On the 2012 NCAA Tournament...

1) Please stop calling the Play-in Games the 'First Round.'

Are we to believe, as ESPN's Jay Bilas says, that 60 of the 68 invited teams receive a first round bye? Ridiculous.  Call the first four games "The First Four" if you like. Call them play-in games if you like. But please don't call those first four games the first round...that's annoying.

2) Expect the unexpected.

We don't yet know which unbelievable, seemingly impossible upsets will occur, but rest-assured, they will.  It's not a bad strategy to pick the top seeded teams towards the latter rounds and into the Final Four but in the early going, if you want to win your pool, you need to find a few Davids who will take down a few Goliaths for sure.

3) My picks for early round upsets.

In the South:
#11 Colorado over #6 UNLV
#10 Xavier over #7 Notre Dame
#12 VCU over #5 Wichita State

In the West:
#9 St. Louis over #8 Memphis...and I have St. Louis upsetting #1 Michigan State in the next round and also beating Long Beach State. They make the Elite Eight and lose to Missouri.
#12 Long Beach State over #5 New Mexico and over #4 Louisville in next round.

In the East:
#12 Harvard over #5 Vanderbilt
#11 Texas over #6 Cincinnati
#14 St. Bonaventure over #3 Florida State
#10 West Virginia over #7 Gonzaga

In the Midwest:
#11 NC State over # 6 San Diego State

4) Crazy dark-horse picks.

- Iona is very good and has a tremendous point guard.  Before the field was set, I thought they had a real chance to win a first round game....but, then again, I expected them to win their MAAC conference tournament. Once they lost, I never thought they would get an invite.  I would say their at-large bid is the single biggest surprise of this tournament field. So even though I think they are a very good team, I did not anticipate them having to participate in a play-in game.  Now I say they win the play-in game but lose to Marquette.

- Best shot for a first time ever #16 to beat a #1: LIU over Michigan State.
That is NOT my pick for the bracket....I just think they have the best shot for any #16.

5) Kentucky wins it all.

Kentucky is, in my opinion, the overall best team in the country this year so I am picking them to win the tournament.  Yes, they are a young, relatively inexperienced group which goes against my own conventional wisdom of picking senior-laden teams to advance in the tournament. But there is something about this group and their focus, intensity, defensive-mindedness, and TALENT which leads me to believe they can pull this off. Plus they have the single best player in the country in freshman Anthony Davis.

Final Four looks like this:
#1 seed Kentucky beats #2 seed Missouri
#1 seed Syracuse beats #2 seed Kansas
Kentucky over Syracuse in the final: 77-73

3/13/12 ** I have amended this because Syracuse center Fab Melo has been declared ineligible.

#1 seed Kentucky beats #2 seed Missouri

#2 seed Ohio St. beats #2 seed Kansas

Kentucky over Ohio St. in the final 79-71.

-dp