FanHouse IsaiahThomas

For the second consecutive game, the Purdue Boilermakers looked like they were going to cruise to an easy victory. For the second consecutive game, however, they allowed their opposition to creep back into the game and make things a little too interesting.

You have to give the Huskies credit, as they battled back into the game behind the inside-outside duo of Jon Brockman and Isaiah Thomas. Purdue, though, held off the furious comeback bid by Washington, and ended up winning a game in which it never trailed.

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The NCAA tournament is just one day away, so FanHouse writers and editors got together to talk over each region. The Midwest Region got the ball rolling, followed by the East. The South looks like it could go to the top seeds, but what about the West? Here is the last installment of our NCAA FanHouse Roundtables.

Chris Burke: Unlike the other three regions, where it's the top seeds' bracket to lose, UConn may not have the same stranglehold over things due to Jerome Dyson's injury. The Huskies have lost two straight and are just 4-3 since Dyson hurt his knee, so they look, to me, like the most vulnerable of all the No. 1 seeds. It doesn't help that, after the first round, they may not have another easy game. The other six teams in the top-half of this bracket can be considered threats, from Washington right on down to Mississippi State and Northern Iowa.

You can't blame Jim Calhoun if he's whistling "Route 66" over the next couple of days because he certainly loves to travel west. Both of Calhoun's national championship teams, in 1999 and 2004, came out of the West Region. So Calhoun's probably feeling like a million bucks right now -- or $1.6 million bucks, as we all now know he makes (But he's worth it, just ask him.) -- with Connecticut grabbing the top spot out west.

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There was a forgettable movie released around 10 years ago called The Sixth Man starring Marlon Wayans and Kadeem Hardison as brothers -- one from beyond the grave -- who lead the University of Washington to an NCAA title.

The movie always seemed like make believe. No, not that a ghost came back from the dead to lead a college basketball team to a championship. Rather, that it was Washington winning a championship. The Huskies have never been thought of as a national power.

But those days are over now that Washington has won the Pac-10 title outright for the first time since 1953.

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