Tennessee has the talent to knock off North Carolina

Tyler Smith and the run-and-gun Vols have averaged 80.9 points per game this season, ninth in the nation. Chris Graythen/Getty Images

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Underrated: Butler. The Bulldogs reached the Sweet 16 as a No. 5 seed last year, then went 29-3 this season ... and were rewarded with a No. 7 slot in the same pod as Tennessee.

What ultimately dragged Butler down in the bracket was its nonconference schedule, which didn't feature the kind of beasts (Tennessee, Notre Dame, Indiana and Gonzaga) its '06-07 slate did.

To be fair, though, there's no way the Bulldogs could have expected this year's crop of non-league opponents -- Texas Tech, Virginia Tech, Ohio State, Florida State and Southern Illinois -- would all flop so badly that they'd miss the NCAA tournament.

Still, Brad Stevens' team boasts one of the savviest backcourts in the country, led by Horizon League MVP Mike Green and Chuck Norris-like cult hero A.J. Graves. Six of Butler's top seven players are seniors. The Bulldogs didn't deserve to have to face South Alabama on Friday, and then potentially the second-most underrated team in this region -- No. 2 Tennessee, which was jobbed out of a No. 1 seed -- on Sunday.

Overrated: Oklahoma. The Sooners aren't as strong of a No. 6 seed as Purdue (in the West) or USC (in the Midwest). While they have one of the country's most bullish freshmen in forward Blake Griffin (15.4 ppg, 9.4 rpg), they've often struggled to put points on the board, scoring just 45 in back-to-back games against Texas and Nebraska in February. Bad road losses tend to be red flags that a team is ripe for a first-round upset, and OU fell at Colorado by 14 and at Nebraska by 18. The Sooners' first-round opponent, St. Joe's, hasn't been a consistently great team but has shown potential as a giant-killer, upsetting Atlantic 10 champ Xavier twice during March.

Bracket Buster: South Alabama. Team USA -- that's the Jaguars' school acronym, but not yet their official title -- did some damage on the nonconference circuit, dropping San Diego and Mississippi State and taking Vanderbilt to overtime on its abnormal home court. Not only is South 'Bama getting to play in a de-facto home pod (Birmingham is less than a four-hour drive from its campus in Mobile) despite being a No. 10 seed, but also its first-year coach, Ronnie Arrow, put a serious scare in second-seeded Wisconsin last season with his old club, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.

Home cooking: After being forced to trek to East Rutherford, N.J., last year for the East Regional finals, where it fell to Georgetown, North Carolina could reach the Final Four in '08 without having to make much of a dent in its NCAA travel stipend. The Heels' first-round site at Raleigh's RBC Center is less than a 30-minute drive from Chapel Hill, and neither of the teams they'll face there -- most likely Mount St. Mary's and Arkansas -- pose much of an upset threat. As they try to fend off a dangerous Tennessee team at the regional final in Charlotte, Tyler Hansbrough & Co. will need as much help as they can get from the Carolina-blue-tinged crowd.

Best player you've never heard of: Reggie Larry, Boise State. Not only is he notable for having a last name that's a first name, Larry was also a beast in the WAC tournament final, scoring 31 points and grabbing 16 rebounds in a triple-overtime win over New Mexico State. The 6-foot-6, 225-pound forward from Newark, N.J., spent two years at a junior college, the University of Southern Idaho, before landing in Boise and emerging as a force in the WAC. He averaged 19.6 points and 9.3 rebounds this season and isn't the kind of player to be intimidated by Louisville's interior muscle.

Best matchup: Tennessee-North Carolina, in the East Regional final at Bobcats Arena. It's almost as if the Vols (the nation's 19th-fastest team and eighth-most efficient offense) and the Heels (the seventh-fastest team and third-most efficient offense) were made for each other. Hansbrough is liable to get Tennessee's entire front line in foul trouble, but Carolina should struggle to defend the Smith trio (JaJuan, Ramar and Tyler) and Chris Lofton. If both of these teams can reach the Elite Eight, the atmosphere is bound to be electric. Enough Vols fans should flock to Charlotte -- it's less than a four-hour trip from Knoxville -- to counteract the noise of the Carolina faithful.

The pick: Tennessee. Aside from Texas, the Vols might be the most battle-tested team in the entire bracket. They've beaten Memphis, Xavier and Gonzaga (in Seattle) on the road, West Virginia and Western Kentucky on neutral courts, and won the SEC regular-season title. As much as North Carolina has looked phenomenal over the past two weeks, Tennessee won't be fazed by facing the Heels in Charlotte. That scenario cannot be as daunting as going into FedEx Forum in late February and knocking off an undefeated Memphis team. It'll take lights-out shooting by Lofton and JaJuan Smith, plus a career game from Wayne Chism on D to book a trip to San Antonio, but the Vols are up to the task.