With March fully underway, we approach one of the most hyped up sporting events of the year. March Madness includes 68 teams from across the country all battling it out in a single game elimination tournament. With conference tournaments in the near future and Selection Sunday on March 16th, it’s time to hone in on studying who you predict will win big this year. I’m going to highlight just the east side of the bracket as some of these games ought to be nail-biters.
Easy Picks
ESPN Bracketology currently has Duke as the number one seed who have been ranked top two for the entire season. They have only dropped two games all season out of a very competitive ACC conference. They look to take on Central Arkansas who boasts a 20-11 record out of the ASUN conference. This should be a Duke lock to move on as Central Arkansas isn’t even definitively first in their own conference. In the two seed vs. fifteen seed matchup, it’s Michigan St. with a 24-5 record out of a strong Big Ten conference and Wright St. out of Horizon. Again, this should be Michigan St. all the way. Wright St. just hasn’t played enough strong teams this year and with a 20-11 overall record, it’s unlikely they get past Michigan St.
Highly Likely
In the third seed, we have 24-6 Iowa St. vs. 24-7 North Dakota St. Again, although North Dakota St. looks strong, they just haven’t played the competition that Iowa St. has. The Big 12 is stacked with four teams ranked in the top ten in the country currently. In the four seed vs. thirteen seed matchup, there’s 28-3 Gonzaga vs. 26-5 UNC Wilmington. Gonzaga is again looking very promising this year and has just played stronger teams than UNC Wilmington. Another highly likely matchup is fifth seed 20-9 Tennessee vs. twelfth seed 22-5 Yale. Tennessee has a tough schedule and has been playing well and despite Yale having a better record, they have been winning close games against not nearly as competitive opponents.
Toss Ups
In the sixth seed vs. eleventh seed game we see either 18-11 Ohio State or 24-7 Santa Clara vs. 20-9 Louisville. The eleven seed is actually very interesting in this game. Ohio State is heating up coming off of big wins vs. ranked Wisconsin and Purdue in the last few weeks and Santa Clara has only lost twice in the last two months. Although Louisville is strong against weaker teams, they haven’t won against a ranked opponent since early December. Another toss up game is between seventh seed 22-7 Villanova vs. tenth seed 19-10 TCU. Villanova has a strong record, but out of a weak conference. They seemingly only beat teams that are weaker than them and get blown out by stronger opponents. TCU has a brutal schedule out of the Big 12 and is hot after beating Iowa St. and Texas Tech in the last month both of whom are ranked in the top ten. Finally, the eight seed 26-3 Saint Louis out of the A10 vs. the ninth seed 20-9 Iowa out of the Big 12. This Saint Louis team is very interesting. They’ve only lost three games, two of which were in the last four games which was after they went on an eighteen game winning streak from early December to mid February. Iowa has a tough schedule coming out of the Big 12 so they might be able to overpower Saint Louis who hasn’t played many super competitive teams yet this season.
