{"id":133,"date":"2008-03-16T17:49:56","date_gmt":"2008-03-16T22:49:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=133"},"modified":"2008-03-16T17:52:14","modified_gmt":"2008-03-16T22:52:14","slug":"initial-bracket-reaction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=133","title":{"rendered":"Initial Bracket Reaction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There will be more on all of this as the week goes on, but I wanted to get my initial bracket reactions on the record.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>They hate the little guy.\u00a0 Both VCU and Illinois St. are left out.\u00a0 The ones that they &#8220;had&#8221; to include, they put up against each other.\u00a0 Davidson vs. Gonzaga.\u00a0 S. Alabama vs. Butler.\u00a0 Just awful.\u00a0 God, there will be more of this&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>I like Temple&#8217;s draw, as a 12-seed.\u00a0 Michigan St. is very inconsistent and that is winnable.\u00a0 I am scared of Pitt, but let us just get there first.<\/li>\n<li>I hate UMBC&#8217;s draw.\u00a0 I know, I know, they are a 15-seed, so how good can the draw be?\u00a0 But, UMBC&#8217;s big problem is that their center is 6&#8217;5&#8243;.\u00a0 And, they draw Georgetown.\u00a0 I think this is the worst matchup of all the 2-seeds for the Retrievers.\u00a0 Even Tennessee or Duke, I think would be a better matchup for UMBC.\u00a0 Then again, Georgetown relies on defense and struggles to score at times, which is good to a long run, but vulnerable for first-round upsets.\u00a0 I am a Retriever Believer, and I am picking them.<\/li>\n<li>Is Stanford vs. Cornell the smartest matchup in the history of the tournament?<\/li>\n<li>Why is Memphis going to have to play Texas in Houston?\u00a0 A lot more on this later, too&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>How does St. Joe&#8217;s get a higher seed than Temple?\u00a0 I don&#8217;t mind because I kind of like the Michigan St. draw and I LOVE being a #12 seed, but didn&#8217;t Temple just beat the Hawks?<\/li>\n<li>How is TX-Arlington (the\u00a07th place team\u00a0in the Southland Conference) not in the play-in game?\u00a0 I know that they try and protect the traditionally black colleges from this game, but I don&#8217;t think that TX-Arlington is a traditionally black college, right?<\/li>\n<li>I know that it is human nature, but are these guys using prior tournament results in picking the bottom seeds?\u00a0 Winthrop did not even win the Big South and they are a 13-seed?\u00a0 Oral Roberts seemed to get a high seed because they have been there 3 straight years.\u00a0 Now, I am no low-major expert, but I think Austin Peay (a 15-seed) is a better team than either of those two.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>How crazy is it to see an SEC team get a 14-seed?\u00a0 Pretty remarkable.\u00a0 More on this later in the week&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>The brackets made it even easier for me to stick with my very first national champion pick, UCLA.\u00a0 I think they have the easiest road to San Antonio and they have a semifinal matchup projected against Memphis from the South, which has the potential to be a crazy, upset-filled region, so who knows who UCLA will get on Final Four Saturday?\u00a0 That is a long way off, though.\u00a0 I am sure there will be more on that&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Just initial reactions.\u00a0 Anyone else?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There will be more on all of this as the week goes on, but I wanted to get my initial bracket reactions on the record. They hate the little guy.\u00a0 Both VCU and Illinois St. are left out.\u00a0 The ones &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=133\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[226],"class_list":["post-133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-college-hoops","tag-2008-ncaa-tournament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}