The West Bracket: How I Picked 'Em and Why

#1 UCLA vs. #16 Miss. Valley St.: Automatic.

#8 BYU vs. #9 Texas A&M: Can't root for the Aggies because they sued the Seahawks.

#5 Drake vs. #12 Western Kentucky: Both of these are solid teams with upperclassmen in key positions who don't have a ton of height in the frontcourt. Since Drake's the higher seed, I'm going to assume the tourney committee knows what it's doing.

#4 UConn vs. #13 San Diego: I saw San Diego play--they don't have the height to deal with UConn.

#6 Purdue vs. #11 Baylor: Purdue ain't that good--they lost to Wofford, they lost to Iowa St., and they only beat Texas Southern, the 335th-best team in D1, by 20 points. Baylor's worst loss was their last one, to Colorado, and it took the Buffs 2 OT's.

#3 Xavier vs. #14 Georgia: The Bulldogs come down to earth.

#7 West Virginia vs. #10 Arizona: Only because it would annoy Lute Olson. Honestly--just for the sake of argument--what if Arizona goes all the way? Does Kevin O'Neill stay on as co-coach or something? Or do they really go back to 73-year-old Olsen?


#2 Duke vs. Belmont: Automatic.