National Holidays

As we all know, or should know, today is the greatest day of the year on the Sports Calendar (except when the Cardinals win the World Series): the opening of the NCAA Tournament. And here in Wisconsin we also have the Boys State Basketball Tournament in town (and it's not even snowing).

By Sunday evening my eyeballs will have turned orange from watching hoops for 4 days. It's a tough challenge, but I think I'm up to it. My picks for the Final 4: Wisconsin, UCLA, Texas, and Ohio State with OSU beating UCLA 78-75 for the title. In filling out my bracket I always start by picking my Final 4 and working backwards and that actually worked once. This year my added factor is coaching experience because I read somewhere that coaches with more than 5 years experience in the NCAA tend to outperform.

My big upset of the first round is picking Davidson and Stephen Curry (son of former NBA star Dell) over Maryland.

Other noteworthy picks: I'm taking Notre Dame over Winthrop on the theory that everyone else is picking Winthrop to pull the non-upset 'upset'. I also have Old Dominion over Butler. In the 2nd Round, I have Duke over Pitt (Aaron Gray does not impress), Louisville over Texas A&M, and Vanderbilt over Washington State.

I'm looking forward to an Illinois-Southern Illinois matchup, although for that to happen Illinois has to get past Virginia Tech. It would not be a huge shock if Holy Cross beat SIU either.