NCAA Tourney Picks Analysis: East Region

I remember reenacting the final minute of each overtime by myself during P.E. I did the classic "3, 2, 1... He shoots, he scores!" routine over at the corner basket by which the girls jumped rope and the dorks sat against the bleachers reading books.

(Don't get offended by my use of the word "dork." I by no means grew up a popular, talented kid, so I make no claims of superiority over these sorts of people. But if you were reading during P.E. or recess you were a dork. You were 10 years old and, after having to sit still all day, you forfeited your opportunity to run around like an idiot for half an hour? Sorry, you were a dork.)

Eventually my parents dropped their ODU tickets and I ended up going to JMU, so my allegiance to the Monarchs has been mostly severed. But since that year, I have always rooted for the little guy.

Actually, "rooted" may be too weak of a verb.

Every year I spend the week before the games finding reasons to talk myself and everyone who will listen into believing that an underdog or two can beat a big-time program in their first round game. I find every stat possible, ignore the ones that don't prove my point, and badger people with my completely biased opinion until they probably want to cause me some sort of physical pain.

When the games start, I try to will these upsets into happening. I talk to the television even more than I normally do, often standing up to cheer individually for players I have never seen play and hadn't heard of a week ago. At halftime, a commercial, a Greg Gumbel interruption, or any other break in the action, I loudly spout off every positive thing that is happening for the underdog.

I love trying to analyze the games from the statistical, logical standpoint, but it's the picks from the gut that make the tournament fun to watch. I try to dissect the matchups and figure out who is going to win these things, but I know my picks are often influenced by who I want to win the game.

But that is alright with me; I'd rather pick one true upset correctly each year than win a pool.

I felt that this brief intro was relevant to my picks because it can serve as a warning to you. If I talk you into an upset pick, the persuasion has come after I've done everything possible to talk myself into it as well. I am going to analyze the first round matchups in full detail. My picks for the other rounds will be based on this analysis, a gut feeling, or eenie meenie miney moe.

East Region

(1) North Carolina vs. (16) Mount Saint Mary's

Congratulations to Mt. St. Mary's, who, thanks to the play-in game, can now add an NCAA tournament win to their all-time record.

I hate the play-in game. Two of these 16 seeds should get a fair shot to go play against a top-ranked team. The easiest fix to the tournament is to just cut an at-large bid. There's no need to do anything crazy like the 128 team field that I've heard Bob Knight suggest at least 20 times this past week. All I've seen him do at ESPN is spout off ridiculous suggestions, give flippant answers to those fan questions, and make it clear that he rarely agrees with the people who run things in college basketball.

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