Breaking Down the Bracket: Regional Picks and Final Four Forecasts

Picking chalk in the NCAA tournament is ironically a bold prediction.

Only once in the modern era of the tournament has Final Four presented all four No. 1-Frön-2008. This year’s crop happens to be only the highest ranked quartet since the dawn of kenpom.com. Duke, Florida, Houston and Auburn are all higher than Plus-35, something that has never seen since the Metrics site began to track data in 1997.

When I ran this exercise at the end of January, I settled on Duke, Houston, Auburn and Michigan State as a good Final Four venture. But now we have regions and consoles ahead of us. Tempting as it is to replace the Spartans with Florida and call it one day, let’s reason these region at a time.

Southern Region

Auburn lost three of his last four and convinced some people to avoid the tigers. These losses came against some of the best teams that SEC has to offer, so let’s not overreact. And after coming past a sadly under practice No. 8 Louisville, Tigers would enjoy a chance to sink their teeth in a revenge game against No. 4 Texas A&M, which beat them two weeks ago.

But the No. 2 seed here is Michigan State, which has a fairly easy path to Elite Eight (since No. 3 Iowa State will be down on a key start in Keshon Gilbert). This is Tom Izzo’s best team since before the pandemic, and the Spartans are better than Auburn in two important areas: Rebounding and getting to the line. I have this unfamiliar feeling that we get one last Izzo drive to Final Four.

Choose: No. 2 Michigan State

East region

I said this Monday: Duke has the easiest way for seeds no. 1, so much so it could make Sweet 16 with Cooper flag in street clothes and rest its ruined ankle. When Duke is there, I am not concerned about a 12-loss Arizona in place # 4, although a very well rounded Oregon can cause Blue Devil’s problems as no 5 seed.

At the same time, your other best candidates are # 2 Alabama, whose defense I do not trust, and No. 3 Wisconsin. Duke-Abama and Duke-Wisconsin could do for some really fun elite eight matchups, but none of these teams are ready for the brand of slip-it-out defense Blue Devils playing.

Choose: No. 1 Duke

Midwest region

What a fun region. No. 1 Houston and No. 2 Tennessee have been knocking on the door for several years now. No. 3 seed is Kentucky, in Mark Pope’s first season as coach, and Purdue, Clemson and Illinois have all had moments this season where they have looked elite.

Between their fantastic defense and the slow Tempos they each like to play, a Houston-tennesse Elite feels eight matchup as the first to 50 wins. Cougars is also one of the best 3-point shooting teams where UTE-Men Vols has no 1-circuit defense in Division I. If they hunt cougars from the bow, I like the size of Felix Ok paragraph and the company to stop a Houston team that is below the average of 2-pointer.

Choose: No. 2 Tennessee

West region

Working against top seeds Florida is that the West is the most difficult region, home for five of the top 15 Kenpom teams. The streets were able to meet twice the defending champion Uconn in the round of 32, a red hot Maryland team in Sweet 16, and St. John’s, Texas Tech, Missouri or even Kansas in Elite Eight. Even if you admit the fact that Uconn and Kansas are not serious title challengers, this is a meat grinder.

Still, I come back to Gator’s profile and can’t find a matchup that I don’t like for them. They are a very effective crime that will make 3 points while stopping the three at the other end. They protect the ball and rank eighth in the offensive recovery percentage so that they will check the possession. This is my second No. 1 seed for San Antonio.

Choose: No. 1 Florida