2023 NCAA March Madness
 

This is how I see it unfolding...

EAST- Duke and sleeper Marquette

South- Baylor and Virginia.....Alabama is suspect

West- UCLA and sleeper UConn

Midwest- Houston big

NCAA Champ- Baylor

First round upsets: Money-line only bets

Charleston over SDSU

Louisiana Over Tenn

Good luck to one and all...Enjoy!

I'll take a wild stab at the Final Four:

Miami
Duke
UCLA
Arizona

Picking UCLA (with the Rastaman point guard) to win it all

Two PAC and two ACC teams? :D I wouldn't leave out a Big 12 team from making the final four.

Like I said - it's a wild stab. I haven't watched more than 2-3 games all season.

And your Final Four is?

South: Bama too tough in most areas to discount despite distraction. I used them defensively as most bracketeers will have them in final 4.
Creighton one of top teams in effective FG% (3pt./2pt. combined).

East: Tennessee defense vs. Marquette

Midwest: Chalk...Houston over Texas

West: The historical pcts. are that one #2 will lose a second round game. Kansas looks to be most vulnerable #2 vs. Arkansas.
It's the first year in a few that the Zags don't have the highest of expectations. Combining the pressure-off with the best offense in the nation, & very dangerous.
UConn fits mold of Kenpom ranking 25 or below in both offense and defense for national champion (90% of last 20 champs). Only others are Houston, Bama, Purdue, Texas.

Final 4: Bama over Creighton, UConn over Gonzaga.

Champion = UConn Huskies, because public brackets favor Kansas, Houston, Bama,Tenn.

Correction: Final 4, Bama over Tenn.

And UConn over Houston.
Was looking at Elite 8 games.

no Jalen Clark (Naismith Defensive Player of the Year) will make it all the more difficult for the Bruins, BUT they did it before with less.

I've done :7: brackets so far at espn, so I have about everything that's been mentioned above pretty well covered. :cool: Winners are Zona, UCLA, Texas, Kansas, Houston, Zags, and Purdue. And I have each of those getting bounced the first w/e in the different entries.

I gave Duke and Marquette their due, one bracket is Big 12-centric, one where Big1G teams get the toss-ups. Most consistent with Arizona and UCLA, I think they got good draws. The only deep seed in any of the entries getting to Round 3 is Kent State...

:jump:

FINAL FOUR:

East -- Memphis
South -- Alabama
Midwest -- Houston
West-- Kansas

Semi-final winners: Memphis over Alabama, and Kansas over Houston

FINAL: Kansas over Memphis

Have fun everyone and I hope you have many winning bets along the way.

.


the NYT asked Bing chatbot to fill out a bracket - here's what it came up with



https://static01.nyt.com/images/2023....png?auto=webp




https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...edictions.html




.

i went to the Encore Hotel Sunday and bet on

Kansas -21

Houston -19

for the opening round. my thinking was that they both lost the conference championship and will come out with fire in their eyes. i am figuring that i should win 1 and lose $200 for making the bets with the chance of winning both. i don't know much about the teams they are playing, i only know that they should kill them with only 4 players on the court. the only way i lose is if they decide not to show up or they pull their starters early and let their opponents in the back door.

when i went to make the bets, the teller had to call the lady that is in the back over to the computer. she took a picture of the screen my bet was on and went to the back and made a phone call. i had to wait about 20 minutes before i got my tickets. then i realized that i had been barred from the Mirage Hotel in Vegas 30 years ago and they kept my picture on file on account of beating their brains in with house quinellas and matchup bets.

Rough Start! :D

You always have to expect something like Princeton over Arizona, but......

Two major upsets so far today: Furham over Virginia and a BIG surprise Princeton over number seed Arizona

Add Furman over Virginia....Furman Paladins??

By the way, Kihei Clark gave away the game for Virginia...Watch the replay...Panic and choke.