Cinderella's invitation to this year's NCAA Tournament was apparently lost in the mail.
There are no George Masons, Valparaisos or Davidsons anywhere to be found, not even any North Carolina States (1983) or Villanovas (1985).
As the Final Four will be determined in the next two days, all we have left is perennial powers, conference champions and 30-game winners. We also have half the field coming from the powerhouse Big East Conference, along with two representatives from the Big 12 and one each from the Big Ten and ACC.
This big-conference dominance is somewhat of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it should give us terrific matchups the rest of the way, with the best meeting the best.
What is missing, however, is the unpredictability, the magic that comes with the smaller school or the darkhorse coming out of nowhere to make a stirring tournament run, that which makes March mad.
Anyway, I don't need to make much of an adjustment to last week's Final Four predictions. At this point, I will stick with Louisville, Pittsburgh and North Carolina, since Ty Lawson seems to be playing as close to top form as possible. As my pick Memphis is no longer around, I will go with Connecticut as the fourth team headed to Ford Field.
Yes, I know those are all top seeds, but this seems to be the way the tournament is going, doesn't it?
As for the team most likely to knock off a top seed, I will take Villanova over Pittsburgh.
While I'm at it, I will add that in the women's tournament, the only teams who could even give Connecticut a good game would be Maryland and perhaps Oklahoma.
