NCAA Tournament Preview: South Regional

I heard someone say Duke is the worst 1 seed ever. Not sure the South regional warrants that statement, but for a 1, Duke does have a very limited offense. They have three options: Singler, Scheyer, Nolan Smith. They provide almost 70% of Duke's offense. Now, all three are very talented, mind you, and Duke does a ton of other things well, but that's still a lot of offense resting on only a few guys. Like other 1's, there's nothing stopping Duke from going down early. Let's find out how it could happen.

Favorite: Duke. Let's not make this sound like Duke is terrible. They have two guys playing around All-American level, they pull down a ton of offensive boards, they almost always win the turnover battle, and they're a very, very good defensive team. This is why they won 29 games this year. They're not a pushover by any means.

Why they could lose: Like I mentioned earlier, Duke relies a ton on three guys to provide most of their offense. If one guy is off, that's pressure on the other two to succeed. If two of them are off... I don't know what they're going to do. Also, they're extremely thin in the backcourt and most of their big men are generally useless at things other than being tall (although I will admit... Zoubek has actually been playing fairly well recently)

Who they could lose to: The most likely culprits are Villanova and Baylor. Unfortunately, I don't see how an undersized Purdue team or an undersized Texas A&M team is going to beat the Blue Devils, and nobody else really inserts any fear into me.

Sleeper: Notre Dame. So how does this work again... Notre Dame goes from a one man, inefficient offense to an efficent, deep, talented halfcourt offense overnight? Okay... well anyway, ND is as hot as anyone right now, and they actually are giving Harangody some offensive support, which opens things up for the All-American inside. Now they just gotta play some defense and they could go deep in this tournament.

Who will win: Baylor. How? I'll save that for later...

Picks:
First Round
Duke over whoever
Louisville over Cal (tell me how Cal got into this place without actually beating anyone presently in this tournament other than Washington?)
Texas A&M over Utah State (Pretty sure the only three teams in D-I that are named the Aggies are in the tournament, and two are playing each other. Wierd)
Purdue over Siena (Gotta have some school pride... plus the Saints don't have the size to really hurt us)
Notre Dame over Old Dominion (It's too bad the Monarchs can't get a better matchup, because I'd like them as a sleeper otherwise)
Baylor over Sam Houston State
St. Mary's over Richmond (No reason other than I saw Omar Samhan play this week and he's a total badass)
Villanova over Robert Morris

Second Round
Duke over Louisville (Scheyer is a one-man press breaking machine)
Purdue over Texas A&M (Combination of reasons stated above and wishful thinking)
Baylor over Notre Dame (This could really go either way and completely screw up my bracket)
St. Mary's over Villanova (If I'm going to pick a 10 over a 2, this is it. The worst 2 seed in the tournament vs. a red-hot Gaels team oozing with confidence. Plus Nova has no answer for Samhan inside)

Regional Semis
Duke over Purdue (Hopefully it's not as ugly as the game at Mackey last year)
Baylor over St. Mary's (Size + efficiency on offense spells doom for St. Mary's)

Regional Finals
Baylor over Duke (If Baylor can get to this point, and that's definitely and if, I feel very confident in this pick. Baylor has flown COMPLETELY under the radar this year for no good reason. They have a potential lottery pick in Ekpe Udoh, they're big inside, LaceDarius Dunn has been outstanding this year... they can handle Duke's presence inside and will put the Blue Devil perimeter and post defense to the test. The variety of options on the offensive end and defensive presence at the basket will make the difference)

Pick: BAYLOR BEARS