NCAA Tournament Bracket Predictions, Knee-Jerk Edition
By Jason McIntyre
South
Florida should cruise into a Sweet 16 meeting with UCLA. Or is there a chance Pittsburgh uglies up the second round enough to make it interesting? Ohio State can’t score and neither can Syracuse. Kansas doesn’t have Joel Embiid (beware New Mexico). Yup, I’m an Aaron Craft groupie, so my knee-jerk regional final is Florida vs. Ohio State.
West
Arizona’s bracket to lose. Maybe because I don’t think much of Creighton (Doug!), San Diego State (won at Kansas!) or Oklahoma. Fun potential second round matchup: Creighton vs. Nebraska. There’s a tiny land mine for Arizona in the second round against Marcus Smart and Oklahoma State, but the Wildcats should win and comfortably reach the regional final against … Baylor? I’m tempted to pick Oregon, but I’ll reluctantly go with Baylor over Wisconsin.
Midwest
Three Final Four teams from last year are in this bracket, and Duke and Kentucky. Good luck with all this, undefeated Wichita State. What was the committee thinking? It clearly must not have wanted Wichita State to go unbeaten. The Shockers’ possible road to the Final 4: Kentucky, hot Louisville, and Duke/Michigan. That’s virtually impossible. I’m not sure Wichita State gets out of the first weekend. Gut reaction: Louisville vs. Michigan.
East
A very soft region. The top two seeds aren’t going to get much love (Virginia, Villanova). Everyone’s going to be on Harvard over Cincinnati. Most fun second round matchup? Saint Joe’s vs. Villanova, a Philadelphia rivalry that would be played in Buffalo. My gut, which is never right, says Michigan State vs. Iowa State.
So my 1st Final Four, without looking in-depth at stats or matchups:
East: Iowa State
South: Florida
West: Arizona
Midwest: Louisville
Florida over Iowa State and Arizona over Louisville.
Give me Arizona over Florida for the title.