Every March, I make out my brackets, just like everyone else, but just once. It’s what the folks on the Mike & Mike Show call their “Sheet of Integrity”. That sounded good to me. So I started doing this last year. First of all, it’s definitely less confusing. You have one pick. You don’t have to remember all 20 brackets you filled out. You have a clear rooting interest.

Here’s the thing. I’m sort of a fan of Duke, and definitely a fan of Coach K, but I also know that this year, the Greg Paulus led Dukies were not their usual selves. It was an off year. Every program can have those once every, oh I don’t know, say, 20 years.

They seemed ripe for the picking. Or should I say, the NOT picking.
All of that being said, of course I picked Virginia Commonwealth to upset the vaunted Blue Devils of Duke. I know it’s heresy among the basketball gods to have Duke bow out in the first round. Of course, up until today, Michigan State hadn’t won a first round tournament game since their run to the National Championship in 2000. By the way, I’ll take any chance I can get to rag on Michigan State (especially since Michigan lost tonight in the second round of the NIT).

What this also means is that I will again be a force to be reckoned with in the Second Annual Vigilante Sports NCAA Bracket Challenge. I am currently in second place behind John. We’ll see how tomorrow shakes out. 2 upsets to look for tomorrow are in the 5-12 games. I think that Illinois, and Arkansas will both win. What are some of your upsets for Friday or for the other matchups this weekend?

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 15th, 2007 at 11:39 pm and is filed under Basketball, NCAA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.