Daily Tourney Talk (Monday)

The post will be updated throughout the day...

Billy Packer to appear tomorrow (Tuesday) on ESPN News during the Hot List (12pm-3pm pacific / 3pm-6pm eastern).

Trivia Question: Who is the fifth coach to take four different colleges to the NCAA Tourney?. The answer at the bottom of today's post...

Philosophical question: Should Roy Williams cut his rotation down to 8-9 players? Personally I think not. It is harder to manage the rotations and substitutions but it has worked for him so far :) Perhaps that's why he doesn't look at the scoreboard :-)

If Kansas loses again in the first round and Kentucky loses in the first round, I have a great idea to solve the coaching problems at both schools at once: TRADE COACHES!. Bill Self will bring Kentucky fans all the McDonalds All-Americans they can handle. Tubby Smith will bring Kansas fans wins over Oral Roberts, Bucknell, Richmond, DePaul, and Bradley.


Quotables

Upset picks by BracketScience.com dude on Cold Pizza: VCU and Winthrop

Jemele Hill of ESPN.com picked Louisville making it to the Final Four

Bill Self on Kevin Durant: "best I've ever seen"

Lenn Robbins surprise pick: Long Beach State over Tennessee

Bruce Pearl: Expand the field to 80!

Len Elmore on Kansas and Bill Self: Questioned their preparation, the psychology and why they locked up in the last two first-round NCAA games.

Len Elmore on the 2006 high-schoolers being ready for the NBA Draft: Only Kevin Durant and Greg Oden are ready. The rest need more work before they are ready.

Dick Vitale has a major issue with Arkansas selection (as heard on Mike & Mike in the morning). Vitale thinks Washington State is in trouble (he probably hasn't watched them perform root canals (oops! I mean play)).

Currently airing on ESPN a two-hour edition of College Gameday with Jay Bilas, Digger Phelps, the Davis brothers (Hubert and Rece), Doug Gottlieb, Andy Katz, etc. If you missed it, it will repeat again at 930amPT/1230pmET tomorrow on ESPN.

Also new this March Madness season the two-hour edition of SportsCenterU will be airing on ESPN as well (since ESPNU is only available in limited cable systems). It starts two hours before tip-off of each day's games. (7am pacific/10am eastern). The games start at 9am pacific/noon eastern on CBS (Thursday and Friday).


CBS TV schedule

CBS Sports TV schedule

Also new this year two live games on CSTV. Read further below for details.

Detailed CBS press release including the time, date and announcement teams.

The analysts are pretty much the same as last year

More readable schedule, fewer details


Watch the games online, FREE!

You can watch the games live from the web by signing up at NCAASports.com/mmod


Pink Slip Madness - Fired:

Ron Jirsa (Marshall)

Dale Layer (Colorado State)

Steve McClain (Wyoming) - announcement coming soon


Printable Brackets

CBS Sportsline - viewable or printable, both the men's NCAA tourney, the women's NCAA tourney (announced tonight on ESPN), along with the men's and women's NIT and Division II and Division III


Tourney Talk

Don't sleep on these low-seeded teams - these could be this year's Cinderellas!

Texas A&M Corpus Cristi vs Wisconsin. Texas A&M CC has their own space-eater, he could be this year's fan-favorite Big Baby Lite

Holy Cross vs Southern Illinois. The final score will be 39-37 or something like that

Long Beach State vs Tennessee, run and gun galore, perhaps that explains why LB State was given such a high seed, so they can run-and-gun with Bruce Pearl

Albany vs Virginia. All it takes is a bad night from either Reynolds or Sean Iversonterry

Winthrop vs Notre Dame. Everyone is picking this one...

Davidson vs Maryland. Bob McKillop is a seasoned coach, he doesn't have the national media profile but people in the business know of him and worry when they face his teams. Having a scoring threat like Dell Curry's kid helps his cause (Hey, did Dell ever think of using Dell Curry in their ads?)

New Mexico State vs Texas, but only if Kevin Durant doesn't play or fouls out in the first 10 minutes of the game :-)

VCU beats Duke. Not because I don't like Duke but because VCU has better guards and a bright young coach with a freshly minted championship ring.

Bracket ThreatDown: These teams could ravage through your brackets like a bear on a picnic basket: Washington State, Holy Cross, Louisville, Texas A&M Corpus Cristi.

Fear the Wazooo! Washington State is one of those rare teams that you have to beat, they won't beat themselves. They are nowhere near as talented as Kansas or North Carolina, but they won't have meltdowns and disappear like those teams did when they lost earlier in the year. That's why Oral Roberts was able to beat Kansas, but they are very unlikely to beat Wazooo. But it's not a bed of roses: the unknown is how their new lead singer (oooops heac coach) Tony Bennett is going to react to the NCAA tourney and how will the players since this will be their first NCAA tourney.

For the first time ever CSTV will broadcast two live Round 1 NCAA basketball games, one on Thursday at 2pm pacific/5pm eastern (Vandy vs George Washington) and one on Friday at 9am pacific/noon eastern (Virginia vs Albany). The games will air locally on CBS in their local markets, so don't worry :) They will also broadcast a 30-minute pre-game show right before the games start on CBS, featuring sneak previews from the CBS people who will be announcing the games. They will also feature nightly highlight shows, press conferences and analysis (tourney talk and crystal ball).

Arizona Prediction: History Repeating: They will beat up Purdue like they did with Wisconsin last year, and they will lose to Florida the same way they lost to Villanova last year.

Graduation Rates get in the way of Madness. Allegedly only 10% of the Ohio State incoming freshmen (96-99) graduated at OSU. Click on the link for more on the Lapchick repor(t).

Big 12 coaches join Jim Boeheim in a call for a tourney expansion.

A (p)review of today's edition of USA Today (Monday) which includes a bonus 20-page NCAA tourney preview section follows this post right below.


Matchups with a Story behind them
Round One matchups

Tom Izzo of Michigan State faces off with friend and former assistant Tom Crean of Marquette

Rick Pitino playing at Rupp Arena during the first weekend. Typically this would be a hostile environment since Louisville is their mortal in-state rival, however with all the struggles of Kentucky, the nostalgia of the Pitino era at Kentucky may actually get fans to root for Pitino????

Ben Howland of UCLA faces his alma-mater of Weber State (but he faced them frequently when he coached NAU in the Big Sky)
Potential Round Two matchups

Thad Matta would face his former team (Ohio State vs Xavier)

Big East revisited: Boston College vs Georgetown

Bruce Weber would face his former team (Illinois vs Southern Illinois)

Elite 8 rematch of last year: UCLA vs Gonzaga
Potential Sweet 16 matchups

Ben Howland vs former team and friend/assistant Jamie Dixon (UCLA vs Pitt)

Pitino vs Calipari (Louisville vs Memphis)

Battle for DC: George Washington vs Georgetown

Battle for TN: Belmont vs Tennessee

More Jud Heathcote tree guys facing off: Izzo or Crean vs Stan Heath (Michigan State or Marquette vs Arkansas)

North Carolina vs Kevin Durant

Bill Self vs Illinois!, Kansas would face them, yes!

The Selection Cmte insists that this matchups and potential matchups are purely random. They are not going for the "story behind the games". They are not, they say...


NIT Tourney Talk

It was interesting to see how the "Good Ole Coaches" club seeded teams in the NIT. They paid less attention to the hard numbers (SOS, RPI, records) and more attention to their inner truthiness. So in their opinion the four best teams not in the NCAA were West Virginia, Clemson, Air Force and Mississippi State, compared to the bracketologists thinking of Syracuse, Drexel, Florida State, and Kansas State. Ironically three of the next best four teams according to the NIT cmte were the above (minus Drexel) along with Oklahoma State. Their 3rd best four teams were Drexel, Missouri State, DePaul and Michigan. Drexel was "rewarded" even with the red-hot (pun intended) NC State Wolfpack (at least they were given a home game). Clearly the NIT seeding/selection had a very distinct BCS-flavor...

Just two years ago there was a constant 40 NIT at-large bids and the BCS teams who didn't totally suck took it for granted. Not any more!. Now the NIT field is down to 32, and the at-large bids are a variable 1 to 32 because of the automatic NIT bids awared to regular season conference champions who don't make the NCAA tourney! This year the at-large field was just 24 teams because of 8 automatic NIT teams. This left teams out of the NIT that would usually get in such as Akron, Iowa, UConn, Oklahoma, Northern Iowa, Wichita State, Santa Clara, Missouri, Nebraska, Washington, California, Hawaii, Auburn, Rhode Island, Bucknell, St Louis, Dayton, Kent State, heck, even NIT Dynasty South Carolina and many more. The biggest shock being no post-season play for Jim Calhoun!.

The NIT starts on Tuesday on ESPN/2/U and continues throughout the month with the Final Four at MSG in late March.

The NIT screwed up ESPN's TV schedule because there are no home teams on the West Coast for those 9pm pacific/midnight eastern time-slots ESPN has reserved for the NIT. That's what happens when a bunch of old coaches play selection committee as opposed to the previous ESPN-puppet regime :-)

This week's NIT TV schedule has been announced, along with announcer teams. Apparently none of the ESPN all-star analysts were interested in these games :-)


Selection Sunday recap

Can any of the members of the NCAA Selection Committee actually answer the questions they are asked?. They seemed to be wondering around in circles and give cut/paste non-answers to questions asked. I am now convinced they are drones programmed by Myles Brand, the new Borg Queen!

Embarassing Selections: Illinois and Arkansas. Questionable: BYU, BC, Purdue and Xavier

Should have been in the field: Drexel for sure. Perhaps: Florida State

Conspiracy theory: Big 10 and SEC people were in the 10-drone selection cmte. Two questionable Big 10 teams were included (Illinois, Purdue) and one from the SEC (Arkansas). The Virginia AD was in, and the Cavs got a #4 seed even though they had the easiest ACC schedule... The UCLA AD was in and UCLA gets to stay in California throughout... Jim Boeheim was commenting on all this and all of a sudden the satellite link went down!... Coincidence??????? Hmmmm.....

Was UCLA and Wisconsin penalized not only for their season-ending losses but also for their slugfest style of play? Look at the four numbers: Fun and gun in Florida, Carolina, Kansas and Ohio State... Basketball is back!

Interestingly Bob Huggins answered the question on his team by making a case for Ole Miss and his former assistant/friend Andy Kennedy. Perhaps Bob Knight can start a letter-writing campaign for Kansas State to be included in the field of 65? :-)

Billy Packer never made his "groundbreaking" suggestion he promised us last week. Oh Billy... Perhaps his caddy Jim Nantz forgot to remind him :-)

Interesting feature on CBS with Seth Davis visiting the selection cmte in Indianapolis.

Someone forgot to wake up Nick Fazekas during his interview on CBS. He was either asleep or mummified or immobilized.

Boeheim (in his classic whiner-mode) says he had a strong out of conference schedule. I assume he has a memory loss problem. This is his 2006-2007 schedule. The out of conference schedule is SOFT it's an overkill to even mention that he never left the state of New York, and that 12 of the 14 games were played in the Carrier Dome, one semi-home at MSG, and a road game at the other side of the Galaxy (@ Canisius). Not to mention 8 of those teams were RPI100+. Syracuse you have earned the NIT bid, but nothing more :-)

The other Jim (Calhoun) won't have to worry about facing Dave Leito in the tourney this year. Infact he won't have to worry about facing anyone else this year, as his team was not good enough for the NIT. That's what happens when the NIT at-large field shrinks from a constant 40 in 2005 to a wildly variable range of 1-32 (24 this year).

Gary Parish's take on Selecton Sunday. He also makes a good point by contrasting the similarities between Duke and Air Force and yet Duke was a #6 seed and Air Force in the NIT.


College Hoops thoughts in general

Memo to Ernie Kent and Roy Williams: Schedule this game next year: Oregon vs North Carolina! The first one to 150 wins!

One Liners: Why does Coach K talks down to the viewers of his own coaches show? Perhaps because he knows his audience?

Ben Howland has reached a new low. Right after the brackets were announced he became an embedded ad for DirecTV's Mega March Madness satellite tv package for just $69. He appeared live on ESPN, ESPNU, ESPN News (and who knows what else since I can't watch them all). Each was a separate live interview, not a repeat. In each interview he advertised the DirecTV package. His team's bracket was just announced, but his priority was to advertise the DirecTV package. How sad is that? Up to now my issues with Ben Howland was the slugfest style of play and having a starting wrestler instead of a starting center. Now this embarassment. No wonder his team lost the last two games: He was busy rehearsing his lines for the embedded DirecTV commercials!

Meanwhile USC had one of the most age-diverse group of freshmen. Taj Gibson was 21+ as he spent 2+ years in prep school. Dwight Lewis was also older than the average freshman (or looks like it anyway). Meanwhile Rudy Hackett's son was a freshmen even though he was supposed to be in high school this season. He took extra classes and get eligible since USC needed a point guard after the tragic death of Ryan Francis.

We want Tubby! We want Tubby! The Kentucky AD gave Tubby a stronger vote of spin-confidence this time when talking to the AP. This (if nothing else) helps calm everyone down and lets the players/coaches focus on the catfight ahead (vs Nova, both Wildcats). They will discuss "changes" at the end of the season. Clearly, there's more on this story once Kentucky's season is over...

More details emerging in the Pokey Chatman case according to SI. Judging from that story, it looks like there's more to the story that's gonna come up later on (that's only my guess though, I have no insider info)


The Colbert Repor(t) Homage segment

Tip of the Hat: Sidney Lowe, Engin Atsur and the rest of the NC State team for their valiant effort in the ACC tourney.

Wag of the finger: Roy Williams for pulling out Wes Miller after he hit two back to back three-pointers

Bracket ThreatDown: These teams could ravage through your brackets like a bear on a picnic basket: Washington State, Holy Cross, Louisville, Texas A&M Corpus Cristi.

It was interesting to see how the "Good Ole Coaches" club seeded teams in the NIT. They paid less attention to the hard numbers (SOS, RPI, records) and more attention to their inner truthiness



Xs and Os

Majerus playing D and breaking it down at the same time? Yes, it happened on ESPN! That's what happenes when you put a basketball court inside the studio... I was worried as he started running out of breath.

Roy Williams seems to have found a new pattern: going back to his 2005 players in the last 4 minutes of the game, featuring a combo of Psycho-T, Terry, Miller, Frasor, Ginyard, and Green

Philosophical question: Should Roy Williams cut his rotation down to 8-9 players? Personally I think not. It is harder to manage the rotations and substitutions but it has worked for him so far :) Perhaps that's why he doesn't look at the scoreboard :-)

Trivia Answer: The coach in question is UNLV's Lon Kruger.


Blogging

Thanks to the Future of Hoops blog, for the link. FutureOfHoops is scouting the next generation of NBA players.

Thanks to the No More Spin Sports blog for the link!

Thanks for the link to the BuzzTracker.com's March Madness section