Des Moines – Call the oddsmakers. No matter what happens this weekend in the NCAA men's basketball tournament, Des Moines already has won.
Two of the most intriguing Cinderellas innocently wandered into the same town as four blue bloods, giving Des Moines the best eight-team field of any first-weekend site. Sure, some brackets might get damaged between Thursday morning and Saturday night, but who cares? This is going to be some phenomenal basketball.
City officials, while likely scrambling to bolster security and rummage up extra hotel rooms, have got to be fist-pumping over this all-star lineup. First-time host just trying to get the house clean? Well, get ready for Oprah Winfrey and Kanye West and the Kardashian clan, because now they're showing up at your door.
First of all, Des Moines gets the No. 1 overall seed in Kansas, a popular pick to win it all. But the draw hardly drops off from there. Also playing on Thursday will be fourth-seeded Kentucky, fifth-seeded Indiana and ninth-seeded Connecticut. Are you kidding? That's four of the more storied, prideful programs in the sport, four of the best traveling, most passionate and somewhat irrational fan bases, and four of the most well-known coaches in the game. Those are four teams that are capable of kicking up some dirt and making a big run.
In the meantime, can everyone fit into Wells Fargo Arena? Will our heads all explode from too much drama in one building?
The exuberant gut reaction to the field being unveiled on Selection Sunday didn't lie. According to the Des Moines Register, the city's eight teams have combined for 206 tournament appearances, 46 Final Fours and 20 national championships, all more than any other first- and-second-round site.
As Associated Press writer Luke Meredith tweeted: "Des Moines on a Thursday will be, for the first time, where everyone in America wishes they were."
Really good, or epic?
Kansas might not boast a superstar-laden roster, but this veteran team has become beautiful to watch. Featuring a pair of future NBA pros in senior Perry Ellis and explosive junior Wayne Seldon, the Jayhawks are one of only two teams in the field who have both a top-10 offense and a top-10 defense, according to analyst Ken Pomeroy's efficiency ratings.
UConn — which, in case you forgot, won the whole thing in its past NCAA tournament appearance two years ago — will have to go through eighth-seeded Colorado, which shoots 39.2 percent from three-point range, 14th best nationally.
Kentucky, with the nation's most efficient offense and eye-popping point guard Tyler Ulis, is playing its best basketball of the season. Big Ten regular-season champion Indiana, meanwhile, should be fired up after falling to Michigan in a wild, buzzer-beating finish in the league tournament. The Hoosiers can shoot opponents out of the gym. The Wildcats have the talent to bury teams when they're on.
Oh, and these two teams happen to make up one of the most colorful rivalries in college basketball; they've refused to play each other for the past four years. What better way to settle that tiff than the basketball gods aligning the pair in the second round? There might not be enough whiskey in Iowa to handle the fallout, winners and losers.
But before you get too excited about Wildcats-Hoosiers, know that all of that could be destroyed by two of the most threatening double-digit seeds in the field. Indiana gets 12th-seeded Chattanooga, a team that beat Illinois, Georgia and Dayton away from home with feisty defenders who can grab steals and block shots at the rim. Kentucky, meanwhile, gets 13th-seeded Stony Brook and legitimate star Jameel Warney, a 6-8 senior forward who plays much bigger than that. He can go off for 30-plus any night.
Those games alone should be two of the best of the weekend. Unless they get better on Saturday, which is entirely possible. Speaking for myself and the rest of the basketball world, it can't come soon enough.
