March Madness - If not Kentucky Wildcats, then Arizona Wildcats

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The following is a fun story by Ricky O'Donnell, in which you are given a choice if you don't want Kentucky winning your pool. Since I played basketball at Arizona, I support the choice.  Go Cats, as in Arizona. 

Pick Arizona, not Kentucky, to win your NCAA bracket

By Ricky O'Donnell  @SBN_Ricky on Mar 16, 2015

Everyone is going to tab Kentucky to win the NCAA Tournament. That's no way to win a big office pool.

There's no wrong way to fill out an NCAA Tournament bracket. You could pick the more ferocious mascot or choose teams by which color you like better. You could flip a coin or ask your dog. You could go straight chalk or randomly pick a bunch of upsets. At this point, any of these methods is time-tested and Internet-approved.

Or you could be like everyone else and just choose Kentucky to win it all.

I did it, too. The Wildcats enter the tournament as the heaviest favorite in recent memory. Listen to the way people talk about John Calipari's team this year and you'd think the NCAA Tournament might be better served with a Royal Rumble-style format, with Kentucky entering the ring first and needing to crush all 67 of the other challengers to be crowned champions. Most people still probably wouldn't pick against them.

You're going to hear one bit of analysis repeated ad nauseam over the next few days: Kentucky has absolutely been dominant, but it's not unbeatable. Ole Miss barely made the field of 68, and the Rebels took Kentucky to overtime. Texas A&M missed the field and it pushed the Wildcats to two overtimes. Buffalo and Columbia are just two of the teams that led Kentucky at halftime. The Wildcats haven't been beaten, but that doesn't mean they're perfect.

You know this. I know this. Everyone knows this. Chances are, you're still picking Kentucky. It's the best pick if you're trying to choose the team that's going to win the NCAA Tournament. It might not be the best pick if you're trying to win your office bracket pool.

If everyone picks Kentucky and Kentucky wins the championship, that means the person with the bracket that's most accurate in the early rounds is going to take home the pool. The more people in your pool, the harder this becomes.

But what if you don't take Kentucky? By choosing a different champion, it's conceivable that the rest of your bracket could overcome a lot of inaccurate picks to still win the pool as long as you hit on an overall winner that no one else has.

When everyone zigs, you zag. It just makes sense. That's why it might be smart to pick Arizona to win the national championship this year.

Sean Miller's program was becoming West Coast Kentucky even before this season. Calipari is the only coach recruiting better than Miller is right now. Arizona isn't as talented as Kentucky, but you can make the argument this is the second most complete roster in the country. Miller also has them peaking at the right time.

When the year started, Arizona was only behind Kentucky in the polls. They haven't done much to discredit that preseason opinion. Yes, Arizona lost to two teams with triple-digit KenPom rankings next to their name in UNLV and Oregon State. The fanbase was even more upset over a loss to Arizona State in February. As the season has progressed, though, those bad losses are looking more like outliers.

Realtime Bracket Game

Arizona has run off 11 straight wins since losing to ASU. It tore through the Pac-12 Tournament, beating a quality Oregon team by 28 points in the title game. In terms of size, athleticism, NBA-level talent and an ability to play both ends of the floor, Arizona is about as well-rounded as a major conference contender gets.

Arizona finished with the No. 1 defense in the country last year as a team powered by No. 4 overall draft pick Aaron Gordon and conference player of the year Nick Johnson. Freshman Stanley Johnson and sophomore Rondae Hollis-Jefferson replaced Johnson and Gordon in the starting lineup this year, and the defense hasn't dropped off at all -- it actually got better. Arizona finished No. 3 in defensive efficiency this season behind Virginia and Kentucky, but it allowed two fewer points per 100 possessions than it last season.

Miller uses the same packline defensive scheme that Tony Bennett does at Virginia with devastating effectiveness. The difference is at the other end of the floor, where Arizona has proven this roster to better equipped to score in bunches than the team Miller had last season.

It starts with Johnson, a presumed top 10 draft pick in June and an 18-year-old most often described as a "man-child." He's a 240-pound perimeter player who isn't just strong for a college kid -- he's strong for an adult. It took Johnson some time to find his footing within Arizona's offense, but he's been great lately, ascending all the way up to No. 2 in KenPom's player of the year rankings.

Johnson leads the team in scoring at 14 points per game, but Arizona never really needs him in takeover mode. All five starters are capable of putting the ball in the basket, and reserves Gabe York and Elliott Pitts come off the bench to add shooting. When Arizona goes small with Johnson at the four and York sliding next to starting point guard T.J. McConnell, the added driving lanes and shooting makes the offense even harder to defend.

Arizona didn't get an easy draw. A potential Elite Eight rematch with Wisconsin might be the best game of the tournament after the Badgers won by one in overtime a year ago. Baylor has the athletes to matchup with Arizona in a potential Sweet 16 game, too. And if Miller's team gets all the way to the Final Four, Kentucky should be waiting.

This season has felt like "Kentucky vs. the field" from the start, and Kentucky has justified it by handily winning every big game they've been in. It's not really up for debate that Kentucky is easy pick to win the NCAA Tournament. It just isn't an easy pick to help you win your pool.

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UK Countdown to Coronation - Can Kentucky Wildcats make History?

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America's only Real Reality Show

With the announcement of the NCAA March Madness brackets today America will once again enter the era of peace brought about when college hoops overwhelm political procrastination and all the other nonsense that dominates the nightly news.

Finally, television will be filled with real reality TV, not the manufactured BS fed to us by idiotic television producers, writers, studios, and sponsors.  What you see is what really happened from the tears to the cheers, the Cinderella stories to the last second upsets.  You will see power and prayers compete for dominance as 67 teams set out to derail the mighty Kentucky Wildcats.

UK, America's most dominant and legendary basketball citadel will again make a run for the national championship and along the way will be shattering NCAA records every step.  In fact, this is one year when Kentucky, who many people love to hate, may just win over a few million fans to the legacy of Lexington hoops.

UK secret weapon, Ashley Judd

I am a devoted Wildcat fan, but the Arizona variety not Kentucky.  You see, I played basketball for the University of Arizona of the PAC 12 back when UCLA, our main opponent, was winning national championships every year.  It was not until much later we discovered boosters were paying some of the UCLA players a salary, illegal of course, during that incredible John Wooden run.

For those of you too young to appreciate history, Wooden, the Wizard of Westwood, won ten national championships in 12 years including seven in a row, feats that will never happen again.  Between 1964 and 1975, UCLA won the ten national basketball championships and won again in 1995 for a total of eleven.  Kentucky has won eight.  However, UK wins spanned from 1948 until 2012, and most likely number 11 will come in 2015, spanning 67 years.  Overall Kentucky has the most wins of all schools in history with 2,208.

There are three teams in the top five nicknamed the Wildcats, Kentucky, Arizona, and Villanova.  If Kentucky and Arizona keep winning, they will meet in the final four semi-finals.  All three of these Wildcats could be in the final four, something that has never happened before.  Of course the University of Arizona would have to beat number one seeded Wisconsin to get to the final four.

UK Coach Calipari

 The road to the championship begins Tuesday, St. Patrick's Day, March 17, and ends the day after Easter, April 6, at Indianapolis.  The last team to have a perfect record and win the championship was Indiana in 1976 when they finished 32-0.  UK is already undefeated and 34-0 with six games to win to be champion.  If they do win, it will shatter the 32 game unbeaten- record for the year and UK would be 40-0.

Stay tuned for some of the top games in the early rounds.

Did I mention the only national championship won by Arizona was in 1997 and they beat, guess who, Kentucky.  Arizona prevented UK from winning three in a row.

Goooooo Cats or Kats.

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Politics takes a Breather as March Madness ends Partisanship

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Sometimes it takes a little bit of Americana to silence the partisan politics in our nation's capitol and we can thank the stars that for a couple of weeks every year politicians shut up and listen and watch.  No better example of March Madness and how it brings Americans together can be found than the photo of former Presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush in Texas enjoying the men's national championship game between UConn and Kentucky.
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UConn Huskies and Storrs, CT now basketball Mecca of the Universe with 13 national titles

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A little village in northeast Connecticut called Storrs with barely 10,000 population has slowly and surely become the basketball capital of America dominating the NCAA men's and women's programs for all of the 21st century.  Located in that quiet little village is mighty UConn, the University of Connecticut with 30,000 students, three times the population of the entire village.

So move over Kentucky, UCLA, Duke, Kansas, North Carolina, Tennessee and all the other basketball powerhouses for the past century there are new kids on the block and unlike their huge predecessors, UConn does not just dominate men's or women's basketball, they dominate both.

The UConn women set the standard under the guidance of Geno Auriemmce, the Italian born coach who last night passed the legendary Pat Summit of Tennessee by winning his 9th NCAA national championship at UConn, leaving him just one behind the dean of all college coaches, John Wooden of UCLA whose 1960's and '70's UCLA men's teams won 10 national titles.

This year marked the 10th anniversary since UConn won both the men's and women's championships the same year, 2004, becoming the first college in history to earn that honor and this year, 2014, the Huskies did it again.

In fact since Geno Auriemmce won his first championship in 1995, in the 21st century he has won 8 more while the men won their 1st in 1999 and have won 3 more in the 21st century.  The total the two programs have now won is 13 making it the college with the most NCAA basketball champions in history.

Before the double win this year UConn was tied with UCLA for most with 11 titles while Kentucky (men) and Tennessee (women) each have 8.  UConn now stands alone in the history of the NCAA national championship with 13 titles.  Not bad for a school that has won all of them in the past 20 years.

In woman's basketball the sometimes brash and sometimes lovable Geno is now on a pedestal by himself and not since Frank Sinatra has an Italian American captured the heart and soul of the 5 million Italian immigrants to America he represents, and just remember, Geno was born in Italy.

What has he done?  He is on the verge of becoming the coach with the most NCAA championships in history.  He has the l0ngest winning streak, 90, in history.  Then there are five perfect seasons.

Thanks to him UConn has won more basketball championships than any other college in history.  And he even brings his mother to basketball games.

What better example for the future women leaders of America than Geno's motto of "La famiglia è per sempre".

Then there is Kevin Ollie in just his second year as head coach taking over a program on suspension that could not even go to the tournament last year and leading them to the Promised Land the first chance he had as head coach.  His story could also be the stuff of legends.

Wake up America, the new basketball mecca is here and it goes by the unlikely name Storrs.

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CPT TWIT - March Madness - Action behind the Action

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Forget the floor and look at the sideline for the NCAA March Madness action you may have missed.

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