King Kaufman's Sports Daily

NCAA Sweet 16: Underdogs, overdogs, in-betweens. You want it? It's here.

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March 23, 2006 | The fabulous first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament have given us a Sweet 16 with a little something, as they say on TV, for everybody.

Not for people who don't like basketball, of course. Or, I'm guessing, for a healthy portion of the populations of Columbus, Chapel Hill, Knoxville, Lawrence, Iowa City or Champaign-Urbana.

But the rest of us get four living top seeds, all trying to make this year's the first Final Four with nothing but No. 1s. Three of them are playing expected opponents, the No. 4 or No. 5 seed, and all of those games -- Duke-LSU, UConn-Washington and Villanova-Boston College -- offer tough matchups, with a lower-seed win hardly qualifying as an upset for the ages.

But if you like upsets for the ages, there's No. 13 Bradley trying to pull one off against the other No. 1, Memphis.

We also get one tough 2-3 game, UCLA-Gonzaga, a couple of intriguing mild-upset possibilities -- West Virginia-Texas and Georgetown-Florida -- and a whoda-thunkit matchup between No. 7 Wichita State and No. 11 George Mason.

Here's a look at the eight games coming at you over the next two nights. All times EST.

Thursday

(1) Duke vs. (4) LSU, Atlanta Region, 7:10 p.m.
I love this game. What a way to kick off the Sweet 16. Duke's big guys Shelden Williams and Josh McRoberts and star guard J.J. Redick against LSU's big guys Glen -- and I do mean big -- Davis and Tyrus Thomas and star guard Darrel Mitchell.

Duke's the better team and Williams is the best of the big guys, though Davis might be better someday, and I think big guys are the key in the NCAA Tournament. But I'm taking LSU. I just think the Tigers have this upset in them.

Maybe I'm just rooting against Duke and for "Big Baby" Davis, with his sparkling persona, to reach the Final Four. OK, I'm definitely rooting against Duke and for "Big Baby" Davis to reach the Final Four. You just can't get this kind of analysis anywhere else.
Prediction: LSU

(1) Memphis vs. (13) Bradley, Oakland Region, 7:27 p.m.
I wouldn't have thought it possible that a 13 seed could be better publicized than a No. 1, but here you have it. Patrick O'Bryant, whom you probably had never heard of a month ago, will try to lead his team to become the first No. 13 ever to make the Elite Eight.

Memphis -- it's in Tennessee, in case you're wondering, and the team is called the Tigers -- has gotten to the Sweet 16 by winning the weak Conference USA and then beating Oral Roberts and Bucknell.

Next page: Texas-W.Va., UCLA-Gonzaga, Friday's games and the Elite Eight round