Bracket Busting

The last two days have been full of filling out brackets for March Madness, and trying to decide when and where the big upsets will occur this year. Here are some of my BOLD predictions for the 2012 NCAA Tournament:

1. (14)Belmont over (3)Georgetown. This is my upset pick for the Midwest bracket. Belmont can shoot the ball lights out when they are on, and have shown that they can play with elite teams. This is a team that took Duke to OT just a couple of years ago in the first round, and lost a 77-76 heartbreaker at Cameron Indoor earlier this year. They are 4th overall in the NCAA in points per game and 17th in FG%. A scary first round matchup for Georgetown, a team that has struggled in the early rounds of the tourney the last two years.
 
2. (11)Texas over (6)Cincinnati. This probably won't be a very popular pick with my fellow blogger Hoody, but this will be a fun matchup to watch in the East bracket. A very young Texas squad that played a brutal Big10 schedule this season will challenge this very good Cincy group. This team lost close games to Mizzou and Kansas, and split with other tournament teams Iowa State and Kansas State. Most of their best work was at home, but like I said before, this is a young team that has grown dramatically this season. This could be one of the more physical matchups of the first round.
 
3. (13)Davidson over (4)Louisville. We already know they are a good team, boasting a win earlier in the season against Kansas. Now Davidson draws the BigEast tournament champion Louisville Cardinals in the first round. Louisville just finished off the most physically demanding tournament in the country, and top that off with traveling across the country to play in Oregon? I think we may see a sluggish performance from Rick Pitino's squad. They've been guilty before (remember the 31 point loss at Providence earlier in the year?). Davidson doesn't shoot the ball as well as I'd like from an upset team, but they do manage to score it quite often (12th in PPG) thanks to being a good rebounding team (19th in RPG).
 
4. (13)New Mexico State over (4)Indiana. This is the upset that I think is most likely to happen. This is a fun team to watch. A very fast tempo New Mexico State offense will give Indiana lots of trouble. 11th nationally in PPG, 6th in RPG, and 31st in FG%, this is a very talented squad that can get up on you in a hurry. If Indiana doesn't defend the perimeter and doesn't have an excellent rebounding game, not only could this be an upset, but I think it could potentially be a blowout. After you win this game in your bracket, remember, you heard it here first.

Good luck to all of you in your brackets. Here's to a great 2012 NCAA Tournament!

-Shuskey