March Madness in Review: March Insanity

Well when you look at my bracket specifically, it's totally fallen apart. My elite eight was particularly ugly, and of course my national champion has been defeated. That being said, I think you can take some nice things away from my insight. Duke pretty much lived up to my billing, particularly the play of Nolan Smith, in advancing to the final four, and at least I have them in the championship game. My number two sleeper, Murray State, provided a nice first round upset over Vanderbilt, and in the second round nearly beat final four team, Butler, so I'll take that as a good call. Ohio State's top five didn't hold up against Tennessee, but Evan Turner certainly did his part. Pretty much no one has more than two final four teams left, and most have lost their champions as well, with all this considered, I think my bracket performed somewhat admirably, yet very average. But I think the biggest thing to take away from the first couple weeks as a whole, is the importance of seeding in a particularly week field, and the randomness of how easy one teams path might end up after the first weekend. Take Michigan State, a team that really isn't that good, having to beat no team higher than four, and winning all the games by extremely narrow margins. This team probably benefited from early upsets more than anyone else. Compare them to Butler, who took on a tough one and two seed, in making their final four appearance. Duke's only real test was Baylor and a hobbled yet feisty Purdue squad, and that was without any major upsets in the region (Villanova was vastly overrated). While Michigan State benefited from early upsets, Duke had an extremely favorable path. Meanwhile West Virginia and Butler were able to overcome the top seeds--who were not particularly strong this year.

Now onto my final four picks. I always thought it was unfair how analysts got to make new picks every week, even though their earlier picks had all ready lost. But here I am providing my insight, on some other person's bracket. Anyway, with Michigan State against Butler, I simply have to pick Butler here. Butler's defense is better than Tennessee's and really Michigan State could have easily lost to Tennessee. People are trending to look at Butler as the surprise team in the tourney, but I think MSU's final four inclusion was much more unlikely, especially considering the loss of Kalin Lucas. This considered, I view Butler as the favorite, and even though Tom Izzo is a NCAA tournament wizard, I think his magic stops short here. Butler is certainly an underdog in general terms, but they really have a solid team, that plays very good defense and also shoots the ball extremely well. As for Duke against West Virginia, I won't stray from my initial pick of Duke to go the championship game. This pick is fairly simple: Duke is like Kentucky in that it can defend and rebound well, but different in that they can also shoot well. That will be the difference, and not Joe Mazzula, again.

As for the championship game, I think this will be incredibly hard fought. Butler and Duke, both have strong winning mentalities and neither team is going to give this one up. Both teams have good guard play, and a slashing forward in Kyle Singler and Gordon Hayward. I think Ronald Nored is an underrated player for Butler, and I can feel him playing well in the final four. Ultimately I think Duke gets a few breaks from the refs, and uses their inside advantage to squeeze out a narrow victory. I think Butler could win the championship, but it would almost be too good a story, and so I pick NCAA giant Duke. At least you feel more clean about Coach K. winning it than if someone like John Calipari were to do so.