A Look Back At Friday’s 2022 NCAA Action

Round one is in the books and we can see which power conferences took a hit:

The ACC lost one, Virginia Tech. The SEC is down three - Alabama, Kentucky and LSU. The Big Ten saw Iowa and Indiana depart.

Unless we missed one, the Big 12 is intact. Big East lost Marquette, Seton Hall and UConn while Miami sent the PAC-12’s -USC packing.

Not that it was easy.

Wisconsin and Illinois got pushed hard by Colgate and Chattanooga respectively. Miami had a very tight game with SC that could easily have gone the other way - and Andy Enfield said it should have. Michigan State was fortunate to beat Davidson too. The Big Ten missed a disastrous night by a very small margin.

Here were our picks:

• Arizona - yes
• Villanova - yes
• Auburn - yes
• Duke - yes
• Purdue - yes
• Texas Tech - yes
• Wisconsin - yes
• Houston - yes
• Illinois - yes
• Miami - yes
• We forgot to list our pick for Virginia Tech and Texas but we picked the Hokies so - no
• Ohio State - no
• Notre Dame - yes
• Iowa State - yes
• Michigan State - no
• TCU - no

So let’s move on to Saturday and Sunday.

WEST

• Gonzaga vs. Memphis. The Tigers got good. And they’re rough. We’ll go for the upset here.
• New Mexico State vs. Arkansas. The Hawgs are ready to go. We’ll take the Aggies.
• Texas Tech over Notre Dame. When in doubt, bet on D.
• Duke over Michigan State. We don’t bet against Duke.

EAST

• Baylor over UNC. That’s a tough one. If Baylor were healthy we’d be all-in. Right now we’re about 60-40 Baylor.
• St. Mary’s over UCLA. These guys are pretty like-minded. We just think St. Mary’s is a little better.
• Texas vs. Purdue. UT really struggled with Gonzaga’s size early. That’s tough here too. But we love the D. So Texas.
• We’d love to see St. Peter’s make a good run but Murray State will be smarter than Kentucky. So the Racers.

SOUTH

• Arizona over TCU.
• Houston vs. Illinois is getting down to brass tacks. We’ll take the Illini because of the big guy.
• Tennessee will take Michigan down. Sorry Scott.
• Ohio State vs. Villanova. We didn’t see the Wildcats. We did see the Buckeyes and they look revived. So OSU.

MIDWEST

• KU over Creighton. Center Ryan Kalkbrenner is done. That’s a big hit for the Jays. So KU wins the battle of the birds.
• Providence vs. Richmond is tough but we’ll go with the Friars here.
• Iowa State vs. Wisconsin. Tough call again. We’ll go with Wisconsin though.
• Miami vs. Auburn. We’d love to see the ‘Canes pull an upset but Walker Kessler says uh-uh.