So last week my boy sent me some screenshots of all the terrible predictions I had made during our coverage of the 2014 NFL draft (thanks a lot Andrew, glad you were able to point out my flaws while giving no constructive feedback whatsoever. Pretty sure you haven’t made one remotely good life decision since like 2007. I’m a fuckin journalist not a fortune teller). Never wanting to be put in that situation again, I’ve decided to wait until today, April 19th, to release my preview of this year’s NCAA Tournament.
SLEEPERS TO WATCH: SYRACUSE
The Orange didn’t have a phenomenal regular season, losing to a bunch of mediocre teams while Boeheim was suspended for doing whatever he did that was wrong. I could easily look that up but I’m not going to. The point is that this team has shooters, and shooters shoot, and when you shoot, you score, and when you score, you win. It’s as simple as that. I predict this team has enough talent to make a Final Four run.
DON’T COUNT ON: KANSAS, MICHIGAN ST.
Chances are your bracket has either the Jayhawks or Spartans going all the way to Houston, if not both. Well, you’re an idiot – it’s not going to happen. You heard it here first. I’ve got Kansas going down to a Villanova team that might surprise you (more on that shortly) and Sparty choking on their own dicks before anyone has realized the tourney is underway. Like you’ll be settling in on the couch to cheer Izzo to the Final Four, waiting for the Michigan St. game to start, and it never will because they already lost 45 minutes ago.
I’m also gonna give UVA an honorable mention in this section because as a #1 seed I feel obligated to tell you that they aren’t championship material, but that should be obvious based on the fact that it’s UVA. Look for the Cavaliers to max out their potential in the Elite Eight.
CONTENDERS: OKLAHOMA, NORTH CAROLINA, VILLANOVA
Let’s start with Oklahoma and National Player of the Year Buddy Hield. That kid has the heart of a lion, he’s a Senior, and he’s going to will the Sooners all the way to the Final Four. I’m not going to watch any of the games he plays in because I have another job, and I’m not going to be able to name another player on his team, but I will tell you that Oklahoma is going to tear a path to Houston and then drop a tremendous deuce on the court when they get there. For those of you that aren’t metaphor aficionados, dropping a deuce on the court is bad. I don’t mean like pulling up for a sweet J in the lane. The other type of deuce.
North Carolina is looking like the team to beat. Seniors Marcus Paige and Brice Johnson are the best inside-out tandem in the country, Justin Jackson is strange looking to the point that it’ll derail an opponent’s gameplan, Joel Berry II can shoot the lights out, and Kennedy Meeks might eat Buddy Hield’s Player of the Year Trophy if he gets hungry. Add HOF coach Roy Williams to the mix and you’ve got lightning in a bottle, if student athletes are lightning and the basketball court is a bottle. Anyways this team is so good it might take a miraculous buzzer beater to take them down, probably from some kid who was adopted by the family of a player on the Tar Heels team. Treasonous…
Villanova. Villa-no-fun. Vanilla-no-fun. Say what you want but this school has a reputation for being lame as fuck, and their basketball team is usually more disappointing than they are talented. I have to give props to Jay Wright for being a beast George Clooney look alike and he’s probably a hell of a coach considering we always rank his talentless teams somewhere in the top 10 every year before they inevitably flame out… But something about this team feels different. Ryan Arcidiacano has been in college for almost as long as Kansas’ Perry Ellis, and he just might be the old wise white point guard to finally lead his school to their first title in roughly 20 years. Not to mention one of their forwards looks eerily like Greg Oden, and while Oden’s NBA career is something we try not to mention on this site, his impact on the collegiate level was tremendous. I know it may come as a shock, but I have this team winning it all in spectacular fashion. National Champs. Philly deserves it after having to suffer thru the last few years of the Sixers, Phillies, and the emigration of its most outstanding citizens to rehabs in south Florida.
Here’s a copy of my bracket as a testament to my intuition and diligent research: