NCAA Bracket 2012: Cinderellas Destined to Advance in Round 1

Forget a pencil.

Fill out your bracket with confidence.  Grab your lucky pen and circle these Cinderellas.

Here are four lower-seeded teams to advance without a second thought.  Matchups and seeds are based on Joe Lunardi’s Bracketology projections.

4. Xavier

Xavier has done it before. 

Lunardi has the Musketeers as an 11-seed going head-to-head with the Fighting Irish.  Folks, it’s just a fact of life—the Big East is cursed.  It isn’t a matter of if a Big East team will choke this year, but who will choke.

Coming off of a 14-point loss to Louisville in their conference tournament, Notre Dame is a more than solid candidate.

3. North Carolina State/Seton Hall

Lunardi is projecting that either NC State or Seton Hall will just sneak into the Big Dance as a 13^th seed and face off against Wisconsin.  This upset is less about the Badgers, though, and more about the Wolfpack and Pirates.

NC State showed incredible heart in a two-point loss to North Carolina in the ACC Tournament. 

Seton Hall had a brutal second half of the season, but they showed their ceiling against Georgetown on February 21^st winning 73-55.

2. VCU

Everybody’s favorite Cinderella is back and ready to break more hearts.

The only blemish on the Rams’ schedule over the past 18 games is a one-point loss to George Mason.  Lunardi has an 11^th seeded Virginia Commonwealth matched up against Temple in Round 1.   The upset would shock absolutely no one.

1. Texas

Texas a Cinderella?

Well, according to Lunardi, they’ll enter the NCAA Tournament as an 11^th seed set to battle it out against Memphis.  The Tigers are extremely overrated.  They didn’t beat a single ranked team all season long.

J’Covan Brown and company are a superior team talent-wise.  A 6'11" upset qualifies the Longhorns for the list, but I’d go so far as to say that they should be favored in such a battle.

David Daniels is a featured columnist at Bleacher Report and a syndicated writer.

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