Alrighty fellow Insanity Pool inmates, lets get something
straight here…..it’s Madness Time! It’s Christmas! It’s everyone’s favorite
time of the year! The upsets are blooming and the bracket buster picks are just
ripe for the actual pickin! But as secret superhero Graeme Gordon and O’Grady
Basketball Legend, Jordan Yu were forewarned, I’ll pick it up a notch and
five-warn y’all…..IT’S MADNESS TIME! This shiz-nat is not for the faint at
heart!
You gotta bring your picks up strong. Do you pick with
emotion and pick your favorite team? Do you pick objectively? (i.e. loving UNC
but not trusting them as far as I could throw Ford Marcotte!) How bout making
your picks based on whether you’ve been to a particular campus or really really
really like the team colors! There’s no rhyme or reason, so as Willis Adams
said when we were in Grade 6, “Poop pamp Scoobie Doo!!!!!”
Willis and you’re picks will never make sense folks, so
here’s the best non-sensical, non-frenzical, didn’t-use-a-penci-cal breakdown
of each bracket!
Your picks no makey sensey? Me likey!
Trust me, I’ll make this as short as an acceptance speech at
the Oscars…..I’ll frantically make as many picks I can once the band starts
playing.
But first some trendy trends:
- There is no clear cut favorite this year like last year’s
Kentucky Wildcats who had a stronger line-up then an episode of ER in 1996!
This is evident in how most teams that received the #1 ranking on the Monday of
each week, proceeded to lose their next game. It was like a shitty Pac-12 game
this year where no one wanted to keep the #1 seed as no Pac-12 team wanted to
win a game with any sense of quality basketball or freaking talent for that
case.
- However, there is a chunk of teams that are in the Faves
Zone. They have the ingredients, the depth, the coaching and the know how to
make a run. But every single team in the Faves zone are capable of putting up a
big honker on any game. It’s the biggest “Any Given Sunday” year in College
hoops history as “on any given day, any given team can win”……to a point though,
we’re not expecting a #16 seed to beat a #1 seed, as some Fox Sports
hack-writer suggested about #1 Gonzaga losing to #16 Southern
Here’s what we’ll say to that Fox Sports hacko-wacko on his
Gonzaga take! Click below:
And if you want the insight on the conferences, The Big Ten is King! 5 of the 7 teams that
qualified are legitimate National Title contenders in Indiana, Michigan State,
Wisconsin, Ohio State and Michigan! The Big East has the most teams in the
tourney with 8, but only two have a legit shot in Louisville and Georgetown.
Marquette has sleeper pick written all over dem though. There’s some
scrappiness coming outta the Mountain West Conference with their surprising
amount of 5 teams. They’ll surprise everyone because no one paid attention to
them this year. There’s some scrappiness from the Big 12 as well, but the
biggest tank job is letting five Pac-12 teams into the Big Dance. I watched a
lot Pac-12 games this year and although there were close games and exciting
endings, the quality of basketball was as bad as the UConn-Butler National
Title game a couple years back! Bee-rutal! Full of brutality the Pac-12 is this
year.
One huge gut hunch I feel is what will rise to the top will
be teams deep in athletic bigs. There are teams that have 3-4 bigs that can
play versatile hoops as 2-guards or slashing wings, not to mention banging in
the paint like Ryan “Turpentine” Paulsen! There will be upsets and wins due to
being hot from 3-point land, but having these versatile bigs like Outhet Player
of Year, Kelly Olynyk will make a difference, as well as Wisconsin’s plethora
of slashin’ bigs that can call shoot the trey.
Enough chit chat, lets get to the Region by Region Smack!
MIDWEST REGION:
My initial take is that this seems to be the bracket where
the Top 4 seeds will make it to the Sweet 16. There seems to be one bracket a
year that pans out with minimal upsets. So #1 Louisville, #2 Duke, #3 Michigan
State and #4 St. Louis should have some epics games against each other. Louisville is deep and keep an eye on
Chase Behanan, he’s a game changer. Duke
has no foot speed to counteract opponents drives to the hoop, but lucky for
Duke Head Coach, Koach Krusty-the-Clown-ski and the most hated college
basketball player of all time, Assistant Coach, Steve Wojo-never-was-any-good-ski
there is not many teams in this bracket that can run as fast as a crowd of Patrick
Ewing’s running to the Gold Club. Michigan
State has the Izzo Factor as always with great guards that made shaky plays
late in games lately, but Izzo will fix that before tip-off on Thursday. St. Louis is peaking at the right,
winning the scrappy Atlantic-10 Tourney using the inspiration of the memory of
legendary Head Coach, Rick Majerus’ death in the preseason. St. Lou is quite
disciplined and run a typical Majerus meticulous game plan to a tee.
Some other teams/players to watch out for is tonight’s
winner, St. Mary’s with All-Adolph
First Teamer, Matthew Dellavadova willing the Gaels to a win and can negate Memphis’ strong backcourt in the second
round.
Also, there is the Creighton
squad with Doug McDermott who is the most versatile bigs in the nation as
Creighton has offensive sets where McDermott will play all 5 positions during
various sets. Stop the McD and you stop Creighton, and with Coach K’s game
planning, they’ll probably lose to Duke, as they have the similar lack of foot
speed as Duke.
The 8/9 game with Colorado
State v. Missouri should have Colly
State’s bigs crush Mizzou’s overrated guard play from Phil Pressey.
WEST REGION:
This is Gonzaga’s year!
It’s gotta be! They have the point guard in Kevin Pangos. And great wing in
Elias Harris. Kelly Olynyk came outta no where for everybody (except Paulsen,
Commish, and Kevin Brechin!) to become this year’s Outhet Player of the Year.
But the Zag’s always get a bums rush for being the mid-major school . There was
hesitance in ranking them #1 during the season as they should have been #1 two weeks
before they were named. Plus not many pundits recognize their killer
non-conference sked. Not many people realize that Gonzaga approaches many big
name schools for lucrative non-conference games and they say no to the Zags. Is
it Gonzaga’s fault that a KU will say no to coming into KU’s gym for a killer
game? God knows that nobody will go to the Kennel to play the Zags! Bottom
line, this is the deepest Zags squad since John Stockton’s butt-crack in his
80’s nutter-shorts!
The current bums rush is that Gonzaga is paired with the
second most bum-rushed team in Wisconsin.
All Wisky has done this year is
answer the bell in all their Big Ten games! They’ve run through the gauntlet
all season and couldn’t get past #20 ranked in the county. And now a #5 seed?
They’re freaking a Top 5 team overall! Trust me, when Wisconsin is playing at
all cylinders, they’re arguably the best team in the nation. Look for the
winner of the Gonzaga v. Wisconsin Sweet 16 match up to be the West Region’s
Final Fo’ representative
Other takes:
There are a lotta Stay-Puft softies in this region with Notre Dame, Arizona and Ole Miss. Ole
Miss’ scoring threat, Marshall Henderson is the 2013 All-Hick Punk Team. The
roster is one deep, and he’s it. Kid plays Jerry Springer
trailer-park-trash-guest angry and will shoot Ole Miss in the foot come crunch
time.
The possible match up between a great Steve Alford coached New Mexico and Ohio State will be a well-disciplined defensive blood-bath game.
Ohio State studs DeShawn Thomas and Aaron Craft have been flat relative to
their season’s last year, but Craft especially has picked it up especially on
the defensive end.
Wichita State/Pitt will
be a great 8/9 game as both teams have great pieces but an incomplete puzzle.
Big ups to Kansas
State’s Bruce Weber for his first year coaching job. Illinois was
ridiculous in letting him go.
SOUTH REGION
Oh man, this region has so many upsets in any round that can
happen. Look closely at Akron and Tubbysota (AKA Minnesota) to possibly
make Sweet 16 runs based on their draws.
The Insanity Report Staff always loves KU but their stud, Ben McLemore remains inconsistent and Bill Self
hasn’t unleashed Elijah Johnson’s shooting guard prowess since his Iowa State
30-pt performance.
UNC oddly enough
could be ripe for upsetting KU is a great traditional powerhouse 2nd
round match up. UNC’s Roy Williams has a lot of work to do long term, with the
direction of his recruiting and lack of defense going on for the past 6-7
seasons, but the short term changes he made with a higher 3-pt shooting,
smaller line up could strike lightning. It’s all up to Bill Self to unleash
Elijah though.
Michigan has the
most talented player in the nation in Trey Burke, but there’s a hunch on the
Wolverines for not being a big game-james team. Just a hunch from the games I
saw this year. They have great guards but really young bigs. They may have
peaked early in January as perhaps Florida
did. The Gators’ Joey Gabrick-dirty D has fizzled and their offense seems
to be inconsistent, which is evident in losing in the SEC Final to Trailer Park
Henderson. Tubbysota’s size, especially in Trevor Mbakwe could over take the
Gators.
This is Georgetown’s
region for the taking in my eyes. Otto Porter will become a household name this
month, ala Derrick Williams from Arizona 2 years ago. Plus, their passing and
somewhat consistent defense has a good draw to the Final Four as the many
anticipated upsets should bode well for JTIII’s Ahoy-Hoyas!
EAST REGION
This region is stacked with great teams which doesn’t bode
well for the upset bug we all crave. Indiana
has fizzled as of late with an early exit in the Big Ten tourney and some
late regular season losses, but Outhet Player of the Year Runner-up, Victor
Oladipo will pick his super-quick game up and unleash the Hoosiers toward a
Final 4 birth. Indiana Head Coach, Tom Crean has had a week to game plan and
motifizate his team towards the resurgence Hoosier-nation has been waiting for
since the early 90’s.
There are some compelling match ups in the bottom draw with Marquette and The U primed for an epic Sweet 16 match up. Miami has had a great
ACC run this year despite the smoke-screen of a weak ACC, but they’re for real!
Just ask Uncle Luke! Marquette just surprises everybody every year and their
work ethic will rise to the top. Midnight will strike in the Regional Final v
Indiana though.
Colorado is the
only Madness quality team from the Pac-12 in the tourney. They should overtake an inconsistent Illinois team led by All-Spaz Coach
John Groce.
Butler/Bucknell
is a great match up as Bucknell is a perennial Patriot League representative in
the Madness as Butler has their Madness mojo as well, despite coming into the
tourney flat.
The ‘Cuse/UNLV second
round match up will a blood bath of epic proportions. Sryracuse has a talented
squad this year, playing Jim Boeheim’s typical 2-3 zone. I think they have the
pieces that would be more dangerous in a Bill Raftery man-to-man. UNLV freshman
Anthony Bennett is humongous!!!! He could bust out for the Madness!
That’s it! As my previous 5-6 performance in the Insanity
Pool has shown, my takes as hopfully entertaining are as reliable as Daniel
English showing up for a treatment. So how do you make your picks? Trust your
hunches. Make ‘em with no inclination of logic whatsoever! As Willis Adams
would say, just Poop Pamp the shit outta it!
Enjoy the Madness, less than 48 hours!
Get yo Picks in by Thursday at 9:00 AM.
Yours in Madness,
Commisioner Adolph
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