Column: Prepare for NCAA Tournament chaos

Do these brackets make anyone else feel queasy?

All week, like the rest of America, I have been fulfilling my mid-March social responsibility of filling out NCAA tournament brackets, but the whole time it has been with this uneasy feeling that makes my insides hurt.

This year’s brackets are harder to predict than North Korea’s wine-and-dine schedule and perhaps any of the other brackets from the last 20 years.

Predicting the unpredictable leading up to the Final Four is as much about knowing matchups as it is about getting lucky, so here are the lenses that I looked through to forecast how each region will play out.

The Midwest Region is the region of “the legendary coach.”

Talk about a region stacked with three legendary tournament coaches: Michigan State’s Tom Izzo, Louisville’s Rick Pitino and Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski. One team is driven by the memory of one who has passed — the late, great former Saint Louis Coach Rick Majerus.

If you put stock in coaching credentials when selecting brackets, like I do, it’s hard to ignore the fact that Izzo (35), Pitino (38) and Krzyzewski (79) all have more tournament wins than the other 13 coaches in the Midwest region combined (16).

Even more shockingly, Izzo, Pitino and “Coach K” only have six more tournament losses than the other 13 coaches combined, while posting more Final Four trips (21) than the other coaches have wins.

The easy choice is to trust that one of these three coaches will get to the Final Four again.

The hard part is choosing which coach and team it will be.

I like Louisville’s Russ Smith, Peyton Siva and Pitino’s Southern gentleman-style white suit to move on.

As for things out in Los Angeles, the West Region transforms into the Wild West once it hits the Sweet 16.

Coincidentally, that’s the exact same time I want to start pulling out my hair.

New Mexico is the favorite “sleeper” to make it through the gauntlet to Atlanta, but they won’t be the quickest team in the West to use the phrase “nobody believed in us.”

Gonzaga is more than a mid-major program at this point, earning its first No. 1 seed ever, but the Bulldogs have only advanced as far as the Elite Eight once (1999).

Wisconsin could be the ultimate bracket buster of this region, but I’m not even confident about picking them against Mississippi.

As a Wisconsin reporter told me at the Big Ten tournament, “the only way to beat Wisconsin is to beat them at their own game.”

IU found out twice what happens if you stubbornly continue to force your style upon the Badgers — it doesn’t work.

No. 12 Ole Miss is an agitator just like Wisconsin.

The Rebels are capable of playing an ugly game to get a win behind lightning rod Marshall Henderson, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Wisconsin flops early.

For the sake of Wisconsin advancing in my bracket, I see the Badgers bringing the same crispness they showed in Chicago to catapult themselves through the No. 5-No. 12 matchup and past Kansas State into the Sweet 16.

These three teams make picking the West a crapshoot, and I haven’t even mentioned the Big Ten tournament champion No. 2 Ohio State Buckeyes.

Good luck predicting the West.

From the West we head to the South region, where you should expect teams wearing blue to dominate, but I wouldn’t count on the “Big Blue” from Ann Arbor, Mich., for an extended run.

Since 1979, No. 4 seeds have advanced to the championship game only twice (Syracuse in 1996 and Arizona in 1997) and have only made 12 Final Fours compared to 55 for No. 1 seeds and 30 for No. 2 seeds.

No. 1 Kansas has a chance to make back-to-back Final Fours for the first time since 2002-03, but I’ll take Otto Porter and the still rising Georgetown Hoyas for a rematch of the Legends Classic with the No. 1 Hoosiers of the East region.

Realistically, I see the East having the best chance of coming down to the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds.

If IU and the No. 2 Miami Hurricanes reach the Elite Eight, the best team from the best conference — the Big Ten — is 8-6 against current ACC teams all-time in the tournament but is only 1-4 in the last five matchups.

I think IU has what it takes to get to Atlanta, but that’s not to say that a lot of stomachs won’t be turning throughout the journey.

This tournament is going to be one that makes you watch between the cracks of the fingers covering your face because you can hardly watch your team on the verge of defeat, all while still holding on to hope that they will resurrect themselves in spectacular fashion.

As wide-open as this tournament feels, remember that 67 teams suffer the same sad fate of stepping onto the floor of the “Big Dance” only to be left stag when the clock strikes midnight.

Only one team can be Cinderella as the song “One Shining Moment” immortalizes the moment into NCAA history.

Until then, keep plenty of chicken noodle soup on hand, because this tournament could make anyone who filled out a bracket feel sick.

­— mdnorman@indiana.edu