Cardinal Couple NCAA Pick Em -- TUESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 Cardinal Couple NCAA Pick Em 

With the announcement of the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament on Sunday, it’s time to bring back the world famous Cardinal Couple NCAA Pick Em. Our ACC Pick Em a couple weeks ago had a record number of entries and we hope to have even more for this one.

The NCAA Pick Em is a much bigger beast to knock out as opposed to 14 games in the ACC Tournament. Officially, 68 teams make the NCAA Tournament, but with eight of those competing in four play-in games, what we consider the ‘real’ bracket holds 64 teams and has 63 games.

After a little bit of discussion and comparing how other bracket entry places handle brackets, we decided, at least for this year, to run on the 63 games and exclude the play-in games. Afraid your 63-0 won’t look as good as 67-0? Have a perfect bracket and we’ll talk further and even let you be our honorary Bracket Czar!

Since we aren't counting the play-in games, our first game begins at 11:30 a.m. on Friday. To make sure all brackets are submitted in time, please have it submitted by 11:00 a.m. on Friday. Ideally, if you can get it in by Thursday that's even better to get it together on my end and on Paulie's end. My wallet was stolen while photographing softball over the weekend so I've been running around like crazy trying to get new cards and documents for everything so the more time for me to get brackets together, the better.

Like always, you can leave your picks in the comments section of an article or send them directlt to me ( eupherjared@gmail.com ) or Paulie ( cardinalcouple@twc.com ) Leaving them in a comments section seems to be the most popular way. Don't forget that total score of the final game !

I have not made my bracket yet, but here's some teams that I think could have the potential to pull off an early round upset as a non-high seed:  10-seed South Dakota, 10-seed Arkansas, 11-seed Dayton or DePaul, 11-seed Princeton, 12-seed Belmont, 12-seed Florida Gulf Coast, 13-seed IUPUI. These are just some early round upsets I think COULD happen, not WILL happen, so don't blame your losses on me.

Here's some dark horses that are not a 1-seed or 2-seed I think could make a big run in the tournament: 3-seed Iowa State, 3-seed Michigan, 5-seed Virginia Tech, and 6-seed Ohio State. These are teams I could see finding a way to the Elite Eight or beyond. Once again, don't hold me to it.

1-seed Louisville is one of eight teams from the ACC dancing. The others include 1-seed NC State, 5-seed Notre Dame, 5-seed Virginia Tech, 5-seed North Carolina, 8-seed Miami, 8-seed Georgia Tech, and 11-seed Florida State. Boston College and Duke were both bubble teams, but found themselves on the outside looking in.

The SEC has had eight teams make it in the tournament: 1-seed South Carolina, 3-seed LSU, 4-seed Tennessee, 6-seed Kentucky, 6-seed Georgia, 7-seed Ole Miss, 10-seed Florida, and 10-seed Arkansas.

The Big Ten had six teams make it in the tournament: 2-seed Iowa, 3-seed Indiana, 3-seed Michigan, 4-seed Maryland, 6-seed Ohio State, and 8-seed Nebraska.

The Big 12 also had six teams make it in the tournament: 2-seed Baylor, 2-seed Texas, 3-seed Iowa State, 4-seed Oklahoma, 8-seed Kansas, and 9-seed Kansas State.

The Pac-12 is another conference that had six teams make it in the tournament: 1-seed Stanford, 4-seed Arizona, 5-seed Oregon, 7-seed Colorado, 7-seed Utah, and 8-seed Washington State.

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#1 seed Lindsey Duvall pops a three over #16 seed Paulie

Here's a sample bracket but will not be included in the entries:

Rd 1: South Carolina, Miami, North Carolina, Arizona, Georgia, Iowa State, Colorado, Iowa

Stanford, Kansas, Virginia Tech, Maryland, Ohio State, LSU, Utah, Texas

Louisville,
Nebraska, Oregon, Tennessee, BYU, Michigan, Ole Miss, Baylor

NC State, Washington State, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Indiana, UCF, UConn

Rd 2: South Carolina, Arizona, Iowa State, Iowa

Louisville, Tennessee, Michigan, Baylor

Stanford, Maryland, LSU, Texas

NC State, Oklahoma, Indiana, UConn

Rd 3: South Carolina, Iowa, Louisville, Baylor

Stanford, Texas, NC State, UConn

Rd 4: South Carolina, Louisville, Stanford, NC State

Rd 5: Louisville, NC State

Rd 6: Louisville (combined score 150)

We wish all of you the best of luck and enjoy your bragging rights!

Happy Tuesday and Go Cards!

Jared