East Region | Pledge Allegiance to the Flagg
If the big boy from Maine is right, this one's a wrap.
I would never make a guarantee related to March Madness, aside from
Crying band members
Surrender cobras
Excited walk-ons doing the “hold everyone on the bench back after a big shot” routine
Crowd shots of someone’s mom or dad either way too hype or way too serious
Dan Hurley screaming at the refs until his face turns puce
But if Cooper Flagg is right, it’s going to take something Herculean to topple Duke in this region. What might that be? Let’s find out.
East Region
3 Favorites - Duke has Cooper Flagg and no one else does. If he’s at 85% or better, I see no one that should be favored over the Blue Devils on a neutral court. Below that, the margins are enough that it’s a toss-up, depending on the matchup. Of course, without Flagg Duke won the ACC going away and has to turn to likely first-rounders Kon Kneuppel and Khaman Maluach and veteran presence Tyrese Proctor to fill the void if he remains compromised. Jon Scheyer has some real #FirstWorldProblems on his hands.
Alabama plays at a blistering pace and can score on anyone, with a bonus offering of incredible size. Mark Sears is one of the most capable pilots in college basketball and the Tide has a player we’ll get to later that is my candidate for breakout tournament star.
Every March we get here and I underrate what Dana Altman and Oregon are capable of. Not this year. Maybe Liberty kicks them in the pecker in the first round and maybe they don’t, but this will NOT be the year that I doubt the Ducks—a Ducks team, I should remind you all, that already beat Alabama on a neutral court in November.
2 Chances for Cinderella - VCU is one of the best defenses in the country, every year. As an 11-seed ranked in the KenPom top-30, VCU has some history on their side—three of the last five teams with a KenPom top-30 seeded 11th or worse advanced to the at least the Sweet 161.