Don’t try to get cute this year.
Don’t try to be the smartest guy in the room.
Sure, if you want to fill out a wild-and-crazy bracket, go ahead and do so, and pick a team other than the Kentucky Wildcats – the 34-0 Kentucky Wildcats, the first-major-conference-unbeaten-team-in-39-years Kentucky Wildcats, the soon-to-be-40-0 Kentucky Wildcats – as your national champion.
But know that you will be wrong.
OK, that’s not quite right. If sports were that predictable – if we could say with certainty that nobody, nobody can beat the Kentucky Wildcats and that the first undefeated team since Bobby Knight’s Indiana Hoosiers in 1975-76 will be crowned in 22 days – then we wouldn’t love sports as much as we do. If sports were that predictable, then UNLV would have beat Duke in 1991, and the Soviets would have smothered the Americans in Lake Placid, and Buster Douglas would have lost to Mike Tyson, and UConn would have been knocked out in the second round last year instead of winning the title.
That’s why we love sports: Because anything can happen. The best team doesn’t always win. Kentucky might be the heavy, heavy favorite to cut down the nets in Indianapolis, but especially in the NCAA tournament – the lose-and-you’re-out NCAA tournament, the most-unpredictable-event-in-sports NCAA tournament – that doesn’t mean Kentucky is going to win.
All that said: Kentucky is going to win. (No italics – see the difference?)
Check out my bracket at the bottom of this page. I have Kentucky as the winner. No surprise. But I have a few other plot twists in there. Tell me why I’m smart; tell me why I’m stupid. Just don’t tell me you know who is the no-doubt national title winner, or the no-doubt surprise Final Four team, or the ridiculous 15-seed Cinderella who is going to steal our hearts. Because you don’t know it. It’s a new season now. It’s all up in the air. And when it comes to filling out a bracket, it’s all guesswork.
2. There are teams that could beat Kentucky. If you’re going to get cute, here are the teams that I think have the best shot against Kentucky (in order from the one I think has the best shot to the one I think only has a tiny chance): Wisconsin, Arizona, Gonzaga, Northern Iowa, Notre Dame, Iowa State.
3. The left side of the bracket is easy to predict; the right side is brutal. Especially the East region. I have zero faith in my East region. I picked Northern Iowa to make the Final Four for a few reasons: 1. I love the way the Panthers play like a team; 2. I love the way they control the pace; 3. I love Seth Tuttle; 4. I love that head coach Ben Jacobson has such a variety of supporting pieces to plug in and loses nothing in talent when he goes to the bench; 5. I’m from Iowa and am a bit of a homer; 6. I was trying to get cute. Look: Villanova is great. If I’m taking personal feelings out of it, Jay Wright’s team has got to be considered the favorite from that region. But Virginia is great, too, and Virginia is a Final Four squad if Justin Anderson is 100 percent and fully incorporated into that team and the Hoos can pick up where they left off before his injury. Plus, Oklahoma has one of the nation’s top starting fives, and Michigan State is hot.
4. I hemmed and hawed more on my South region than any other. Originally, I had Iowa State – my preseason dark-horse Final Four pick – winning that region and making the Final Four. Then I reneged and went with Gonzaga, knowing (but not caring) that dumb people would say things like, “but Gonzaga can’t make a Final Four because Gonzaga hasn’t made a Final Four!” Then I scratched out those thoughts and decided Duke was my team because even though we all hate Christian Laettner, Duke is still Duke. Right? Ugh. As I’m writing this, I want to go back to my original pick and have Iowa State in the Final Four. But I already sent my completed bracket to my editor, plus I don’t want to be seen as a TOTAL Iowa homer with two Iowa teams in my Final Four. If you put any of those three teams in the title game – Duke, Gonzaga or Iowa State – I will not bat an eye. Why Duke, then? Honestly, it’s not because of Jahlil Okafor, who I think is the best basketball player in the country. It’s because of that backcourt of Tyus Jones and Quinn Cook, who have been absolutely electric this season. If Justise Winslow is playing his best, a Duke-Kentucky title game – which is what I have – would be so much fun.
5. I don’t have many early-tournament upsets. But I have a few. Eastern Washington (a 13-seed) over 4-seed Georgetown is probably the biggest. Why? It’s nothing against Georgetown. I recently said on my podcast that the Hoyas were the most likely non-Villanova Big East team to make an NCAA tournament run. But I believe Georgetown is a bit overseeded at No. 4, and Eastern Washington is a team that can really score and has the nation’s leading scorer in Tyler Harvey.
6. A few more upsets, while I’m at it: Valparaiso over Maryland, because maybe the most interesting statistic in the country is that Maryland is ranked second in the nation in luck. (I never knew you could measure luck, but Ken Pomeroy is a genius.) Buffalo over West Virginia because Juwan Staten means too much to the Mountaineers, and he’s been hurting lately. Ohio State over VCU because Briante Weber means so much to VCU’s Havoc and because D’Angelo Russell is just barely human. A few others I wanted to pull the trigger on but was just too plain scared: Georgia State over Baylor, Stephen F. Austin over Utah, BYU over Xavier. And although I want Gonzaga to make the Final Four and think it absolutely could, I worry about that first-round matchup with a really, really good North Dakota State team that scored a big first-round upset last year. If that does happen, my heart is going to break for Zags coach Mark Few. That strikes me as the toughest draw for a 2-seed.
7. The Elite Eight is going to be fun. In the West region, I picked Arizona to avenge its most-gut-wrenching-loss-of-all-time loss to Wisconsin in last year’s Elite Eight. I can’t believe these two are in the same region again. Wisconsin was worried it was going to be a two-seed and put into Kentucky’s region in the Midwest, but it can’t be thrilled at the possibility of having to play Arizona in Arizona’s backyard in the West.
8. Who is the one team with the most variance? It’s probably Iowa State. I’ve been saying for a few months that the Cyclones have an equal shot of making the Final Four as they do of getting KO’d in the first round. I don’t see 3-seed Iowa State losing to UAB, but a possible second-round matchup with a defense-oriented SMU team could be a tough draw. That said, if you watched Iowa State in the Big 12 tournament, you know this team is capable of absolutely any sort of unthinkable basketball miracle. There could easily be an Iowa State versus Kentucky title game.
9. Who is the one player most likely to do something Shabazz-like, or Kemba-like? I don’t see any sort of ridiculously low seed making a Final Four as we’ve seen a bunch of lately. (UConn, Wichita State, VCU, etc.) If there’s a team that does, though, I’d expect it to be on the back of one transcendent guard who takes his play to an otherworldly level. Which is why we might be talking about the exploits of Jerian Grant of Notre Dame over the next few weeks – but Notre Dame is a 3-seed, so that’s not a ridiculously low spot, and that’s what I want to find. I’m going with D’Angelo Russell, the freshman combo guard for 10-seed Ohio State. He’s been brilliant at times this season, the type of guy who could single-handedly take a team deep. He’d likely have to beat a few behemoths along the way, though: If Ohio State gets past VCU, Arizona could be a second-round matchup, and Wisconsin would loom in the Elite Eight.
10. One more thing: Do yourself a favor. Pick Kentucky. Seriously. Why pick against history?
Email Reid Forgrave at reidforgrave@gmail.com, or follow him on Twitter @reidforgrave.
