2017 NCAA Tournament: Midwest Region Capsule

The 2017 NCAA Tournament brackets are out! The brackets are out! The NCAA tournament is the single greatest spectacle in American Sports. Yeah, the World Series is fun to watch, but it rarely has the chaos involved in the NCAA tournament. Daytona 500? Yeah, it’s a historic event, but they are still driving in a circle. The Super Bowl? Don’t even get me started on what a farce that is. The first four days of the NCAA tournament are better than any drama anywhere for the rest of the year! Enjoy it!

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For those of you that do the bracket games, I will unveil all of my picks by Wednesday night. For those of you that play the round by round games, I will also put my picks out there after every round as well. There will be something for everyone!

In the preview, I will give you a favorite, and dark horse team (which would be a four seed or higher than could win the region),a team to watch for, overseeded and underseeded teams, and of course, a double digit seed most likely to win one or more games.

We will get started with the Midwest regional!

Favorite: Kansas. Yeah, the loss to TCU in the Big 12(10) Tournament was ugly. They earned this ranking. Their only non conference loss was Indiana in the opener. They lost to West Virginia and Iowa State, the two teams that made the conference tournament final. And after seeing what the committee did to the number one overall seed, Kansas should be very happy where they are. They got a pretty good draw.

Watch out for: Louisville. It would have been Oregon here if not for the injury to Boucher. The Cardinals have the size to give teams fits. Of course, it doesn’t always work. The fact remains that they lost eight games. However, all eight of those teams are in this tournament, and only Wake Forest is seeded below 5.

Dark Horse: Iowa State. The Cyclones beat Kansas in Lawrence. To put that into perspective, The Jayhawks have more conference titles than home losses under Bill Self. This is a big deal. Monte Morris can carry this team. They are a good shooting team from outside. That alone makes them a threat to win every time they take the court. They won the Big 12(10) conference tournament and still only got a five seed!

Begging To Be Upset: Oregon. I’m not saying that Oregon is not a good team, but Chris Boucher provided size on the interior and great perimeter shooting. He was the matchup nightmare here. Its going to fall on Dillon Brooks and Tyler Dorsey to keep this team alive, but without that size in the middle, Iona is going to give them a good fight at the very least.

Overseeded: Creighton. This may seem a trivial complaint for a team that didn’t lose until New Year’s Eve, but they are a different team without Maurice Watson. Not in a good way either. I like Isaiah Zierden on the inside, and Justin Patton is a force on the inside, but they don’t have that elite distributor anymore.

Underseeded: Michigan. There is more than one underseeded team in this bracket, but the glaring one is Michigan. The committee did the Big Ten(14) no favors, with regular season champ Purdue only getting a four seed. That said, Michigan is playing very well right now. I thought the conference championship trophy would land them on the six line. Not only that, Oklahoma State is a tough 10 seed. The Wolvies got a bad draw.

Cinderella: Rhode Island. The Rams ran roughshod in the A-10 Tournament to leave no doubt that they were getting in. They haven’t lost since February 15th, and got a good draw in a beleaguered Creighton team. If they win that, they get an Oregon team that lost arguably their best player. The stars are aligning for Rhody right now.

Next: DraftKings Picks For March 13

Come back for all of the regional capsules, the picks for the First Four, and of course, the bracket picks!