/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/69043770/1306944947.0.jpg)
If you’ve been watching a Pac-12 game on ESPN after 11pm on the East Coast, you’ve likely come across the color commentary of one of the best players in college basketball history. Bill Walton won two national championships at UCLA, only lost two games in college, won two NBA championships, and is in the Basketball Hall of Fame. He has all the credentials to be considered a basketball expert.
But if you’ve listened to Walton, you know unbiased opinion and commentary isn’t exactly his milieu.
It’s been a long, strange trip for the San Diego resident, who is now the unofficial mascot of Pac-12 basketball. But maybe all of those, ahem, outside activities gave him some unbeknownst clarity — as Bill Walton’s Final Four bracket is about the only one in America still standing.
Bill Walton’s Final Four: USC, Colorado, Oregon State, Oregon (despite being in USC’s region), UCLA (despite that you can only have 4 teams in the final four).
— Dave Pasch (@DavePasch) March 14, 2021
Five Pac-12 teams made it to the NCAA Tournament, and with 7/8 of the field eliminated, three of them still stand in USC, UCLA, and Oregon State. And it might be four if USC didn’t knock out Oregon!
No one expected the Pac-12 to be this good this season, but now Walton’s beloved Conference of Champions could potentially get three teams in the Final Four. That’s only happened once, by the Big East in 1985.
(Note: This would require three upsets, as all the remaining teams are at least seven-point underdogs at DraftKings Sportsbook as of right now — and we’ll ignore the fact that he picked five teams for four slots).
Walton even backed up these picks in a rant for the ages on ESPN yesterday, where in a five-box of college basketball analysts, he was the only one talking for over eight minutes.
It's March, so naturally @BillWalton was in peak form talking about Pac-12 Conference hoops on @CollegeGameDay pic.twitter.com/XapJCHbQ4G
— ESPN (@espn) March 28, 2021
So be glad you’re not in a bracket pool with Bill Walton, because the crazy guy you laugh along with would make sure you have no chance of winning.