Daily Tourney Talk (Monday)

The Coaching Carousel has been updated with an analysis of the 17 jobs that have been filled so far, comparing jobs given to head coaches vs jobs given to associate head coaches.

The 2007 McDonalds All American All Star game will air on Wednesday March 28, 2007 on ESPN. More details at Recruiting Wars.

Just announced: The Dick Vitale College Basketball All-American Special on ABC this Saturday, March 31, 2007, at 1:30pmET/12:30pm central/2pm pacific (the time varies from region to region because of live events before/after it). If you miss it, it will repeat on ESPN2 at 930am pacific on Sunday. Some of the online/cable tv listings may not be yet updated with it, so check again later on.


NCAA TV ratings on CBS for week 2

Thursday: Day 1 of the Sweet 16 got CBS a 6.9 (11%) and 3.9... Last year they got 8.2 (13%), and 4.3 in 18-49.

Friday: Day 2 of the Sweet 16 got CBS a 6.2 (11%) and 3.2, all #1s... Last year they got 6.9 (12%) and 3.9.

Saturday: Day 1 of the Elite 8 got CBS the #1 spot in the 18-49 group (2.9 rating)... Last year they got a 6.1 (11%) and 3.3 in 18-49.

Sunday: The dramatic overtime of North Carolina vs Georgetown got CBS a 10.1 (19%), with a 4.8 rating in the category advertisers love (18-49). This was #1 across the board... Last year they got a 10.1 (17%) and 4.7 in the same timeslot.



Final Four Predictions

Both Rick Majerus and Steve Lavin predict a Georgetown vs UCLA final, and both predict Georgetown to win. Bill Bradley also picks Georgetown.

Digger Phelps and Dick Vitale predict Ohio State vs Florida. Digger thinks payback will be a factor in favor of UCLA, but not enough to tilt the scales.

Jay Bilas picks UCLA over Florida in a single-elimination game. But if it was a best of seven he prefers Florida.

Skip Bayless predicts Florida beating Ohio State handily in the national title game

Andy Katz predicts Georgetown beats Ohio State.

Doug Gottleib predicts Georgetown beats Ohio State and Florida beats UCLA.


Tubby Carousel 2007

Pat Forde predicts Billy Donovan and Tom Izzo staying, and Tom Crean the most likely candidate.

Randolph Morris is making his NBA debut tonight with the New York Knicks against the Orlando Magic.

The Kentucky job opening seems to be bigger than the NCAA games themselves.

Pitino says he is not interested in returning to Camelot. He also dropped a "Roman Empire" reference. Perhaps he is watching Rome on HBO?

Florida president confident Billy the Kid will remain at Florida.


Coaching Carousel 2007

Stan Heath was caught by surprise by the firing. He was fired by the retiring AD F. Boyles. Strange? Andy Katz says Arkansas #1 choice is Billy Gillespie (good luck getting him!), while Katz thinks Doc Sandler is a good match because of his Arkansas ties. As you may recall both Gillespie and Sandler have been jumping from job to job the last couple of years, so I would not be surprised if they changed schools again.

Katz thinks Donovan to Kentucky is highly unlikely... Will not rule out Tom Izzo who Katz thinks he is high on the KY list (four Final Fours probably get the attention of Kentucky)... Others: Rick Barnes, Tom Crean, John Calipari, Mark Few, Jay Wright...

Calipari gets an extension at Memphis through 2011-2012. That of course doesn't really mean much, other than Calipari probably got a raise. Terms not announced/leaked yet. Derrick Rose is coming next year, and the only player graduating is Jeremy Hunt. It would be hard for Calipari to leave right now, even if Kentucky wanted him...

Arkansas fires Stan Heath, according to ESPN.com. Everybody wants Final Fours but only four can go each year.

Utah taps into the Tom Izzo coaching tree for its next coach, Izzo assistant Jim Boylen. No terms leaked/announced yet. Izzo has six former-assistants that are now head coaches, including Jon Stewart coaching the Daily Show on Comedy Central. (Oooops! I mean Brian Gregory coaching Dayton).

Mark Few's #2 Bill Grier officially takes over San Diego

North Dakota State gives the hc job to one of their assistants

Georgetown assistant K. Brodus to take over Binghampton!

Greg Marshall (Winthrop's coach) to remain there. I wouldn't take the South Florida either (and I'm not a coach even!). Other candidates are TV analysts Pete Gillen (Virginia coach, hey! he recruited Singletary, Reynolds, D. Byars (now at Vandy), etc), Fran Fraschilla (please hire him so we don't have to hear him drivel on ESPN, and please replace Ron Franklin with someone whose voice is not the definition of monotonous).

More on this in the Coaching Carousel, Spring Edition.



Elite 8 Day 2 recap

In an epic game for the ages, (karma?), North Carolina had a six-minute Freddie Brown extended play as they couldn't make a bucket and Georgetown-TNG has officially arrived on the national stage as a solid all-around basketball team. It was sad to begin with that one of these two teams wouldn't make it to the Final Four (who said the selection cmte did a good job? just because it was the year of the chalk...). This summer coaches from all over will start looking into implementing some form of the Georgetown-Princeton offense (unless they are busy doing the Mike D'Antoni offense).

More sad news for Carolina fans, unfortunately the student-mascot Jason Ray has passed away after being in critical for three days :-(

In a game that surprised no one, Florida's perimeter players tore up the nets with their hot shooting (literally!)- (I waited so long to write this line!). Tajuan Porter averages around 14ppg, so after his 33 point game in the Sweet 16, he almost laid an egg.


At home bracketologist

I just found out about a clever new product, a supersized reusable dry-erase bracket board, from Bracket64.com. You can see photos of the board here.