Bracket Watch: Our Number One Seeds
Everybody is on the Bracketology Bandwagon now that football season is over. This is the best time of year for hoops junkies as every game now seems to have meaning as far as NCAA Tournament seedings go. Since everybody else is doing their bracket predictions, we at Betting Sports might as well give you ours. Here are our four number one seeds if the Tournament started today.
Florida Gators– Our overall number one would be the Gators. But wait? Don’t they have two losses? Yes they do. But in neither of those losses were they close to full strength. In fact, they are just now getting to full strength with freshman Chris Walker finally being cleared to play this past Tuesday against the Missouri Tigers, He only played 10 minutes but his impact was surely felt with two blocked shots, three rebounds and two rim-rattling dunks that got the Rowdy Reptiles fired up. Defensively this team can be downright scary as the Tennessee Volunteers and Texas A&M Aggies discovered recently. The Aggies never did get to 40 points and the Vols only got there in the last minute after coach Billy Donovan emptied his bench.
They still are not hitting on all cylinders on offense which is a scary thought. If they get Walker involved and he opens up some more room for leading scorer Casey Prather to operate and gives Michael Frazier some more space to launch threes, this team could be the third NCAA Champion at UF since 2006.
Possible bumps in the road: The Gators play the Alabama Crimson Tide on Saturday at home and then have four of the next five games on the road. This stretch includes game at the Tennessee Volunteers, Kentucky Wildcats, Ole Miss Rebels and Vanderbilt Commodores. Other than the O’Connell Center there may not be four tougher road venues in the SEC than those four.
Wichita State Shockers– Last season’s Final Four squad has nearly everyone back including Fred Van Vleet, Ron Baker and Cleanthony Early are leading the Shockers to what appears may be a perfect regular season. they are 24-0 with wins over the BYU Cougars, the very tough St. Louis Billikens, Alabama and Tennessee. Early averages 16 per game, Baker nearly 13 and Van Vleet chips in 12.
Possible bumps in the road include: Well, really the only team that should have a chance against them is the Missouri State Bears. Even a loss to them probably won’t be enough to drop them to a number two seed.
Syracuse Orange– Syracuse is still unbeaten and that is impressive considering they play in the always tough ACC. ‘Cuse has wins over the Indiana Hoosiers, Minnesota Golden Gophers, Villanova Wildcats, North Carolina Tar Heels, Pitt Panthers and Duke Blue Devils. The Orange is led by C. J. Fair with almost 17 points per game, Trevor Cooney at 14 per game, Jerami Grant with almost 13 per game and Tyler Ennis with 12. While the Orange is unbeaten, one troubling thing about them is they last time they won a game by more than 12 was January 7th.
Possible bumps in the road include: Road game are left at Pitt, at Duke and at the FSU Seminoles. And then there is the ACC Tournament.
Arizona Wildcats- The only reason we have them in the number one slot is a two point win over the Michigan Wolverines. Even still we were tempted to put the Wolverines in there. Arizona is 21-1, but they have been looking beatable lately with narrow wins over the UCLA Bruins and Stanford Cardinal before finally falling to the Cal Golden Bears. But they are what their record says they are and that is a bit better than Michigan thanks to a 72-70 win. They Wildcats also have wins over the highly ranked San Diego State Aztecs and the Duke Blue Devils.
Possible bumps in the road: A season ending injury to starting forward Brandon Ashley and also still have games left with the Bruins, Oregon Ducks, Cal , Stanford and Oregon State.
