NCAA: Looking at the East Region

Posted on | March 17, 2009 | No Comments

The East Region has the following top 4 seeds: 1. Pittsburgh 2. Duke 3. Villanova 4. Xavier.

At first glance this bracket looks to be fairly weak. Duke is a weak 2 seed even thought they did win the ACC tourney. Nova is a strong 3 seed but Xavier is a pretty weak 4 seed. UCLA as a 6 seed and Texas as a 7 seed shouldn’t be overlooked. They both have experienced coaches that know how to get their teams to win in the tournament.

The favorite to win this bracket has to be Pitt. But that’s a very small part of the story here.

A big part of the story will be Duke going down in the 2nd round. I think Duke will lose to either Minnesota or Texas. But I expect Texas to advance and to make it to the Sweet 16. Once there they’ll probably lose to Villanova or UCLA. But I expect Nova to be there.

That would mean the Elite 8 match-up would be between two Big East schools, Villanova and Pitt.

Pitt will make it to the Elite 8 without too much resistance from East Tennessee State and then Oklahoma State. However, I do think Xavier will give Pitt a game. If the refs call a close game and don’t let Pitt get too physical then Xavier will have a chance to win. Still, I like Pitt to advance and I also like Pitt to beat Nova and get to the Final Four.

Once in the Final Four who will Pitt play? Well, we’ll decide that in the next blog entry. Then just before the tournament kicks-off we’ll look at all the Final Four match-ups and pick the National Champ.

But back to the East Region. I like Pitt to advance out of it. I like Duke to lose early and that is the big upset for this bracket. As for the 5/12 match-up that often holds an upset or 2, I don’t see Florida State (the 5 seed) having too much trouble with Wisconsin (the 12 seed).

Related posts:

1. NCAA: Reacapping the 1st 2 Rounds of the NCAA Tournament
2. NCAA: The South Region
3. NCAA: The New Poll
4. NCAA: The First Half of the Sweet 16
5. NCAA: Looking at the Midwest Bracket

Comments