Quick thoughts/facts on the bracket:
- Pittsburgh was the #1 overall seed by a huge margin, with nearly double the points of #2 overall Key West. It appeared on 7/16 ballots.
- With a region that includes Wuhan and repeat-location Nashville as its toughest competitors, Pitt should roll to the Final Four unless we see some random love for Burlington or Madison.
- The years-long push by Bennett to get Key West into contention seems to have finally paid off, as it gets a 1 seed and a relatively easy region despite only four people listing it on their ballot.
- Unless we see another Cinderella run from Cincinnati, we're likely seeing Key West and Seattle in the Elite Eight, which literally cannot be farther away from each other in the continental United States, and are also backed by Bennett and Nick respectively. I'm looking forward to that one.
- The bottom regions should be more competitive as the 1 seeds both are relatively difficult to get to for a long weekend.
- I can see Asheville, Chicago, or the Poconos easily coming out of their region, though Asheville was on the second most ballots overall, only one behind Pittsburgh, which indicates a lot of lukewarm support.
- Portland, OR as a 1 seed was a bit of a surprise, and will face stiff competition from Austin, Las Vegas, and Montreal.
- Almost every city nominated made the bracket, as the only two that did not were Asbury Park (Alan) and Washington DC (Weissbard). My tiebreak for cities with only 1 point is whichever ballot came in first, so you snooze you lose.
- I think we're going to need more information on are Des Moines (Belf) and Wisconsin Dells (Z), and if anyone is really serious about the international locations, I'm going to want to see a VRBO listing to prove we can stay somewhere with adequate plumbing.
