Play it safe by picking against the top seeds

This season’s national champion does not reside on the top line of a region. Despite all the hype for this year’s top teams, take the field in this year’s big dance.

There is a reason why these games are played­—anything can happen. Only one time in history have all four top-seeded teams made it through to the Final Four. With plenty of teams out there to spoil the fantastic seasons put together by Kentucky, Syracuse, North Carolina and Michigan State, this will not be the second time the four best squads reach the semifinals.

There is a case for taking the field every year, but this year in particular there only two clear-cut favorites to win this tournament. Going into Selection Sunday, only Kentucky and Syracuse had secured top seeds while the rest were up for grabs. And even though these two teams put together dominant stretches throughout the season, the Orange and the Wildcats failed to win their conference tournaments.

Kentucky is talented but lacks experience and chemistry, and to make matters worse, the selection committee did them no favors this year. Despite being the top overall seed in the tournament, the Wildcats are faced with the bracket’s hardest region. They will have to go through teams like Duke and Baylor just to make it to New Orleans, with dangerous opponents such as Indiana, Wichita State and UNLV waiting for them as well.

The Orange have been poised for deep runs in the past few years but have been too worn down by the rigors of the Big East schedule to cut down the nets. Moreover, Syracuse’s starting center Fab Melo was declared ineligible for the tournament. The Orange’s only regular-season loss came without their star 7-footer.

The field is wide open this year, and the No. 2 seeds have just as much of a case to be crowned champions as the No. 1s do. Many of these teams had laid claim to being a top seed going into the final day of conference tournaments. They have consistently battled for supremacy in the national rankings throughout the season. Look out for teams like Ohio State in the East region, Missouri in the West, Duke in the South and Kansas in the Midwest. These are all teams that are very capable of catching fire and knocking out a top-ranked squad.

Although the rankings stand out when the bracket is released, every team is placed on equal footing when the tournament begins. Basketball statistician Ken Pomeroy recently wrote that the odds of all the No. 1 seeds reaching the Final Four is approximately equal to a No. 16 team upsetting a No. 1.

Regardless of whether a school is a top seed or barely squeaked in by pulling an upset in its conference tournament, every one of these teams is going to show up to play. And when that happens, the madness that is March takes over.