Were I a political spin doctor, I’d proudly report today that my CBS Sports NCAA men’s basketball tournament bracket has improved nearly 400,000 places since last I wrote about it here.
It would be true, but, alas, not terribly significant. That improvement brought me from 684,657 in the rankings to 285,460.
A quick recap is in order.
While I anticipated only Alabama of the four No. 1 regional seeds making it to the Final Four, even that proved to be overly optimistic as Alabama crashed and burned in a loss to San Diego State. There are zero No. 1 seeds alive in the Elite Eight, an historic failure of the teams, the seeding, or both.
Many are celebrating the ouster of Alabama due to the program having players associated with a recent deadly shooting. Charges have been filed against one player.
San Diego State has been a massive bracket thorn to me. I had the Aztecs losing in the first round after having backed their underperforming selves in previous years’ brackets, only to be disappointed. Now that I’ve given up on them, they decided they can play in March!
I have exactly zero picks alive from my South Region portion of the NCAA bracket, which has been winnowed to San Diego State and Creighton meeting Sunday for one Final Four berth.
I am similarly batting zero in the East region, having picked Duke and Marquette only to have Florida Atlantic and Kansas State advance to a regional final that tips in just over an hour.
My West region picks were better. I had Gonzaga getting this far, projected to meet Arkansas. But UConn ousted Arkansas last round, a close miss for me.
Best of my selections was the Midwest, where I correctly picked Texas and Miami to square off in the regional final. I also had correctly identified their previous round opponents, with Texas beating Xavier and Miami beating Houston.
But I have only Gonzaga and Texas advancing from here, with Gonzaga tabbed to best Texas and advance to the final game, winning there, too.
My lack of faith in the Big Ten and Pac-12 has proved to be correct. Their over-abundance of tournament entries all have been eliminated.
The Southeastern Conference, another of the so-called power conferences, also is experiencing an Elite Eight blackout.
Meanwhile, of the eight teams still alive entering play Saturday night, Creighton and UConn are representing the Big East; Texas and Kansas State (Big 12); Miami (Atlantic Coast); Florida Atlantic (Conference USA), Gonzaga (West Coast) and San Diego State (Mountain West).
Maybe next year the tournament committee can look in the mirror, give less respect to underperforming big name conferences and show more love to the conferences that don’t get all the headlines, just tournament results.
Sam Ross Jr's site 