A few of my thoughts on the bracket

Well it's official we know who's in and who's out. I actually think that it was a pretty good bracket. There's not very many incredibly dumb moves. The last three in Old Dominion, Arkansas, and Illinois can all be justified. Stanford was perhaps the most dubious choice but even that was acceptable. I was disappointed that Appalachian didn't get in but I won't complain like many App fans are. I said to even have an at-large chance they needed to get to the SoCon final. They didn't and my statement was proven correct. Here's a few of my observations.

#1 Seeds: Pretty good choices. I don't understand Florida being the #1 overall though. I think their resume was inferior to Ohio State, UNC, UCLA, and Kansas and yet they're #1 overall. Still, it's not a big deal because that's just my opinion. The bracketing didn't make a lot of sense though. If Florida is #1 overall, why are they in the Midwest? Shouldn't they have just switched regions with Florida and Ohio State?

Upset alerts: Old Dominion over Butler (the #5 Mid-Major Rule), George Washington over Vanderbilt (the George Washington rule), Illinois over Va Tech, Winthrop over Notre Dame, among others. Will I pick any or all? I don't know. Just saying.

Easy Road: Florida looks to have the easiest road to the Final Four of the #1 seeds. I also like Georgetown's section of the bracket as a #2 seed.

Hard road: The South and the West look like the tough brackets to me.

Dark Horse: What teams not seeded #4 or higher do I like? In the Midwest #10 Georgia Tech has a first round matchup with UNLV and a potential matchup with a weakening Wisconsin. In the West how about the #6 Duke Blue Devils? If they can pull their talent together, beating VCU and Pittsburgh wouldn't be that difficult. In the East, #9 Michigan State. If they can get past Marquette, they could give North Carolina a great deal of trouble. In the South, #6 Louisville is very good. It won't be easy, as to get tot he Elite Eight they will probably have to beat Texas A&M and Memphis. But they're solid.

This year's George Mason: There won't be. I think last year was more of a fluke then anything Also, with the new rule forcing NBA prospects to play a year of college, the top teams are much better than they were a year ago. As I said last week, last year's Florida team would be ranked probably 7th on my list this year. Still there a couple of teams that I think are better than George Mason last year. Butler and Southern Illinois for instance. But they are #5 and #4 seeds respectively so it wouldn't be a true Cinderella story. Winthrop? Perhaps although everyone is jumping on the bandwagon. I'll go with Creighton as a #10 seeds. They're in that brutal bottom half of the South but they've got one of the best mid-major teams in the field. So watch out.

So who is my Final Four?: Well...I don't know yet. I'm not going to pick a national champion yet because I haven't really pored over the bracket as I should. But here's my immediate idea of a Final Four.

Midwest: #1 Florida (They're the defending champion, my preseason #1, they've finally gotten into March madness form, and their bracket seems pretty much laid out for them)
West: #1 Kansas (One of the two most talented teams in the country. The Big 12 has had a tremendous amount of close games this year. I think that has helped the maturation process and they will be hard to beat in close situations.)
East: #1 North Carolina (Along with Kansas, one of the two most talented teams. Generally the most talent wins this tournament. Top half of this bracket could be tough though especially with a potential Elite Eight against Georgetown)
South: #3 Texas A&M: (Law is the most clutch player in the country. They've been in a lot of close games like Kansas. I've been bullish on them since last year. You know the drill.

My List of 8 will be posted sometime this week as I attempt the 7th straight year of picking the national champion with eight choices. Also, I'll be posting game predictions of every game so when I finish with a losing record, Robyn can make fun of me. Enjoy March Madness!