The NCAA tournament is roughly 50 hours away – viva la rampant speculation!

I personally did 10 minutes for my peers on how Cornell is not all they’re cracked up to be, and everyone should be considering Temple for the Sweet-16 rather than picking Cornell to upset, because Evan Rodriguez is the real deal and Ryan Wittman is just a garden-variety nerd, thus…

It goes on. Nobody had a good time.

Fact is your friends and office mates want to condone your pontificating as much as they want to blow the whistle on the rampant gambling and implicate themselves.

But we can’t go completely silent, can we?

Therefore, I enlisted a few members of the sports blog intelligentsia to breakdown each region, only stipulation: brevity: get to a Final Four pick – and slip in a few madball Sweet-16ers (Notre Dame) – in 100 words or less.

That said…

East (Jameson LaMarca, Steady Burn):

With guys like John Wall & Demarcus Cousins playing out of their minds, I pick Kentucky going to the Elite 8 after knocking off Texas and Wisconsin. Across from them is Big East Champs West Virginia, who will mow through Morgan State, Clemson, and a tough Marquette.

Who’s in the Final Four? Here’s a big hint: it’s not a #1 seed. While Calipari’s boys have had a phenomenal season, I don’t see them playing on April 3rd. Da’Sean Butler is a beast inside and I think will be too much for the Ashley Judd cheering section.

Midwest (A. Isaac, Guyism):

Consider the Midwest one of the hardest brackets in recent NCAA tourney history.   In Kansas you have the overall #1 seed in the tournament and the best team in the country this year.  In Ohio State, Georgetown, and MSU you have 3 teams who have been ranked in the top 10 several times this season.  In Maryland, you have arguably one of the best players in the country in Greivis Vasquez.  Look for Kansas to get to the Final Four, although, a tough rematch of last year’s Sweet 16 looms with MSU and coach Tom Izzo.

West (Steve Melfi, NY Hoosier):

There are three teams with a shot: Syracuse, Pitt, Kansas St.

Kansas St. is just the wrong Kansas.

As for the other two, Syracuse won’t go 1 for 13 from three-point again against Pitt nor commit 19 second-half fouls.

Onuaku’s knee be damned; Syracuse is too good. Syracuse over Pitt.

Side note: Is it just me or have the past two years been really dull for making picks?  I just don’t see any upsets.  The NCAA is making it too easy for people who don’t follow college basketball to have a shot at winning their office pools.

South (Mike Hayes, Steady Burn):

My pick: Duke, sickening, because I’ll watch three Big East teams fall – penance for screaming “You’re a Klingon!” at Singler, heard mostly by a 10-year-old boy – at Madison Square Garden earlier this year.

Duke beats [insert play-in winner], walkover Louisville, then foil Texas A&M, not there yet under Mark Turgeon.

A melee in the Sweet-16 between Villanova and Notre Dame. A beating, but the opposite type Duke handed, for argument’s sake, Winthrop. Victor, throttled.

Prediction: Duke over worn-down Villanova, advances to Indianapolis. Big East fans who loath Huggins wrestle with rooting on West Virginia.