No March Madness? Here’s what would’ve happened
Today is usually one of the most popular days of the year for sports fans.
The early-week First Four games are nice, but March Madness kicks into high gear with a full slate from noon until late at night on the first Thursday and Friday of the NCAA men蘑菇视频 basketball tournament.
But not this year. The coronavirus took care of that.
I was looking forward to writing my column in predicting the Final Four and the eventual champion in what seemed to be a wide-open field and was disappointed like most sports fans when the event was cancelled.
Then I thought, well, why not write it anyway? Why not go through and make my own predictions and what might have been?
Obviously, this isn鈥檛 one of those computer simulations of the tournament that I鈥檝e seen floating around on the internet. This is just my own guess on how it all turned out.
I chose to use Joe Lunardi蘑菇视频 bracket 鈥� 鈥淏racketology鈥� 鈥� as my guideline of what the match-ups would be. So here goes 鈥�
Midwest
No. 1 seed Kansas is on the top part of the bracket and I anticipate them getting through to the conference final rather easily, while a much-anticipated Kentucky-Duke match-up in the second round goes to the Blue Devils. The Jayhawks survive a close battle with Coach K蘑菇视频 squad to advance.
East
Dayton is a No. 1 seed you can root for, a non-traditional power. The Flyers will get past a gallant Robert Morris squad, but then have trouble with Florida in the second round and be knocked off by Maryland in the next game. On the bottom of the bracket No. 6 Penn State, with one of its strongest teams in years led by Lamar Stevens, will get by North Carolina State and upset No. 3 Villanova to reach the Sweet 16, while Bob Huggins will get his No. 7 Mountaineers past Utah State before the second-seeded Seminoles of Florida State end their year.
The Nittany Lions will fight to the end as they always do, but FSU will prove to be too much for them. The Seminoles will then defeat the Terrapins to punch their ticket to the Final Four.
West
Gonzaga is the No. 1 seed in the weakest region and will take out LSU and No. 4 Oregon to reach the final. BYU is a great story and will upend Indiana, Seton Hall and No. 2 San Diego State before the Zags end the Cougars鈥� hopes of being a Cinderella Final Four team.
South
Baylor is the top seed, but this region will be dominated by the Big Ten. The Bears will skip into the Sweet 16 but will fall there to a No. 5 Ohio State team that fended off No. 4 Louisville in the second round. Defending champion Virginia, the sixth seed, will get taken out by No. 3 Michigan State.
The shoe will fit for Illinois though. The Fighting Illini will upset No. 2 Creighton before knocking off coach Tommy Izzo蘑菇视频 Spartans, then putting away the Buckeyes to get to the Final Four.
Final Four
Kansas will edge Florida State in the best game of the Final Four, maybe even in overtime, while Gonzaga will reach it蘑菇视频 second championship game by holding off a gritty effort by Illinois.
In the final, you can call them the Bulldogs or you can call them the Zags, but everyone will be calling them the national champions as coach Mark Few finally gets his team to the top of the mountain.
So there you have it. Hey, you won鈥檛 be able to prove me wrong. But if you have a differing opinion feel free to email me your own Final Four and national champion picks for the tournament that will never happen.
Rob Burchianti can be reached at rburchianti@heraldstandard.com or on Twitter at @rvburch.