March Madness 2019: 8 safest teams to pick that won’t bust your bracket

1. Duke

This is fairly obvious, but Duke is clearly the safest team to pick in your bracket. The Blue Devils are the most talented team in the nation and extremely difficult to beat when healthy, dropping only one game when they had their full roster available to them.

Any questions about Duke’s vulnerability were put to rest with the dominant return of Zion Williamson, who went off to help the Blue Devils claim the ACC Tournament title. Williamson is an unstoppable force on both ends of the floor, and asking any team to contain him (along with Cam Reddish and RJ Barrett) is a very tall order.

There are definitely concerns about Duke’s ability to win a championship, including their lack of depth and difficulty shooting from the outside, but that shouldn’t impact them in the opening weekend. As the top overall seed, Duke will get the winner of a First Four game between North Carolina Central and North Dakota State in the first round and the winner of the 8-9 matchup between VCU and UCF in the East Region.

Mike Krzyzewski’s guys are the prohibitive favorites to cut down the nets in Minneapolis next month, so you should feel very safe putting them through until at least the second weekend in Washington.