Sweet Sixteen Predictions: Southwest Region

By Guest Blogger Brian Murphy:

The final two games of the Southwest Bracket will occur on Friday, March 25.  The top-seeded Jayhawks of Kansas have the easiest draw of any other top seed left in the bracket.  They match up against one of the two Cinderella squads from Richmond that are in the Southwest bracket.  The 12th seeded Richmond Spiders upset Vanderbilt in the first round and beat 13th seeded Morehead State in the next round.  The other team from Richmond is Virginia Commonwealth (VCU) who plays the 10th seeded Florida State Seminoles.

Kansas is looking like a lock to make it to the Final Four.  Led by the Morris borthers, the Jayhawks are 34-2 this year and haven’t had a tough game since losing to Kansas State (only their second loss of the season) on February 14th.  Kansas needs to remain mentally tough, though, because Richmond has nothing to lose in this game.  Led by Forward Justin Harper, the Spiders have been playing impressive all year.  The Atlantic-10 champions have had great success versus “The Big 6″ conference schools this year.  They beat Purdue by 11 points, Arizona St. by 6, Seton Hall by 8, and Wake Forest by 16.  The Spiders also handily beat the other Richmond team, VCU, by 12 this season.  Wouldn’t it be interesting if they met again in the Elite 8?  All-in-all, I think Cinderella’s luck runs out on Friday.  Kansas will be too much on offense for Richmond to handle, being the #1 team in the country in FG percentage and #5 in points per game.  It will be a close game at half but look for Kansas to open it up in the second half and march on to the Elite 8!

The other game in the Southwest bracket matches up the 10 seed Florida State against the 11 seed VCU.  The Rams are an extremely talented team and have impressed the nation so far by beating both Georgetown and Purdue by 18 points each.  VCU went from a bubble team that shouldn’t be in the tournament to a team that no one wants to play right now.  The Seminoles have really impressed me this tournament.  From following the ACC all year, I never realized how incredible their defense really is.  FSU shut down one of the most prolific offenses in Notre Dame last round and handled the Irish all game.  Since VCU’s strength is offense and FSU’s is defense, it will be a mini-game in it of itself when the Rams are bringing down the ball.  This is a really tough game to call, but I will take the Seminoles in this one because of their defense and the confidence they are playing with of late.