Watch Out for UCLA and Kansas

Arron Afflalo and his UCLA teammates play excellent defense for Coach Ben Howland. The Bruins are looking to make the Final Four for the first time since they won the national title in 1995. (By Matt Sayles -- Associated Press)

If there is an unheralded No. 2 seed in this field it is UCLA. Under Ben Howland, the Bruins have become a force again because, like Howland's teams at Pittsburgh, they play excellent defense. The Bruins should reach the round of eight and might very well make it to Indianapolis.

That's no knock on Memphis, which earned its No. 1 seed by playing a tough nonconference schedule and then dominating a conference watered down by the defections of Louisville, Marquette, Cincinnati and DePaul, but still a decent bunch. UAB deserved its bid and Houston was probably one of the last teams taken off the board.

But if strength of schedule is as big a factor as we were told, then there likely will be some hard feelings in Cincinnati and College Park. The Bearcats had the fifth -toughest schedule thanks to the ferocious Big East and still didn't get in, and Maryland's schedule ranked 14th. The problem for Maryland was that it didn't beat any of those highly ranked teams (except for BC in December with Chris McCray). Cincinnati was also light on impressive wins and, in spite of chairman Craig Littlepage's ludicrous claim that the committee doesn't pay attention to how many bids each conference gets, the Bearcats were hurt by dropping to No. 9 in the Big East pecking order because of Syracuse's miraculous week in New York.

But even with its schedule, the committee didn't do Memphis any favors. The Tigers should handle Oral Roberts, but will face a tough second-round opponent in Arkansas or Bucknell. Yes, Bucknell. The Bison, as they proved last year in beating Kansas, play the kind of defense that will make them a tough out for almost anyone. Having said that, Arkansas will give them trouble with their quickness and could do the same to Memphis. Razorbacks Coach Stan Heath will only have to say "Kansas" to keep his team focused on the Bison.

The larger problem for Memphis will come in the round of 16, where it is likely to meet a young, confident and very hot Kansas team. Bill Self has done a superb job bringing the Jayhawks along, and his team should handle Bradley and Pitt (which will probably beat Kent State). Memphis-Kansas would be a matchup of two hugely talented but very young teams. One has played far tougher competition in the last month: Kansas.

Everyone will be geared up in the bottom half of the bracket for a Gonzaga-UCLA game in the round of 16. But the Bulldogs may not get that far. The dirty little secret about them is that they don't play defense. That's why so many of their games against WCC teams went to the wire. They should get past Xavier, but a second-round game against Indiana, which has somehow found itself the last three weeks, is very dangerous.

Marquette should beat Alabama in the first round to move on to play UCLA, which will easily handle Belmont in a battle of Bruins. While sitting in a motel room waiting to play Belmont on a dreary January day three years ago, Lefty Driesell decided he'd had enough with coaching. Until now, that was the Bruins' claim to fame. This is their first NCAA tournament appearance. It will be a brief one. (Insert joke about going to Aqueduct or Pimlico here, horse racing fans.)

A UCLA-Kansas region final would be about as traditional as it gets in college basketball. UCLA hasn't been to the Final Four since it won the tournament in 1995. Good story.

Kansas hasn't been since it lost the title game to Syracuse in 2003 and Roy Williams said he didn't give an [expletive] about North Carolina before leaving for North Carolina.

Self has been trying to fill gigantic shoes ever since. This may be his time.