[Dan Petrovic]

Whoever gets out of Galileo isn't going to have an easy time with it. I have a feeling there will be a lot of "breaking up" of good alliances to level the playing field in the division, but it will ultimately hurt the alliance when they get to Einstein.

Curie 2007 was a prime example of this. 330 and 1114 could have gotten together and left Einstein in ruins. However, a team ranked above 330 and kept that alliance from forming. 330 ultimately won the division, but were defeated on Einstein in two matches.

In any case, there are enough very strong teams where they can still defeat the Newton alliance champions on Einstein. Newton isn't nearly as deep as Galileo, but they still carry a lot of weight with 234, 1625, and 148, to name a few. If the right teams rank in the right spots, Galileo may have their second championship in two years.

Losing only one match during the entire Michigan State Championship is incredibly impressive. 217 will probably take the Curie title, and go on to play Galileo in the finals. Who wins from there is all up to whether the right teams rank in the right spots in their respective divisions. I'm going to say Galileo has the favor.

Archimedes has a chance in the semi-finals if things don't go as planned in Curie. Yeah, they have 1114 and 2056. When together, these teams have won every regional.

However, this game is prone to upsets, so who knows exactly what we'll see?