Selection Sunday Bubble Talk!

Great 1-hour documentary produced by ESPNU called "Organizing the Madness". It was shown last night on ESPN, and it replays on ESPNU throughout the week. If you don't have access to ESPNU, contact ESPN and ask for another rerun. It features Jay Bilas and the NCAA VP of Men's basketball, taking a step-by-step look at how the Selection cmte gets the job done. Props to the NCAA for giving some insight inside the selection process. I wish they would offer a free download of the software used by the selection committee!

The ACC tourney broadcasts are becoming very annoying. Non-stop whining by Dick Vitale and Mike Patrick defending Duke as if they were Coach K's lawyers. How can they possibly be unbiased reporters? They are Duke cheerleaders! This is very annoying. Speaking of Duke bias, Jay Bilas does it again: He shreds Florida State (which would have won @Duke if the refs did not show blatant Duke favoritism), and at the same time he praises and defends Michigan, coached by his friend and former teammate Tommy "Hot Seat" Amaker. Jay Bilas is a lawyer so he is able to disguise or cover up his favoritism most of the times, but there are times he gets caught red-handed. Shameless Dookies!

Poor Joe Lunardi, he got attacked like crazy by Digger Phelps, Jay Bilas and Rece Davis yesterday on ESPN's Game Day. Even Dookie Vitale felt bad for him. And to pile on Jay Bilas, he shredded Joe Lunardi for overweighing the importance of the RPI, and guess what, Bilas has been using the RPI to evaluate teams throughout the season on College Game Day. You can't hide from this Mr Bilas. You are on record!

Meanwhile on CBS, Florida is taking the air out of the South Carolina bubble. But we are still in the 1st half. A rather slow game, with the spaced out Vern Linquist, the only entertaining thing in that game is Raft.

South Carolina is officially out unless they win today? That's what could be inferred after listening to Craig Littlepage today on CBS's "Road to the Final Four", which will have a free live webcast later today on the CBS website.

Jealous of Cisco for sponsoring a lot of college basketball, competitor Juniper Networks will be sponsoring segments of the CBS NCAA tourney coverage.


NIT Bubble Talk

Automatic bids: Western Kentucky, Manhattan, NAU, FDU, Georgia Southern, Lipscomb, Delaware State.

This leaves 33 at-large NIT bids for the bubble teams and the middle-of-the-road "BCS" teams and high profile mid-majors. The automatic inclusion of conference champions means fewer bids for BCS teams as illustrated by the list above.

One more automatic NIT bid could be earned today if Northwestern State loses in today's Southland conference tourney final. NW State is an under-rated and underappreciated team and they will get to the post season regardless.