NCAA Tourney Picks Analysis: East Region

I've posted a set of five articles dissecting the whole tournament. If you like this one, make sure to check the others out...

I know it's already Wednesday, but I'm sure many of you reading this are still using pencil on your bracket (or the paper is filled with scribbles and cross outs). I have written up the thought process I used to make my picks in an attempt to provide you with some insight that isn't available in every source.

A lot of my analysis is based on commonly known facts or things that might seem unimportant to a lot of pundits, but I've made no attempt to filter the details or general thought process that I have based my selections on.

Since this is my first article, I should probably give a brief introduction as to why I spend so much time going over these picks, and I'll try to give you a brief glimpse into my personality.

I get as hyped for March Madness as anyone I've ever met. I keep up with the college game all season, but toward the end I take it into overdrive. In recent years, BracketBuster weekend has served as a concrete date for my interest to become zoned in.

In previous years, it was more of an organic thing. This time of year, there's usually one day when start watching a college basketball game with a medium to high interest level, and by the end of the game I'm saying things like "Ohhhh man, it's getting to be that time of year!" in an awkwardly loud voice, making the people around me uncomfortable.

From that point on, way too much of my time is spent checking the conference standings on the Internet and asking questions like, "Who's leading the Sun Belt and who'd they play out of conference?" to no one in particular.

This all started in 1995 when I was 10 years old. My parents had ODU basketball season tickets, and I'd attended the games with them since I knew what a basketball was. When I started playing the sport myself, somewhere around age eight, I began to really watch the players and try to figure out what made them good at the game.

I began to develop a concept of the NCAA, the championship tournament, and the significance of the game being played. In that 1994-95 season, ODU won the CAA tournament.

I knew what it meant—my favorite team was going dancing. In three overtimes, No. 14 ODU pulled off the upset of the tournament against Villanova. I still vividly remember the feeling I had when that final buzzer rang. The whole world got to see my team at their proudest moment on the biggest stage in sports.

When Petey Sessoms hit the free throws to ice the game, I let out unintelligible screams of joy and sprinted directly out of the back door of my house. I ran circles around the yard for a few minutes, pumping my fists and trying to get a grasp on what I had just seen.

The next day I was alive with an excitement that made that entire day awesome. I was late for school because of Sportscenter, just as I had been on the morning when they broadcast all of Michael Jordan's first retirement press conference. I wanted to see as much of my team as I could—they were on ESPN!

In school, all the kids decked out in UNC and Duke gear were glad their team had won (and, of course, a few kids had even jumped on the Arkansas bandwagon—no doubt they were also Cowboys fans), but their excitement didn't compare to mine.

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