NCAA ,March Madness, Darkhorse Picks

As if you could ever need anything to make "March Madness" more exciting and interesting, how about focusing your attention on that one team per region that could possibly make that improbable run, as George Mason did in 2006 all the way to the Final Four. Well, thats what we're going to do for you, give you one team per regional that probably sits down in a 7, 8 or even higher seeding that if the ball bounces just right could make things very uncomfortable for bracket managers all over the country over the next few weeks.

I will tell you up front that there is very little scientific that will go into this, but each year, by paying very close attention to the conference tournaments that proceed "March Madness" I have been very successful in identifying teams that either have hit a hot streak at the offensive end of the court, have a player or two that will be difficult to match up against, a coach that can motivate his you know-what-off, or even that small/mid major school that wins 25 or so games that gets a low seed and little respect that comes in with a huge chip on their shoulder, daring the big boys to knock it off. This has served me well, because I believe the smaller schools play much looser during the tournament as they have very little to lose, since no one expects them to succeed in the first place.

All that aside, after careful deliberation, I have arrived at my "dark horse" selections, and am ready to share them with you. We'll start with the Midwest Regional, that features the defending champion Florida Gators. This regional was almost a virtual tossup between the Old Dominion Monarchs, and the Winthrop Eagles, but ultimately I settled on the #11 Winthrop Eagles because being in the bottom half of the bracket would keep them from a possible match up with Florida until the reaching the "Elite Eight".