NCAA preview and final four picks

March Madness is about to get underway, with the "first four" games starting on Tuesday.  Allow the upsets to begin.  There are several new things with this years tournament.

Well, you may ask what is new? Well, for the first time ever, the tournament will be broadcast over four networks. With the perennial leader CBS pairing up with Turner Sports to bring you the tournament on CBS, TBS, TNT, and a network called trutv. Trutv is formerly known as CourtTV.

Then, there are now 68 teams in the tournament, compared to the former 65 since 2001. With those three newest teams, that creates the new "first four" games in Dayton. How that works out is that the last four teams into the tournament as at-large teams will square off in two games to play their way into the regular bracket. That also goes with four teams from horrible conferences such as the Southland with Texas-San Antonio, the Big South with North Carolina-Asheville, and the Sun Belt with Arkansas-Little Rock.

Now, who are my final four teams? Out of the East bracket, there is North Carolina, the Southeast we have Jimmer and BYU, the Southwest I'll put in Kansas, and in the West I got Connecticut, after their historic run in the toughest conference tournament in the country, they will be in the final four!

But, as far as the Pennsylvania teams are concerned, all of them are going to be out before the second weekend. Pittsburgh has a tough game in the second round with either Butler or Old Dominion. Then, Temple and Penn State are playing each other in the first round. But, whoever wins out of that, has to face the best team San Diego State has ever put out, and SDSU will move on to the sweet 16.  Bucknell is facing one of my final four teams in the first round, Connecticut, so they're out first day. Finally, since Villanova has been on such a downslide, losing five straight, I will pick them to lose against 2006 cinderella George Mason.

Then, as far as the second round is concerned, the upsets I see are Tennessee over Michigan, Memphis over Arizona,  and Mizzou over Cincinnati in the West. Followed by Richmond over Vandy andFlorida State over Texas A&M in the Southwest. Finally in the Southeast, it's going to be the upset bracket with Utah State over Kansas State, Belmont over Wisconsin, Gonzaga over St. John's,  and Michigan state over UCLA.  The East I do not see having any upsets whatsoever, but expect to see at least one.

Please look toward Friday then for my third round picks, which will probably be wrong, but it's all in fun anyway.