy it just might work.

[rawaction]

I picked Nova to beat Kansas in one of my brackets just to be different. I picked a Stanford vs. Nevada Sweet 16 matchup in one, and Stanford vs. Creighton in the other.

[snoodmonger]

assuming KU wins the first round (cue jokes), that second round game really scares me. Kentucky and Nova (especially Nova) are dangerous. I don't know if I can emotionally handle losing early in this tourney.

[Guest]

I'm dying to see the Illinois - Kansas matchup in the sweet 16, though I doubt Illinois gets there.

[ConstableRabbit]

You know, they always talk about 12s over 5s, and I think this year three out of the four 12-5 matchups could go that way.

 

By far my favorite matchup each year.

[illiniguy]

I'm dying to see the Illinois - Kansas matchup in the sweet 16, though I doubt Illinois gets there.

Well I would like to see it cause we made it that far extending our 25 win season streak. But, I think they will destroy us. I wish we could have gotten that game two years ago. You know the kids Bill left playing against him.

[illiniguy]

assuming KU wins the first round (cue jokes), that second round game really scares me. Kentucky and Nova (especially Nova) are dangerous. I don't know if I can emotionally handle losing early in this tourney.

Yeah, but how bad would it be for you if Weber got to you and beat you?

[Transmogrified Tiger]

There's really no one in the Midwest that I want to put in the Final 4. I really didn't want to pick anyone in the sweet 16 matchups either, I was half tempted to have Old Dominion pull off this year's George Mason.

[dew1679666265]

IU has to play the last game of the night-again. I think that's 7 straight times that they've made the tournament where they played one of the last games of the night-I'm not exactly sure why that is.

 

Because nobody likes watching your team. 8-)

[Magnetic Curses]

Alright, that's two entries!

 

Who wants a chance to beat 1908 and I? :D

 

I will be on my honeymoon the next 2 weeks so that way I dont want to know how bad I will do this year! Last year was brutal...

 

 

 

 

 

Stupid George Mason!

 

i had the same thing happen to me in 2002. i was in tahiti for IU/Maryland. from what i understand, i didn't miss much.