PRINT YOUR BRACKET | 10 THING TO KNOW BEFORE FILLING YOURS OUT
Now’s your chance to see my official bracket as of Sunday night. This bracket will almost certainly be completely wrong, and it will be fun to laugh at it later on after I lose three Elite Eight teams the first weekend. Feel free to tell me how dumb I am in the comments. I welcome it wholeheartedly, and I obviously also welcome you sharing your picks as well.
As for the reasons behind my picks, here are a few quick notes:
- I think Kentucky is the best team in college basketball (hot take), and I think even though no team has had an undefeated season in a long time that it isn’t a reason not to pick Kentucky to win it all. This team is too deep, too athletic and too talented at every position for just about anybody else and it will take a perfect game out of a team that can somehow defend the post and hit three-pointers to topple them. I know it’s boring to pick the heavy favorite, but I can’t pick anyone else in good conscience.
- Wisconsin is a really good basketball team, and it showed with its performance in the Big Ten Tournament, but there are some serious landmines in that side of the bracket. Oregon is a sneaky tough team to play in the round of 32, North Carolina (if it can hit enough jumpers to keep moving on) has just so much length and rebounds incredibly well, and even if the Badgers make it through unscathed, they’ve got teams like Arizona or Baylor waiting for them in the other half of the region. Wisconsin can certainly get there, but the Badgers would have to earn it the hard way.
- I have too many ACC teams in the Elite Eight. I am going to laugh about this later after the ACC only gets one team in the Elite Eight or something.
- I don’t know what to make of Virginia. The people who have brought up that it’s tough to win that way in a tournament setting because they don’t put anyone away are probably right. I already regret this pick, especially if Justin Anderson still isn’t right.
- I couldn’t pull the trigger on Eastern Washington beating Georgetown despite coming very close to doing so.
- Same thing with Valparaiso over Maryland.
- But I can’t help myself when it comes to Buffalo. Why not?
- Dayton gets to play in Dayton in the First Four and then draws a beatable Providence team if the Flyers can make it through. Something feels right about that pick, but watch them lose to Boise and then Oklahoma is a Final Four team or something.
- If Iowa State and Gonzaga really do end up playing, that’d be a really fun game. I hope that happens.
