To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (112 ) 3/14/2002 10:25:11 AM From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 310 After listening to three solid days of sports talk about the tourney I have come to a very definite conclusion: pick among the top five to advance to the final four and throw darts at the rest! I have Duke knocking off OK and KS knocking off MD in the final four, with Duke winning the title. Cincinnati and Maryland always seem to find a way to lose games they should win in the tournament in my recollection. My upset team is CCSU (Central CT State). They have a 19 game winning streak and are playing Pittsburgh, a team that fellow CT school UConn beat in a thriller. My theory is that if Knight, Pitt's star player were not to play, the rest of the team would pick it up and adjust accordingly. But as he is playing, I think they'll depend on him too much and he won't be nearly as effective as they'd have liked him to be. Wishful thinking, I know, but I also have CCSU beating Penn in the next round. I expect Penn, an 11 seed, to knock off Cal as the game will be in Pittsburgh. My other upset team is 13 seed San Diego State. I was very impressed watching them in their conference tournament. I admit that beating IL in Chicago is probably a tall order, but I even have them knocking off FL in the next round as well. My other odd pick of note is Miami to knock off Cincinnati in the sweet 16. Miami's first rounder is against Missouri, a 12 seed that led the nation in threes made per game. If they got hot, watch out. I'm guessing they won't. The next two top shooting threes teams are W KY and OR. I have each winning their first round games and OR staying hot all the way to the elite 8. - Jeff