Note: The UNC Tarheels were defeated right before this blog was published.
This is the first time I’ve ever created a March Madness bracket. I came home from work one day to find my parents filling out their own brackets and asked if I wanted to fill one out too. I figured, why not? Little did I know how obsessed and competitive I would become.
Just like any other person, I considered rank as a huge deciding factor. In some cases, it worked pretty well this year.
• Ohio State beat Syracuse Saturday night to make it into the Final Four.
• University of North Carolina has continued to win even without their star point guard, who broke his wrist during tournament play and, immediately after, had surgery to repair the break.
• Baylor and Indiana Universities are both doing quite well in tournament play, as well as Kansas University.
However, there have been quite a few upsets this year. Underdogs have proved not to be underestimated this year.
• Virginia Commonwealth, ranked 12th, beat 4th ranked Wichita State.
• Duke University, ranked at 2nd was knocked out in the first round of tournament play by a team ranked 15th, Lehigh University.
• And who can forget the number of upsets Ohio University caused?
Now let’s talk about the losses that have hurt many.
• Missouri State. In my bracket, I had them going into the Sweet Sixteen and then losing to Marquette. My dreams were crushed when Norfolk State knocked them out of the first round.
• Duke. Words cannot describe how heartbroken I was when Duke University fell out in the first round. Of course I knew they’d lose eventually, but I had hoped they tough it out until they would suffer a loss against Kentucky in the fourth round.
• Michigan University. Their loss in the first round to Ohio University put a huge hole in my bracket since I had them advancing into the Sweet Sixteen.
• Michigan State. Need further explanation? Number one ranked team lost to Louisville, making Michigan State the first number one ranked team to be knocked out of the tournament. Syracuse quickly followed after their loss to OSU on Saturday.
Currently, I’m tied for 9th in the pool. Also, I’m one of the few in the pool that picked UNC to win the whole thing. A large majority of the people in the pool picked Kentucky to win.
My reasons for picking UNC are pretty simple. First off, I know that in the past, UNC has proven to be a very good team. But most importantly, I didn’t want to pick the team that everyone else did. In order to win, I knew that I needed to pick different. I can only hope that UNC continues the tournament winning streak, without the star point guard.
While 2012 has proved itself to be the year of the underdog, I can only hope that the higher ranked teams can make their comeback and win the whole thing.
