2008 NCAA Tournament Upset Predictions

Written March 18, 2008 by Jason Lowry

Its finally time to sit down and fill out your bracket and decide who you think will be crowned National Champion when it is all said and done. Everyone knows that you can’t just pick the higher seeds, as there will be plenty of upsets to go around. While you can expect to see two of college basketballs best square off in the final game, there will be at least one #1 seed to fall and plenty of #2 and #3 seeds biting the dust. What makes it difficult is that you know there will be upsets, its just predicting where they will come from and how long can the underdog keep winning. So here are our upset alerts for this year’s bracket, plus some other games we think that have the potential to see the higher seeds fall.While we have only 13 upsets picked in this years draft, it’s not that far off from last year when there was only 12 upsets in the whole tournament. While the upset numbers have reached totals over 20, we think that the bracket is pretty top heavy. We aren’t saying that the competition isn’t going to be good, it’s just after you get past the 1-3 seeds there is a pretty notable drop off besides from a couple teams we think are seeded much lower than they should be. As you can see from our lists below that the biggest upset we picked seed wise is your every year #12 over a #5 seed. The biggest upsets based off the best teams are most notably #6 Purdue over #3 Xavier and both #1’s North Carolina and Kansas losing in the Elite 8.

1st Round Upsets

#11 Saint Josephs over #6 Oklahoma

#10 Davidson over #7 Gonzaga

#12 Temple over #5 Michigan State

#11 Kentucky over #6 Marquette

#12 Western Kentucky over #5 Drake

#10 Arizona over #7 West Virginia

2nd Round Upsets

#6 Purdue over #3 Xavier

#5 Notre Dame over #4 Michigan State

#5 Clemson over #4 Vaderbilt

#6 USC over #3 Wisconsin

3rd Round Upsets

#3 Stanford over #2 Texas

4th Round Upsets

#2 Tennessee over #1 North Carolina

#2 Georgetown over #1 Kansas

Here is a list of where some of the other top seeds could see their road to the Final Four cut short. With the top two teams from each region listed and the possible teams that they could lose to. Also, note that some of the upsets will come down to who wins previous games, as some of the upsets picks could play each other prior to playing the top seed.

West

#1UCLA – #4 UCONN, #2 Duke

#2 Duke – #10 Arizona, #6 Purdue

South

#1 Memphis – #4 Pitt, #3 Stanford, #2 Texas

#2 Texas – #3 Stanford, #11 Kentucky

Midwest

#1 Kansas – #5 Clemson, #2 Georgetown, #3 Wisconsin

#2 Georgetown – #10 Davidson, #6 USC, #3 Wisconsin

East

#1 UNC – #4 Washington State, #5 Notre Dame, #2 Tennessee, #3 Louisville

#2 Tennessee – #3 Louisville, #7 Butler

If you haven’t taken the opportunity to sign up for our NCAA Tournament Bracket Contest make sure and get signed up today before it’s to late and the games are under way. There will be prizes for those finishing in the Top 3 and a special bonus for anyone who can beat Jimmy himself in the challenge. Also, continue to check back for more tournament information and our Final Four Predictions along with who we believe will be cutting down the nets in 2008.

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