I dream about March Madness

(Yes, this is a shameless plug of what used to be...)

It's that time of the year again!

That time when the local news papers print extra copies for all the fanatics and general productivity grinds to a halt at jobs around the country.

This year is unlike any year I have seen before. Last year there were clear cut #1 favorites but they were downed. This year we obviously have #1's, but they come in dispute. Here are the teams.

• OSU is the only one that is solid in my mind right now, and even they have shown signs of weakness.
  
• Florida totally coasted throughout this year, and I don't like that. Don't get me wrong, they are great, but there are other teams and players that are hungrier.
• UNC is really overrated in my opinion and Psycho T or what ever they call the masked man is not liking playing with his mask. Best Player not playing @ 100%=not so good.
• Kansas is good. I like them alot, but Self has exploded this team so many times in big games. I know they won the Big-12 and they deserve the seed, but they have scared me on several occasions and almost lost to Texas (ohandbytheway, where would Texas have been seeded if they beat Kansas? Discuss...)

This is an odd year, but I am excited for many reasons. Here are my predictions and my reasons

UPSETS:

• Old Dominion downing Butler and Maryland en route to the Sweet 16
• Notre Dame Overtaking Oregon in the second round
• Georgia Tech over UNLV
  
• Illinois over VTech
• Texas Tech over BC
• Texas A&M over Memphis en route to the Elite Eight
  
• Texas winning it all.

Yes you heard me. I believe Texas is going to win it all. This is a crazy year, and unlike 2005 (UNC, Illinois) there are no clear cut Juggernauts. There are several powerful teams who could win, OSU, Kansas, Florida, UNC, Georgetown, UCLA. However every one has their fair share of holes. Texas has its share of holes as well, but the key is that they had KD. KD is sick and will take over games. He is the missing link.

Look at some of the recent champs (This excludes last year, because then everyone talked about J.J. and 'the Stashe' and neither could come through although JJ was good for mocking and 'the Stashe' was good for crying).

1. 2005 - UNC and Illinois are a great examples of having a dominating players. They both great as teams, but Illinois could rain the threes (Head, Brown, Williams) and we saw them beat teams just like that. When they were on they were dominant. UNC was full of dominant players and even had one on the bench (Williams) and May willed them to victory against Illinois.
2. 2004 - UConn also gave us Ben Gordon and Emeka Okafor who are currently playing great in the NBA as well.
3. 2003 - The Orange men had 'Melo. This is where the shoe drops because this is my point. I freshman PG (G MAC) and 'Melo teamed up and led their team to the title. I see alot of similarities to this and KD is phenomenal. Bill Simmons touches on this by speaking about how Texas fought through the Big-12 (A very hard conference)
   

The list could keep going, but the point is that having that dominant play can make all the differences.

Further, I just adore KD. This kid is sick, and I believe that he is one of the few players who can DOMINATE and take over a game. I have seen him do it. weeks ago he was leading a whipping of Kansas... and then he rolled the ankle and Kansas came back. This past weekend Texas almost beat Kansas in the Big-12 Tourney, and because of stupid coaching he didn't get a chance to take over in overtime.

Seriously though! Did you see that? Durant was scoring and being himself and in overtime he only shot the ball twice. TWICE! His coach heralded KD as the best player in college BEFORE THE SEASON BEGAN. Really? You don't say, in fact I believe you. However, if this is the case then why isn't he bombing it at the end of the game? This kid shoots threes lights out and has phenomenal swag, so why isn't he taking over? These are questions I lose sleep over, and I know there is a chance Texas can lose because of this, but I still think they will pull it out.

Further, I get to see Greg Oden dunk on people and scream like the cookie monster. I get to see Acie Law IV (seriously he has Law IV on his uniform, how awesome is that!) lead A&M and get drafted way to late and be a stud in the NBA. I get to see great freshman PG's (Conley Jr. OSU, Augustin TEX) and watch their fans pray that they don't bolt to the NBA, which won't be talked nearly as much as their respective teammates (Oden, Durant) will be talked about. Florida will be ranted and raved about for the next couple of weeks. Truth be told I really don't like them that much and I would much rather see Tex or OSU win. Both have a great shot of it in my opinion, and I would rather see them win any day of the week, because of my odd basketball centered man-crushes on Oden and Durant.