Curse of the 2 seeds

Aside from last year, it's actually been fairly common for a while that #2 seeds don't fare all that well in the tournament; I think for a few years it was normal for two #2 seeds not to make the second weekend. That's what we had this year as well, and it would have been three if Butler could make a layup.

The question is, have we set ourselves up for a more boring Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight because of this? On paper, for example, UCLA vs. Western Kentucky looks like a blowout. It's funny, though; as Drew pointed out to me earlier, two regions were total chalk (1-2-3-4 in the East, 1-2-3-5 in the South) and two totally blew up (1-3-7-12 in the West, 1-3-10-12 in the Midwest). Frankly, I think that besides UCLA/WKU - and possibly not even that - we're probably looking at decent games for the most part, in all four regions. Stanford/Texas should be great. Louisville/Tennessee oughta be good. UNC/Washington State is going to be really damn interesting considering UNC is averaging 110.5 ppg in the tournament and Wazzu just came off allowing 41 points to one of the highest-scoring teams in the country in Notre Dame. Xavier/West Virginia will probably be pretty good. And I think Davidson is capable of getting to the Elite Eight if they shoot a little better and can get to the line against Wisconsin with anywhere near as much frequency as they did against Georgetown. Kansas/Nova, with all due respect to my huge Nova fan coworker, is liable to be the ugliest game of the Sweet 16 (although given how often Kansas falls on their faces, even that is no lock).

I'm rooting, at this point, for Washington State, Michigan State, Davidson, and Xavier, by region. (I know Xavier is the second-highest remaining seed in their region, but they're the likeliest team among the mid-majors to actually be good enough to make noise in the Final Four, and I'd love to see a mid-major win it all for the first time since 1990.)

Oh, also? Baseball starts in a week. Get ready. And for you Cubs fans, Diary of a Mad Cubs Fan is updating again (and has a few posts in the past few days).