The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is finally here!Here’s my final four picks: Florida, UCLA, Georgetown, and Texas A&M. The Aggies win it all and avenge an early season defeat to UCLA for the title!

Before you call me a shameless homer, this is the first time I have ever picked my team to win it all! (Of course, this is the first time I ever realistically could!) Several basketball experts have picked A&M as a dark horse team to win or picked them outright to win. A&M plays great defense, shoots well from the field, free-throw line, and three-point line, and has the best point guard in the nation. They have good, if not great, post play and they have a good coach. They also have tournament experience. All that should add up to a good showing!A couple of picks for my friends: Michigan State goes down to Marquette in the first round. North Carolina goes down to Texas in the Sweet Sixteen.

Would the tournament be better with these teams: Drexel, Syracuse, Appalachian State, Akron, Missouri State, Marist, Hofstra, and Air Force instead of these teams: Purdue, Illinois, Michigan State, Stanford, Arkansas, Villanova, Duke, and Georgia Tech? I think so, but we’ll never know because the Selection Committee loves to put middle-of-the-pack teams from big conferences in over good teams from lesser conferences. I like Duke, but they are not that good of a team this year. I’d much rather see Drexel get a shot than a middling ACC team that probably wouldn’t be in the tournament if their coach wasn’t named Mike Krzyzewski (the only plus is that it drives Maryland fans crazy that Duke gets in with an 8-8 conference record and opening round loss in the conference tournament this year, but Maryland didn’t last year with an 8-8 conference record and an opening round win in the conference tournament) . Bottom line: I say give deserving teams more chances.

How to fix this mess: First, look at who teams play and where they play. Second, add three more at-large berths and have four play-in games between the bottom eight at-large teams. Third, all conference champions (automatic berths) get seeded instead of fearing having to play in a play-in game. Don’t make a team that earned it’s way into the tournament by winning a championship play another game to get into the field of 64.

My pick as this year’s Champions! Gig ‘Em Aggies!