The NCAA basketball tournament is all set.  You may fill out your brackets:  2013 NCAA Tournament Bracket – March Madness Tournament Brackets – ESPN.  While a good part of America’s workplaces will be turned into gambling parlors, we will host a simpler pool:  What two teams will play for the national championship, and which one will win? [Read more...]

Well, none of you predicted the Final Four.  I suspect no one in the country predicted the Final Four!  It seems like in every NCAA tournament some little college comes out of nowhere and does really well.  But this year two such underdogs made the Final Four!  The basketball superpowers, including my alma mater Kansas Jayhawks, were all shot down.  So the national champion will be either Virginia Commonwealth, Butler, Connecticut, or Kentucky.  The two big state schools will play each other, and the two little schools will play each other.  So one of the latter will be in the final two.

Predictions?  Are you pulling for the underdogs?  Is anyone for the overdogs, on principle?  I think I will be for Virginia Commonwealth, now that they beat Kansas and now that I live in the Commonwealth of Virginia.  (Not a state, mind you, but a commonwealth.)

2011 Bracket – NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament History – The Washington Post.

We haven’t talked about basketball!  My alma mater, the University of Kansas, is in it to win it.  My current home state of Virginia has two teams in the Sweet Sixteen, not only in the same state but in the same city  (Virginia Commonwealth and Richmond University, both in Richmond).  My former home of Milwaukee is in it with Marquette.

So what are your predictions for the Final Four?

For the final two?

For the championship?

My prediction for the finale:  Ohio State vs. Kansas.  Ohio State will win.  (I say that because my teams never win the big game.  Also my predictions are always wrong.  So maybe if I predict Ohio State, my team will win it after all.)

NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship Bracket – NCAA.com.

So, how are your NCAA basketball brackets going? Did ANYONE pick Butler, Michigan State, West Virginia, and Duke to be in the Final Four?

I gave up after Kansas, one of my alma maters, got upset. Reason and reason alone would suggest Duke, the only number one seed left standing, would have a clear advantage over the two fifth seeds (Butler & MSU) and the one second seed (WVA), but this may be the year of the underdogs. And Butler, in effect, will be playing at home in Indianapolis.

You may comment and make your predictions here. And, seriously, if any of you did pick these teams to be in the final four, you are entitled to say so and to brag about it.