The Sandspur

Issue date: 3/21/08 Section: Sports

Its March, and thank goodness that sports are finally becoming cool again, my conversations were becoming terribly dry. Now that March Madness has taken over the social sphere of most Americans, I am sure that you have read every possible permutation of the bracket that our "expert bracketologists" can push on us.

I have something that these experts can not offer.

When these experts signed their contracts with ESPN or CBS, they forfeited (some didn't) two very important qualities manifest in every sports fan: bias and ignorance.

Luckily, my biases are so strong and my ignorance runs so deep that you would be crazy not to follow my advice.

In the present day, experts serve us their bracket analysis in four portions, breaking down each region and then breaking down their Final Four match ups. When reading this style, one can't help but believe that only one analysis is written every year so the experts just have to fill in the blanks with their favorite teams. This framework is about to be BLOWN UP! as I present to you digestible bracket analysis in the tried and true "nugget formula".

Let us just get this out of the way, The Sandspur Sports Section (me) is endorsing the Memphis Tigers as our next national champions. The Tigers fell once this season to the University of Tennessee (who ended up getting screwed) in a match up that the Tigers lost for themselves on free throw shooting. In the Conference USA tournament the team regained their swagger by never letting an opponent come within fifteen points of them. This type of positive conference tournament momentum will benefit the Tigers as they have improved free throw percentages and found a defensive groove.

Around this time of year, momentum plays a bigger role in sports than any other time. These are college students, kids our age with more pressure than most of us can imagine. At the end of the conference tournaments, an outcome can either propel a team to new heights or send them down the road of unmet expectations.

The University of Georgia Bulldogs redefined themselves in the SEC tournament, taking the championship and earning a bid despite their sixteen losses.

If you're feeling gutsy you took Georgia over Xavier. UNC had some tough battles in the ACC tournament, but the Tyler Hansbrough led squad will only benefit from the challenge.

Conference tournament play can just as quickly put the nail in a team's coffin.

Tennessee destroyed any March hopes they had by folding against the Arkansas Razorbacks. The Vols have already shown that they can not deal with losses as they broke down like little babies after their loss to Kentucky. Louisville and Wisconsin both are popular choices to go deep in the tournament, but Louisville's early exit in their conference tournament and Wisconsin's injury problem lead me to question their legitimacy.

Now that we have gotten past some analysis, the future looks ripe for the predicting.

In the East, North Carolina will overpower and outplay opponents on both sides of the ball. Georgetown will use Hoya power to come out of the tough Midwest region. I have already established that Memphis is winning the entire tournament thus winning the South region. It doesn't matter who wins the West because they'll be facing Memphis (and thus their deaths) in the Final Four.

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