March Madness!

Today begins the best even in sports, with the next four days being the best of it. I am planting my ass in my basement and not coming out until Sunday night.

My Final Four: Kansas (over Georgetown in the Midwest Regional), Kansas St. (over Syracuse in the West), West Virginia (over Kentucky in the East) and Duke (over Baylor in the South). Kansas will beat West Virginia in the Final.

There is no great team this year but only one of the teams mentioned above, and Ohio St., can win it this year. Kentucky is probably the most talented team but they are not that mature. I don't mean that they are too young, I mean that I don't think they will handle a great defense and close game that W. Virginia will throw at them. Kentucky hasn't played a team like the Mountaineers all year and it will show.

Now time to deal with the notion that Duke got a 1 seed to boost ratings and and Kansas got screwed by being put in the bracket off death.

First Duke. To suggest a conspiracy is completely absurd. There is not much difference anymore between being a 1 or 2 with regards to how easy it is to get to the Final Four. And of the 4 1 seeds Duke has the toughest potential 2nd round game against Louisville. Louisville is inconsistent but very talented and beat Syracuse twice. If they are at their best they will beat Duke by 10 and Duke won't even get out of the first weekend.

Now Kansas. Yes there are a lot of good teams in the Midwest but Tennessee (who is overrated despite beating Kansas and Kentucky and might not beat SD St.), Georgetown and Ohio St. are all in the bottom half of that bracket, which means they only have to play one of them (and West Virginia is the best 2 seed so Kentucky has the toughest potential Regional Final). And Michigan St./Maryland might be a second round matchup, which means the Jayhawks only have to play one of them.

If you have not filled out your brackets yet go with the chalk. I really don't see a lot of upsets this year. My only Sweet Sixteen sleeper is Siena and I had to convince myself of that.

Best of luck to everyone in their pool!