March Madness predictions

By Thomas Hiley III

With the NCAA men’s basketball tournament coming up, everybody is going to turn their attention and watch if their team can make it to the next round of the tournament.

In the 2013 NCAA tournament, the No. 1 seeds are Louisville (29-5) in the Midwest, Kansas (29-5) in the South, Indiana (27-6) in the East and Gonzaga (31-2) in the West.

Each team has a chance to make it far in the tournament. The No. 1 seeds should easily make it through the first round going against the 16th seeds, but anything is possible. A No. 16 seed has never beaten a No. 1 seed, but one did come close in 1996 when the Purdue Boilermakers barely defeated the 16th seed Western Carolina.

Looking at each conference, expect to have a few upsets. Looking in the Midwest conference, a team to keep an eye out for will be the Duke Blue Devils (27-5). Duke is the No. 2 seed in the Midwest and can easily make it to the sweet 16 and possibly further.

Duke recently lost to Maryland, which hurt it in getting the No. 1 seed. Even so, it had some key wins this year against Louisville, the Midwest No. 1 seed, Ohio State, and also against Miami. The hardest team it will possibly play first will be Michigan State University, the No. 3 seed. They should meet in the sweet 16.

For the West conference, one team I will have going far will be the Wisconsin Badgers (23-11). The Badgers have caused some big upsets this season, beating rank teams in Illinois, Indiana twice, Minnesota, Michigan twice and Ohio State.

Looking at those wins, you can see they are all in the same conference, but the Big Ten is becoming one of the top conferences of college basketball. So looking at the bracket I can see Wisconsin winning in the first two rounds before facing No. 1 seed Gonzaga and winning in a close matchup.

In the South, the team I’m cheering for is No. 4 seed Michigan Wolverines (26-7), but looking at how they’ve been playing recently and the teams in the bracket, it’s going to be extremely difficult.

They started the season on a 16-game winning streak and were once the No. 1 ranked team in the nation. Their first loss came on Jan. 13 against Ohio State, and since then they been 10-7. I see them making it past the first round, but from there on out I don’t know. In the second round they could face VCU (26-8), which is very good, and if they do win I don’t see them beating No. 1 seed Kansas.

Finally, for the East it could possibly come to No. 1 Indiana Hoosiers and No. 2 Miami (27-6) competing in the Elite 8 to make it to the final four. Syracuse and Butler could cause some problems, but I see the Hoosiers and the Hurricanes fighting it out in the end.

With the tournament starting this Thursday I have made my prediction and thoughts on who will win. All I can do now is sit back and watch the action unfold.