Why the NCAA Tournament was so Hard to Pick

For the first time ever, the NCAA Men's Basketball Final Four will host all of the number one seeds. This has been one of the hardest brackets to pick in recent memory because of the constant shifting of upsets to favorites. There were so many big upsets, yet all the one seeds had tickets punched to San Antonio. If you went for a bracket with a lot of upsets, the odds are that you didn't get the Final Four correct. Even if you flooded a bracket with many upsets, it is unlikely you picked everything right. Last year, I went 31-32 in the first round, with my lone loss coming in the Duke-VCU game. This year I went 22 out of 32, which was a major disappointment.

In the first round, teams like Western Kentucky and Villanova were given a chance to win in the 5-12 upset. Picking one of those games was not tough, but picking both and San Diego was a long shot. Only four times in history had there been a 12-13 match up, and this year there were two more of the latter. Over three and a half million brackets were entered on ESPN.com, and only two had perfect sweet sixteen's.

I saw some people with Davidson over Georgetown, but to have them beating the number three seed Wisconsin was unpredictable. Many people had either Duke losing to West Virginia, but it's tough to pick both.

The most difficult thing to predict was the Final Four. I got three out of four teams right, leaving only Memphis out. I wanted to pick the Tigers of Memphis, but I couldn't put every number one seed in the Final Four. A friend of mine told me this was the year that all the one seeds had a chance to go to the Final Four because of the lack of strength in the two seeds.

This was a great year for upsets because of the all in round depth throughout each region. Davidson was a ten seed who had won 22 games in a row going into the tournament. Butler was ranked in the top 15 in the country, but was a number seven seed. They gave an excellent Tennessee team all they could handle. Washington State had a suffocating defense and was a four seed that made it to the sweet sixteen. West Virginia upset Duke and gave a talented Xavier team a great run. Louisville, who I believe was one of the best five teams in country because of their all around talent and depth, was a number three seed who almost knocked off top seeded North Carolina.

This bracket was very deep and some teams were miss seeded, resulting in many "upsets" and a thrilling tournament.