Western Kentucky, the trendy pick for your 5-12 upset

When it comes to filling out a tournament bracket, there are certain strategies that have been repeated over and over until they become a law. Never pick a 16 over a 1, never pick all of the 8 seeds to win their first game, never pick all #1s to make the final four,(at least it used to be) and always pick at least one #5 #12 upet. These sort of rules for brackets have made for several knee jerk reactions to the initial bracketing. Specifically which 9's will beat 8's, and which 12 will take down a 5. As soon as Illinois popped up on the board Seth Davis and Jay Bilas both exclaimed that they had their 5/12 upset. Afterall Western Kentucky had beaten almighty Louisville, the 1 of 1's. Surely the Hilltoppers could then take down the Illini that have posted losses with scores in the 30's.

Knee-jerk reactions aside, lets have a look at the WKU resume to date.

First off, get familiar with the Hilltoppers with Searching for Billy Edelin's "we're dancing" feature.

The big plus on the resume of WKU is of course the win over Louisville, surprising the Cardinals by outscoring them in the paint and giving talented freshman forward Samardo Samuels fits all game. Overall though WKU is a small team that relies on outside shooting, and of course the 3 ball to beat their opponents intoo submission.

If there is a problem though with WKU it is defense, something that becomes clear when looking at the scores of its very bad losses this season. The Hilltoppers gave up 95 to the oft hapless Mississippi State, 89 to non-bid Murray State, and 87 to Troy.  Its other bad loss, to Evansville, was a 32 point pasting, where the Hilltoppers had only 26% shooting. As often as Illinois is criticized for not scoring in droves, but still keeping the game close with defense, I would like to see some criticism of teams that while they score in bunches also often don't bother to play defense. I know Big Ten basketball isn't sexy, but it is a formula for winning this year.

And as far as the credit WKU gets for beating Louisville, lets also look at Minnesota and UNLV, the other two non-conference losses the Cardinals have on their schedule. If what Bilas and Davis and Winn all agree that WKU will beat Illinois, because they beat UL, they should also be taking the Gophers over Texas (a 10 over a 7) and should be screaming about why the Rebels are left out of the tournament. Both of these teams have other good wins in their out of conference and conference seasons to go along with their UL win. WKU's next best win...Georgia, yeah Georgia.

So I hope that this does provide some context for the Hilltoppers who have been at points this year a very good team, but at others very bad. As for your 5/12 upset, I would be more comfortable with Wisconsin over Florida State (another team WKU lost to.)

There will be coverage all week of the Illini WKU matchup, so come back everyday for another take on the Illini's first round opponent.