There is a reason why eight Big East Conference teams were invited to this year’s NCAA Tournament…the best basketball in the country is played in the Big East. So it should be no surprise when this year’s tourney is dominated by several Big East teams.

The Sports Mouth followed this philosophy when submitting his bracket in the great ESPN Tournament Challenge. I have five Big East teams; UConn, West Virginia, Syracuse, Villanova, and Georgetown advancing to the Sweet 16. Also, the Big East represents 50% of my Final Four with UConn and Villanova advancing.

This year’s bracket was tough to select, especially in the first and second rounds. Conventional wisdom says that you should always pick a #12 over a #5 and a #10 over a #7. However, it looks as if the NCAA selection committee put extra effort into making the #12 vs. #5 games extremely hard for the lower seeded teams. The #5 seeds in this year’s dance are very good: Syracuse, Nevada, Washington and Pittsburgh. Even though they all might be tough, tournament history says one of them will lose. The Sports Mouth took Utah State over Washington, despite the fact that Utah State is 1-11 in its history at the NCAA Tournament.

This year might be the first time in recent memory that #10 will not upset a #7 seed. This again might be part of the NCAA selection committee putting an effort into preventing this trend. Wichita State for example is a #7 seed going up against #10 Seton Hall, ten years ago you would’ve never seen a team from the Missouri Valley get a #7 seed over a team from the Big East…so this is truly not a traditional #10 vs. #7 contest.

Another key factor to the Sports Mouth’s bracket picks was sticking to the well known fact that never in the history of the tourney has all four #1’s advanced to the Final Four. Kansas and UCLA are the most likely to be the lower seeded team to get to the RCA Dome in Indianapolis because Memphis is the weakest #1 seed and most susceptible to an upset.

No matter how you selected your bracket the bottom line is that the games have to be played, and nobody knows what can happen. Will we ever see a #16 seed take down a giant #1 seed? You never know, and that is the beauty of the March Madness.

Good luck to everyone who filled out brackets this year. My picks are posted below (scroll down); I encourage you to tell me if I truly am crazy!

Subscribe to The Sports Mouth -- MTK47's blog