2011 March Madness Preview

By Brian Harris

Another national pastime is about to take over as on Tuesday, March Madness begins. With the addition of three more play-in games, four more teams get to go to the Big Dance. This year’s college basketball season has shown quite a bit of parity amongst the major conference landscape. If there was a year for a mid-major to finish the job that Butler started and came within an inch of finishing the job, this year is it. Here now is my region-by-region breakdown of this year’s Mens’ NCAA Tournament.

East
This region is Ohio State’s to lose. This will not be a complete cakewalk for the Buckeyes, as I see both George Mason and definitely Kentucky giving OSU some early-round agita. The real story of intrigue is in the bottom half of the bracket where Xavier and Washington will make a lot of noise by beating teams like Syracuse and a younger than usual North Carolina. But in the end, OSU’s season-long success will be too much for Washington to handle.
Winner-Ohio State

West
Another year, another walk-in-the park type of bracket for Duke and I’m saying this as a Duke fan. Apart from Temple exposing San Diego St. as a one-hit wonder and UConn continuing their buzz saw-like run for a couple of more wins, this will be a slip-n-slide for the Blue Devils into the Final Four in Houston.
Winner-Duke

Southwest
This is the region that will, for the most part, fall in line with conventional wisdom. The one and two seeds, Kansas and Notre Dame, are the two best teams in the region and will face each other in the regional finals, with Kansas eking out a close. What will be the most interesting thing to come out of this bracket is USC being the first team to make it to the Sweet 16 out of a play-in game. On a minor note, look for the Richmond Spiders to also make it to the Sweet 16 and St. Peter’s to upset Purdue.
Winner-Kansas

Southeast
This region is chockfull with bracket-busting mines all throughout. Also factor in two weak top seeds in Pitt and Florida and what you get is a nightmare for those millions of people who spend hours mulling over picks. One thing that I learned over the years when it comes to March Madness is to never count out Tom Izzo and the Spartans of Michigan State. I foresee another run for of State, in which they will finally shut up the Jimmer Fredette bandwagon on their way to beating K-State, who will dispatch the underwhelming Pitt Panthers. I would love to have St. Johns go over Gonzaga but the loss of DJ Kennedy is way too much to counterbalance.
Winner-Michigan State

So my Final Four is Ohio St., Duke, Kansas and Michigan St. Duke has been a little shaky at times this year and I feel that OSU can hold on against Smith, Singler and company. On the other side of the bracket, yet another feel-good run by Michigan State will be snuffed out at the Final Four courtesy of Kansas. The final will be an absolute barnburner and slugfest, but this is where OSU’s dependence on its freshman star Jared Sullinger will hurt them as Kansas outlasts the Buckeyes and makes it two titles in the last three years, making up for last year’s shocking early exit.
National Champion-Kansas

If you still haven't filled out your bracket yet,a copy of the bracket has been made for the Working Title courtesy of Brigitte Volochinsky and is available here