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Bracketed by Bill Murray

Writing an NCAA tournament prediction piece on the night of Selection Sunday is an act of either hubris, desperation (your editor's, not your own) or clueless habit. Make mine number three, reader, and believe me, it'll be more clueless than in any previous year.

The title of this post refers to Murray's bit as entertainment reporter on the original cast Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update. Murray would make his Oscar picks every year by dismissing half the movies with a casual "Didn't see it." That is me and college basketball in a nutshell in 2010.

Returning to fandom after being a sportswriter, I have adopted a reasonably strict one sport at a time rule. Oh, I watch all kinds of games all the time (it's why we have two HD TVs in our house), but I really, truly only pay attention to one kind of game.

It is my habit to pretty much ignore college basketball until the Super Bowl is over. December and January are for football, college and pro. Then I buckle down in February and study college basketball in the effort to amass enough knowledge to delude myself I have a handle on the tournament by St. Patrick's Day.

The Winter Olympics were in February. I got very much into them, an experience I enjoyed, but one that has left my college hoop watching a bit on the sporadic side. An attempt to cram by overwatching conference tournaments, the very worst time to figure out which teams are going to do what in the big tournament, had predictably disastrous results. Syracuse was gone from theirs before I got home from work on Thursday. As a result, they are my Bill Murray team par excellence. Big East regular season champs, a number one seed, and I haven't seen them play for a second in 2009-2010.

On the other hand, I am overbriefed on some teams. Minnesota for example. Thanks to the mysterious presence of the Big Ten network on my cable service, I think I've seen them six times. Doesn't make them any better, but them I can scout, and second round losers sounds right.

I've seen Kansas three times. Kansas State, too. I saw them play each other three times. Kansas won them all, so that's another thing I know. If they meet in the Final Four (not a ludicrous proposition), I'm betting the cable payment on the Jayhawks.

Duke bores me, so I didn't watch them except while dial switching. I know the ACC sucked a lot this year, though, so best of show in that bunch fails to impress Saw Kentucky a couple times. This is probably the most talented bunch of one-and-done freshman Calipari's ever had. Probation in 2013 will be totally worth it. By then John will be on another job anyway.

Villanova hasn't won a game in Michael Gee viewing window. So they'll either get upset in the second round or reach the title game. Wish I could guess which.

For the rest, well, readers, I bet you didn't see Cornell or Utah State play this season, either. Make your own damn guesses if you want upsets. If I was taking this year's choices seriously, I'd probably pick Kansas, Kentucky, Baylor and, yes Kansas State. But I'm not.

I'm going with Syracuse to win it all. It just feels right, somehow.

posted by Michael Gee @ 6:25 PM