There are 67 games in the NCAA March Madness Men's basketball tournament, and the Badgers will only have to play six of them before they can cut down the nets in Houston. That leaves 61 games and 62 teams unaccounted for. Yet most of us are going to sit in front of the television and let Bryant Gumble direct us through almost all of them anyways. My point is: There are abundant opportunities for subordinate rooting interest to heighten your March Madness experience, no matter how devoted you are to Buckingham U.
Most of the time these ephemeral allegiances manifest in so-called Cinderella teams from mid-major conferences that don't get a lot of love during the regular season: Upstart, hot-shooting squads like last year's Northern Iowa or Cornell (never forget). This year's field has no shortage of those, and you know I'm pumped to see what Oakland, George Mason (remember those guys?), Saint Mary's and even Old Dominion could do to some tougher defenses. But also keep in mind, last year neither Northern Iowa nor Cornell made it out of the Sweet Sixteen. And, don't forget that the so-called surprises of the tournament, Butler and Baylor, were both ranked in the top-10 at some point during the season, and both ended the regular season in the top-20.
Cinderella stories are awesome, but at the end of the day it's the team with the most rocks in their jocks and tough road experience that kicks it at the White House.
So instead of trying to predict which mid-major team can pull the few upsets that'll make the difference in your dorm's crappy bracket pool, I've got two picks from somewhere in the heart of the pack that could very easily load up on Wheaties and run the table through to April.
St. Johns
Steve Lavin gave up his cozy spot as an ESPN analyst for a job coaching St. Johns to do two things: Kick ass and chew bubblegum. And after a tough conference schedule in the Big East, the Red Storm are all out of bubblegum. Of late, they've run away from Villanova, UConn, Duke and Notre Dame, while squeaking out a tough one against Pittsburgh. Lavin's got St. Johns on some serious '90s Knicks shit, banging through the Big East like Charles Oakley still had eligibility. This is a team that just last year got knocked out in the first round of the NIT, and here they are sitting pretty, projected as a No. 4 seed in next week's tournament in Joe Lunardi's latest Bracketology.
Their style of play can get pretty ugly (case in point: last week against Seton Hall), but Coach Lavin's propensity to wear sneakers on the sideline should give a decent metric for what kind of hustle you have to bring against them. These guys have broad shoulders and some untamed 'bows, and their opponents are going to have to be ready to crack some skulls if they don't want to get relegated to chump status on the Red Storm's road to ruin.
Kansas State
While Gil Zero's bottomless swag went through a few too many humbling reconstructive knee surgeries and he's been dropped to Starbury status on the Orlando Magic, Kansas State's senior guard Jacob Pullen is like a little Hibachi in training. He even wears the same No. 0.
I doubt anyone would disagree if I said the most exciting game last year was when J. Pullen and Xavier's Jordan Crawford threw down for three overtimes and a combined 60 points in the Sweet Sixteen last year. God forbid Jimmer Fredette brings his neo-streetball and unlimited range at Brigham Young anywhere near Pullen & Co. this postseason.
K. State probably looks like a disappointment after dropping 20 spots from their preseason rank, but these polls have one major flaw. The polls measure the success of teams in regular season games—J. Pullen only cares about championships, and he has an incredible ability to turn his swag to 11 when the rubber hits the road down the stretch. And judging by the way the Wildcats have elevated their play recently against Kansas, Missouri and Texas, Kansas State should be nothing but Nestle in this month's Crunch time.
Kyle is ready to turn his swag to 11, and if you want to talk about how ill this tournament field is going to be in more detail than this word count permits, e-mail him at ktsparks@wisc.edu.
