The Other 48: First Thoughts

Five ACC teams seems fair enough. Nice rewards for ACC tournament peformance, or lack thereof. Wake's two seed guarantees at least another week of Chris Paul's Punch-Out! discussion, unfortunately.

Having dwelt a little longer on the brackets, I'd put it as a toss-up between Syracuse and Albuquerque for the toughest road designation. There seems to be a lot less consistency across the board this year than in years past however, and depending on which Big East and Big Twelve teams show up could alter the difficulty levels quite a bit. My first thoughts are below.

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Chicago: Illinois over Nevada, Alabama over Boston College, Arizona over UAB, Oklahoma St. over Southern Illinois. Illinois over Arizona in the final.

Albuquerque: Pittsburgh over Washington, Georgia Tech over LA-Lafayette, Gonzaga over Texas Tech, Wake over Creighton. Wake over Pittsburgh in the final.

Austin: Duke over Stanford. Syracuse over Michigan St., UTEP over Oklahoma, Kentucky over Cincinnati. Kentucky over Syracuse in the finals.

St. Louis At this point, I'd have to say Illinois over Kentucky, if for no other reason than so I my house key still works tomorrow. This weekend's performance has me nervous about our ability, and an Iowa State-Florida-Kansas-Kentucky stretch seems pretty murderous. If things thin out or the team returns to midseason form, I might feel more confident.