The Wonder Continues, Day Five

It's "Sweet Sixteen" time. Four games today, four games tomorrow, then two games on Saturday on Sunday.

I'm going 12 for 12 for sure (all the rough stuff is out of the way the first weekend, why else do you think I hid my brackets from public view).

(7) West Virginia Mountaineers at (3) Xavier Musketeers
Both teams are 'eers, both teams nicknames start with 'M's, but it's Mountains v Muskets otherwise. I'm going with an upset and say that Mountains crush Muskets (just like Rock beats Scissors), also WV plays solid defense and will be able to frustrate Xavier to the point where they'll just start jacking up ill advised threes by the end of the game. Pick, West Virginia

(4) Washington State Cougars at (1) North Carolina Tarheels
Normally, those home and away designations are pretty meaningless in the NCAA Tournament, but North Carolina gets to play its entire region in state, so that's got to help some (not that they need it, they could play this in Seattle and WSU wouldn't have much of a chance). NC looks very solid, and will probably make the finals. WSU looks good, too, but not as good as NC., Pick, North Carolina

(12) Western Kentucky Hilltoppers at (1) UCLA Bruins
The Bruins will maul the Hilltoppers. After not putting away a decent Texas A&M team, the Bruins are ready to make a statement to the other 1 seeds with their dismantling of a gritty Western Kentucky squad (or at least that's how I see it, but take all my Bruins comments with a grain of salt, I'm a homer). Pick, UCLA

(3) Louisville Seriously Fellas You Ought to Change Your Team Name to Sluggers at (2) Tennessee Volunteers
I have no strong feelings about this one way or another, other than a generally strong dislike for Rick Pitino. One sideline to this game is that it would seem that Indiana might be courting Tenn's coach, and Tenn's coach isn't exactly spurning those advances. That distraction may effect his team, I'm picking the Sluggers in this one, even if they haven't yet adopted that team name. Pick, Louisville