Ncaa Primer Anyone’s Guess

Minutes after the last bracket of the NCAA tournament was revealed on television, fans across the country were halfway through the grid advancing teams toward the Final Four.

The first thing they can do is send on the No. 1 seeds because no No. 16 has ever won a game.

And they can feel free with the No. 2s as well, since only Richmond in 1991 (over Syracuse) and Santa Clara in 1993 (over Arizona) have managed a first-round upset since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985.

The rest of the matchups are the fodder of conversation and argument until play begins Thursday. Toss in your occasional preference because of a coach or player and mix in the bias against certain schools, usually for the same reasons, and you have the formula for selecting a national champion.

All it takes then is 63 games over three weekends to see who was right.

My guess counts as much as anybody’s, so here it is:

East

It appears Massachusetts got the best ride of the top seeds as the bottom of the bracket lacks the names that could scare a good team down the road.

The best shot for a first-round upset would be No. 12 Arkansas, a team with a recent tradition of tournament success (champion and runner-up the last two years), against No. 5 Penn State, the surprise team of the season that is making its first appearance since 1991, with the last one before that in 1965. The Nittany Lions led the nation in 3-pointers this season and the NCAA tournament has proved a graveyard for teams relying too much on the long-range jumpers.

Texas Tech, the No. 3 seed, is the unknown among the tournament’s top teams and its 28-1 record won’t scare No. 6 North Carolina in the second round as the Tar Heels make their 22nd consecutive NCAA appearance.

North Carolina-Georgetown in the regional semifinals would be interesting, with the winner being the last block in Massachusetts’ run to its first Final Four appearance.

Go with the Minutemen to reach the Meadowlands.

Southeast

This is the region with the best teams top to bottom. When you have schools with the tradition of Indiana, Temple and Duke occupying seeds 6-8 and Kentucky-killer Mississippi State at No. 5, you have a good region. Then add in Princeton and retiring coach Pete Carril as No. 13 and there could be upsets in a couple of games.

Connecticut-Duke in the second round brings back memories of the rematch of the 1990 East Regional final, the first big tournament game Christian Laettner won at the buzzer.

UCLA, the defending champion, gets the chance to end Carril’s 30-year career with a loss, but the Tigers’ last four NCAA appearances were awfully scary for Georgetown, Arkansas, Villanova and Syracuse.

Still, we should get to see a regional semifinal showdown between UCLA and Connecticut, a rematch of the game that got the Bruins to the Final Four last year.

Cincinnati and its physical defense should find its way to a top-seeds matchup with Connecticut.

Connecticut, like its New England neighbor, will make its first Final Four appearance.

Midwest

The talk of Kentucky’s walk through the field ended with the loss Sunday to Mississippi State. All of a sudden people don’t think it’s so crazy that a solid team can knock off Kentucky.

California has to be one of the best No. 12 seeds in recent years and the Golden Bears can start the upsets in this region with a win over Iowa State, coming in off the upset of Kansas on Sunday. Tulsa is No. 11 and Louisville better beware of a school that has made consecutive Sweet Sixteen runs.

Wake Forest and Villanova will be a matchup of stars in the regional semifinal and Tim Duncan has been even brighter than Kerry Kittles this season, so look for Wake to advance.

Kentucky will find its way through the top of the bracket and then find a way to negate Duncan inside.

That gets the Wildcats to a second Final Four under Rick Pitino.

West

The workingman’s regional has Purdue, Kansas, Arizona and Syracuse up top with Memphis, Iowa, Maryland, Clemson and George Washington in the bottom. No star-based teams, just tough, physical teams.

Maryland, getting great play recently from its freshmen, is good enough to knock off Kansas. That would set up a Maryland-Arizona matchup in the regional semifinals and again, the Terrapins are good enough to advance. That should stop at Purdue.

The Boilermakers have a way of neutralizing teams like Memphis, a run-and-gun full-floor team, and Syracuse, a team that has found a way to win all season with one scorer in John Wallace and a good zone defense. MemphisSyracuse could be the best of the second-round matchups, and don’t count out Orangemen coach Jim Boeheim to keep a good season going.

That is, until Syracuse gets to Purdue.

That’s four top seeds reaching the Final Four, something that has never happened. It’s just that in a season when parity was the keyword, wouldn’t it be just like college basketball to suddenly revert to favorites holding court?