Mall,

I learned a long time ago never to bet on a horse that I owned or a team that I cheered for. There is no way I can be objective in such cases.

Regarding your analysis.

I think you underestimate Texas. They have a great point guard and a real monster down low and some good complementary players and a good coach. Also, as you mentioned, they essentially have a home court advantage. They somehow got the easiest draw in the Tourney in what clearly should have been Kentucky’s bracket slot. The conspiracy theory around Arizona is that the NCAA Tourney Chair, Livengood (who is the AD at Arizona) was pandering to Texas because he is very interested in becoming their AD. I think they are giving him way too much credit and seem to forget that there is an entire committee that makes the decisions. Livengood did provide some lame rationale for the bracketing but I think it basically came down to the fact that they needed to put more butts in seats in Minneapolis. Anyway, I would be very surprised to see UConn beat Texas. In fact, I picked Texas to make it all the way to the Championship game.

I think Kansas is clearly better than Duke but Coach K. has an incredible tourney record and Roy Williams has a history of underachieving with his teams in the NCAA. I think Kansas should dominate inside but if Duke is hitting their 3s it could go either way.

I think Arizona will cruise against the Irish. Kentucky will handle Wisconsin (but I will be cheering for the Badgers to upset) and Syracuse and Oklahoma will also win without too much trouble.

I think the Maryland-MSU game is a toss-up with a slight edge to MSU. I think the Pitt-Marquette game is also a toss-up. I would give the edge to Pitt but an upset would not surprise me. Pitt got stuck with a very tough draw.

I will be cheering for Pitt to make it the final-4 along with Arizona just so we can partake in some pre-game trash talking. I will start a little early just in case the matchup never materializes by responding to this BS about the Big East being physical and the Pac-10 being soft. I remember the same talk two years ago about how tough and physical Illinois and MSU were and how soft Arizona was but somehow those soft Wildcats blitzed right through both those tough Big-10 teams on the way to the NCAA title game where they lost to a good Duke team that looked even better thanks to support from three extra helpers in striped shirts…

Chris