Selection Sunday has come and gone. No surprises with the top four seeds: UCLA, Kansas, North Carolina and Memphis. Ah, but nothing will come easy for any of those four.

My inclination on a per-game basis is to fade North Carolina and support Kansas. The Tar Heels are ranked No. 1 in the polls and the Jayhawks are fifth, but they swap positions in the Pomeroy efficiency rankings. Wisconsin got hosed with a No. 3 seed despite ranking fourth in efficiency and winning the Big Ten. And what about Kansas State (No. 15 Pomeroy) with an 11-seed?

Otherwise, the low-major spoilers are always worth our betting attention. Davidson drew a tough assignment against Gonzaga (+1.5), though, so I’m looking at St. Mary’s over Miami (-2).

Oh, and the UCLA Bruins to win it all. Not a good value at 7-2, but this is a prediction, not a pick. For value, I like the aforementioned Badgers at 25-1.

If you ask a few people which teams are likely to pay out in your March Madness betting pool you’ll probably be bombarded by the same answers over and over: North Carolina, UCLA, Kansas, Tennessee and Memphis will likely come up in every conversation around the water-cooler.

Anybody can tell you that you should be on the Top 5 schools in the nation. The hard part is picking the teams that could pull off the upset. A team you’ll want to remember come tourney time is Drake. The Bulldogs earned their tourney spot over the weekend by rolling through the Missouri Valley tourney over the weekend. That included destroying Illinois State 79-49 in the tourney final.

Bulldogs’ guard Adam Emmenecker was named the MVC Player of the Year, but he’s not the only player opposing teams have to worry about when they face Drake. John Young, Leonard Houston and Jonathan Cox can all score as well and could lead the Bulldogs deep into the tournament.