Round 1

I'll work on these games by seeding to make it easy:

1- We all know a 16 has never beaten a 1 and never will. Enough said, they all move on. Let's get over the intrigue of "This might be the year!" Uh, no.

2- A 15 has beaten a 2 a couple of times. I said a couple of times. The only person who's going to correctly pick a 15 beating a 2 is a guy's wife who says she likes Binghamton's colors. That's it. Personally, I'm not buying. 2's move on.

3- Yes, I know, all the 3's move on too. Mizzou is good, I've got Cuse in my title game, I've got Nova in my Final Four, Kansas is the defending champ. I can't argue with that, neither can you.

4- Mississippi State WILL beat Washington! Why? (I know, an upset, stay with me!) Well, Washington is in the Pac-10, you know, the power conference. Right....right??? Ok, the Pac-10 sucks, Miss. State almost won the SEC tournament (granted, the SEC sucks just as bad) but they almost DID something, the new Miss. State is a little honked off (enjoying the Golden Girls reference are we?) and they'll pull off the upset.

5- Upset alert! I know, another one! Wisconsin over Florida State. I know, Tony Douglas is the man and he will be a very rich man one day playing pro ball, but what else is going on at FSU? They beat UNC!? Really? Is that the same UNC with no Ty Lawson and the weakling, I mean, Tyler Hansbrough? Yeah, that win doesn't count. Wisconsin is good and Bo Ryan ain't playin' around. Mark it down folks.

6- My wife is from Dayton, so I have an affinity for the Flyers, but UD gets stuff done. They go to the tournament alot, they win first round games, they make runs, they always play well and I don't see Joe Alexander or Kevin Pitsnogle on the floor for WVU, nuff said.

7- Michigan, Maryland, and USC all moving on? I know, this will probably break me, but I just have a funny feeling about their opponents. Do you mean to tell me that Clemson (yuck!), BC (double yuck!) or Cal (triple yuck!) can get it together to beat Gary Williams (a coach with a title who brought his team around this year) John Belein (the only reason we care about Joe Alexander or a guy named Pitsnogle) and Tim Floyd (who is NOT an idiot.)????? Really. I know that Maryland wasn't great this year and the Pac-10 and big-10 sucked massively this year, but come on, don't you have a bad feeling about picking BC, Clemson, or Cal to win even a moderately important basketball game.

8- Here we've got 3 8's losing to 9's. These are NOT upsets. 8's and 9's are supposed to be evenly matched. Once again, I just have a funny feeling about this. BYU, LSU, and Ok. St. I mean, BYU? No way. LSU, they couldn't even win the sucky tournament of their sucky conference which they won in the regular season (BTW - I love Trent Johnson, just not his team right now.) Ok. St. The only thing I remember about them was Eddie Sutton saying that they could have beaten Ga Tech in a 3 game series after they lost in the Final Four in 2004. There you have it, old reliables! NOT!!!!

Just a quick note about my Final Four. Louisville, Memphis, Villanova, and Syracuse are all programs I LOVE! So, I am slightly biased, but when I read the brackets I have a hard time picking against good ole Jay, or Jim or Rick or Johnboy. I am extremely torn about my final game outcome with Memphis beating Syracuse, but I feel like this is Memphis' second chance just like Duke had in '91, only Memphis will have a different opponent. I just don't see how, if my bracket is right, that they'll let it get away again.

More when the second round comes and my bracket has been bombed by the Enola Gay of the NCAA...the tournament First Round.