Thus far my NCAA Basketball Tournament predictions have been lacking. With that in mind, on to the East and West regional semi-finals to be played this coming Thursday and Friday night.
The NCAA basketball tournament returns to Madison Square Garden for the first time since 1961 with two East region games Friday and one on Sunday.
Close to, if not local team, Connecticut University will win as a slight underdog vs Iowa State University in Friday’s opening game. It will be a close game.
In the second game Friday night at Madison Square Garden, look for favored four seed, Michigan State University, to win vs the one seed, University of Virginia team.
On Thursday night in the West Region, Arizona University, a seven point favorite, is my pick by 4 points vs San Diego State University. In the other West region game, look for Baylor University to upset Wisconsin University.
The 2014 Major League baseball season began in Australia and the top rated Los Angeles Dodgers got off to a good start.
L.A. won both games vs the Arizona Diamondbacks and will play in the next game scheduled, this Sunday night, at San Diego, vs the Padres.
The Dodgers “perceived” wins total of 93 is the highest in the major leagues and they are only two and half to one to win the National League pennant. They are considered the favorites in the N.L. by a fairly wide margin.
Last year, after struggling early on, the Dodgers went on an amazing run around the All Star Game and eased to the N.L. West crown.
They beat the Atlanta Braves in the division series three games to one. The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Dodgers four games to two in the NLCS.
The University of Connecticut pulled a slight upset beating second seed Villanova in the round of 32 yesterday. Until last year both teams played in the Big East Conference.
Connecticut has won three NCAA titles while Villanova won their only title as a big underdog in 1985.
Also yesterday a pair of two time champion coaches, Billy Donovan and Rick Pitino guided their teams into the regional semi-finals next week.
In the day’s first game, Billy Donovan’s Florida Gators won fairly easily vs Pittsburgh University.
In the second game, defending NCAA basketball champion Louisville Cardinals, coached by Rick Pitino, won by 15 points vs St. Louis University.
Happy birthday today to the great broadcaster, Bob Costas. His work has been outstanding for so long that some people take him for granted. I do not.
Wonder if Bob will be watching Syracuse basketball on his birthday today?
Kudos to upstart Mercer University for its upset win vs Duke University in the round of 64 in the NCAA Tournament.
It was one of the big upsets in recent tournament history as the 14 seed Mercer beat the third seed, Duke.
However, I believe that Tennessee University another tournament upstart, in fact a team that had to play its way into the round of 64, will beat Mercer in tomorrow’s game.
It turns out the Las Vegas people agree as Tennessee is an 8 point favorite in the game. I predict Tennessee to win by 6 points.
The Syracuse basketball team is a seven point favorite for its game vs Dayton in the round of 32. The game will begin at 7:10 pm Eastern time on Saturday.
On paper Syracuse got a “present” as Dayton University upset Ohio State in the round of 64.
I do not think Syracuse will take Dayton lightly and will win by around 10 points. Dayton’s greatest season was in 1967, when they were runners-up to Lew Alcindor’s first UCLA title team.
I also predict Syracuse will get another break and not face Kansas in the regional finals. The Jayhawks of Kansas will lose before that round.
Eventually Syracuse will have to beat top seed Florida and do not rule that out.
There is no prohibitive favorite in this year’s NCAA Basketball Tournament.
The top choices; Florida, Arizona, Michigan State and Louisville are all at least five to one underdogs, to “cut down the nets” as champions in Dallas, Texas on Monday night April 7th.
As promised, some predictions: The final four will match Florida against Michigan State. The other game will be Arizona vs Duke.
The final will be Michigan State vs Arizona. I predict Arizona will win it all.
If as expected, Duke and Michigan win their first two NCAA Basketball tournament games, they will clash in the round of sixteen. The possibility evokes memories of past Duke and Michigan appearances in the national semi finals and finals.
Duke won its first two titles with back to back wins in 1991 and 1992. In 1992, Duke beat the vastly over rated, so called “Fab Five” of Michigan in the finals.
The greatest team in NCAA basketball history is UCLA, which won 10 of the 12 titles contested from (1964-1975.)
UCLA won its first championship beating Michigan in 1964 and its next one was vs Duke in 1965.
In 1988, Danny Manning was voted Most Valuable Player of the tournament and he led Kansas to its upset victory in the NCAA Basketball finals vs Oklahoma.
In the all Big 8 Conference final, Kansas and Manning won as an 8 point underdog.
Manning is back in the NCAA Tournament these 26 years later as the coach of Tulsa University. They won The Conference USA tournament to gain an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
The Kansas coach in 1988 was the vagabond, Larry Brown. He has made more stops at other coaching venues than Greyhound Bus.
This year Brown did a good job at Southern Methodist University. They posted a (23-9) record.
However, a loss in the opening round of the American Athletic Conference tournament relegated the Mustangs to the National Invitation Tournament.
The NCAA tournament starts tomorrow. The Florida University Gators are the tournament’s overall top seed and ranked first in the nation.
The Gators are coached by Billy Donovan, who played in a final four/NCAA semi final under coach Rick Pitino at Providence University in 1987.
Donovan coached back to back NCAA title winners with the Gators in 2006 and 2007.
Coach Pitino won it all with Kentucky in 1996. Last year, Pitino matched Donavan, coaching his second title winner with Louisville.
This year’s Providence team made news by winning the Big East Tournament and gaining the automatic NCAA Tournament bid that goes with it.
Florida, Louisville and Providence are in separate regionals in this year’s tournament. Will they make the final four? Later this week I will give my predictions.
Gators
