Austin Regional

[AUSTIN_22:22]

ah yes, the regional which is named for my favorite penn state running back....

forget everything in this bracket except for one potential game, syracuse vs. dook.

at first, i was thrilled to see that the orange would get an early shot at the dookies. this is the team i have i been endorsing second to uconn all season. they have the best player in the country, hakim warrick. they have a great coach, jim boeheim. they have the lil white PG who can score 30 pts on 3pt fg's and ft's alone, gerry mcnamara. they have the 2-3 zone defense which provides a puzzle most teams cannot figure out in the short amount of time allotted between games. they even showed some passion for rebounding in the big east tournament. what is not to like about this team?

beware of what seems like an obvious pick...in my crazy head .

what worries me is that this match up would occur in the sweet sixteen. that would mean a thurs/friday game after a sat/sunday game. that means several days of preparation. for as much as i dislike coach k, i am leary of what he could come up w/ to attack the 2-3 zone. jim calhoun has exposed it before. coach k could too. some might say that dook will just let JJ shoot right over the zone all nite long. well, if that is the way to beat it, west virginia must have been shooting w/ their off-hand in the BET championship game. if dook relies on JJ and co simply shooting overtop the zone, they will lose. i guess this game is four tournament wins away, but i am pretty excited about the possibilities.

otherwise, i really don't like any other teams in this bracket. niagara is a good team, but they got a really tough draw w/ oklahoma in the first round. oklahoma can beat dook, but i dont see them winning that many games in a row for some reason. kentucky scared me away from picking them to go anywhere by getting crushed by the billy donovans in the SEC championship game. why can't arizona be the #3 in this bracket

[ham55]

What's wrong Austin, didn't want to talk about the region where the National Champion is going to come from?

DUKE
Syracuse
Kentucky
Oklahoma
Michigan State

Any one of these teams can win the region and be incredibly tough to beat in the Final Four. My pick, DUKE(obviously). Although they might not be as deep this year as in years past, Coach K knows how to get his men ready to play come this time of year, you saw the product of that this past weekends ACC tournament. What alot of people don't consider either is that this team is tourney experienced, all you hear about is tournament experience, and the only Duke player who is on the court a significant amount of time is Demarcus Nelson a Freshman, everybody else has been in the big show. This team will be your 2005 NCAA champions...

[ham55]

Redick, Ewing, Melchionni can all gun from down town, if you are banking on them not being successful from the outside in the possible Syracuse Duke match-up, that's hoping for an aweful lot.

[AUSTIN_22:22]

im glad you like your team's chances ham. i will talk more about the cuse/dook match when i know it is going to go down.

[count2infinity]

i finally agree with ham in saying this region will produce the national winner. i believe it will be Oklahoma

[ham55]

The Road gets easier for Duke...

Syracuse loses to Vermont in OT.

[ham55]

Duke advances

57-46

[D-nice]

i don't like duke, can't stand glamour teams that always attract bandwagon jumping sissy boys, like yankees, cowboys etc. duke is one of those teams. but none the less i cannot let emotion get in the way of my superior instinct. that's why i picked duke to win it all this year.

[ham55]

I've liked Duke for as long as you've been yammering on and on about how good the big east is and how great Pittsburgh is at everything. So what if I picked a team that wins and knows how to win every year. Ask Bison1, ask any family member of mine, I bleed blue and white, in more than one sport.....

[Wrasslerfan]

all i can say is that i am still very much im shock that vermont beat syracuse o well thats the tournament