Northwestern Makes NCAA Tournament for First Time Ever

But enough about what seemed like a never-ending presidential election cycle. And most hopes will be dashed before the end of the first weekend. If so, then you probably went to school at Middle Tennessee or Lehigh – just sayin’.

The upset team in this region could be East Tennessee State, which went 27-7 on the way to winning the Southern Conference.

If you want to win a big, online pool with millions of entrants, a flawless bracket helps, but it isn’t necessary. For us, we’re focused on the one game at a time approach. There are 26 teams in this field with at least 10 losses; at least four will make the second round this year, but history says it’s hard for those clubs to last too long. Gonzaga (6) 32-1 1,520 3.

Walkup is the rare mid-major star who was a part of two separate Cinderella teams. According to the latest data from ESPN’s Tournament Challenge, 7.5 percent of people have selected the Cavaliers to appear in the Elite Eight, yet FiveThirtyEight’s projections give them an 18 percent chance of making it at least that far, the ideal value play to hinge your bracket around.

Marquette doesn’t have an experienced roster – only Katin Reinhardt, a graduate transfer, has played in the tournament before – but Wojciechowski, in his third season leading the program, has built his team around strong shooters, producing the sixth-highest effective field goal percentage in the country. Mike Brey from Notre Dame is a flawless example of a guy who struggled in the tournament at first, but he’s now led Notre Dame to back-to-back Elite Eight appearances. That type of rating usually goes to a 13 seed in the tournament.

PICK SOME UPSETS: All four No. 1 seeds made the Final Four only once, in 2008. A lot of the seeding didn’t make sense, leaving many teams over-seeded and those like the Shockers and Blue Raiders down a few lines from where they should’ve been.

“My advice would be to focus on upsets in the 2nd Round or Sweet 16 as opposed to the 1st Round”. Sixty-eight Division I men’s basketball teams find their names on the bracket, along with how they’ve been seeded, and who they’ll have to defeat to win a national championship. No team has won consecutive titles since Florida did it in 2006 and 2007, but the Wildcats might have the best chance of any team of the past decade to do so.

With all due respect to an old Villanova foe in Buzz Williams and Virginia Tech, Wisconsin feels like a potential scary matchup in the second round.

Prediction: Duke over Villanova.

Kansas is my pick to advance. Iowa State 23-10 560 18.

Watch out for: Duke rocketed to a No. 2 seed after a furious run through the ACC Tournament that included wins over Louisville, Notre Dame and archrival North Carolina in the championship.

While you might look at the bracket and see four No. 1 seeds, one of them is actually the overall No. 1 seed and, as a result, is in the slightly easier bracket region.

There are a few blemishes on the Blue Devils’ schedule, namely a loss to NC State in Durham (which, yikes), but when Duke has to play against good teams, most of the time, it wins. He blew through the SEC in his only season, but can he carry the Wildcats past North Carolina and UCLA? The last 15 national champions have all been teams ranked in the top 40 nationally in defensive efficiency.

As stated multiple times, the Blue Raiders took down the Spartans past year, and destroyed brackets all over the country in the process.

Watch out for: No. 4 West Virginia’s relentless defense can keep them in a game with anyone. Over this stretch, they’ve taken down Florida State twice and Virginia, among others. In the first round of each region, No. 1 plays No. 16, No. 2 plays No. 15, and so on.

Villanova over Arizona in the all-Wildcats semifinal.