College Basketball: Ohio State Should Roll Through East

It won’t be easy but the #1 seed Buckeyes should make it to Houston without too much drama according to Al Dannity.

Young, gifted, and flawed
North Carolina, Syracuse, and Kentucky took the #2, #3, and #4 seeds in the East region of the NCAA Tournament. All three have the talent required to make a run at the Final Four but I don’t like any of them to run the gauntlet. UNC and the Wildcats are both particularly young outfits. Experience tends to count for plenty in the Big Dance and that should prove telling for the Tar Heels and Kentucky.

North Carolina put together an impressive run to win the ACC regular season title. Too many close calls against non-tournament teams and a stomping at the hands of Duke in the conference title game have highlighted the flaws in this team. Kentucky ended the year in storming fashion but showed too much inconsistency over the whole year to be counted on. Syracuse have the experience that UNC and UK lack but once again this is a team with too many question marks. A string of bad defeats in conference play has done little to inspire confidence in the Orange.

No Butler in this bunch
College Basketball betting fans remember well that Cinderella struck the #1 seeds twice last year as Kansas fell to Northern Iowa while Butler took down Syracuse. George Mason, the #8 seed, will look to match the Panthers by winning their #8 vs #9 match-up with Villanova and then beat the #1 seed Buckeyes. A limp exit from the CAA tournament however is not the making of a post-season charge. Washington is the best of the rest and while under-rated as a #7 seed would be unlikely to top the Buckeyes in an Elite Eight match-up.

This is an elite outfit
The Buckeyes only two defeats all year came on the road at teams with undefeated home records, yet have still to win over all of their critics. This is a team that scores fast, is remarkably accurate, and remarkably unselfish despite the presence of 280lb force Jared Sullinger. The only crime the Buckeyes are guilty of is lacking the flair of some of the other leading lights in College Basketball. This is a team which can match Pittsburgh for physicality and Kansas for tempo. That should make Ohio State well-suited to bust through the regionals and super-regionals all the way to the Final Four.