Tough to pick ’em in March

With the men’s NCAA basketball tournament in full swing after last week’s games, my bracket, like so many others, busted wide open, especially after Wichita State beat Gonzaga Saturday.

My bracket took other blows with upsets including Florida Gulf Coast over Georgetown and Ole Miss over Wisconsin. I predicted Georgetown and Wisconsin would advance to the Sweet Sixteen.

But filling out the bracket is half the fun.

Picking the unpredictable upsets, finding those sleeper teams and picking the teams that will represent the four regions in Atlanta for the Final Four this year can sometimes feel seemingly impossible.

I’m a college basketball fan anyway but it’s something about the tournament that gets me extra pumped to watch the first couple rounds and this year did not disappoint with down-to-the-wire games like Marquette taking the lead in the final seconds to avoid the upset against Davidson.

An upset would have been nice to see in that game but it also would have shaken up the East region of my bracket.

I filled out one bracket this year and I don’t have any teams outside the six power conferences advancing to the Sweet Sixteen, except for one-seeded Gonzaga, who I had playing in the Final Four.

Oh, boy.

While looking over my bracket, I noticed that the upsets that I predicted tended to be lower-seeded teams from the top conferences beating higher-seeded mid-major teams.

I kind of surprised myself with these decisions.

For example, I picked 10th-seeded Cincinnati from the Big East over seventh-seeded Creighton from the Missouri Valley Conference, a huge mistake on my part as it turned out.

Last Wednesday, however, Creighton announced that it will join the new Big East in July.

A team like Cincinnati, which has been seriously tested by tough Big East teams like Georgetown, Syracuse, Louisville and so many other talented teams from the conference, I thought would be ready for a team like Creighton, which has played lesser competition. Although Creighton had the better overall record at 27-7 going into the game compared to Cincinnati’s 22-11, Cincinnati won nine Big East games this season.

But sometimes the mid-majors are flat out better than these top Big 10 and ACC teams both on the court and on paper.

Gonzaga had the best record going into the tournament at 31-2 and it dominated their conference, even though it is weak compared to other conferences in the country. But the teams that they were supposed to beat up on, they did, which is why I ruled out their weak schedule.

The higher seeds possess more talent, but never underestimate the heart of an underdog.

Just take Florida Gulf Coast.

I love watching these mid-majors play because it looks like they are not intimidated by the nationally ranked powerhouses.

And why should they be?

They should feel little pressure and play looser than the higher seeded teams because they have nothing to lose.

If they lose or even get blown out, well, that’s what most people predicted anyway.

With more games to come, chances are upsets will occur, providing joy to the victors and frustration to the rest of us who didn’t see them coming in our brackets.