Busted Before I Begin?

Filling out the bracket for this season has been especially hard because of the parity among the middle seeds. When you look at the field, there's not that many differences between some #2 seeds all the way down to some #7 seeds. This could make for some very interesting upsets, but makes predicting winners pretty difficult. The number one overall seed doesn't even have the least amount of victories and it's first week at #1 was this week.

There is something to be said for winning your conference tournament, but with how flukey the conference tournaments ended up being, and how the top teams in the country seemed to not take them seriously (We all know UNC sat ACC POY Ty Lawson and Roy publicly acknowledged that the conference tournament doesn't mean as much to this team as the NCAAs, especially after winning the last two). So judging a team based on whether it's "hot right now" is not going to serve you well if you expect that team to stay hot for six more games and three more weeks.

As I'm filling my bracket out, I'm running into obstacles in each region. Games that should be obvious and making me take a second glance. For example, #4 seed Wake Forest is supposed to be a great team. They beat UNC, Duke and Clemson, they were ranked #1 during the season, they were the last undefeated team so they handled their non-conference well, and they're a team full of young and talented players. But when you look closer at this game, you realize they're facing a Cleveland State team that beat #3 Syracuse at home (granted, on a prayer shot) and is making it's first appearence in the tournament in over 20 years after winning their conference tourney. This team, like Portland State and North Dakota State (whose coach said they will their game), is begging me to pick them. Ultimately should I? Probably not. But those are #13 seeds. When you get down to the 10,11,12 seeds, the games could go either way and no one would be surprised?

Temple/Arizona State - Either team could win two games
Maryland/Cal - Toss up
BC/USC - Toss up
BYU/Texas A&M - Do you pick A&M because they won last year, or do you avoid them for that same reason?
Clemson/Michigan - If I were Oklahoma, I would not want to play either
LSU/Butler and Tennessee/Oklahoma State - These games will be a referendum on the SEC
VCU, Western Kentucky, Siena - Can they do it again? Or is it too obvious?
Marquette/Utah State - Dominic James = at least 1 win, without him now what?
Texas/Minnesota, FSU/Wisconsin - With all the flaws, it's tough throwing support behind any of these teams

The 1, 2 and 3 seeds are slightly easier to predict, but even there not all the regions will be 1 vs 2. Will they? Is that boring or excellent? Obviously as a Carolina fan we want no slip ups for the South region's #1 seed and if I had to choose one team in the field based on the road in front them to get to the championship game, I would choose Carolina. But everyone else, I think they're in for a crazy 19 days. And to the person that wins the ESPN Tourney Challenge, cherish your one shining moment because what you achieved might have been as difficult as actually winning the games.

Bracket Predictions to come...