My first-round, make that second-round winners, for March Madness

March Madness

I'm not going to go crazy and enter numerous pools this year.

I'll enter the Warren Buffett/Quicken Loans Billion Dollar extravaganza and my local paper, the Arizona Daily Star, has its annual "fill in the blanks for fun" -- better known "March Fever" $1,000,000  Challenge.

And to make it simple, I'll pencil in the same picks for both. No reason to get a headache over all this.

First of all, I want my Arizona Wildcats to win it all. That alone drops my chances of winning the "big bucks."

The chances of getting every pick right and having Arizona win it all would be like getting hit by lightning four times on a Sunday afternoon or batting a THOUSAND on my 60-and-over Tucson Old Timers baseball team for 12 straight months.

I don't know about the lightning, but it's a safe bet on the latter, since I haven't strung together four hits in a row in months.

So, here goes. The following are my first-round, make that second-round picks (don't forget those play-in games are now called the first-round games).

In the South and East: I pick Florida over Albany/St. Mary's, Pittsburgh over Colorado, VCU over Stephen F. Austin, UCLA over Tulsa, Ohio State over Dayton, Syracuse over Western Michigan, New Mexico over Stanford, Kansas over Eastern Kentucky, Virginia over Coastal Carolina, Memphis over George Washington, Cincinnati over Harvard, Michigan State over Delaware, Providence over North Carolina, Iowa State over N.C.Central, UConn over St. Joseph's and Villanova over Milwaukee.

In the West and Midwest: I pick Arizona over Weber State, Oklahoma State over Gonzaga, Oklahoma over North Dakota State, San Diego State over New Mexico State, Baylor over Nebraska, Creighton over La-Lafayette, Oregon over BYU, Wisconsin over American, Wichita State over Cal Poly/Texas Southern, Kentucky over Kansas State, Saint Louis over NC State/Xavier, Louisville over Manhattan,  Massachusetts over Iowa/Tennessee, Duke over Mercer, Texas over Arizona State and Michigan over Wofford.

There you have it. Chances are I'll be lucky if I'm right on 26 of 32 of the above picks.

Trust me, this year there will be plenty of upsets and I've pretty much latched on to the FAVORITES in the first round. If I would happen to be lucky enough to go 32 out of 32, then chances are I'll be glued to my Vizio for the third-round.

My heart is with my Arizona Wildcats to run the table. The minute they go down,  I'll hide my head in my pillow and try to get over the LOSS!

But as of today, 68 teams are alive and well...and can live the dream.

Nothing like March Madness!