March Madness bracket predictions from our college basketball expert, with 1 big surprise
· Yahoo Sports
There’s no way to start this post without doing a little of bragging. Well, there is, I’m just not going to do that.
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I’m in the midst of easily my best run of bracket predictions, one which includes currently predicting the national champion in three consecutive years.
Three years ago, I nailed the UConn national championship pick and finished in the 100th percentile (41,822nd out of over 20 million brackets) in the ESPN bracket challenge. Two years ago, I ran it back with UConn and once again finished in the 100th percentile. Last year, I took some unnecessary gambles in the chalkiest tournament of all-time, but still nailed the national title pick with Florida. Overall, my last five national champion picks have all at least made it to the Final Four.
A regression is bound to happen at some point. Here’s hoping it isn’t this year.
Let’s get to the picks:
Since early January, I’ve been working under the assumption that I was going to pick Duke to win the national championship. After watching them play at the ACC Tournament in Charlotte last week (a tournament they won!), I saw enough to believe the absence of Caleb Foster is too much for that to happen. So we’ve had to pivot.
Hand to God, I genuinely did not know who I was going to pick to win it all when I started filling out this bracket, but I knew I was down to Michigan, Arizona and Houston. When the moment finally came, I went with the Wolverines purely out of a gut feeling. It worked last year. Here’s hoping it works again.
East Region
The tournament’s “glamor region” is widely believed to be the strongest in the bracket, but I think there’s the potential for at least a little bit of chaos here. That chaos does not hit in the first round, as every single favorite advances to the weekend (sorry, trendy upset pick South Florida).
Things start to get a little wild in round two as Bruce Thornton and Ohio State push the No. 1 overall seed to the brink. Duke survives in a game that reminds everyone of the Blue Devils’ 2019 second round escape against Central Florida.
The showcase game of round two is St. John’s-Kansas where the Johnnies’ — who get a massive scare from Northern Iowa in round one — relentless pressure frustrates Darryn Peterson and KU to no end. No one has any idea what to do with these Jayhawks, and I’m no different, but looking like a national champion in round one and then looking like they don’t know how to play basketball two days later feels like a fitting end to an all-time bipolar season.
Louisville has beaten the teams they’re supposed to beat and lost to the teams they’re supposed to lose to all season long. That trend continues as they survive USF in a first round thriller, but fall to a Michigan State team whose physicality they simply have no answer for.
This is your annual reminder that in 25 of the last 28 years, at least one No. 2 seed has been knocked out of the tournament before the Sweet 16. Last year it was St. John’s, this year it’s the team that has become their chief Big East rival. UConn has looked awfully vulnerable over the last couple of weeks, and a UCLA team that suddenly has Donovan Dent playing like the best point guard in America takes full advantage and pulls off the 7/2 upset.
The biggest upset in the region comes in the Sweet 16, where St. John’s takes full advantage of Duke’s backcourt issues and Rick Pitino reminds the world that he’s one of the best NCAA Tournament coaches in college basketball history.
UCLA keeps the March magic flowing by knocking off a Michigan State team they just beat in the Big Ten Tournament last week, and then Mick Cronin takes down his old mentor in the Elite Eight to punch his second ticket to the Final Four.
Did I take a huge swing by picking UCLA to go to the Final Four a year ago? Yes I did. Did that giant swing pay off in any way, shape or form? No it did not … it actually completely tanked my bracket even though I correctly picked the national champion.
STILL, let the record show that every Final Four but TWO since 2012 has featured at least one team seeded 7th or worse. The first and second round upset trends may be doomed in the NIL era, but I’m banking on this continuing.
Believe in anything as strongly as I apparently believe in March Mick Cronin.
South Region
It’s another chalky first round here, as VCU toppling a Caleb Wilson-less North Carolina and Iowa pulling a 9/8 “upset” of Clemson are the only mildly surprising results. The Rams become the first double-digit seed to punch their ticket to the second weekend when Brandon Jennings puts the clamps on Keaton Wagler in round two and VCU stuns third-seeded Illinois.
VCU’s run comes to a screeching halt in the Sweet 16 when they run into a Houston team on a mission. The Cougars dominate their first three opponents as the college basketball world begins to form the “Kelvin Sampson March revenge” narrative after last year’s near national championship.
The Sweet 16 also gives us a rematch of the SEC Tournament semifinal we just saw between reigning champion Florida and Vanderbilt. It isn’t the absolute beatdown we got in Nashville, but Mark Byington puts the basketball world on notice by knocking off the Gators again and carrying the Commodores to their first Elite Eight appearance since 1965.
The Vandy magic stops there. This is Houston’s region. The Cougars roll back to the Final Four for a second straight year and for the third time under Sampson.
West Region
Yet another region where chalk prevails early. If you’re sensing a theme, you’re right.
Hawaii and High Point both give valiant efforts, but Utah State over ‘Nova is the region’s only “upset” in the first round.
BYU has something for everyone who has put them six feet under following the Richie Saunders injury. A.J. Dybantsa makes a final collegiate claim to be the No. 1 pick in this summer’s NBA Draft by absolutely lighting up Texas and old WCC rival Gonzaga in back-to-back games. The Cougars then push Purdue to the brink before seeing their season come to a heartbreaking close in the Sweet 16.
Wisconsin once again proves to be John Calipari’s march Kryptonite as the Badgers pull off the upset of trendy Final Four pick Arkansas in the second round, but then run into the buzzsaw that is top seed Arizona.
The Wildcats never really get tested in this region, and have everyone labeling them as the national championship favorite following a regional final demolition of preseason No. 1 Purdue.
Midwest Region
If there’s a region that has the potential to completely fall apart and get super weird, I think it’s this one. I’m also not predicting that to happen.
Georgia has actually been a top 25 caliber team over the last month and hammers Saint Louis in round one before putting the fear of God into Michigan in round two. The Wolverines survive and use that as a wake-up call for the remainder of the tournament.
Akron pulls off the 12/5 upset of JT Toppin-less Texas Tech, and then nearly does the same thing to Aden Holloway-less (probably?) Alabama two days later. The Tide survives, but gets eviscerated by Michigan in Chicago.
The bottom half of the bracket is the one I think the college basketball public hates more than any other in the tournament. I am in agreement.
Tennessee guts out a low-scoring but fun game against Virginia in round two, but then runs into an even grittier Iowa State team in the Sweet 16. The Cyclones survive and then take Michigan to the wire in the best game of the four regional finals.
Final Four
Houston suffocates UCLA and then Michigan outlasts Arizona in a game everyone deems “the real national championship game.” The Cougars take that personally, but ultimately come up heartbreakingly short yet again as they become the first program in college basketball history to lose back-to-back national championship games for a second time.
Follow-up: If we do, in fact, get a Michigan-Houston national title matchup, it would feature two programs that are a combined 1-9 in national championship games, with the only win coming on arguably the most controversial foul call in the history of the NCAA Tournament.
Still, wake up Rumeal Robinson … the Wolverines are finally about to cut down the nets for a second time.