Covering Michigan St basketball in the Big Ten Tournament, I witnessed a pretty dominant run. This impressive three game stretch, along with my Spartan lineage made me biased towards thinking Michigan St basketball is going to win the whole thing. Then when I got home from Indianapolis I realized, everyone else is picking them too.
All 5 ESPN experts are picking the Spartans. Pretty much everyone has them in their bracket. As do I. As does our resident hoops genius David Kmiecik.
That said, let’s talk Michigan St basketball versus Delaware.
“whisked away to Delaware….look I’m in Delaware.” You have to see “Wayne’s World to get that joke.
“The Simpsons are going to Delaware! I want to visit a screen door factory” Seeing that Simpsons episode helps too.
The Blue Hens come in with a 25-9 record, RPI 70, SOS 218, 0-3 vs RPI top 50. The Colonial Athletic Champs average 79 ppg, with two guys that average over 20 ppg. Michigan St basketball will quickly dispatch them. Expect a 20-25 point win.
Next comes the Cincinnati/Harvard winner. Another meeting with Tommy Amaker, our good friend from Michigan? Lots of people are picking the smart kids for the upset. That would certainly be a better match-up than Mick Cronin. That’s a tough match-up as they’re a very similar team to the Spartans.
The #2 seed is Villanova, who are very good, but can shot themselves out of their tournament very easily because they’re so dependent on the three ball. The #1 seed is Virginia, remember that Tony Bennett has not yet won a NCAA Tournament game there. And Cavaliers basketball is not exactly known for their success.
Paul M. Banks owns The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. An MBA and Fulbright scholar, he’s also a frequent analyst on multiple news talk radio stations. The former NBC Chicago and Washington Times contributor has also been featured on the History Channel. President Obama follows The Sports Bank on Twitter (@paulmbanks) you should too