March Madness, the 2010 version of NCAA's College Basketball Playoff season, is upon us. The Washington Huskies and the California Golden Bears, both Pac-10 champions, have landed bids in the NCAA Tournament. Now, the Bracketology experts comes out.
Washington and Cal join Duke, Vanderbilt, Kansas, Georgetown, Notre Dame, UTEP, BYU, Xavier, Oakland, Florida, Kansas St., North Texas, Villanova, Robert Norris, Morgan St., Texas, Wisconsin, Lehigh, N. Iowa, New Mexico St., Michigan St., Tennessee, San Diego St., Ohio, Oklahoma St., Georgia Tech, Temple, Cornell, Wofford, Clemson, Missouri, Texas A&M, Sam Houston, Baylor, St. Mary's, Richmond, Purdue, Sienna, and Louisville East Tenn. St., and Kentucky on the "Road to Indy" for the NCAA Final Four.
But what's confusing is two Pac-10 Champions? (Ok, this blogger's a Cal graduate, there's the bias disclaimer.) It's down right weird to have two Pac-10 Champions and makes a mockery of all of the battles waged through the season to be the Pac-10 Champion that Cal is. But on the other hand, with the dramatic Pac-10 Championship game that Cal came up on the wrong end of 79 to 75, the format did manage to produce two NCAA Tournament teams, whereas a standard season-only system would have gained just one. So the whining about that stops here - for now - as it's good for the Pac-10 Conference.
Cal's favored to beat Louisville in the Golden Bears' game at Jacksonville, and Washington's an 11-th seed against the 6th-seed Marquette Golden Eagles. Washington's not even considered as a possibility to beat Marquette by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, and the New York Times' thinks Cal's an easy upset for Louisville.
The Pac-10, as usual, gets no respect, but Cal being "an easy upset" is an outrage. The NY Times Peter Themel, who seems to think he's a Bracketology expert, doesn't even give a detailed reason for his statement using the term "easy."
Grrrr. GO BEARS and... Go Huskies!
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