Bracket season has arrived, ladies and gentlemen. The NCAA Tournament selection committee made its choices on Sunday, and the great basketball dance has been set. Now it's time for fans across the world to fill in the blanks like some frenzied collegiate version of Mad Libs.Of course, while blindly filling out countless random brackets can be fun, only a select few are going to be good enough to actually win whichever pool you're gunning for. A lot of workand at least a little bit of luckgoes into the most successful brackets.Upsets can bust the best of brackets, but the trick is to pick the right upsets at the right time. Given the fact more than 64 teams now take part in the tournament, this can be tricky. Well, we're here to help with our choices for the top upset picks for each region.We'll be selecting one team from each of the four regions to pull upsets in the first stage of the tournament. The key to remember here is not to ride these upsets too deep into the dance.As our friends at OddsShark.comhave pointed out, teams favored by less than six points win just over 52 percent of the time in the opening round, but no team seeded lower than eighth has ever made the finals.In other words, underdogs can bust brackets early, but the true long shots are not likely to carry you all the way home.Before we dig into our four upset pickswith lines provided by OddShark.comlet's take a look at the tournament bracket itself.2017 NCAA TournamentUpset PicksEast: 10. Marquette (+1.5) over 7. South CarolinaMarquette is back in the tournament after missing out in each of the last three years. For the majority of the kids on the team, this is going to be a new experience."Coming out of high school you think that the NCAA Tournament is a given every single year for a high major program, and you quickly learn that it's all about hard work," Marquette senior Luke Fischer said, per Matt Velazquez of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.While the Golden Eagles might not be long on tournament experience, the Gamecocks are even less so. They haven't earned a berth since 2004.While South Carolina can threaten with a stingy defense (just 64.5 points per game allowed), Marquette can win this one by moving the ball around and with precision outside shooting. The team leads the country in three-point percentage (.430) and could wreak havoc if the South Carolina defense cannot prevent the outside shots.Depth could also be an advantage for Marquette. Guard Andrew Rowsey was named Big East sixth man of the year this past season.Marquette recently produced big wins over Xavier and Creighton and could be in store for another this Friday.West: 11. Xavier (+1.5) over 6. MarylandXavier and Maryland both limp into the tournament after disappointing finishes to their respective seasons. The Musketeers lost seven of their last 10 games, while the Terrapins lost six of their last 10.At first glance, this looks like a fairly even matchup, but as Steven Ruiz of For the Win recently pointed out, there are two areas that could easily tip the balance in Xavier's favor:Maryland struggles on the defensive glass; the Musketeers are a good offensive rebounding team. The Terps have had problems against zone defenses of late, settling for long-range 3 far too often and not taking care of the ball; Chris Macks team can throw a nasty 1-3-1 zone at opponents, which should fluster the Terps.If Xavier can force Maryland into repeatedly relying on the long ball, it could start to build a big advantage. While the Musketeers rank just 88th in total rebounds per game (37.6), the Terrapins are not a quality three-point team.In fact, Maryland ranks just 115th in three-point percentage (.363). Poor deep shooting by the Terrapins could help Xavier up its defensive rebounding percentage in this game. If the team takes care of business on the offensive end, Maryland could get into serious trouble early.South: 12. Middle Tennessee (+1) over 5. MinnesotaIt might not even be fair to call Middle Tennessee over Minnesota an upset at this point. The Blue Raiders are riding a 10-game winning streak and the automatic bid that comes with being crowned Conference USA champions:Plus, it's not like we haven't seen this story before. As a 15th seed, Middle Tennessee shocked the basketball world by knocking off the second-seeded Michigan State Spartans in last year's tournament. There's confidence to be taken from that and confidence to be gained from being the 12th seed.At least one No. 12 seed has advanced in eight of the last nine tournaments."We're excited," senior forward Reggie Upshaw told GoBlueRaiders.com. "Every year you see a 12-5 upset, and to have that 12 seed, we know the history behind it."If the Blue Raiders have success shooting the ball, they could be a real problem for the Golden Gophers. While Minnesota possesses a good defense (69.1 points per game allowed), Middle Tennessee's defense has been even better (63.3 points per game allowed).Middle Tennessee already has impressive wins against the likes of Vanderbilt and UNC-Wilmington on the team's resume this year. A win over Minnesota on Thursday shouldn't be unexpected.Midwest: 11. Rhode Island (+2) over 6. Creighton Rhode Island is another team coming into the tournament with a lot of momentum, having won eight straight games and the Atlantic 10 Conference title.While Creighton's offensive firepower (the team averages 82.1 points per game) could prove problematic, the Rams bring the nation's 32nd-ranked defense (64.9 points per game allowed) into the fray. The advantage in this matchup is likely to be determined by who won't be on the floor for the Blue Jays.Maurice Watson Jr. was suspended following sexual assault allegations, and Creighton has struggled to find its offensive identity without him. Watson was averaging 12.9 points and 8.5 assists per game before his suspension.The Blue Jays went just 5-7 down the regular-season stretch without him.If Creighton cannot get back to early-season form, they're likely to have trouble with the Rams here. As Neil Greenberg of the Washington Post pointed out, the Rams are built to take away one of Creighton's biggest strengths."The Rams also limit the amount of three-pointers their opponents take, keeping it to less than a third of all field goal attempts (29.8 percent, 18th in the country)," Greenberg explained. "That will be a problem forCreighton, who relies on its 40.1 percent shooting from long range."With Watson out and with three-point attempts limited, the Blue Jays could really struggle to find a rhythm on the offensive side of the court.
Click here to read full news..
