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March Madness Survival Guide

Barry Lieberman

March Madness is finally here. As usual, the NCAA basketball tournament selection committee made its normal blunders by leaving out some teams that are better than the ones it chose as at-large selections. This year, Alabama got the shaft while Georgia, a team Alabama beat by 8 points in a regular-season game, was invited to the tournament.

The selection committee also erred by seeding Iowa above Creighton, Penn State above Providence, Georgia Tech above St. Joseph's and Texas above Temple. We will find out in the first round whether my analysis is better than that of the selection committee.

Here is a list of the opening-round games on Thursday and Friday, in the order in which they appear in the Las Vegas sports books.

NCAA Tournament Matchups
Thursday's Games
Team	Power Rating	Lieberman Line	Official Line
Holy Cross	75
Kentucky	94	19	19
Creighton	88	3	1
Iowa	85
Southern Utah	79
Boston College	90	11	13
Oklahoma State	84
Southern California	88	4	3 1/2
Monmouth	69
Duke	102	33	35
Missouri	86	1
Georgia	85		1
Utah State	85
Ohio State	88	3	2 1/2
Hofstra	83
UCLA	91	8	7
Hampton	74
Iowa State	92	18	17
Georgetown	88
Arkansas	89	1	1
George Mason	82
Maryland	97	15	16
Georgia State	83
Wisconsin	89	6	6
NC Greensboro	71
Stanford	100	29	31
St. Joseph's	88	3	1
Georgia Tech	85
BYU	86
Cincinnati	90	4	4 1/2
Kent	85
Indiana	90	5	5

NCAA Tournament Matchups
Friday's Games
Team	Power Rating	Lieberman Line	Official Line
Winthrop/NW State	66
Illinois	97	27	31
NC Charlotte	88
Tennessee	90	2	1
Hawaii	84
Syracuse	88	4	7 1/2
Cal Northridge	83
Kansas	95	12	12 1/2
Eastern Illinois	79
Arizona	100	21	22
Butler	85
Wake Forest	90	5	5
Iona	77
Mississippi	89	12	9 1/2
Xavier	87
Notre Dame	88	1	2
Alabama State	69
Michigan State	98	29	29
Fresno State	89
California	89	Pick	1 1/2
Gonzaga	89
Virginia	92	3	3 1/2
Indiana State	82
Oklahoma	89	7	7
Princeton	26
North Carolina	86	20	18 1/2
Providence	87	3	2 1/2
Penn State	84
Western Kentucky	84
Florida	94	10	10 1/2
Temple	88	1	1
Texas	87

This chart can be used in all future rounds, since it has my power ratings for each team. For those of you who are filling out brackets for an office pool, the higher the power rating listed, the better the team.

Of course, in this tournament there are always upsets and the best teams do not always advance to the Final Four. But my choice for the Final Four teams this year are Arizona, Stanford, Michigan State and Duke, with Maryland, Illinois, Florida, Kansas, Iowa State and Kentucky not far behind.

In the first round, I like all teams where my theoretical point spread has more than a two-point differential than the official point spread. My best bet in the first round is Hawaii, receiving 7 1/2 points from Syracuse. Hawaii is a very good shooting team and should be able to keep the game close against the Orangemen, who exclusively play a 2-3 zone defense. I will go out on a limb and predict that the Warriors will defeat the Orangemen straight up.

As always, I appreciate any feedback from readers and can be reached at vegasvice@aol.com.

Who will win the NCAA tournament? Duke Stanford Michigan State Illinois Somebody else