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Everybody's An Expert: It's Time For March Madness Predictions

by Kristen Shiplett
03/07/2007

It's March. Time for Girl Scout cookies, Julius Ceaser's untimely death, confusion about the new daylight savings time, and, of course, March Madness.

Although Tennessee crushed Georgia's hopes of making the tournament this year, students will still get in on the excitement. The pools are already starting on Facebook, with moderately clever names, and the drunken and voluminous predictions are being made.

So here are my predictions, rendered in confidence in the sober light of day. Since I no longer had a Dawg in the fight, I would love to root for the SEC, I really would. But I refuse to cheer for the Gators. Though I feel their chances of a college version of the 1990's Bulls legacy is slim, I shudder to think how Bulldog nation will react to Florida winning the national championship in football and back-to-back NCAA basketball tournaments.

The best advice I can offer, besides not spending your rent money and monthly grocery allowances on bets, is to let someone who knows absolutely nothing about the game fill out your brackets.

The past two years I was in pools in which the most unlikely candidates won. One girl picked teams by the color schemes she liked best, and the next year a woman picked based on which city she had either been to or desired to visit. I couldn't make this up if I tried.

Logic can't play into it. There's always one team that leaves everyone slackjawed, sitting on the last two inches of the couch, angled towards their friends, beer in hand, saying, "Can you believe that? This game destroyed my next two rounds." This time, let your mom fill it out and see what happens.

I think the ACC will dominate this year. The teams look like they have a lot of losses, but they are all against each other. They beat each other up (quite literally for Gerald Henderson and Tyler Hansborough, more on that later) on the court, and take it to non-conference teams just as hard, very much like SEC football.

Take Clemson, for instance. They were 17-0 until they started inter-conference play (2.6 seconds or not). They have only managed to win four games in the past two months, but they dominated the other conferences.

So far, according to ESPN's bracketology, seven of the ACC's 12 teams will be in the tournament, all 10th seed or higher. The Big East only has 7 out of their 14 teams represented. Even Duke, who is experiencing a down year, is still 21st in the Coach's Poll.

And speaking of Duke, there's a lot of talk about Tyler Hansborough and Gerald Henderson's confrontation on the court. First of all, anyone who refers to themself as "Psycho-T" should be able to handle a bloody nose. Second of all, Henderson might have gone harder than he should have, but there is no way he had any malicious intent. Third of all, I'm more than a little positive that if Henderson wanted Hansborough out of the game he probably would have done it before the 14.5 second mark, when they're down by 12. Just maybe. To me, that's just good rebounding.

And now that I have lost track of my "of alls," I'll just say that in the last game of the regular season, winning by 12, with less than 15 seconds left, your starters should be watching. You may call me biased, and I might be, but everyone sane is biased against Duke.

I think one ACC team that will shine in the tournament is Maryland. They boast a 24-7 record, and only 6 inter-conference losses. They have big wins against UNC, and swept Duke. They have an upper-classmen laden roster, with their top five players averaging at least 10 points a game.

And Virginia. They beat the aforementioned Maryland. They're fairly young, but have two dominating forces with Sean Singletary and J.R. Reynolds. Though the loss against Wake Forest spoiled their chances of clinching the ACC title, I think the loss will fire them up for the ACC tournament and March Madness. I still think they will be the front runner for the ACC with only five conference losses.

UNC will most likely be a #1 or a #2 seed, and the reigning champions and other likely candidate for repeat, Florida, will also be a #1 seed. Virginia, likely to be a 4th or 5th seed might be blessed. Since Kentucky won their championship in 1978 as the #1 team going into the tournament, only four teams have won the National Championship while being ranked #1 going into the tournament. Those teams are North Carolina 1982, Duke 1992, UCLA 1995, and Duke again in 2001. I don't think this year will be any different. Top ranked teams don't always have great success in the tournament.

That's all for now. Check back in after selection, when everyone finds out if they're crazy.

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