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The 65 team field for this year's NCAA basketball tournament began immediately after the tournament pairings were announced. Looking at the brackets, there are some immediate things that jump out at you but predicting a final four is difficult to do.

Let's begin with Florida, the top seed in the MidWest region. Florida has the best starting five lineup in all of college basketball. They are the defending national champions and looking at their region, no team jumps out at you that you can say could give Florida some problems. Wisconsin is the #2 seed and if you can defend Alando Tucker and Kammron Taylor, you have a legitimate chance of beating the Badgers. Tucker and Taylor are the only two men on the team that averages double figures in points. Wisconsin does play outstanding defense but head coach Bo Ryan needs to find a third scorer because with potential of playing Georgia Tech in the second round and Oregon in the regional semifinal, Wisconsin's road to the final four looks very "bumpy". Oregon is the #3 seed and Maryland is the #4 seed but those two teams as well as Wisconsin are good but not as good as Florida. Florida, with coach Billy Donovan, I feel is a sure "lock" for Atlanta.

Kansas is the top seed in the West region. This is the fastest team in the tournament. The Jayhawks play an up tempo style that most teams can not keep up with. This Jayhawk team was one of the few teams that defeated Florida this year. Four of the five starters average at least 10 pts a game with Sherron Collins averaging 9.4 points per game. This Jayhawks team is led by two sophomores, Brandon Rush and Mario Chalmers. There are six juniors and five sophomores on this team. Coach Bill Self has done an outstanding job with this team who won the regular season and Big 12 conference tournament with an extremely young team. The only possible road block for Kansas is UCLA. The Bruins are the #2 seed and they're coming into the tournament being eliminated in Pacific 10 tournament quarterfinal by California. This team, like Kansas, has no seniors but has been the #1 ranked team throughout most of the season. This team does have a tendency to lapse at times and with Duke, Pittsburgh, Indiana and Gonzaga in their part of the bracket, UCLA can not afford to lapse. I feel like they will and that's why I'm picking Kansas. Like Florida, there's nobody in their bracket that you can say could give Kansas some problems.

The East region is loaded. North Carolina is the top seed, Georgetown

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