Well, here we are, with the second round of the NCAA MBB tournament completed things get real interesting as the field as been reduced to the Sweet Sixteen. I’m in a pool again this year and I must say that I’m pretty pleased with my bracket at this stage. Which teams did I pick?……
Like most others who filled out a bracket this month I picked the unbeaten UK Wildcats to win it all. There several other teams that I would prefer to see win, but I could not ignore the overwhelming talent and the outstanding record of UK. About 65 percent of the people in my pool picked Kentucky to win the championship and I anticipated that. So, I considered two different strategies for winning my pool: 1) pick one of the 3 or 4 teams that might have a real chance of upsetting Kentucky, or 2) pick Kentucky to win and differentiate my bracket by picking a combination of other teams for the rest of the Final Four that would not likely be duplicated.
I decided that I definitely did not want to go against Kentucky and I opted for strategy number 2. That meant not picking any other #1 seeds. So, I picked #3 seed Oklahoma, #2 seed Arizona and #2 seed Gonzaga. All teams that have outstanding coaches in my opinion and teams that I thought could get past the #1 seeds in their respective regions. Well, so far, so good. All four of the teams that I picked to advance the Final Four are still alive. Ultimately, I really need Gonzaga to make it to championship game. Can they make it? We’ll see. I expect the Zags to defeat #11 seed UCLA. They would then play the winner of Duke vs Utah, which will probably be the Blue Devils. Gonzaga vs Duke could be an epic battle. Of course, Duke is always stacked with Blue Chippers and that is the case this season, but Gonzaga also has elite talent this year and I think they have the size that is needed to have a realistic chance of beating Duke. We’ll see soon enough.
gmf journal 