The NCAA Basketball Tournament has been trimmed down to sixteen teams and it has been a wide open tournament from the opening tipoff. The #1 overall seed Kansas Jayhawks were shocked in the second round with a loss to Northern Iowa, and the  third seeded Georgetown Hoyas did not even taste victory as they were bounced in the first round by Ohio. How does the tournament shape up with the remaining survivors is the question? Here is the way I see it…

MIDWEST

This region saw the aforementioned upsets above with Kansas and Georgetown wondering why they were sent packing. With those teams out, it is set up nicely for the Ohio St. Buckeyes to come out of this region. They have been workmenlike  like so far, and  they should  take out Tennessee in their next game and then  the winner of the Michigan State/Northern Iowa game. Ohio St. looks real  good for the Final Four.

WEST

Will the Kentucky Wildcats hang a championship banner from the rafters in 2010?

The West region still has their number two seeds remaining  in Syracuse and Kansas St. Syracuse has looked impressive including yesterday’s victory over Gonzaga. Kansas St. has looked true to form also and knocked off BYU in their latest victory. These two teams are on a collision course to meet in the Elite Eight and that should make a incredible game. But in the end, I see the Orangemen advancing and being a little too much for KState  to handle.

EAST

This region has  my prediction  champion Kentucky Wildcats playing as well as anyone in the tournament. Kentucky is coming off a thirty point blowout over Wake Forest and are riding on a high. They will have stiff competition down the road in Big East champion West Virginia. That game sets up for a very intriguing matchup. Kentucky is too deep and talented to the Final Four pass them by.

SOUTH

The South hosts the #1 seeded Duke Blue Devils. Duke has advanced with smothering defense and looks like a lock to get to the Eight where they will probably face a hungry Baylor team that has won their first tourney games in sixty years. I think Baylor will take out Duke and become the best story of the Final Four.

As you can see so far, anything can happen in this tournament. This makes it very tough to predict but makes the watching that much more exciting. I am looking forward to Thursday to see what transpires. It has left me wanting more!

This years NCAA Basketball tournament appears to be wide open. My predictions have chalk in them but also have a bit of a surprise in them compared to what most of the experts are going with. Here are my Final Four predictions…

March Madness is upon us. It is time to pick your Final Four.

This is where my surprise come in. Kansas is the top seeded team in this tournament, and most people have them not only making it to the Final Four but winning the whole thing. I do see Kansas getting to the Elite Eight, but I see the Georgetown Hoyas beating them there. Georgetown  has a tough path to get to Kansas including possibly playing Ohio State on there way to Kansas. I like the way Georgetown plays and are coached. They run a good offense, have a good defense are were so close to winning the Big East tournament. They are peaking at the right time.

Prediction:Georgetown

WEST

I see this region as the chalk winning it. Syracuse is the #1 seed. I see the Orangemen winning this region even though they have limped into the tournament and do have a injury concern. Cuse has a pretty easy road to the Elite Eight where they will likely face Kansas St. I think by then, they will be both healthy, and a team playing at their best. Syracuse is the class of this region and is too talented to let the Final Four pass them by.

Prediction:Syracuse

EAST

The East region features the freshmen talented Kentucky Wildcats. I think Kentucky has the most talent of any team in the tournament, and they will show they can play as a team with that talent. Kentucky won a lot of close games this year including a unlikely win in the finals of the SEC tournament. This type of winning brings a team together. Kentucky has become a team with awesome talent and will be tough to beat in this tournament. Kentucky takes out West Virginia to get to the Final Four.

Prediction:Kentucky

South

The South region features the Duke Blue Devils as the #1 seed. Duke has the easiest road to the Elite Eight and should not have much of a problem getting there. They are more than fortunate to get this kind of draw. While I would like to pick the Blue Devils because of their fortune, I do not believe on they will get to the Final Four. I am going to go with the Villanova Wildcats. Nova did not end the season on much of a road as they had a very tough schedule to end it. I think that with their hard ending schedule, the competition of the Big East conference, and the talent they have as a team, Villanova will come out of the South and take out Duke.

Prediction:Villanova

My final four has two number ones, a two and a three. I have three Big East teams making the final four. I see Kentucky taking out Georgetown in the finals. The Wildcats with three freshmen cut down the nets.

Looking at the #1 seeds in this years NCAA Basketball Tournament leaves me with the question on what the committee was thinking when they put together the brackets. Kansas is the #1 overall team in the nation but was not treated as such. Here is the way I see how the #1 seeds have it in fashion with difficultly…

How do the #1 seeds have it in March Madness?

The fore mentioned Kansas Jayhawks have the hardest road even though they were the #1 ranked team to end the season. Kansas, in the MIDWEST bracket, will have to go through Maryland to get to the elite Eight and will then in probability take on the Georgetown/Ohio State winner. Those two teams are among the best teams playing right now and will give Kansas a tough run to the Final Four.

The West bracket has the Syracuse Orangemen as the #1 seed and they have it pretty good. They should cruise to the Elite Eight where they will probably take on Kansas St. or Pittsburgh. This is a easier matchup than what Kansas has to deal with. Syracuse was lucky to be a #1 seed as they limped into the tournament, but they seemed to get rewarded for it.

The East bracket has the Kentucky Wildcats as the #1 seed. Kentucky is the hottest team in the NCAA right now but have a tough road to the Final Four. They will probably have to face a talented and underachieved Texas team along with Temple on their way to the Elite Eight. If they are fortunate to get there, they will probably face either West Virginia or New Mexico on their way to the Final Four. A tough draw for the red hot Wildcats.

The South bracket has the Duke Blue Devils as the #1 seed. Duke has the easiest road to the elite eight and should make it with not much of a problem. There, they will probably face either Villanova or Baylor. Not a bad draw by any means. If Duke can get there, they should be the freshest team in the Final Four.

While all this is speculation and prediction, I see Duke having the easiest road to the Final Four followed by Syracuse, Kentucky and Kansas. We will have to see how this all plays out, but I am ready to see it. MARCH MADNESS is only a couple of days away.

If you are a college basketball fan and haven’t tuned in for this year’s Big East tournament, its time to stop calling yourself a college basketball fan.  After four days and fourteen games, West Virginia and Georgetown will square off this evening for the Big East tourney crown and the automatic bid to the NCAA.  It wraps up perhaps the most highly competitive league championship tournament in NCAA history.

Greg Monroe Leads 8th-Seeded Georgetown To The Big East Championship Game

Let’s take a moment to review some of the highlights of the tournament:

• Saint Johns blowing Connecticut off the floor to register the first upset of the tournament, 73-51, and ensuring that Connecticut will not be dancing this March.
• Seton Hall blowing a 29 point second half lead with 13:36 left to Providence and escaping with an unbelievable 109-106 victory in a matchup of amazing offensive basketball.
• Cincinnati nailing its free throws with 1.8 seconds left to seal a 69-68 victory over Rutgers.
• Marquette squeaking by Saint Johns 57-55 in a back and forth second-half brawl.
• Cincinnati outrebounding Louisville 54-33 (with 28 offensive boards) to stave off and register a 69-66 upset
• Georgetown shocking top-seeded Syracuse 91-84 as Syracuse watched it’s big man Arinze Onuaku carried off the floor due to a knee injury.
• Marquette upsetting Villanova 80-76 with some late scoring success, dropping in 50 points in the second half.
• Notre Dame upsetting Pittsburgh 50-45, making its free throws down the stretch to pull out the victory.
• West Virginia hitting a three pointer at the buzzer to beat Cincinnati 54-51  after an unbelievable turnover that gave the Mountaineers the one extra opportunity for the win.
• Georgetown upsetting and demolishing Marquette 80-57.
• West Virgina winning another last minute heartstopper over Notre Dame 53-51.

All this and they still didn’t play the championship game yet.  It almost makes you feel bad for the kids on Georgetown and West Virginia as it is almost impossible for tonight’s game to live up to what has transpired in the tournament thus far.

The results of the Big East tournament this weekend are bound to lead to much controversy when the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee announces the brackets Sunday night.  There are those that will complain that the Big East is getting too many spots.  There are others that will disagree and say the Big East is being not being represented enough.

After watching this tournament, I have to side with the latter part of the argument.  It is expected that the Big East will likely send just 8 of its teams to the NCAA tournament this year.  Given the quality of basketball displayed in Madison Square Garden this week, it is a gross injustice that at-large bids will be granted to bubble teams from other major conferences that simply aren’t deserving.

Let’s take at the list of teams that are on the bubble and will likely be dancing in March:

• Illinois
• Minnesota
• Washington
• Arizona State
• Ole Miss
• Virgina Tech
• Georgia Tech

If any of these teams played in the Big East, they’d likely be the 12th seed or lower in the conference.   Most would make the case that the Big East #12 team, Connecticut would handily defeat this group of bubble teams on a consistent basis.  These bubble teams will get the nod over South Florida, Seton Hall and Cincinnati simply because they performed better in drastically weaker leagues.

Lets take a look at the Pac-10 for example.  Here is a league that will no doubt get three participants in the NCAA Tourney despite being less competitive than the MAAC or Horizon leagues.  If you took Siena, Northern Iowa or Butler and placed them in the Pac-10 this year, they win the league championship handily.  But they will get multiple at-large bids at the expense of the Big East teams.

Arizona State is the 2nd rated team in the Pac-10.  Looking back at their season, they played three tough out-of-conference games against Duke, Baylor and BYU, losing every game.  Washington played Texas Tech, Texas A&M and Georgetown.  The only game they won was against Texas A&M and that really had nothing to do with Washington, as that was the game A&M star Derrick Roland snapped his leg in half in a horrific injury that completely shocked the whole Aggies team.

Then you have Pac-10 champion California.  Here is their resume out of conference.  Blown off the court by Syracuse.  Handled with relative ease by Ohio State.  Spanked by Kansas.  Beaten by New Mexico.   Their only quality non-conference win came against Iowa State whom came in 11th place in the Big 12.

Be assured, the Pac-10 will get three representatives in the NCAA tournament regardless of how bad this conference has been this year.  While California, Arizona State and Washington get undeserving invites to the Big Dance, South Florida, Cincinnati and Seton Hall will likely be playing in the NIT.

Lets hope that the NCAA Tournament Selection Committtee was watching the same basketball games the rest of us were viewing this week in New York City and awards 11 invites to the Big East and sends the message to conferences like the Pac-10 to improve their games or don’t expect to get invited.

Record snow fell on Washington D.C., with more than two feet on the ground before game time.  Despite the crazy weather, the show had to go on for Georgetown and Villanova.  More the 10,000 people braved the blizzard snow conditions to watch Georgetown handily knock off #2 ranked Villanova by a score of 103-90, bringing to an end Villanova’s 11-game win streak.

Pressure Is On For Reynolds and Nova

Georgetown was led by Austin Freeman and Jason Clark whom scored 25 and 24 points respectively.  Scottie Reynolds and Corey Fisher led the way in a losing effort, each dropping in 24 points for Villanova.

The game was a big bounce back victory for the Hoyas.  Earlier in the week, Georgetown was beaten at home by perennial Big East cellar dweller South Florida.  The Hoyas were outhustled and outplayed in almost every facet of that game.  The Hoyas needed a big performance against Villanova and their backcourt didn’t disappoint.

Georgetown’s offense was unstoppable, shooting 56.3% overall and 52.6% from the beyond the arc.  In contrast, the Villanova offense was miserable in the first half, tallying more turnovers (16) than field goals (12) as they struggled to control the ball and make their shots.  The Hoyas capitalized on the inept play, forging a lead of 23 points in the first half and never looked back.

Villanova attempted to claw their way back but got no closer than 10 points.  As Villanova put on the defensive pressure, they consistently sent the Hoyas to the foul line to beat them.  The usually poor free throw shooting Hoyas, with a season average of 69.4%, dropped 39-50 shots from the stripe to close out Villanova for the victory.

The loss by Villanova sends a ripple effect down the Big East Conference standings.  Villanova was considered the class of the conference, but has not really played the meat of their schedule or any fierce opponents.  Villanova is now 1-2 against current Top 25 ranked teams, has just three victories against quality opponents and now face Top 25 rated teams in four of their final eight games to close out the regular season.

After this handy defeat to the Hoyas and two squeaker victories over Marquette, catcalls of “overrated” are definitely going to rain down on this Villanova squad.  How they respond to this will be on full display when Villanova travels to Morgantown for a nationally televised matchup against #6 ranked West Virginia.  A victory will silence the critics, but another solid beating like the one delivered today may send this Villanova squad reeling.

This year’s Villanova squad has not showed a defensive spark that helped deliver last year’s Final Four appearance.  The presence provided by last year’s departing seniors Dante Cunningham and Dwayne Anderson has yet to be replaced by Antonio Pena and reserves Isaiah Armwood and Maurice Sutton.   Villanova will need to see the players step up over the final stretch or it will see a free fall down the ranking and the Big East standings.

Calipari's Wilcats had a number 1 let down.

Kentucky became number 1 in the pools this week and promptly showed why they did not deserve to be there. South Carolina (12-8,3-3 in the SEC) handed the Wildcats(19-1,4-1) a 68-62 loss last night. The Gamecocks outplayed and out rebounded the recently crowned number 1 team in the nation. Their stay will be short and they should fall more than a couple of spots…

South Carolina was lead by Devan Downey, who poured in 30 points and kept the Kentucky defense off balance all night long. Kentucky was lead by Demarcus cousins who had 27 points to go along with their 12 rebounds. Kentucky seemed to have the number one let down and must learn to be more focused down the stretch when they are on the road. Kentucky’s resume’ of victories is less than impressive which makes this loss not that much of a surprise to me.

Kentucky has one real signature win to their credit. They had a road victory in Connecticut. They also do have a another victory over North Carolina but that is less credible now considering the recent play of the Tar Heels. They were overrated 19-0 and if you look at their schedule , you will know what I mean. I want to see how they respond to the rest of the season when their schedule gets tougher and the rigors of travel come into play.

So, who should be number 1 now. My vote would go to the Syracuse Orangemen. Syracuse is coming off their fresh demolition of Georgetown 74-57 on Monday night. The Orange(20-1,7-1) have been impressive all season long.  They have victories over Cal by 22,NC by 16,at Florida by 12 and at West Virginia by 1. They have more impressive victories than the other two teams ahead of them,  Kansas and Villanova. Kansas (19-1) sports victories over Temple and Baylor with their loss coming at a under manned Tennessee squad.Nova (18-1,7-0) has victories over Dayton and Georgetown and loss at Temple.

It is hard to determine exactly who is the best team in the nation right know, but it looks to me to be Syracuse. They have had the most impressive victories so far this year and the teams ahead of them can’t measure up to their victory resume’ thus far. I would bump them up from number four and put them to the top of the pools. I am not a big fan of the pools, but it does give sports fans something to debate about. The real season begins in March, there is nothing better than the tournament. Can’t wait for MARCH MADNESS.

Georgetown has historically owned the Syracuse Orangemen when they’ve been at the top of their game, delivering upsets that the Syracuse alumni will never forget.  Syracuse has been rated in the Top 5 in four previous games with the Hoyas.  The Orangemen’s record in those games is 0-4.  John Thompson III invaded the Carrier Dome looking to carry on the legend of his father.

Andy Rautins Leads The Orangemen To Victory

The game kicked off looking like the Hoyas were once again going to deflate Syracuse’s season.  Two turnovers and three missed jumpers in the first 3 minutes of the game left Syracuse trailing 14-0, not knowing what hit them.  Jim Boeheim rallied his troops for the next 37 minutes for a 31 point turnaround that turned an imminent Syracuse blowout loss into a blowout victory against a highly regarded Hoyas basketball squad.

Boeheim earned his 819th career victory, moving into 6th on the all-time wins list, passing the currently idled Jim Calhoun of Connecticut.  The victory was also the team’s 20th, extending Boeheim’s NCAA record of 32 20-plus win seasons in 34 years.

The way the Orangemen won the game was not as Boeheim had charted out.  “We recovered from the worst start I can remember,” Boeheim said. “Our defense picked up and our offense got going.  To go into halftime ahead was really unbelievable.  To dominate a top-10 team after giving them 14 points is quite an effort.  That’s as good as we can play.  Everybody was looking for each other.”

Very true words.

What makes this Syracuse team intriguing this year is how they are putting away teams with major scoring runs driven by their defense.  The offense maintains the run and doesn’t give it back going into scoring lulls.  Its the type of basketball you usually don’t see at the college level.  Where most teams are driven by a superstar with an NBA future, Syracuse doesn’t feature any one star that is looking beyond his college basketball days.

The comeback against Georgetown was fueled by the stunting 2-3 zone defense that Boeheim and Syracuse have become famous for.  But it was their lack of selfishness on offense which was the difference maker.   Their seven players rotation shared the ball, with no player on the Syracuse squad taking 10 shots or more from the field.

This selfless display comes on the heels of Syracuse’s definitive victory over Marquette on Saturday.  In that game, Syracuse’s second leading scorer Andy Rautins played 36 minutes, taking only 2 shots and scoring no points.  A refreshing change by a team leader within a sport where shameless self-promotion is the norm.

After the game, Rautins shrugged off questions from the media about his 0-for-2 performance, focusing instead on his teammates.  Rautins noted how well the forwards took advantage of the mismatches down, “If you can’t score in one aspect, you find other ways to win.”

With that type of attitude living in the locker room, the rest of college basketball better take notice.  The Orangemen are the most dangerous team in the NCAA.