NCAA preview and upset picks

In a year where there is a lot of talk about the lack of quality depth in the field of 65 for the NCAA tournament you would think there will be a lot of upsets in the first two rounds by lower seeded teams.  Whether that holds true or not remains to be seen.

What we do know is that the unquestioned favorite to win the national title is Kansas.  They have dominated the top spot in the rankings for most of the year and have the best overall talent and depth of any team.  That doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll win, but I like their chances.

While many observers believe Kansas received the toughest regional despite their top seed, I think it’s just fine.  You never know who you’ll face.  Often times teams look at their brackets and begin to look ahead to who they’ll face and find those teams are no longer around when they get to that point in the tournament. 

I think Georgetown is a difficult team in the Midwest bracket, because their offensive style is difficult to prepare for on short notice. But they may not make it by the Tennessee-San Diego State winner.  Ohio State has outstanding guard play and Evan Turner, but they could run into a problem with Oklahoma State and Big 12 Player of the Year James Anderson and mad bomber Keiton Page. 

In the East, Texas is in the same bracket as Kentucky.  The one time number one team has struggled mightily down the stretch and seemed to be mailing it in the past few games.  If they can regroup, they have the physical talent to upset the young Wildcats, although I’m not betting on it.

Marquette is a team that I think can make a move in the bottom half of that bracket and a matchup with New Mexico in the second round could be a great one.  In the South, Duke may have gotten a good regional draw, but watch out for Texas A&M, they play stingy defense make you work for every basket.

In the West, Syracuse will apparently be without center Arinze Onauku in the first and second round.  They should manage anyway the first weekend but the next weekend in Salt Lake City could feature a matchup against BYU or Kansas State.  It wouldn’t be a neutral court with BYU in the game and K-State can play with anybody.

I’m never great at picking the upsets, but here’s mine for the first round.  Cornell over Temple, Northern Iowa over UNLV and St. Mary’s over Richmond