2016 March Madness Bracket Ruled by Parity, Full of Upsets

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We’re in for a crazy NCAA tournament. The 2016 March Madness Bracket is ruled by parity and full of upsets! The number one seeds are in trouble.

Seesaw Sports debate, where Dan Salem and Todd Salem throw down on the NFL, MLB, NBA, and more, only on BuzzChomp. Two brothers from New York yell, scream, and debate sports.

 

TODD:

Get out the straitjackets; we have a severe case of March Madness! Get it? Marco?

The bracket has been released for the 2016 NCAA Tournament. It was released in legendarily annoying fashion by CBS Sunday night as 15 minutes of content was stretched into two hours with interviews and touch screens and predictions sewn in between region releases. Of course, someone leaked the full bracket online pretty much as soon as the CBS bologna started. Sometimes internet trolls do us all a favor.

Nevertheless, we have arrived at the bracket and it is a doozy as always. The script this regular season was that there were no elite teams. Number-one ranked teams lost over and over. AP top-10 teams had their most losses ever I believe. In fact, the 1-seeds in the tournament have the most combined losses ever for that seed line.

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But even still, analysts were quick to announce that only a handful of teams had a shot at winning the whole thing. That handful was marked as three: Kansas, North Carolina and Michigan State.

I am hardly so naive to believe only three teams can win. In fact, I’m with the original parity party. I like four and five teams out of almost every region here. The 4- and 5-seed lines seem particularly talented in 2016.

What are your thoughts on the bracket itself and people’s Final Four chances? Are there any strong upsets you are confident in? Can a 16 final defeat a 1? Does Duke being a 4-seed render it irrelevant or will the Blue Devils find some kind of stupid, jackass nobody-believes-in-us momentum out of that slot? And which 1-seeds fall short of the Final Four? I could see all four missing it, but that may be getting carried away.

 

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DAN:

The 2016 March Madness bracket is pretty amazing because it can go one of two ways. There is an insane amount of parity in college basketball this season, so the tournament could be full of lower seeds ‘upsetting’ the higher ranked teams. We could have a Final Four devoid of a single one seed. We could also get all chalk and be completely disappointed. Unlike last season where chalk was the smart play, I’m with you this year. Pick a ton of upsets and hope you’re right, because the top seeded teams are losing and losing early.

While I like all three of the favorites our ‘experts’ have sided with, not all three are making this year’s Final Four. Only one of them will survive that long, namely North Carolina being the only top seeded team to do so . As for the number one seeds, none are losing to a sixteen this season. However, two will be going home over this first weekend. Virginia is destined to fall to Butler in the Round of 32, while UConn continues its postseason winning streak and takes down Kansas. This opens the door for some major surprises later in the tournament.

Two-seeded Michigan State will run all the way to the Elite Eight, but that’s as far as they go. The Butler Bulldogs take them down and are the highest seeded team to reach this year’s Final Four as a nine. Joining them are UNC (1 seed), Villanova (2 seed) and Texas A&M (3 seed). Duke will not be hurt by its seeding. The Blue Devils get knocked out in the Sweet Sixteen because they are just an above average team, nothing more.

Other upsets I love are Hawaii (13 seed) over California (4 seed) and then Pittsburgh (10 seed) over Wisconsin (7 seed) in round one, followed by the Panthers taking down Xavier (2 seed) in second round action. Gonzaga and Yale are also solid picks, as both have a double-digit seeds. Kentucky, seeded fourth in the East region, is the true wildcard team of the tournament. I have them falling to UNC in the Sweet Sixteen, but I could see the Wildcats reaching the Final Four just as easily.

 

 

Dan Salem is Lead Editor, Staff Writer, and Featured Vlogger at BuzzChomp. He’s also a Staff Writer for NFL Spinzone, as well as an Actor, Writer, Director and Producer. Get lost in his Youtube comedy channel PillowTalk TV. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, or Instagram.

Todd Salem is a Contributing Editor at BuzzChomp. He’s also a Staff Writer for NFL Spinzone, a Featured Columnist at College Sports Madness, and an Analyst for Tipster Labs, among others. Follow him on Twitter.

 

 

Photo Credits: bleacherreport.com and www.bloggingthebracket.com