Breaking Down the Midwest Bracket

The Midwest Bracket of the NCAA Tournament is the toughest of the four. There cannot be much of an argument otherwise. The number one overall seed, Louisville Cardinals are in this bracket. The number two seed is a team many like to win the whole thing, the Duke Blue Devils. The number three is the Michigan State Spartans who it would surprise nobody to see them in the Final Four. The four seed is the Atlantic 10 Tournament Champion St. Louis Billikens. St. Louis is a team that scares everybody.

Which begs, the question…if you are Louisville and you got the overall number one seed, why does the tournament seem to be trying to knock you out of the tournament? You give them Duke as a two? I know they didn’t want to put Georgetown in with them since they are from the same conference, but Duke? Why not Miami? Why not Ohio State?

Then for a three you give them Michigan State? Thanks. The other threes are Florida, New Mexico and Marquette. Louisville fans would probably trade any of those three for Michigan State. Then your fours are Kansas State, Michigan and Syracuse. Maybe not Michigan, but I bet they’d take either of the other two instead of St. Louis.

The five seed in Oklahoma State, the six is Memphis. Memphis is a pretty scary sixth seed. Number seven is Creighton, number eight is Colorado State, and number nine is Missouri. I Still haven’t seen any weaklings yet. Number ten is Cincinnati, number eleven is the Middle Tennessee–St. Mary‘s winner, number twelve is Pac 12 Tournament champion Oregon. Yes, that’s right, the PAC 12 Tournament champs are #12 in your bracket, Louisville.

Thirteen is New Mexico State. OK, there is a weakling. So we had to get all the way down to the number 13 seed before we see a team we think has no shot at winning a game or two. Fourteen is Valparaiso. Fifteen is Albany. Sixteen is the winner of N.C.  A&T and Liberty.

So where the potential first round upsets? How about everywhere you look? Take out Louisville vs NC A&T or Duke vs Albany and maybe St. Louis New Mexico State any of the lower seeds could win. Any of them. In fact, in some of them, such as Oregon vs Oklahoma State, we like the 12 seed Oregon. We like Cincinnati over Creighton which is the ten over the seven.

In the second round, Memphis plays Michigan State. Would a Memphis win surprise anyone? Not us. How about Oregon over St. Louis? We can see that. But we like St. Louis.

So in the Sweet Sixteen, there is the possibility of Louisville vs St. Louis and Duke vs Michigan State. Any one of those four would be a worthy Final Four team.

One thing is for sure, the team that makes it out of this bracket will not be intimidated.