Ah!!! Don’t you love the madness that March brings every year, and this year proves not to be different.
Can you say bracket busters? That has been going on for three weeks now. "David smashing Goliath" is also what you can call this year’s NCAA tournament.
George Mason? Northwestern State? Bradley? University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee? Bucknell? UAB? You might be asking who are these schools? Well these are some of the mid-major basketball programs that are beating the major programs like Oklahoma, Iowa, Pittsburgh, and Connecticut.
This is by far the best NCAA tournament ever. Almost every game has ended with an excited finish. The most recently game was George Mason and Connecticut.
Who would think that this small school, George Mason, from small town Fairfax, Virginia, would beat one of the most successful programs in the history of college basketball? If I asked people who are George Mason, most wouldn’t even know.
Now that the Final Four is set, here’s a preview of it and a prediction. First, let’s talk about the home state team. No one predicted the Tigers to be where they are at today. Most predicted they would lose in the first round.
Baton Rouge natives Glen "Big Baby" Davis and Tyrus Thomas head LSU. Davis, a 6’9 310lb sophomore, has been compared to Shaquille O’Neal and Karl Malone. Tyrus Thomas, a 6’9 red shirt freshman, is the defensive star of the team. He is being compared to Kenyon Martin. If they leave after this year, they most likely will be NBA lottery draft picks.
UCLA is the second team in the tournament. With really no stars on the team, this team wins games by their defense along. They give you 40 minutes of hard nose defense every game.
Playing against LSU, they will have to score many points to win because LSU is just as good on defense. My prediction is that LSU beats UCLA 75-68.
The other game in the final four is George Mason against Florida. Some would say that this game is a mismatch, but George Mason proved last week that they can play with the major schools. Florida has great forwards that will probably win the game for them. My prediction is for the Gators of Florida to beat George Mason 77-68.
Now with that I have an all-SEC championship game. This will be a great game. These two teams have played each other three times in the season, but I’m going with the in-state school to win it all. LSU is too talented not to win it all. So with that, GEAUX TIGERS!!!
Rickey Burton is a junior mass communication major from Ruston.