Daily Bubble Talk (Friday)

This will be updated throughout the day. Newest items will appear on top...

TV Listings for Saturday March 10, 2007
*** all times pacific; add +3 for eastern ***
*** double check with local listings as usual ***

midnight, Basketball Weekly, CSN

830am, Conference USA final, Houston vs Memphis, CBS

9am, ESPN Gameday, ESPN

9am, ACC Basketball Today, Fox College Sports

9am, America East final, Albany vs Vermont, ESPN2

1030am, 1230pm, ACC semifinals, North Carolina vs Boston College, NC State vs VirginiaTech/WakeForest, ESPN

1040am, 1250pm, Big 10 semifinals, Purdue vs Ohio State, Wisconsin vs Indiana/Illinois (going to overtime as we speak), CBS

11am, 1pm, Big 12 semifinals, Kansas vs Kansas State, Oklahoma State vs Texas/Baylor, ESPN2

3pm, Pac-10 final, Oregon/Cal vs USC/WashingtonState, CBS

3pm, Atlantic-10 (14 really) final, Rhode vs GW/StLouis ESPN

3pm, MEAC final, ESPN Classic

330pm, College gamenight update, ESPN2

4pm, MAC final, Miami Ohio vs Akron/someone ESPN2

4pm, Mountain West final, BYU/Wyoming vs UNLV/ColoradaState, Versus (formerly OLN)

5pm, ESPN Gameday, ESPN

6pm, 12am, Big East final, Georgetown vs Pitt/Louisville, ESPN (a rare (these days) game repeat on ESPN)

6pm, WAC final, ESPN2

8pm, Big West final, ESPN2

9pm, Midnight Madness with Tom Brennan, Doug Gotlieb and Rev, ESPN

high school hoops tourney games on Fox College Sports

Upcoming shows on HBO: REAL Sports with Greg Gumble will feature the Wisconsin men's team, while Costas Now will have a feature on college sports, paying student athletes and everyone's favorite Coach Dirty-K. Comcast will be having a free preview of HBO March 15-18.

Multiple Significant Game Updates!: Jeff "Scottie Pippen" Green makes a 3-point play with 35 seconds left and gives Georgetown a narrow victory over the Fighting Digger Phelpses. Smart move by Jonathan Wallace at the end of the game to throw the ball up in the air in order to deplete the remaining time... King Sidney "Leonidas" Lowe with his bright red royal jacket leads the way for a win over Virginia and moves to the semifinals to face the winner of Virginia Tech vs Wake Forest... Oklahoma State beats Texas A&M by 1, revitalizing their resume, and keeping hope alive for an at-large as they move to the Big 12 semifinals tomorrow... NIT-wise, Toledo has captured the 5th NIT automatic bid as they lost in today's MAC semifinal to Miami of Ohio... To answer a reader's question, yes an ESPN Full Court subscription includes conference tourney games scheduled to be shown on ESPN Full Court.

Bid Stealer Alerts: Rhode beat Xavier, and with UMass out of the tourney it means the automatic Atlantic-10 bid will go to either Rhode Island or the winner of Saint Louis/George Washington. Bubble teams are crying as we speak... In the ACC, NC State is leading Virginia by 5 with 3m 45s left... With a minute left, Oklahoma State is just 1 point behind Texas A&M... NIT-wise, Toledo is down 1 to Miami(OH) and will get an automatic NIT bid if they lose (they are playing in the MAC semifinal today).

Bid Stealer Alert!!! Rhode Island leads Xavier by 8 with 18 seconds left!

Nice lightweight self-updating scoreboard at Sportsline.com. Scoreboard link here

Bracketology Update Alert: Joe Lunardi on the 3pm PT/6pm ET Sportscenter: "17 teams fighting for 8 spots".

Jerry Palm in-studio update on CSTV with Brian Curtis: UCLA still a number one but have to wait to see what the other #1 seed contenders do... West Virginia: not enough (screams NIT)... Air Force: losing last four is not a good historical indicator for an at-large bid...

Good wins for Arkansas and Mississippi State in the SEC

Nevada's Kyle Shiloh may be out for the season after stepping/slipping on a logo which prompted Nevada coach Mark Fox to speak out against their usage when they put players at risk.

Bill Self is very happy today. Not because he advanced in the next round of the Big 12 tourney, but because he won't have to face Bucknell in the first round this year! NIT bubble teams also rejoiced as Holy Cross would have gotten an automatic NIT bid had they lost to Bucknell.

Sports or Entertainment? You decide... The 2007 edition of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue

Most wins in first 15 years of Coaching (courtesy of CSTV). These numbers would have more weight if an average RPI/SOS accompanined them :-)
1. Ole Roy (Roy Williams) 418
2. Nolan Richardson 371
3. Denny Crum 370
4. Jim Boeheim 369
=5. John Calipari 365 (this is his 15th year, so he can climb the ladder a bit)
=5. Tubby Smith 365

We are ready to call it: Tubby is now officially on the hot seat after losing in overtime to an NIT-level team (Mississippi State). Anything short of a Final Four and things will be hard for Tubby. Even struggling Indiana is back on the spotlight with a Top 10 recruit (Eric Gordon of 2007). Tubby maybe a class act and a good coach, but ten years since the last Final Four is an eternity at Kentucky. Sometimes teams get unlucky, bad timing, injuries, running into a hot player (eg Dwyane Wade). But it's not just that: Kentucky is no longer a top-tier national power. Even control-freak slugfest-style-of-play Ben Howland has been able to get a Top 5 recruit in Kevin Love. Carolina and Kansas can stack their bench with Top 100 players. Kelvin Sampson stole Eric Gordon. Coach Dirty-K can bs his way to any parent's living room and get them to sign. Tubby has been unwilling/unable to get any game-changing performers. And when he gave in to the pressure to bring McDonalds-level talent, they did not deliver as expected. Morris left the team for the NBA without telling anyone, Crawford left too, Bradley should be the 3rd guard in a big-time team roation yet he starts for Tubby. Rondo was a great athlete and rebounder but not a classic point guard. This year's class is an excellent foundation class, but they can't do it on their own. Let me finish by saying that if Tubby was at a Top 25 program instead of a Top Six program they would have built statues and named buildings after him. But he is not...

Classic NCAA games on TV: Look for both ESPN Classic and CSTV (now a CBS Sports company) to show a number of classic NCAA games from Monday March 12 thru Wednesday March 14, 2007. ESPN Classic will have a total of 11 classic upsets, including Richmond/Syracuse, and SantaClara/Arizona, while CSTV will show various games including 2005 Syracuse/Vermont, 2006 Florida/Georgetown, and of course 2006 George Mason/UConn.

Memphis can't even get a strong opponent in the C-USA semifinal. While Tulane is one of the best shot-blocking C-USA teams, they are no match for the AASAA Tigers. C-USA looked promising last year with Mike Anderson (UAB) and Doc Sandler (UTEP) looking to put pressure on Memphis. But after both of them went to the Big 12 North (no coincidence I should add, since that division is wide-open after the Kansas schools: the other four teams have rebooted their basketball programs (Colorado, Nebraska, Missouri, Iowa State)). So now Calipari is towering over C-USA. But UAB promises (on paper) to be an NCAA-caliber team next year (three "BCS" transfers sitting out), unless Mike Davis has another meltdown/whine-fest...

TV Listings time-change issue! When looking at TV listings after 2am March 11, 2007, some websites have not yet been updated to reflect the earlier start of Daylight Saving (not Savings) time. Spring means spring forward, at 2am Sunday the clock changes to 3am. Double-check your VCRs, Tivos, computers, dvd recorders and other equipment if you plan any unattended recordings...

Just updated NIT Central. Four automatic NIT bids, six conference tourneys remain that could award an NIT automatic. Two more if BYU and Xavier do not win and they do not get an NCAA at-large.

Reader Question (sort of): What's the minimum numbers of wins for an NIT bid? Answer: There is no minimum number of wins but teams with overall losing records are not eligible for NIT consideration (unless they get the automatic NIT bid, although it's hard to have a losing record if you win your own conference's regular season).

Just started on ESPN2: The Patriot League final with Tim McCormick (annoying voice?). Holy Cross is guaranteed post-season play as they get an automatic NIT bid if they lose tonight (or they could perhaps get an at-large NCAA bid, but those chances are not particularly high with a bcs-biased selection environment)

GQ segment: Roy's tie vs Florida State. Do you buy it or eBay it?

Rick Majerus is the studio analyst on ESPN! Watch and learn! Majerus is a one-man basketball clinic... Majerus pointed out the problems and unfairness of conference tournaments... But he is not infallible: He said that Stanford is out yet he didn't even know that Anthony Goods was back...

One can only feel for the Michigan seniors, committing to the rebuilding of a fallen program and suffering from the consequences of violations they had nothing to do with. It would be nice if they ended their careers with an NCAA tourney trip. However, just like them, there are many other teams with emotionally-deserving stories, so Michigan has to earn it on the court. And they were unable to beat Ohio State, so now they'll have to sweat it out on Selection Sunday.

Florida State almost hurt themselves by getting blown out. They lost their composure (players and coach) because of a bad call at the end of the first half and risked getting blown out... Al Thornton joined the latest hip group of college basketball players: crying in a towel. So stop picking on Josh "Big-Cry-Baby" McRoberts... Carolina showed they can win in a half-court game and without Hansbrough being a major factor (1st game with the mask). Winning the ACC tourney has been an issue of debate in NC, however this is a young team and would benefit a lot from cutting down the nets of a tourney as practice for the big tourney later on. As you may recall they failed to win the pre-season NIT (NIT Tip Off) even though they were the clear favorite.

Will Tyler Hansborough's protective mask find its way to eBay the same way Adam Morrison's bloody gauze did?

TV Listings are below

Pink Slip Madness continues: Brad Holland of San Diego is fired. La Rev points to a story where a newspaper writer used A)inappropriate B)cruel C)insensitive D)unfortunate language to describe the firing of the coach.

Hope Lives for these potential bid stealers: Saint Louis (UMass), Wake Forest (Georgia Tech), Colorado State (San Diego State), LSU (Tennessee)

Losses that hurt: Arizona, Air Force, San Diego State, UMass, Georgia Tech, UCLA, Dirty Duke, Tennessee

Memo to the FSN people covering the Pac-10 tourney: It's better to ignore other conferences than appear totally clueless: When talking about the possible #1 seeds in the NCAA tourney they included the usual suspects (Kansas, Wisconsin, Ohio State, etc) and ...Oklahoma State! I assume they meant to include Texas A&M, but it's hard to call it a typo :-) I bet that got the people in Stillwater excited :-)

Right now: Dick Vitale is doing the Florida State vs North Carolina on ESPN2, while Lavin and Musburger are doing the Big 10 game (Michigan vs Ohio State)

Remember you can watch all championship week games from the ESPN family of networks online for free at espn360.com

Tired of the Ron Artest arrests and the sex scandal at LSU? Read about the inspirational story of VCU's Calvin Roland, who went from living in the locker room of his junior college to working on his master's thesis at VCU. You may have heard of this story if you watched the CAA conference tourney finals on ESPN with Jimmy Dykes.