Parity has grown more common in today's college basketball. When filling out the NCAA brackets you know that every year a 5 seed will beat a 12 seed. The terms "Cinderella" and "March Madness," are in our everyday lexicon. The NCAA tournament makes the world stop, fill out a bracket, and take in a few games between teams they don't normally care anything about.
This year's Sweet Sixteen will not be as jumbled as last year. After the Sweet Sixteen, most of the country had already thrown their brackets in the garbage. George Mason and Bradley ruined a lot of people's weekends with their Cinderella tournament runs. Don't expect too many double-digit teams reaching the Sweet Sixteen this season.
The defending champions, the Florida Gators, will occupy the first position in the Sweet Sixteen. Florida will face Old Dominion in their Sweet Sixteen match-up. Old Dominion should make it this far. The other Sweet Sixteen duo in the Midwest Region should be Oregon and Wisconsin. Both of these teams have senior leadership, which is a key in the tourney.
The West Region has some storied programs vying for a spot in the last sixteen. Kansas and Virginia Tech should meet in the Sweet Sixteen. Kansas has the most talent in the tournament, but they are young and inexperienced, which could be a problem in later rounds. The second pair of Sweet Sixteen teams in this region is Duke and UCLA. Duke should be able to pull a win over Pitt in the 2nd round to make it to this round. If Darren Collison's ankle injury doesn't hamper his play, UCLA should go deeper than this round.
The Sweet Sixteen games in the East Region could be the best. North Carolina would face Kevin Durant and the Texas Longhorns. The talent on North Carolina could have their hands full with trying to stop Durant from getting open shots. The other game would be Vanderbilt playing the Big East champions, Georgetown. Georgetown's Roy Hibbert and Jeff Green are going to be too much to handle. The Hoyas game against Vanderbilt should test Georgetown's guards, which most say is their weakness.
The other fantastic freshman will be in the South Region's Sweet Sixteen. Greg Oden will lead his Ohio State Buckeyes against the Tennessee Volunteers. Tennessee's Chris Lofton will have a hard time against the Buckeyes backcourt. If Lofton gets hot, the Volunteers could do some damage against Ohio State. Rounding out our Sweet Sixteen would be Texas A&M and the Memphis Tigers. Memphis does not get much respect coming out of an easy conference. The Tigers will need to play well to contain A&M's Acie Law IV.