Arizona has it all, including incentive
It isn’t a tough job for the NCAA Tournament selection committee members.
They just made it look that way.
At least the Texas Longhorns got into the field, though several players thought the team was left out because of a little problem with the alphabetical order format.
Many are dismissing Texas as a one-and-done, but I’m going to give Shaka Smart the benefit of the doubt against Nevada. The Wolf Pack can outshoot and outscore Texas, but I will wager that Mo Bamba and Dylan Osetkowski show up for this one while Snoop Roach gets back in the swing of things in a five-point win before the Horns exit the proceedings courtesy of No. 2 seed Cincinnati. So who wins it all? The South is easily the most loaded region, and against my better judgment, I’m taking the ultra-athletic fourthseeded Arizona Wildcats. OK, get your best-teammoney-can-buy jokes in now because the Wildcats
will pay homage to championship forefathers Lute Olsen, Miles Simon, Mike Bibby and Jason Terry with a title win over the Kansas Jayhawks.
Upon first glance at the 68-team field, my brain released about 100 WTHs in a 20-second span. I’ve been filling out brackets dating to the early 1990s when Tyler Morning Telegraph sports editor Phil Hicks ran a great office pool. Somehow the brackets seemed more straightforward back then. Nothing like today. The 2018 committee effort was one of the most controversial I’ve seen from top to bottom because of teams like USC somehow being omitted. My picks, as usual, are sure to be bloodier than those scumbags that Bruce Willis sent to the morgue in the “Death Wish” reboot.
The No. 1s were easy enough: Virginia, Villanova, Kansas and even Xavier were OK, but how does Virginia, with the No. 1 overall seed, get Arizona — the scariest team in the bracket — as the No. 4 seed in the South? Let’s not even mention Rick Barnes’ red-hot Tennessee Vols as the No. 3 seed.
It’s the understatement of the year, but Arizona coach Sean Miller hasn’t had the easiest month of his coaching tenure. The FBI wiretaps can attest to that. He has to be saying, “Don’t do us any favors, guys.”
Guess what, Sean? They didn’t.
So Oklahoma State didn’t play anybody in nonconference. So what? The Cowboys had a bad strength of schedule but went 4-2 against the Big 12’s top three teams, including a regular-season sweep of conference juggernaut Kansas, which happens to be the Midwest’s No. 1 seed. But the Pokes got left out of the Big Dance.
And what of Oklahoma? Do the Sooners have blackmail material on the committee members? How does a team that went 4-11 in its last 15 games get in as a 10 seed? Will the Trae Young ticker, which became such an integral part of ESPN’s bottom-screen scoreline, be loaned out to CBS and the Turner Networks? The good news is if it does happen, we’ll be subjected to it only for the amount of time it takes the Sooners to lose to Rhode Island.
Even NBA analyst Charles Barkley, who has probably watched two more college games than a dead man this season, was on the right side of things when he grilled selection committee chair Bruce Rasmussen during the selection show on TBS.
“They were 2-8” to end the season, Barkley said. “What, were they a No. 1 seed before they went 2-8, to drop all the way down to 10?” So why ’Zona? Why not ’Zona? Teams like Virginia got higher seedings because of their tremendous defensive play, but the Wildcats have an unstoppable combo in the middle in Deandre Ayton, whose name has been synonymous with the mention of $100,000 in recent weeks, and 7-foot Dusan Ristic. They are the exception and not the norm in a college game that has been dominated by guards in the decades since Patrick Ewing, Ralph Sampson and Hakeem Olajuwon ruled the roost.
Historically speaking, Arizona has busted my bracket more times than I can count, but I’m going with Miller getting that locker room ready with the old us-against-theworld pre-tournament speech.
It was tempting to go with the last two national champs — North Carolina and Villanova — but I said no on the Heels because no team has repeated since Florida in 2007, and in ’Nova’s case, I wanted to knock out a No. 1 in the Sweet 16. Hill Country Mountaineers, rejoice. I’m taking West Virginia to pull the upset in the Sweet 16, giving me two Big 12 teams in the Elite Eight.
Three tips as we settle into the Madness:
1. Take a few chances in your bracket, but don’t get too crazy early. The higher-seeded teams usually win.
2. It’s fine to be jealous of your friends who have the option of working from home over the next three weeks.
3. Don’t forget to have fun. It’s why we’re all here, right?