SI’s Seth Davis picks Arizona, Louisville, North Carolina and Duke.
9 thoughts on “Pick ’em”
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Pick ’em
Tonight in Dayton, Ohio, the Oakland (Michigan) Golden Grizzlies (12-18) play the Alabama A&M Bulldogs (18-13) in the first of 64 games to decide the NCAA men’s national basketball champions. The winner faces North Carolina Friday.
Ok, here are my picks for the next round;
Illinois wins but not big.
Arizona wins by at least 10.
Washington squeaks by in a nail-biter, maybe a last shot win or even overtime.
West Virginia wins by a comfortable margin, upwards of 10.
UNC wins a close one that could have gone the other way.
Wisconsin wins by upwards of 10.
Duke wins by a narrow margin.
Kentucky wins a nail-biter. Free throws at the end make it seem bigger than it really is.
For the next round I put Arizona, West Virginia, UNC and Kentucky in the Final Four.
Illinois over Arizona (in the best game of the tourney)
Washington
UNC
Kentucky over MSU (unfortunately, I don’t think we get another Kentucky/Duke elite 8 matchup)
The upset of the weekend — Sergio Garcia wins the Players Championship
I take Arizona over Illinois (Wishful thinking? Probably.)
Louisville over West Virginia
North Carolina over NC State
Duke over Kentucky
I just realized that my picks are the same as Seth Davis (the topic of this post). Oops. Purely unintentional. Makes me pretty boring.
Ok Illinois played better than I expected and Washington lacked the intensity I expected, but give credit to Louisville, who was clearly underseeded.
West Virginia didn’t beat Texas Tech by as much as I thought they would and Arizona sqeaked by a good Oklahoma State team leaving me three of four for day one of round three, my brazen margin of victory predictions notwithstanding.
Oh, and I might rethink my prediction of West Virginia making the final four, based on the performance of Louisville this evening. I will commit before tipoff Saturday.
Did I write that UNC would win “a close one that could have gone the other way?” I meant “should” have gone the other way.
Wisconsin won by nine; I said they’d win by upwards of 10.
Kentucky won by a tad more than I thought they would.
I didn’t figure on Duke falling to Michigan State, but I enjoyed it. I have much admiration and respect for Coach K but Duke gets there all the time. Of course MSU is no stranger to the upper rounds of the tourney either.
So as to the eight games of round three I picked six winners.
I still take Arizona, UNC, and Kentucky to move on to the Final Four, but I now think Louisville will beat out West Virginia.
Louisville just might be the team to beat.
Yikes! I only picked one of the final four. But then the three games I picked wrong went to overtime. I guess Michigan State and Kentucky had to play two overtime periods to make up for the fact that North Carolina and Wisconsin didn’t play overtime.
Four games in this last round and four overtime periods! What an exciting weekend for college hoops!
Oh wait, my revised pick had Louisville in there. Ok so I was two of four.