Here are the answers to all of your NCAA tourney questions

by Dillon Cooper


It is that time again, where friend, family and co-workers all compete against each other; where Americans use more paper at work than at any other time, just to print off 20 copies of their "possible picks" to win it all. There is no telling who will be dancing high and mighty and who will be stunned by a sleeping Cinderella. There is one thing that I can predict, though--there will be only one team that ends their season on the highest note that you can possibly reach and finish 6-0 in NCAA tournament play, and my job is to show you the most logical picks and the most surprising picks of this 2009 addition of the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship Tournament!

At the beginning of the season you could ask any stat junkie if he could foresee any three teams from the same conference all receiving three of the top four seeds in the tournament and he would tell you it would be very unlikely, and even if he did pick the possible teams, he probably wouldn't have hypothesized the right conclusion. The fact is that these three teams--Louisville, Connecticut, and Pittsburgh--are not just good, they are great. Not great like Larry Bird's Indiana State team, or the Fab Five from the team the hailed from Ann Arbor, but they have proven themselves to be superior to their opponents. North Carolina deserves as much credit as these three goliaths from the Big East, with the Tar Heels looking to win their second national title in the past half decade. But let’s not forget the other 61 teams inside this tournament and I have selected all of the upsets and the winner of each region from the Midwest to the West to the East and back down to the South.

MIDWEST:
There are only two upsets that I predict in this region. There could be three but I didn't feel comfortable with having the Great Danes of Siena beating that team that's name should not be mentioned (if you were a Michigan fan you would understand it is the team that spells out their state using their arms and hands, acting like total nimrods). Nevertheless, I predict two upsets in this region. The 5th-seeded Utah Utes will fall to 12-seed Arizona, a team that surprised many entering as one of the very last at-large bid honors. Utah will fall under the fatal curse of the 12th-seeded team beating the 5th-seeded team and never has this been avoided; it has always happened at least once a year since the tournament expanded to 64 teams, and this is probably the most predictable "upset." The other is the 10th-seeded USC/7th-seeded Boston College match up. USC, who won the Pac-10 regular season championship, has had some impressive wins. They beat UCLA the first round and just barely lost in the second affair (UCLA is seeded 6 in their region) and they swept the season series against California, including an impressive win against Cal on the road when Cal seemed unstoppable. BC has stacked up an impressive resume also, winning at Chapel Hill and winning against the Dukies, too, but they will not have an answer for their West Coast foe. The winner of this region will be the top-seeded Louisville Cardinals.

WEST:
This region, to me, was the easiest part of my bracket to fill out, with only one upset that is realistic, unless you want to revert back to the 1985 National Championship game when 'Nova beat Georgetown in a huge shocker (probably the biggest upset in the tournament sense the 1966 University of Texas-El Paso Miners beat the heavily favored team coached by Adolph Rupp, the Kentucky Wildcats). But we are not talking about the past or similes here, we are talking bracketology and reality and the reality is going to hit the Cougars of Brigham Young University (BYU). Texas A&M is going to show what the Big 12 is made of, after the Big 12 has been known as one of the many "Sleeping Giant" conferences. The Aggies will win in this lightweight showdown of an eight seed losing to a nine seed, which isn't all that unusual. The winner of this bracket will be the Connecticut Huskies coached by the veteran, highest paid employee in the state of Connecticut, Jim Calhoun.

EAST:
The East bracket is by far the weakest. I have four upsets on my bracket. The biggest one is the Virginia Commonwealth game. I have them beating the high and mighty team from Los Angles, the Bruins of UCLA. It is a six/ eleven match up and the VCU Rams look to advance out of the first round like a previous year when they upset the heavily favored Duke Blue Devils. Another upset is the Minnesota Golden Gophers over the Texas Longhorns. I know it is a long shot by a lot of czars in this sport but Tubby Smith has transformed this team and I expect them to win in a heated battle. The third upset I have marked down is the Tennessee Volunteers over the Oklahoma State Cowboys. The Vols will win because they have been here before and have excellent players leading the way. The last upset I have pondered on and have had the most difficulty with, and it is the showdown between the ACC and the Big Ten--the Florida State Seminoles and the Wisconsin Badgers. Originally I had FSU down but then I thought if the Badgers stop Seminole junior guard Toney Douglas then they will win for sure, with the next player on the Seminoles’ roster averaging a mere eight points a game. The winner of this region will be another Big East team, and without a question that team will be the Pittsburgh Panthers.

SOUTH:
This division is a very top-heavy region. The lower seeds definitely have a superior advantage against the less fortunate higher seeds. Nevertheless I have the University of North Carolina Tar Heels in the final and winning this region, making it the fourth number one seeded team to make it to the final stage in Detroit.

FINAL FOUR:
The victor of the game against the physical Louisville Cardinals and the blessed-with-height Connecticut Huskies will be Louisville. The Cardinals won their earlier tiff and I expect them to make it two in a row against the Huskies. The other Final Four match-up is the fundamentally sound Pittsburgh Panthers and the bandaged-up North Carolina Tar Heels. Even though Pitt hasn't made the Sweet 16 in a few years, I plan for them to make it to their final destination and play on April 6 against their rivals, Louisville.

NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP:
All right, the National Championship is set. An epic showdown against conference rivals that know each other maybe a little too much, but that should lead to a great showdown for the viewers, right? However that game might go, blowout or end in a hail mary buzzer beater, I predict my Louisville Cardinals from the Midwest region and the number one overall seed leading into the tourney to win it all and I look forward at looking at the joy on head coach Rick Pitino's players’ faces when the confetti is flying and they bring out that big wooden trophy and present the Louisville Cardinals as the 2009 NCAA Basketball Champions!