The Wiesguy is a newcomer to the handicapping scene. Hailing from Toronto, Canada he is always sweet on the underdogs and you can often find his thoughts, musings and picks at moneydogs.blogspot.com.
No season builds to the “playoffs” quite like college hoops. There is a reason they call it March Madness.
While prognosticators may like predictability its what we can’t predict that leaves us wanting more this time of year.
By my count there are 7 teams in this bracket talented enough to end up representing this region in the Final Four in Atlanta. That should make for some very competitive action from now until then. Here is a sneak preview before we go any deeper.
The Wolfpack were able to get the game flowing and had a relatively easy time in beating Virginia, beating by 20 a team they lost to earlier in the season.
The Bulldogs are doing their usual thing of building towards the tournament. They exorcised a demon in the quarterfinals by beating a La Salle team that beat them earlier in the season.
The Wolverines are the second highest ranked team in the conference despite finishing tied for fourth in the standings. As a result they didn’t get a bye like Wisconsin even though they were tied with them.
The Wolfpack had a pretty easy time of it in beating Virginia Tech to advance to the next round of the ACC Tournament. Now it is Virginia, a team they lost to earlier during the season setting off a mini-slump.
If memory serves I think there was some buzz about the Hawks being a surprise team in the Atlantic 10 conference this season.
Huge win by the Bears to close the season. By toppling Kansas, handily by the way, they were able to finish the conference schedule with a .500 record and prove they can play with the big boys.
The Utes might have surprised by winning as many as 5 conference games this season (out of 18). They snuck out of last by sweeping the Oregon teams on the last weekend, including beating a ranked Ducks team by 10.
The Red Storm have become an odd program of late. For years they were trying to reclaim a spot among the upper echelon on the Big East and just when it looked like they might be on that path everything began to unravel.
A couple of weeks ago Arizona State was in great shape…then they lost their last 4 games to finish just 9-9 in a far from stacked PAC 12. They have 20 victories on the season but probably need at least a couple more to improve their position on the bubble.
The season just a few weeks away so it is time to look a little closer at those season win totals. Spring is full of questions and there may be great value in knowing whether the Astros really are as bad as they look, or are the Jays really worthy of playoff consideration?
When you are talking about the West Coast Conference the conversation doesn’t completely end with Gonzaga. That is because the Gaels program has really emerged over the last few seasons.
Is it possible that Kansas State, with supposedly awful coach Bruce Weber, is really a top 10 team? Based on their body of work so far it is tough to argue with as they look to close out the season on a tremendous run – they have won 10 of their last 11 heading into Saturday.
The Explorers are tied for second in the Atlantic 10 conference. Sitting a game ahead of them is St. Louis so this game has even more implications than could have been imagined when the schedule came out.
The Gators have already clinched the SEC but they haven’t been as sharp down the stretch as expected. They are not quite the same team on the road as they are at home which may be part of the reason they are not being talked about as a title contender the way they were a month ago.
