Zach Picks His March Madness Bracket: Midwest Edition

So I like to enter March Madness brackets, despite the fact that March Madness is the START of my basketball watching for the year (and I seriously doubt that I'll be able to watch it over here in Europe, so I'll just be following online). The point is I never actually know the correct predictions, so it's a lot of me just seeing what I can guess.

Here's my usual ways of picking:

1. Better School/Location
2. Better Mascot
3. Schools named after Robber Barons (Duke, Vanderbilt, Stanford etc.) will probably win at least once in the tourny.

And ya know, there's a lot of me just following the seeding.

This is my second year doing a bracket for "The Shore Sports Report" a Jersey Shore local radio show (that I must say is excellent) featuring two alumni of my high school, one of which I'd consider a friend(but he might not). I used pretty much the same system last year and I ended up in 7th out of 60.

The year before that I did one on Yahoo and spent a few days on the top 50 scores page for "Fans of Oral Roberts"(who sadly did not make it this year, I love seeing zealots get knocked out in the first round).

I may not do as well this year because teams I know like UConn and North Carolina aren't in it this year, but the point I'm trying to make is I'm fairly good at faking these brackets.

Round 1
Kansas vs. Lehigh
Okay Kansas is a number 1 seed. Lehigh is a school with a lot of science that has one of the lead Intelligent Design professors teaching there. So they can't even do what they're supposed to be good at correctly. I predict a slaughter.
PREDICTION: Kansas

UNLV vs. Northern Iowa
UNLV needs more vowels in its name, so many hard syllables. Also, I'm well aware that Emerson will never get any sort of sports accolades, so I've gotta go with a school that shares the colors.
PREDICTION: Northern Iowa

Michigan State vs. New Mexico State
State school against state school, so it has to be decided by the better state. Despite having Detroit, I'm still picking Michigan as a better state. I've never been to New Mexico but being stuck between Eastern Arizona and West Texas can't make a place any fun to be in, especially not a "Land of Enchantment" like New Mexico's motto says it is.
PREDICTION: Michigan State

Maryland vs. Houston
My friend Lucas goes to Maryland and he's probably my best friend who goes to a school in the bracket. Also, I spent an hour in Houston on a layover to Austin and they have a Fox News store in the airport, needless to say I was in Houston longer than I wanted to be.
PREDICTION: Maryland

Tennessee vs. San Diego State
Tennessee is the Volunteers which has some historical context. San Diego State is the Aztecs which has no context of any kind. This misplacement of a basketball mascot may be as bad as Utah Jazz.
PREDICTION: Tennessee

Georgetown vs. Ohio
What the hell is a Hoya? Nothing. Okay well screw them then.
PREDICTION: Ohio

Oklahoma State vs. Georgia Tech
Oklahoma State has the same mascot as New Mexico State (Pistol Pete), which is stupid. And I'll take Atlanta over Stillwater, Oklahoma any day. Does Stillwater even have a cool name like "Hotlanta" for the local DJs to say? Chillwater? I find no record of that term ever being used.
PREDICTION: Georgia Tech

Ohio State vs. UCSB
UCSB's mascot is the Gauchos. Meaning they could be beaten by any school with a mascot like the Ajas, or the Katy Lieds or the Pretzel Logics. I don't expect them to score more than (hey) nineteen points.
Also, I think all my blogs should made up of Steely Dan references.
PREDICTION: Ohio State

ROUND 2
Kansas vs. Northern Iowa
I know Kansas does "Dust in the Wind", and it's not very good, but if they do "Carry On My Wayward Son" it will beat anything Northern Iowa does.
PREDICTION: Kansas

Michigan State vs. Maryland
Staying with choosing where a friend goes, go Maryland. And 300 made Spartans less cool.
PREDICTION: Maryland.

Tennessee vs. Ohio
I'm going with Tennessee because I went against Georgetown even though they'll probably win, so now I have to hope that Tennessee beats them in round 2. Does that make sense? Is my bracket screwed? Probably is the answer to both of those questions.
PREDICTION: Tennessee

Georgia Tech vs. Ohio State
I'm willing to believe that Ohio is in fact a state. I'm less likely to believe that Georgia is very Tech Savvy. If you ask me the more valid one of these is Ohio State.
PREDICITON: Ohio State

SWEET SIXTEEN
Kansas vs. Maryland
As much as I want to keep routing for Maryland, I can't let my wanting my friend's school to win change my voting too much, becuase you know I'm taking this so seriously and everything.
PREDICTION: Kansas

Ohio State vs. Tennessee
I never hide the fact that I don't really like most of the south, and thats not going to change here. I mean Tennessee calls its girls team the "Lady Volunteers", as if Volunteering was something that was overtly masculine in the first place. Boo southern ways of living! Go Buckeyes!
PREDICTION: Ohio State

Elite Eight
Kansas vs. Ohio State
So, its around this point that I ALWAYS screw up my brackets, so maybe I should just go for something simple. Ohio State's colors are Scarlet and Gray. Kansas is Crimson and Gray...And Blue and Yellow. That means since most people can't really tell the difference between Crimson and Scarlet anyway, everyone at the game will seem to be wearing a Kansas color. Thats a home field advantage you can count on.
PREDICTION: Kansas.

So, Kansas is the first team I'm sending to the Final Four. Who else? I dunno, maybe we'll see tomorrow when I do the WEST.

Got any predictions/comments more serious/less serious than mine? Any good insights on who to pick. Leave me a comment.