March Madness: Breakdown of the 2018 NCAA Tournament’s Midwest region
By Bryan Mauro
March Madness goes into full swing on Thursday. Here’s a breakdown of what the Midwest region will provide for viewers.
When the NCAA tournament pairings were announced the Midwest region appeared to have the clearest path for the top seeds to advance. The top seeds of Duke and Kansas have a path to the Final Four in which both of those teams are better than the majority of the teams in this bracket. Since this is the NCAA tournament and upsets are going to happen. All 4 top seeds are unlikely to advance to the sweet 16.
The Midwest bracket has a good mix of high major programs from Power 6 conferences, and a good mix of good Mid-majors who are going to be matchup problems for a lot of the bigger seeds. One of the potential matchup problems could be the 16 seed on this side of the bracket in Penn. A 16 seed has never beaten a top seed in any bracket and it is not going to happen this year, at least not in the Midwest bracket.
The Midwest bracket has a nice selection of players to choose from and root for. The players are as diverse as unknown’s on a good mid-major team or potential Wooden Award finalists. These players are going to try and help their teams advance. Many of the mid-major teams in the tournament rely on one player to do the bulk of their scoring. Most of the teams on this side of the bracket are complete teams who can give any team a run.
One of the more underrated parts of this bracket is how well the teams are coached. This side of the bracket has some legendary coaches, who have won a lot of games. Coaching a strategy plays a big part in how teams do in this tournament. The teams in this bracket will be prepared and ready to battle as they all make the descent towards the final four.