Tourney Time!!!!!!!

Well here it is. The NCAA Tourney brackets have been announced. I am psyched because of all of the games that I will be able to see. I hope to cover a couple of the games in my area. That would be great. Once I get a good look at the brackets, I can offer my Final Four picks. Last year, I got 3 out of 4 picks correct, and half of the championship game participants.

Props to American University, UMBC, and Coppin State for earning their first ever NCAA Tourney appearances.

#1 Overall Seed is North Carolina. I was surprised at this. I didn't think they looked that impressive down the stretch. I know Ty Lawson is coming back from injury, but I'm still not sold on their defensive principles. They'll be in the East bracket.

#1 Seed South- Memphis
#1 Seed West- UCLA
#1 Seed MidWest- Kansas

These are worthy #1 seeds. All of them won their conference tournaments, and generally in the Top 5 the entire season.

East Region:

North Carolina has a pretty tough region with #2 Tennessee and #3 Louisville in the bottom of the bracket. Tennesse, in particular, is the type of team that can cathc fire and shoot you out of the gym. They matchup really well with North Carolina. They have an inside presence to combat Tyler Hansborough in the post, while Chris Lofton leads their outside shooting brigade.

Midwest Region:

Clemson gets a #5 seed? Wow. Definitely wasn't expecting that at all. Georgetown is in the Midwest region, but they get a local opponent, UMBC. If they win that game, either of their next opponents (Gonzaga or Davidson) are more than capable of pulling the upset. A good first round match up: M. Beasley vs. OJ Mayo. Can't wait for Thursday to see that match up.

South Region:

Memphis's bracket just might be the toughest. #2 Texas, #3 Stanford, #4 Pittsburgh, #5 Michigan State all are capable of beating Memphis. The toughest games (physically) will come out of this bracket. Miami earned a bid, which is interesting since they lost to Virginia Tech, and Virginia Tech hasn't officially made the tournament yet. I sense big arguments brewing here. Kentucky is also in this bracket.

West Region:

I'm not sure how I feel about this region. Duke is in this region as the #2 seed, but beyond that, I don't see much competition for UCLA. Xavier earned the #3 seed for the region, which frankly I don't know how that happened. Baylor made the field, which took the spot of Virginia Tech. VCU also was left out of the tournament.

Now I'm off to fill out my brackets. When I'm done, I'll have my picks for the Final Four, as well as this year's champion.