Dick Jerardi: Breaking down this year's bracket

IF YOU ARE starting to fill out your bracket by saying that last year there were no No. 1 or No. 2 seeds in the Final Four, stop now. What went down then has nothing to do with what may go down now.

This is about these teams in this bracket. Try to understand these matchups and select accordingly.

Kentucky has the best players. They play the best defense. They shoot well enough from the arc. They have a unique difference-maker in Anthony Davis. But . . .

They are very young and not deep. Doesn't that matter?

I care about the talent, not something that can't be quantified like youth and depth. I would rather have really good to potentially great young players than solid older players. And depth is irrelevant with all these long media timeouts.

I like Kentucky, but not as much as I liked Memphis in 2008. And we know how that turned out. Memphis was the best team and gave the championship away to Kansas.

If it's not UK, it really should be North Carolina. These two teams have, by far, the most talent. They also have holes. I wonder about the UK point guard play and I do not like that UNC rarely shoots threes.

First-round upsets - No. 12 Long Beach State over No. 5 New Mexico; No. 13 Montana over No. 4 Wisconsin; No. 14 South Dakota State over No. 3 Baylor; and No. 14 Belmont over No. 3 Georgetown?

I have no idea why Long Beach was a No. 12. The committee did a very good New Mexico team no favors.

My favorite team in the bracket is Missouri. No team is more fun to watch or looks more like the sport in 2012. Guards everywhere, threes from all angles, points galore.

A game I really want to see would be Mizzou-Marquette in the Sweet 16. That would be flat-out wild.

The Xavier team from November could beat Duke in Greensboro. I am not sure the Xavier team now can even beat Notre Dame to get to Duke.

The key for Kansas is to avoid a team with really good guards (like VCU last season).

Want to see contrasting styles? Check out Memphis-Saint Louis.

If it really were UK-UNC in New Orleans, it would be like an NBA playoff game because more than half the starting lineups will be in the league next season.