Your Personal NCAA Tournament Picking Guide

I know you’ve been anxiously awaiting these as you try to beat your pool’s entry deadline, so here are the rest of my first round locks- or as nervous nellies might call them: picks.

I’ll begin in the East.

Eastern Kentucky over North Carolina. It’s too bad North Carolina didn’t get put in the North region, otherwise they’d be a decent pick. Logic, if not history, dictates that if the name of a school contains the region in which they are playing, they are a shoo-in to win at least one game. Salute the Colonels, your first round victors.

Michigan State over Marquette. Nobody can shut up about the clash between teacher and pupil. Marquette’s coach Tom Crean was Tom Izzo’s top assistant for years with the Spartans before spreading his wings and flying as the Golden Eagles instructor Eagle. Normally I’d pick Marquette, because I think I would beat all of my former bosses in basketball, but I’m pretty confident Drew Naymick’s hair will blind Dominic James as James misses the front end of what would have been the game tying granny-style free-throw.

USC over Arkansas. Many people were very surprised that Arkansas made the tournament. Try as they might to prove that they belong, the Razorbacks will be unable to cause “40 minutes of Hell” as they did under former coach Nolan Richardson. Instead the Hogs will offer USC 28 minutes of Purgatory, 7 minutes in Heaven and 5 minutes reincarnated as the dude who played Buddy Lembeck on Charles in Charge. With their well lubricated offense the Trojans will be able to work it in and out with ease and advance.

Texas over New Mexico State. Aggies coach- the former star of the NBA and NBC’s Hang Time- Reggie Theus fails his team when he reverts back to the coaching style he used as Coach Bill Fuller on the Saturday morning teen sitcom. The plays Theus diagrams are only effective on a 30 foot court with 7’ hoops. Look for Texas freshman Kevin Durant to make a name for himself and possibly even draw the attention of some insightful NBA scouts.

George Washington over Vanderbilt. Lots of people have Vanderbilt winning this game and then knocking off 3^rd seeded Washington State to move into the sweet 16. Those peoples are so wrong it makes them jerks. GW beat Virginia Tech this season proving that they're more than capable (whatever that phrase means) of beating V teams from power conferences. Both teams feature point guards with two first names -Vandy’s Alex Gordon and GW’s Carl Elliot, so it’s not safe to trust either squad. Ultimately this boils down to our first president getting a slight nod over a shipping and railroad magnate named Cornelius.

Washington State over Oral Roberts. First of all, Washington State has the sweetest logo ever. Imagine the shame that the guy who simply drew 'cougars' in cursive must have felt when they revealed the winner of the school's logo contest. If the logo isn’t enough to sell you on Wazzu how about the fact that their point guard, Taylor Rochestie, transferred from Tulane last year. He’s a Katrina transplant. Picking Oral Roberts is like rooting for the Hurricane to win (again). Hasn’t New Orleans suffered enough?

Boston College over Texas Tech. Post game press conferences with the general are far more entertaining after his team loses. ACC player of the year Jared Dudley, who says fans call him ugly sometimes, will play quite handsomely as he blocks out all the attacks on his physical appearance thrown at him throughout the game. Most will come from Coach Knight. Dudley will be crying after the game, not because he’s overcome with the joy of victory, but because after a while those Ugly Dudley chants really hurt.

Georgetown over Belmont. Hoyas forward Jeff Green plans on making this tournament his personal non-homosexual coming out party. Against Belmont Green he will have his cake and eat it too, cry if he wants to and act as if it’s 1999. Belmont may boast a balanced scoring attack (6 Bruins average between 5.1 and 9.5 points) but all that really means is nobody is any good. What’s more, Belmont coach Rick Byrd refuses to represent his father and grandfather in everything he does while Georgetown’s John Thompson El tercer, always does.

I’ll get to the dirty South a little later on. Your welcome for everything.