How It Will Be Won: West Region

We've digested the weaker side of the tournament with the Southwest and Southeast Regions, now we head to the big boy brackets and we'll start with the West.

Like A Box of Chocolates: Cause you never know what ya gonna get, when it comes to teams like Tennessee, Texas, Missouri, with a little side of UConn thrown in there as well. All these teams have shown signs of greatness (Tennessee beat Pitt early in the year; Texas won at Kansas and was in the Top 5 most of the year; Missouri was great at home and awful on the road; UConn won the Big East Tournament with 5 games in 5 days, but struggled in the month of February), but who is to know which ones show up with their season on the line. We like UConn to win a few games, but not sure how long their legs hold up. Texas and Tennessee each win a game, but bow out in Round 2 to Arizona and Duke respectively. We'll lean in favor of the Big East when Cincy takes on Mizzou.

Pennsylvania Pride: How do you like your PA basketball? Heart of Philadelphia Temple style, or Big Ten Penn State style? We'll see which one prevails in this 10-7 match up, but we are picking Temple to advance to face #2 San Diego State. The Owls could give the Aztecs trouble, but we think Temple will be headed back to the City of Brotherly love after Round 2.

Don't I Know You? Thanks to 11 Big East teams getting into the Tournament, there is a chance this bracket could see UConn going up against Cincinnati in Round 2. For those of you scoring at home, the Huskies defended their home court and beat the Bearcats by 8 in late February.

What will happen? Call it chalk, call it boring, call it what you will, but we have #1 Duke playing #5 Arizona, and #2 San Diego State playing #3 UConn in the Sweet 16. As we predicted back in mid-February, Duke will advance to the Final 4, after ending San Diego State's storybook season.

Our next post will breakdown the toughest region of them all, the East. Funny how the Big East is the best conference, and the East is the best region on paper.

Now that you've seen our picks for region, show us YOUR onions. Send us an email (jrsacks22@gmail.com) with your Elite 8, Final 4 and Championship game (winner) picks, or post them in the comments section!