This is my favorite time of the year -- when February turns to March. The coming of March means two things this year: (1) A new U2 album on March 3, and (2) the official beginning of March Madness, the always-shocking, ever-glorious college basketball tournament that is one of the greatest sporting events in the country. As this is a sports column and not a music column, I will focus on the latter, but I promise I am just as excited for the U2 album.
College basketball fans have learned once again that nothing is a safe bet when it comes to the men's season. Unlike college football, where parity among teams seems to be the exception, it is the norm in college basketball, and this season has been no different. Out of the madness that is college basketball, I will attempt to bring order. Am I the right man for the job? Since my multiple-pool-winning March Madness bracket of last year successfully predicted Kansas playing and beating Memphis in the national championship game, I would say, "yes."
While it is too early to tell who has the best chance of cutting down the net as national champions, I do feel I have a firm idea of what people can expect to see: certainties, near-certainties and impossibilities. I'll start with certainties.
Certainty #1: No. 1 seeds will not be as successful as they were last year, when all four of the top seeds made it to the Final Four. This year, I would be very surprised if more than two made the Final Four, and most likely it will only be one. Turnover at the top of the polls this year has been frequent, and there are no teams that seem clearly dominant over the rest. Fatal flaws have been exposed in all of the top teams, which upset-minded squads are just waiting to exploit in March. No one is safe, so expect some upsets over the No. 1 seeds in the second week of the tournament.
Certainty #2: The Pac-10 is down, and the Big 10 is up. The Pac-10's success last year was primarily a function of UCLA and USC, both of whom are struggling this year. The Big 10, in contrast, has three teams poised to make deep runs:Michigan State, Illinois and Purdue -- and has three to four others in the mix for at-large bids. Furthermore, although the Big East had zero final four teams last season, expect that to change. Connecticut and Pittsburgh both look solid enough to make it, though I personally believe UConn will not.
Near-Certainty #1: There will be no Davidson or George Mason this year. That is, there will be no team that comes out of seemingly nowhere to shock the country with a deep run (though I did put Davidson in the elite eight of my bracket last year). Davidson may make a similar run, but the team is no longer an unknown -- the Wildcats have been ranked most of the season, and Stephen Curry is a household name. Sure, there will be some unfamiliar teams that make it to the second week of the tournament, but reaching the final four like George Mason did is probably out of the question. Teams I think could ultimately score an upset or two in the tourney include Siena, San Diego State and Illinois State (if they can score an at-large bid).
Near-Certainty #2: North Carolina will choke. Coach Roy Williams has a tendency to squander talent capable of winning championships (except for teams he inherited from previous coaches), and this year's team -- once thought to be invincible -- is now exposed. Still, some people will favor the Tarheels to win it all. I won't.
Impossibility #1: There are no impossibilities in March Madness. (Except Indiana playing in the tournament. That's impossible.)
Once the bracket comes out, I'm sure I'll have more predictions to make. But until then, all focus should be placed on the Dartmouth men's basketball team, which now has an outside but legitimate shot at winning the Ivy League. I may be getting overly excited about this, but why shouldn't I? The Dartmouth men are playing better than they have in all three of the previous seasons that I've seen. We are currently tied for second place with four games to go, after sweeping Penn and Princeton on the road last weekend for the first time since Hawaii became a state. In the last four games of the regular season, we play also-second-place Columbia at home, also-second-place Yale on the road and Ivy-leading Cornell at home. If we win out, and Cornell loses one more game besides the loss to us, we can win the league and go to the Big Dance.
So come support the Big Green at 7 p.m. this Friday night at Leede Arena.
