Daily Tourney Talk (Final Four Saturday)

Final Four Semifinals recap

Arron Afflalo joins Aaron Gray in the first team All-Overrated!

Thank you Florida for saving the game of basketball from the disgraceful style of play (foul on every play) of Ben Howland.

Ben Howland once again disgraces the UCLA legacy with a total anti-basketball slugfest. Yes, there is a good reason there defense is so good: they foul on every possession, every hedge, they push under the basket, etc, etc... Is FireBenHowland.com up and running?

Chevy Player and Coach of the year (no shocker, both can sing): Kevin Duran(t) Duran(t) and Tony Bennett. Can CBS make that award ceremony any more dry and scripted?

Vote for your favorite plays and the winner puts some cash into your favorite school's general scholarship fund at ncaasports.com/pontiac.


By the numbers

Strange Stat: This is the first time since 1998 that no more than one team per conference participates in the Final Four.

Number of Final Fours: This a bit surpring, since Ole Roy gave NC the lead when he won it all in 2005. However, UCLA managed to leapfrog the Tar Heels with two back-to-back Final Fours. Meanwhile the Final Four drought at both Duke and Kentucky continues, while Bill Self has also failed to deliver, even though he had at least two teams that were Final Four ready (2004, 2007). Watch out, Ohio State is gonna be there every year. Thad Matta as I mentioned right after he was hired by the Buckeyes is the next big star in coaching...
1. UCLA 17
2. North Carolina 16
3. Duke 14
4. Kentucky 13
5. Kansas 12
6. Ohio State 10

Winningest coaches in their first seven years
1. Mark Few, 188 (he won more than a ...few)
2. Everett Case, 187
3. Ole Roy (Roy Williams), 184
4. Thad Matta, 183; this is his seventh year, he will get to 184 if he beats Florida in the final on Monday. And if it wasn't for the zebras giving Duke all the 50-50 calls in the 2004 Elite 8 game (Xavier vs Duke), he would have had at least one more win.


Why UCLA must lose: for the good of the game UCLA's unwatchable slugfest style of play is bad for the game. Really bad. As the Wizard of Westwood has repeatedly said, basketball is a finesse game. A game of skill, talent and preparation, not bodybuilding, weightlighting, streetfighting, and wrestling... UCLA has turned the game into a defensive slugfest interrupted by occasional fastbreaks. Even with a blazing fast point guard like Darren Collison, UCLA still plays slow. UCLA's running is deceptive, most of the times they run not to score, but to force the opposing players to scramble to run back to defense... Coaches are copycats and the continued success of this style of play at UCLA will only increase the number of imitators. And that would be bad for the game. So for the good of the game, UCLA must lose today... Fans and bloggers are not exactly the guardians of the game, but if the coaches don't police themselves, someone else has to point them to the obvious... I loved Pete Gillan's tirade today on CSTV, with "I am tired of UCLA's defense", and "they put scoreboards to score", and "fans wants to see scoring". He has said what a lot of other analysts (*cough* espn *cough*) have been hinting at while not being brave enough to say it out loud for fear of offending. Big props to Pete Gillen!


Race Issues

Some of the Georgetown players mentioned during the press conferences that some people may have been questioning whether the Princeton offense would succeed at Georgetown because of the race of the players running it

Wilborn of PTI thinks there are some underlying race issues when everyone thinks that players want to jump to the NBA for the money and don't enjoy/want to stay in college. His case in point was all the cynicism regarding Kevin Durant's decision.


Tourney Talk

Another great piece by CBS's Clark Kellogg in a very interesting and very candid interview with the two Thompsons (Big John, and Three Sticks (to borrow a Jim Rome phrase once again)... Of course some cynics may try to find a link between Patrick Ewing's complaints that his son didn't get enough playing time earlier on, and Mark Egerson transfering out.

TV note: The "10 greatest college shooters" special on CBS that was pre-empted because of tennis has been rescheduled for 2pm ET on May 13, 2007. Now that's what I call long-term planning on the fly!

Great piece by CBS (The Final Four Show) on USC's Ryan Francis.

Men's Final Four Predictions: Florida beats UCLA, still can't pick between Ohio State and Georgetown. Florida will be the national champion regardless.

Some espn video game dude's simulations picked Florida as well

Women's Final Four Predictions: Sylvia Fowles owns the paint, LSU wins and loses in the final to the winner of North Carolina and Tennessee. I predict Tennessee wins in an instant classic for the games, a triple overtime up and down extravaganza, and Candance Parker gets a triple double.

In a recent interview with Chris Meyers, John Wooden said he would like to see
all teams play in the NCAA. Interesting...

Big Brother (Myles Brand of the NCAA) has hinted at the possibility of a 68 team tourney. I guess Boeheim's whining didn't fall on deaf ears. But if the tourney is expanded to 68, please make sure the two opening around games are between at-large teams!. It would be totally unfair to put the four lowest mid-majors to square off, while mediocre "bcs" teams who refuse to play road games (SYRACUSE) get in.

Big Brother also talked about an NFL-draft-like rule. I don't think restricting players to three years in college is a good idea. While most of the players would benefit from this, it would be unfair to restrict them. Take someone like LeBron: He had to either go to college for three years or zero. Or even take Oden or Durant or Brandan Wright: They may have opted for the NBA because they didn't want to commit to three years in college.

On the other hand, the lack of college basketball experience perhaps may explain why LeBron is unable to deliver in clutch situations. The pressures of a college season, such as the single-elimination NCAA games and conference tourney games can be very helpful in getting a player to learn how to perform in such situations.

Florida's Walter Hodge on John Wooden: "that old dude". Memo to the NCAA: You should create a one-credit course in the history of college basketball that all college basketball players must take!


Coach Talk & Carousel

Seth Davis: South Florida interviewed Stan Heath, and Iowa will take a look at Dana Altman next week, which may throw some water on the Rick Majerus rumors.

Andy Katz says Chris Lowery is going to be re-upped and stay put at SIU.

Andy Katz says Kevin O'Neil is likely to be the next South Florida coach. Gottleib: "He is a grinder, but he can certainly coach on the defensive end".

Rece Davis is turning into a name-dropper: "When I talked to Donovan's agent...". Okay Rece, we know, you have arrived :-)

Vitale is propagating the Billy Donovan to the Memphis Grizzlies rumor.

Bill Walton calls on the NCAA to increase the number of fouls to six. I strongly agree!

This just in: Philip is in! According to the LA Times, Phil Jackson got in the Basketball Hall of Fame. The list of candidates and my predictions on the hall of fame at the Hall of Fame IN or OUT? post.

Don't miss the Sunday Outside the Lines (630amPT/930amET) on ESPN as it has (yet another) feature on the one and only Bob Knight. I name this one, "the softer side of Sears". (ooops, the softer side of Bob Knight)...


Kentucky Coaching Idol 2007

Vitale says that Donovan wouldn't move because his inlaws recently moved to Florida. But wait Dickie V, isn't that a good reason to get out?

Vitale continues to whine about the Tubby Smith situation (unbelievable 26.3 wins, etc, etc) but he still fails to understand why that was not good enough for Kentucky).

Billy Donovan to Kentucky continues to be a story bigger than the games. Part of it of course is Billy the Kid refusing to make any definite comments and instead saying things like "I don't have my phone".

The internet has provided new ways for fans and player's families to interact: The father of Kentucky's promising freshman guard Jodie Meeks posted at a message board to let UK fans know that his son was not thinking of transfering out after Tubby Smith transfered out to the TimberGophers.


Funny or Not?

Quotable Pete Gillan: "he has the poise of a riverboat gambler". "during my last year at Virginia my zone offense was ludacris that's why I got fired", "defense is what you put around the house to keep the cats and dogs in".

I can't help it but call the interim LSU coach "Porky". Not sure why :-) But he has done a great job in not only keeping the team together, but also allowing them to focus on the game and make it to the NCAA Final Four. I nominate "Porky" for coach of the year!

Make sure you block the Discovery Channel today if you have kids!. The Dirty Rat (Coach K) will be polluting the airwaves with his "don't practice what you preach" BS-ology in his "Center Court with Coach K" special. Please protect your kids from the brainwashings of this insane and out of control basketball coach who drains the life force out of his players. Protect your kids now!

Memo to Ben Howland: Please stop calling the "NCAA" "NC2A". You are the last remaining person who does that. So in return, I will be calling you Ben Holland, until you start saying "NCAA", not "NC2A".

Be careful ESPN when you schedule Jimmy Dykes to do women's games, his name may be perceived the wrong way ;-)

Matta on Oden/Conley communication: "better than husband/wife".

Daily Tourney Talk (Friday, March 30, 2007)

Did you know? CBS and SI personality Seth Davis wrote a book called Equinunk, Tell Your Story: My Return to Summer Camp. This is not a basketball book, but rather Seth Davis chronicles a summer at Camp Equinunk.

Billy Packer on CSTV: "tourney expansion is a political deal". He does not support expansion, "nice as it is right now". Also not very keen on the play-in game.

T-Shirt Gate 2007!. A scandal of major proportions broke out at the NIT. West Virginia played like a team, so the NIT decided to take out the "i" from "Virginia" in their championship team t-shirts ;-)

List of recruits affected by the Coaching Carousel has been updated with the Iowa and Arkansas recruits

Final Four coverage from John Feinstein at Washington Post (no registration required). Some highlights: Boeheim joked about taking the Kentucky job at $8 million per year and he probably joked about actually scheduling road games (!!!)... Folger thinks Tubby is very happy now free from the Big Blue Storm that has been around him for the last few years... Latest rumor is Kentucky offers $4m per year for Donovan... Leonard Hamilton at Arkansas?... Tubby Smith and Steve Alford joked about their exit strategies... Larry Schyatt at South Florida?... It was Schaytt that got Billy Donovan the championship after all (the defensive co-ordinator; as much as Florida denounces this)... Read all about it in John Feinstein's column!

Kentucky Coaching Idol 2007: Mark Schlabach's story at espn.com says that sources point to Kentucky making Billy "the Kid" Donovan an offer starting at $2.8m per year ($3.5m with incentives/bonuses). Donovan currently makes a mere $1.8m per year. Sources say that Florida was willing to pay Donovan up to $2.5m before the Kentucky bidding war... Meanwhile Kentucky hired the same executive search firm that got Tubby the TimberGophers job, which fuels the fire of a staged and pre-agreed upon exit strategy designed by both Tubby and Kentucky. As you may recall a few weeks ago Pitino warned Kentucky not to fire Tubby. By Tubby leaving on his own, both parties saved face (sort of)... According to "sources" the top paid coaches are The Dirty Rat (Coach K) and Ole Roy (he needs every penny for his "Coke habit")... Izzo comes third with $2.6m... This is before any retention, trigger and special bonuses are accounted for... Meanwhile, Aaron's UK basketball blog has wall to wall coverage on the coaching situation, including stories on Donovan, Calipari, Gillespie, Patrick Patterson, Jai Lucas, comments from legendary C.M. Newton, and Tubby too... Meanwhile a TCpalm.com story makes a case why Kentucky is a much better job than Florida... Let's not forget that if Billy Donovan was the Kentucky coach, he would have probably been fired in 2005 after five years of subpar performance after the 2000 NCAA final appearance...

AP Awards: Kevin Durant named AP College Player of the Year, the first freshman ever to win this award. Andy Katz on will he stay or will he go (to the NBA?). Best selling singer Tony Bennett won the singer (oooops!) coach of the year award.

Billy Gillespie's deal will be at $1.75 million per year (a jump of a mere half a million!). Billy won't sign the deal until he returns from the Final Four (perhaps waiting for the Kentucky bid after Billy Donovan quickly declines?). ESPN story. This means the pressure on Gillespie to deliver will increase now. No longer every win will be a celebration. Things like "we are paying you $2m per year to bring us championships" will start coming up... Meanwhile Arkansas has conceded that they lost Gillespie. Perhaps they should rehire Stan Heath?

Mascot Madness with Jeff Corwin and Lee Corson is coming to you on Sunday night on the Animal Planet channel. It includes a discussion of what's a good mascot, how a school decides which one to select, and viewer rankings. It will play three times on Sunday. If you miss it, it will repeat on Thursday as well. Animal Planet is typically a standard cable channel.

Girl Power! Goodyear selected one college student from each Final Four team to shoot a basket from 500 feet above the ground in a Goodyear blimp into a giant basket on the ground. Of the four, two were men, two were women. Both men missed their shot, both women made their shots!

One day before the tourney starts!

Right now, (10amPT/1pmET), coverage from the Final Four on both ESPN-News (press conferences) and CSTV (live 3-hour show from Atlanta, including team practices). If you miss it, CSTV will repeat its 3-hour show at 6pmPT/9pmET.

My predictions? Florida over UCLA, but I have a hard time picking the Georgetown vs Ohio State game...

Donovan McNabb is trying to break a record by appearing in every single show produced by ESPN in Bristol, CT, including a Sportscenter anchor audition using a shot sheet (industry term) for a basketball highlight.


Speaking of March Madness, you can enhance your college basketball dvd collections with some of these titles:

Some of these are the official NCAA DVDs produced in association with CBS Sports, some of them are produced by the individual teams, all sold on Amazon:

The pictures are links to the Amazon summary product page, with more details on these. I have not reviewed any of these (yet), so please do your research before purchasing... Some of them have full games, some of them have highlights, some have both...

1978 Duke-Kentucky NCAA Championship game

1979 Larry Bird vs Magic Johnson final

1980 NCAA Championship Louisville vs UCLA

1981 NCAA Championship: North Carolina vs Indiana

North Carolina 1982 - Flashback

1985 Villanova championship - a family's legacy

Syracuse 2003 Champions - Finally Orange

UConn Huskies 2004 Champions (ConnQuest)

2004 Women's Final Four

2005 Destination Indianapolis - Women's Final Four

2005 Lady Bear Brilliance - Official NCAA Women's championship

North Carolina 2005 Champions - Team Carolina

2006 Women's Final Four

2006 Women's Final Four in Boston

2006 Gator Glory

2005-2006 Florida Gators

Magnificent March - Official 2006 NCAA Championship, includes three full games (three Final Four games: national semifinals and final) and highlights and specials

Un4gettable the 2005-2006 LSU Journey

2006 West Virginia Highlights - Sweet Memories

Billy Donovan - Mastering the Full Court press

Mastering the Flex Offense by Gary Williams

John Wooden's UCLA Offense Book/DVD package

100 years of Duke - guaranteed to fill up your TV screen with Coach K smug-pixels :-)

Daily Tourney Talk (Thursday March 29, 2007)

Coaching Carousel

Indiana State has found a new head coach sitting on the Creighton bench, assistant Kevin McKenna

Some more names mentioned by Andy Katz for the Michigan job, including Chris Lowery (prepare for 41-39 games) (also mentioned at Iowa and Arkansas), Sean Miler, and of course John Beilein. Stallings is interested [allegedly] but only if he is offered the job (he doesn't want to interview (how nice!)).

Meanwhile TV coach Reggie Theus wants a primetime salary that can elevate WAC's status. Theus made $325K with bonuses included this season. After all New Mexico just paid Steve Alford almost $1m/year, while the most successful WAC coach (Mark Fox @ Nevada) is at $400k/yr.

AOLSportsBlog is talking about the Michigan job where John Beilein and Kevin Stallings are among the most frequently mentioned names. Beilein has a $2.5m buyout. Is Michigan willing to pay big money for its next coach?

Florida recruits are allegedly alleging that Donovan told them he is staying at Florida

Bob Knight makes $1.3million . Not sure how much extra he makes from all the ads on his red sweater :-)

The Texas A&M Board of Regents will vote on Friday on Gillespie's new deal ($2m per year thru 2012, vs $1.25m per year now).



Reader Segment (sort of)

Some readers are hoping for Tom Crean going to Iowa.

Kentucky fans are digging into Billy Donovan's past

Question: Why did OJ Mayo choose USC?... Answer: 1) For marketing purposes, so he can be at a high profile media market, 2) he wanted to play for an NBA coach and also (according to Tim Floyd) 3) he wanted to go to a place where he could create a legacy, as opposed to following other superstars (eg if he went to Carolina, Kansas, etc).

We are getting closer and closer to the Final Four. Today is "travel day" for a lot of the TV analysts, so there won't be as much coverage. But expect a barrage of stuff tomorrow, including the press conferences on ESPN News, a three-hour show live from the Final Four in Atlanta on CSTV, a 40-minute College Gamenight on ESPN...

The NIT final takes places tonight at 4pmPT/7pmET on ESPN, with Clemson trying to maintain a palmetto NIT-dynasty, while West Virginia wants to put a banner in their building (hopefully the shotgun fired at the start of each game won't tear it down).

Right after the NIT final, the 2007 college basketball skills (or is it skillz?), dunks and three-pointer contest takes places somewhere in the ATL.

Also at 1230pmPT/3:30pmET, the Outside the Lines first report centers on the ...Centers of Attention (Greg Oden vs Roy Hibbert). Also the Centerpiece ...piece looks at the Golden Anniversary of the 1957 final of Kansas vs North Carolina. Must see/record TV!


Incidentally the November 2006 issue of "Slam" magazine is a high-school basketball special issue with Kevin Love and Kyle Singler on the front cover. It's available on Amazon for $5, and eligible for free shipping with orders over $25. Also eligible for the 4-for-3 promotion.

Daily Tourney Talk (Wednesday, March 28, 2007)

Don't miss today's edition of Crystal Ball on CSTV! It features comedian-coach Phil Martelli of Philly and St Joe's as a guest. The show will repeat multiple times tonight and tomorrow on CSTV!

College Basketball Coaches Salaries
Book mark this story at USA Today!. Also includes a comparison with football coaches salaries and the impact of shoe company endorsements as a sizeable part of their payment. I will disect this story after the Final Four is over. Story was written on March 8, 2007 (before Tubby Smith left for the TimberGophers of Minnesota).


Kentucky 2007

Funny, the TV listings at FSN have changed already. The "Tubby Smith Coaches show" has been renamed to "Kentucky basketball". Tubby who??? Wow :-)

Latest Kentucky news at many places, such as Kentucky Sports Radio, AOL FanHouse, including Billy Donovan, Tom Izzo, Billy Gillespie.

The Houston Chronicle reports that Gillespie and A&M have agreed to a beefed up salary, going from $1.25m to $2m per year. With this package he would leapfrog both Rick Barnes ($1.8m/yr) and former boss Bill Self ($1.6m/yr). Interestingly on Monday they are expected to break ground on a brand new $22million basketball facility at A&M.

Ohio State AD said he would grant Kentucky permission to talk to Thad Matta if they wanted to. He may feel secure that Matta won't leave at $2m per year, but perhaps so did the people at Butler and Xavier :-)

One Billy Donovan news item that was rescinded as simply a rumor talked about a seven year deal paying him $3.5m per year (!!!) with a $3.5m loyalty bonus if he stays there all seven years.


Actual Coaching Changes/Extensions

In an actual coaching hire (for a change) UConn assistant Tom Moore will stay in the hood and take over Quinnipiac. Apparently the new $52m twin-arena (basketball, hockey) has made the Q job more attractive than usual.

Tony Bennett will stay at Washington State according to the AOL Sports Blog. An email (!!!) campaign netted a quarter million of pledges to boost his current salary of a mere $350K/yr.

Georgia's Dennis Felton (who may have inspired a certain coach-persona on a recurring Mad TV skid), got extended by Georgia. The new contract is 4 years long at $750K/per. A salary increase of $50K.

Mike De Courcy of Sportings News on ESPN News: Arkansas has offered the job to somebody (presumably Billy Gillespie), but A&M may be taking a bit longer to make a counteroffer. Oh how greedy they have become, these "teachers and guardians of the game, who all they want to do is coach the kids". Not that I wouldn't do the same thing if I was in their shoes (and shoe contracts too) :-)

Skip O'Bayless has branded the Ohio State vs Georgetown as the sham semifinal because of questionable non-calls that allowed them to advance in an earlier round.

Army's women's team wins the V Foundation Comeback Award! Congratulations!

John Thompson was contacted this year by NBA teams including the Charlotte Bobcats, which brought up the topic of contract extension. GT3 has just two years left on his contract and he has a base salary of around $450K. Can Georgetown afford him? Will we see Final Four coaches going to the NBA this spring/summer?

Air Force Jeff Bzdelik expected to meet with Colorodo AD to discuss a potential in-state move... Jeff "Grouchy-Giant" Ruland accepted the contract buyout after 9 years at Iona... Coach Gail Goestenkors may be named Texas coach. Congratulations Coach G for escaping the smug-cloud of Coach K hanging over Duke Athletics! All the best in your new job at Texas!

Andy Katz on Cold Pizza with the latest on the coaching carousel: Kentucky: Waiting for Billy Donovan... Donovan is only thinking about the Final Four, none of the contracts and other possibilities... Izzo a possibility... Stan Heath still doesn't have a clear answer as to why he was ejected... Arkansas apparently was dreaming of getting Billy Gillespie, but Arkansas AD cannot find Gillespie's phone number!!! Sean McCurdy already asked for a transfer, and promising freshman Patrick Beverly is having 2nd thoughts... Iowa: Dana Altman or Chris Lowery are possibilities...

Pete Carrill insists the Princeton offense is really old-school offense that among others the old Boston Celtics with Bill Russell were playing.

Dust up your VHS tapes, this year's final four is a rerun of last year's NCAA tourney: UCLA vs Florida was the NCAA final of 2006, while Georgetown vs Ohio State was a 2nd Round game

Need another reason why giving your son the same first name is a bad idea? ... Sidney Lowe's 21-year old son Sidney Lowe got in trouble with the law (20+ charges in two incidents). Ouch!

If Billy Donovan had been at Kentucky, he would have been fired in April 2005 for failing to deliver with the touted class of Matt Walsh, Anthony Roberson, Lee, Drejer, Appleby, and for the underperforming freshman class of Noah, Brewer, Horford, Green.

Superfrosh Kevin Durant won the Adolph Rupp player of the year trophy. On a totally unrelated note, Adolph is a rather unfortunate name for someone accused of racial bigotry...

Daily Tourney Talk (Tuesday)

Detailed CBS TV ratings for the 2nd week at the end of today's post!

ESPN the Magazine Tom Friend talks about Billy Donovan and, no, not Kentucky, no not extending his current contract, but, yes but, the Miami Heat! At 41, this would certainly be an interesting challenge for Billy, and a nice boost to his bank account(s).

Bold idea for the next Kentucky basketball coach: There's a number of promising coaches with Kentucky links that do not have the big time experience or resume to become the head coach at KY right now... So what if Kentucky hires all of them, and they work together as a triumvirate? People like Ralph Willard, Travis Ford, etc, etc... I know it's highly unlikely, but basketball is all about teamwork after all, although this doesn't seem to apply when it comes to a head coach's ego :-)

Iowa wants to talk to Bruce Pearl. About what? About the weather? About who he recommends for their next coach? Surely they don't think they can lure him out of Tennessee?. The only thing they can hang their hat on was that he was a former assistant there, and he is of the Dr Tom Davis (Ph.D) coaching tree... But in all reality this is just a PR move that helps both parties. Bruce Pearl's stock rises, and the Iowa job gets perceived as more intriguing since, well, Bruce Pearl is taking a look at it. Bruce Pearl is currently at $1.1m, going to $1.2m next year, with a $1m buyout. (m for millions!). He will receive a one year extension taking him to 2013.

Andy Katz reports that the Big East is going to an 18-game schedule next year, and every team will play each other at least once, but they won't decide on the matchups until after the NBA draft situation is settled. Having high profile games on ESPN (eg Big Monday), has its side-effects - it seems their schedule is heavily influenced by the ESPN mega-contract.

TV listings for the week are here.

DVD Shopping segment!. One day sale at Amazon, the first four seasons of The Shield are on sale for $90 (typical Amazon price is $137). Free shipping as well. The price is only good for today (Tuesday)... A brand new season of The Shield starts on FX the day after the Final Four (Tuesday, April 3, 2007).



Detailed CBS TV ratings for the NCAA tournament

Thursday
* Game 1: 6.0 rating (11%) with 9m viewers (m = millions).
* Game 2: 6.6 (13%) with 9.93m viewers (UCLA vs Pitt or Ohio St vs Tenn)

Friday
* Game 1: 5.4 (11%), 8.13m viewers
* Game 2: 6.3 (12%), 9.41m viewers (North Carolina vs USC or UNLV vs Oregon)

Saturday
* UCLA vs Kansas: 6.8 (14%), 10.22m viewers

Sunday
* The end of the North Carolina vs Georgetown gave them a nice 9.8 (19%), 15m viewers.

Week of March Madness TV Listings!

*** all times pacific unless otherwise indicated; add +3 for eastern ***
*** this will be updated throughout the week ***
*** networks may change their listings, always check with your local provider!!!
*** I am bound to have some typos or incorrect listings, always check with your local provider!!!


2008 Update!
Here are the 2008 NCAA tournament TV listings.


2007 TV listings
The listings below are for the 2007 NCAA tournament:

Monday March 26, 2007

7pm, 9pm, California high school division 1 and division 2 championship, Fox College Sports

9pm, College Gamenight (20 minutes), ESPN


Tuesday March 27, 2007

230am, Before the Bigs: Luke Walton, Fox College Sports

5am, 9am, 11am, 10pm, midnight: various UCLA at USC from 1999, 2000 and 2001, Fox College Sports

7am, 6pm: California high school division 1 championship, Fox College Sports

930am, 2am, One to One with Gene Keady, CSTV

930am, 330am, Michigan class B high school championship, Fox College Sports

10am to 1am, massive Final Four highlights marathon on CSTV, from 1991 to 2005 (one hour for each year)

12pm, 2pm, 3am: California high school division 2 championship, Fox College Sports

11am, the 1989 NCAA final, Michigan vs Illinois, ESPN Classic

2pm-5pm, Pistol Pete Diaries marathon (all six episodes), Fox College Sports. The first four episodes feature author Mark Kriegel. The last two episodes are black and white highlights of Pistol Pete baSKETBALL games.

3pm, 4pm, March Madness College Coaches Show, FSN, Fox College Sports

4pm, 630pm, NIT Semifinals from MSG, ESPN2 (corrected, not on ESPN)

5pm, In Focus Duke's 91-92 dirty season, FSN

6pm, Chris Meyers Interview with John Wooden, FSN

9pm, College Gamenight (20 minute), ESPN

1130pm, Chris Meyers Interview with Ben Howland, FSN

midnight, repeat of the 2006 dunk/3pointer competition, ESPN



Wednesday March 28, 2007

530am, 730am, Michigan class A and C high school championship, Fox College Sports

1am, 3am to 9am, Final Four highlights marathon on CSTV, 91 thru 97, (one hour for each year)

4pm, McDonalds Jam Fest (dunk competition), ESPN

5pm, McDonalds All-star game, ESPN. Men/Boys.


If you find these listings useful, you can encourage this blog to continue posting them by making your Amazon.com purchases via the affiliate link here or the Amazon logos in the blog.


Thursday March 29, 2007

4pm, NIT final, ESPN

6pm, 2007 College Basketball Skills (or is it Skillz?) competition, live from Atlanta,, ESPN

Final Four edition of the Crystal Ball on CSTV


Friday March 30, 2007

10am, Final Four Press Conferences, ESPN News

10am, 6pm: Live from the Final Four (3 hour special), CSTV

5pm, 9pm, 10pm: Final Four Salute, CSTV





Saturday March 31, 2007

1130am, Live from the Final Four, CSTV

12pm, Road to the Final Four, CBS

1230pm, The Final Four Show (2.5 hours long), CBS

2pm, Dick Vitale's All American College basketball special, 1 hour long, ABC (this will air at 130pm Eastern, and 1230pm Central). Check local listings!!!

2pm, Center Court with Coach K: Total Smugfest Alert! as Coach K teaches the mere mortals on the Discovery Channel (I kid you not!!!)

3pm, NCAA Final Four, the two semifinals, CBS



If you find these listings useful, you can encourage this blog to continue posting them by making your Amazon.com purchases via the affiliate link here or the Amazon logos in the blog.

*** all times pacific unless otherwise indicated; add +3 for eastern ***

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.

Daily Tourney Talk (Sunday, Elite 8)

Elite 8, Sunday March 24, 2007 CBS TV Listings

11amPT/2pm ET: Road to the Final Four

11:40amPT/2:40pm ET: Oregon vs Florida

2:05pmPT/5:05pm ET: Georgetown vs North Carolina

9pmPT/midnight ET: College Gameday on ESPN


Random Tourney Thoughts and Notes

Phil Martelli revealed yesterday that Ohio State wanted to fly him out for an interview back when they were looking for a coach (when they hired Thad Matta). Marteli, the St Joe's head coach, revealed this when he was a guest on CSTV's Tourney Talk.

Three great stories by Pat Forde on ESPN.com
* The mysterious ways Oregon got Malik Hairston and Tajuan Porter, aka the Detroit Ducks or the Detroit Pipeline to Oregon
* Kentucky will take its time to replace Tubby Smith
* Billy Donovan's non-answer answer to the questions about the Kentucky opening. Donovan makes around $1.7m per year with two years left, and his agent is probably encouraging him to encourage a bidding war over his services.

CSTV Tourney Talk caller "Roy from Missouri" mentioned that a certain high profile coaches's wife was "seen" in Lexington very very recently (after Tubby left)

An attempt at comedy/satire on the latest college basketball news at the College Hoops Repor(t)

Tired of the negativity and bad news with college sports? How about some Good News in college sports?

Memo to the NCAA: Time to go to six fouls. Why have the best players sit on the bench? People buy tickets and tune in to watch in order to see the best players on the court, not on the bench. Come on NCAA, wake up and smell reality for a change :-)

The state of Tennessee did well in this tourney: Three teams in the Sweet 16, and almost two in the Elite 8 (if it wasn't for the Green double-travel cha-cha-cha basket).

What exactly was Sleazo Auriemma doing there pushing and picking a fight with his assistant?

I'm sure you've seen the Dick Vitale DiGiorno pizza commercials, Coach Dirty K selling insurance, and Roy Williams talking about dimes and Coke. Well, did you catch a more casual, less buttoned-down Jim Nantz selling TVs at Circuit City? (unless of course that's his day job...)

Tim Floyd wants the USC vs UCLA rivarly to become as big as the Duke vs North Carolina. While it is certainly premature to say that, the two most high profile recruits of 2007 (not necessarily the best two) have ended up at USC (OJ Mayo) and UCLA (Kevin Love). USC also has the top player of 2008 (Brandon Jennings) and the top post-graduate player of 2007 (Devon Jefferson; if he is eligible and if he shows up; as you may recall he was supposed to go to UNLV in 2005-2006, and USC in 2006-2007. I'm not sure what his academic status is, he may be eligible for the NBA Draft as well).

Daily Tourney Talk (Elite 8, Saturday)

Wild unsubstantiated prediction #1: Rick Pitino will be the next Kentucky basketball coach.

Wild unsubstantiated prediction #2: Two "BCS" players will transfer to Minnessota by Xmas 2007.


Is FireBillSelf.com up and running???

Kansas clearly had superior talent... Bring Ole Roy back? :-)

Is the Elite 8 the ceiling for Bill Self? He is currently 0-4, including a loss with Roy's players, and a loss with a loaded McDonalds All-American team (this year).

Is the Tubby Smith story replayed at Kansas?

I know, I know, I know, it's too early, but you can't ignore some of the signs. Of course people have said the same things about a number of other coaches that turned out to win big later on, so take all that with a grain of salt (or a handful, not just one grain).



New Coaching Carousel Stories

ESPN reports that Mark Few's #2 (Bill Grier) is to take over San Diego. Few may replace him with former Utah and Eastern Washington head coach Ray Giacoletti. Is Mark Few planning his move to a "BCS" job while planning his succession at the same time? (Unlikely, but you never know)

Tubby Smith spins the contact between Minnesota and his agent six weeks ago.

Jeff Goodman of FoxSports.com looks at various candidates for Kentucky, Michigan, Indiana State, Colorado, Marhsall, Harvard, South Florida and some mid-majors as well. Interestingly he mentions the possibility that if Kruger bolts for another job (his daughter just graduated as a five year senior taking advantage of the 2005-54), it would open the door for a former player/TV-star whose style is definately Vegas-style to take over (Reggie Theus).

Dick "Hoops" Weiss has a story at FoxSports looking at eight coaches who could be moving into more higher profile jobs.

Speaking of Dick "Hoops" Weiss you can read his blog and find out about Al Skinner and the NBA Bobcats, three former coaches turned TV analysts as possibilities at Iowa, South Florida and Harvard... I definately agree with Dick Weiss on wondering why isn't Corey Fisher in the McDonalds All American game while a couple of Top 50 players were selected instead... Two more UConn players may be "transfering out". For all the details, check Dick Weiss's blog!


Elite 8, Sunday March 24, 2007 CBS TV Listings

11amPT/2pm ET: Road to the Final Four

11:40amPT/2:40pm ET: Oregon vs Florida

2:05pmPT/5:05pm ET: Georgetown vs North Carolina

9pmPT/midnight ET: College Gameday on ESPN

Elite 8 nano-recap Ohio State and UCLA go to the Final Four! On the Xs and Os front, I don't know if this was by design or by necessity, but at one point Calipari was playing an intriguing line-up: Four AASAA wings (Anderson, CDR, Hunt, D. Mack) and Dozier as the center.

Transferology Skip Prosser must have found better recruits (2007, Gary Clark) because Casey Crawford (Fr), and Shermaine Dukes (So) are transferring out at the end of the semester.

Excellent Xs and Os flash-based feature at Yahoo Sports with diagramed plays by Greg Hester. It includes significant plays from Kansas vs Southern Illinois, Texas A&M vs Memphis, Georgetown vs Vandy and USC vs UNC. Great job Yahoo Sports!

Division 2 game, Division 1 drama as Barton managed to take the game from Winona (not Rider) in dramatic fashion with just under 1 second left in the game. If only the division 1 games were so exciting (oh wait, they were!)

Jim Calhoun made a guest appearance during the CBS broadcast of the NCAA Division 2 college basketball final. Perhaps that's the championship his team could have won this year :-)


Tubby Coaching Carousel Dominos

Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports thinks that ideal candidate for Kentucky is John Calipari. My favorite part of the story is this: "If you think it’s just street ball the Tigers are playing, ask any other coach or scout which team, Duke or Memphis, runs a more complicated, sophisticated offense and then watch them laugh at the comparison".


Elite 8, Saturday March 23, 2007 CBS TV Schedule

10amPT/1pm ET: Division 2 final, Barton vs Winona

12pmPT/3pm ET: Road to the Final Four

1:40pmPT/4:40pmET Memphis vs Ohio State

4:05pmPT/7:05pmET UCLA vs Kansas

9pmPT/midnight ET: College Gameday on ESPN


Elite 8, Sunday March 24, 2007 CBS TV Listings

11amPT/2pm ET: Road to the Final Four

11:40amPT/2:40pm ET: Oregon vs Florida

2:05pmPT/5:05pm ET: Georgetown vs North Carolina

9pmPT/midnight ET: College Gameday on ESPN

The College Hoops Repor(t)

Tonight, in the most controversial ever edition of the College Hoops Repor(t), former New Mexico coach Ritchie McKay finds Jesus, Robert "Joey" Dorsey calls out Greg Oden and then goes on to lay an egg, Julian Wright announces he will return next year (I didn't know NBA teams used lottery picks for forwards who couldn't shoot)... Rene Portland's no lesbian policy has a reasonable explanation (she wanted first dibs)... the Trojans are a Class Act (but isn't that a downgrade?)... Doug Gottleib calls Florida Team Clapper (I thought student-athletes medical records were supposed to be kept private!)...


Tip of the Hat

Rutgers and coach Vivian Stringer for upseting #1 seed Duke and Gail Goestenkors in the Women's Sweet 16.

Xs and Os multimedia playbook diagram at Yahoo Sports of some of the key plays from the NCAA games.

Vandy and Butler for playing great and handling themselves admirably despite some questionable calls

Billy Packer's "drenched jersey" indicator in the first half predicted that USC would tire out and get steamrolled by the Carolina depth

Oregon's Mighty Mouse freshman Tajuan Porter for a crazy 33 with 8 three pointers made.

Rick Majerus for suggesting that Georgetown retires the jerseys of the three refs who missed the Jeff Green last second walk

Spud Webb for dunking on Skip Bayless many years ago


Wag of the finger

CBS for not having Gus Johnson as one of their Sweet 16/Elite 8 play by play guys. Instead they use "traditional" play by play guys who stumble through the broadcast.

CBS for not using west coast analysts for west coast games/teams

The three referees of the Vandy vs Georgetown game who missed an obvious cha-cha walk.

Illinois AD for yelling at Bruce Weber and his players including Warren Carter

Howie Schwab for wearing an ACC shirt while appearing on Cold Pizza


On Notice

CBS for not using Gus Johnson after the first weekend of NCAA action

This post is inspired by the Colbert Repor(t)

Daily Tourney Talk (Friday, Sweet 16)

Sweet 16 games recap: The Year of the Chalk

The top 2 seeds in each region (top 8 teams in the country) are 23-1 (Wisconsin the only one losing).

The Roy "don't look at the score" and "stay the course" approach managed to win the game for Carolina as they wore down USC. Of note, the Billy Packer "drenched jersey" indicator pointing at USC getting worn out earlier in the game before the Carolina comeback wave hit them. Junior-aged freshman Taj Gibson probably made himself a lot of money by more than holding his own against Psycho-T and Brandan Wright. Tim Floyd's habit/superstition of always holding something in his hand (see Pat Forde story on ESPN.com) got him in trouble as he threw it on the floor and got T'ed up for it essentially sealing the game for Carolana. Also of note UNC managed to do all that without Terry and Hansbrough being factors in the game.

The Quack Attack survived a comeback attempt by UNLV making Oregon the 2nd Pac-10 team to advance to the Elite 8.

A valiant effort by Butler, but Florida was bigger, stronger, longer, and better. Why didn't Billy Donovan go to a smaller "4" earlier on, by playing Dan Warner or Corey Brewer as the 4 when they were unable to match up with the smaller Butler forwards?

A travel by Jeff Green and a possible palming by Jessie Sapp in the last couple of minutes broke the hearts of the Vandy players, coaches and fans. Bad zebras, but bad calls are part of the game. Should Vandy have called a timeout after the Green basket?

Memo to CBS: How about using some west coast analysts for the west coast teams/regions? Len Elmore mostly did ACC and Big East games this season, yet he was doing a lot of Pac-10/west coast teams. How about you get Marques Johnson and Steve Physioc for the west coast games?

Just updated the Coaching Carousel with the top available candidates

Happy Trails Randolph Morris. He just signed a contract with the New York Knicks, a two-year, $1.6 million contract according to ESPN News.

Quick comparison of the tenure of Tubby Smith and Rick Pitino at Kentucky
Tubby/Pitino: 10 vs 9 years, 263-83 vs 219-50, 10 NCAA appearances vs 6, 1 Final Four vs 3, both with one national championship.

Xs and Os Used-car salesman Calipari made a point during today's press conferences that his offense is not just "drive and kick". He said his offense is a combination of the Princeton offense and the european style of play, and it takes smart players to play it, it's not just drive and kick! (Thus Spoke Calipari).

Coaching Carousel Instant Update

Recruiting Domino effects by the Kentucky Coaching change

Tubby Smith gets a 7-year, $12.6 million contract with Minnesota

Steve Alford gets a 6-year $5.85 million contract at New Mexico

Wyoming finds its next coach on the Fresno State bench, former Wyoming assistant Heath Schroyer. Five-year contract with a base salary $150,000 per year, with a max of $500,000 with incentives.

Seth Greenberg's brother and assistant coach Brad Greenberg leaves Virginia Tech to take over the head coaching job at Radford. Radford is just 20 miles away from Blacksburg.

The AP has a new story on the Kentucky coaching search

Xavier extended Sean Miller for another 700 years. Will that stop him from leaving when a bigger job comes calling? No!.




Random Notes and Thoughts du jour

New Nike Uniforms record in the NCAA tourney: 5-1 (Arizona lost)

Did you know? Sean Miller (Xavier coach and former Pitt player) was the one who assisted the Send It In Jerome dunk!

If you are an NCAA team how do you know you are going to have a very highly contested instant classic game? When the brackets are announced? No!. When the TV announcers are announced? Yes, if you get Gus Johnson, you are almost guaranteed an instant classic.

Does Pitt have an NCAA ceiling?. With both Ben Howland and Jamie Dixon they have never been able to get beyond the Sweet 16 despite having 30-win seasons. And as I kept saying throughout the year, Aaron Gray was overrated!

ADs gone wild!: This time the Illinois AD yelling at players and poor Bruce Weber. Poor Bruce Weber: Kelvin Sampson "steals" Helen of Troy (Eric Gordon), his players get drunk and into accidents, his AD yells at him, his own brother won't steer his players towards Illinois,...

Ben Howland on his daughter: "she's been on a 22-year scholarship, she'd better root for UCLA". Howland admitted that he got her front row tickets for Justin TimberSync'alake. I don't think I would ever admit that on national TV. What's next? A private concert by 98 Degrees and the Backstreet Boys?

Iowa wasted their money buying "fire-coach" domain names. Steve Alford left on his own *cough* soft-landing *cough*

The Year of the Chalk, both in the NCAA and the NIT

Random Factoid: Once upon a time Spud Webb dunked on Skip Bayless, according to Skip O'Bayless

Ernie Kent is interested in Michigan while his team is playing. Is he really interested or using it too get a good deal from the Nike Ducks?

Greg Marshall's stinginess on timeouts may have cost him the game vs Oregon

Southern Illinois avenged their former boss's NCAA loss by beating Virginia Tech and sending Seth Greenberg back to the CSTV fieldhouse/studio

The Quack Attack finally gets some national respect. It would if they beat UNLV tonight

Has anyone said this yet? The Trojans are a Class Act

CBS and Basketball fans across the world are still upset at USC for taking out Kevin Durant and Texas

Four Naismith finalists: Acie Law, Kevin Durant, Fernando Alando Tucker, Psycho-T

Ref Curtis Shaw is still smarting after getting posterized by T-Will of Louisville

Did Acie Law's dad participate in one of those MTV make-over shows and got made into a Snoop Doggy Dogg look-a-like?

Steve Lavin can no longer hold it in when talking about UCLA's style of play. Not only he mentions Al Davis's "just win baby", he also said that a nice style of play gets you a pink slip.

Gary Williams refuse to comment on the officials because "we need the money here at Maryland".

Is Dave Leito drinking blue water?

By the numbers
* 40 minutes of commercials per NCAA game on CBS. 40 minutes of game-time as well. One on one!
* 39% of ESPN voters said they were glad Duke and Notre Dame lost in the NCAA
* The 1995 2nd round was the last time we did not have one of Lute Olson, Coach Dirty K and Bob Knight. If you add Jim Calhoun and Jim Boeheim in the mix, we have to go back to 1974


Coaching Changes, incoming freshmen and ...graduate school research
An incoming freshman commits to a university, not to a specific coach, but one of the main reasons a player choses a specific university is the coach. Some people think that a player should not be allowed to go elsewhere regardless of coaching changes. I disagree. Here is an example that may explain the situation a little better: "Steve wants to do his graduate research work on the sleeping habbits of elephants. Steve is very impressed with the research work of Dr Mary Tide at Auburn. Steve applies and enrolls at Auburn. While Steve is enrolled at Auburn, the main reason he went to Auburn was because he wanted to do his research work with Dr Mary Tide. If for some reason Dr Mary Tide decides to leave the university for another job, or is fired, or retires, then Steve is left in an awkward situation with regards to his graduate research project. While "college basketball" is not a "graduate research project", think of it along those lines, and then you'll see why players (at least incoming freshmen) should be allowed to leave when a coach leaves...

This also appears at ArmchairGM


The Tubby Coaching Dominos Show

You can say goodnight to the Bob Knight to Minnessota blasphemous rumor-speculation of last month. Infact with Steve Alford moving down to the Southwest as well, it's highly unlikely Bob Knight will return to the Big 10. Perhaps if Kelvin Sampson screws up Indiana and then they have to beg Knight to return to Indiana (after they fire all the people who fired Knight)?

Contract is 7 years long and $12.6 million dollars

Comments in [square brackets] below are my opinion/comments...

Tubby during the press conference announcing him as the new Minnesota head coach: "I feel the love already", "win championships", "thank all the great people back in Kentucky", "thank Jim Molinari" [crowd applauds], "not going to be easy", "high expectations but with blood/sweat/tears", "exciting, fun style of basketball and win", "students we need you!"

During the Q&A session with the media, Tubby said: "overachieve until we get [better players]..." (he stopped short of saying that), "a new challenge", "guardian/servant of the game", "live and lead by example (but I'm not perfect)", "sharing in a family of 17" [how about a Coke double-feature commercial with Roy's dime commercial???]

Conspiracy Theory???: Minnessota AD denies that a former associate (currently at KY) brokered the deal. This certainly coincides with the smoothness of the transition and smooth landing of Tubby and the 1.5 million April 3rd bonus.

Will Cole Adrich want to stay at home now that the Gophers have a high-tier coach? He did sign with Kansas though.

Calipari on Kentucky on Cold Pizza: "my name is mentioned in every AAU, high school, college and pro opening", "I'm happy for Tubby", "if they are not treating you right, go to another school".

Greg Anthony on Cold Pizza: "[Kentucky] fans have every right to be upset", and said that "you are paid millions to win".

Tubby had more NCAA appearances than the whole Minnessota program. Clearly Tubby wanted to go somewhere where every win he gets is celebrated with joy. Tubby's ball-line defense is ideally suited for the Big 10 style of play. If Tubby's record at Minnesota is anywhere near his Kentucky record, they'll build statues for him, name buildings and even name Lakes after him!!!. Tubby went from a Top 5 to a Top 125 program, but his style of coaching and play and comfort zone with pressure might prove to be a great match...

Wall to wall Kentucky and Tubby coverage at Kentucky.com

Andy Katz and Pat Forde on Cold Pizza
on Tubby and Minnessota Katz: "The process started 6 weeks ago". Thursday 230am they decided to send a plane.
on Kentucky *** Forde: 1st choice: Billy Donovan. No clearcut 2nd choice: Izzo, Crean, Few, That Matta, Jay Wright.
on Iowa *** Katz: Altman if he is offered more than $800K (he makes at Creighton), then Chris Lowery (enjoy the defense!).
on Michigan *** Katz: could go for Lon Kruger and Kevin Stallings... Pat Forde: Kruger is a mid-western guy, his lifestyle doesn't fit Vegas. Also Chris Lowery

Yesterday's wall to wall coverage here!!!

Thanks for the link to the BigLead.com, a website that covers the world of sports and has the inside scoop. A very interesting story is a change of the guard at the top on ESPN and the trickle-down effect

Recruiting Wars is now updated with a list of high profile recruits affected by the Coaching Carousel. The most high profile so far among the committed are Alex Legion (Michigan) and AJ Stewart (Kentucky), while among the uncommitted the one and only Patrick Patterson... Also, the Morgan Wootten winners are announced, the late signing period is just around the corner, and a couple of USC-related posts (OJ Mayo and Malik Story).

Homerism Defined: Howie Schwab was wearing an ACC polo shirt on Cold Pizza.


Sweet 16, Friday March 22, 2007 CBS TV Schedule

4:10pmPT/7:10pmET Butler vs Florida

4:27pmPT/7:27pmET Vanderbilt vs Georgetown

6:40pmPT/9:40pmET UNLV vs Oregon

6:57pmPT/9:57pmET USC vs North Carolina

Elite 8, Saturday March 23, 2007 CBS TV Schedule

12pmPT/3pm ET: Road to the Final Four

1:40pmPT/4:40pmET Memphis vs Ohio State

4:05pmPT/7:05pmET UCLA vs Kansas


Today's musical guest (blogs have musical guests too!) is the new Nine Inch Nails two-hour long live DVD, "Beside you in time" (24 songs), just $12 at Amazon.

Tubby Smith leaves Kentucky for Minnesota!

Tubby's move to Minnessota overshadows Sweet 16 NCAA games

This is only my opinion, but based on how often Rick Pitino changed jobs, I would not be surprised if he took the Kentucky job. He went back to the Knicks again as well. The only reason he went to Louisville was because the Kentucky job was taken at the time he wanted to return to college basketball. It would create a big kerfufle (ha!) in the Commonwealth, but it wouldn't be as shocking as the first time around he did this. Assuming of course the Kentucky AD/Selection Cmte wants Pitino... But let's not forget, Pitino himself has not been able to reproduce the "magic years" of the mid-80s (although some can point to the numerous high profile recruits that went straight to the NBA).

Will Purdue (ESPN Radio basketball analyst) chimed in by mentioning how demanding the Kentucky job is, and how high the expectations are based on past performance.

Dick Vitale makes clueless comments as usual on the coaching carousel and Kentucky. Vitale is probably re-living his firing from the Detroit Pistons once again. The last time I checked these coaches Vitale is screaming about are getting paid over $1 million per year. They are not paid that money just to be good citizens and family men and win 20 games a year, they are paid to win championships!

Pat Forde on ESPN News: On Kentucky: "good for all parties after the initial shock", "Tubby had nine years of diminishing returns", "Billy Donovan on top of the wish list", "Pitino's name will come up but unlikely"... On Iowa: look at the Missouri Valley pipeline (Altman, Lowery)... On Mecha-Cry-Baby (Josh McRoberts): "questionable decision", "wasn't happy at Duke", "wasn't fitting in very well". Doug Gottleib said the same thing.

Wendell Barnhouse of Forth Worth Star-Telegram on ESPN News: "Tubby got fed up of the criticism", "was not winning like Big Blue fans wanted to", "juicy Final Four as far as rumors", "Iowa to go the mid-major route?", "New Mexico president was at Texas Tech when they hired Knight" (I told you so!)

Seth Davis on PTI today: "Shocked but not surprised", "all happened in the last 72 hours", "Kentucky caught on their heels a little bit", "other names mentioned at Minnesota were Chris Lowery, Lon Kruger".

Andy Katz: "I would be shocked if Billy Donovan leaves Florida".

Andy Katz: "Minnesota was going after a big splash, all my leads went to dead ends, they were super-secretive".

Message Board Reaction

This looks like a pushout: Kentucky will honor Tubby's 1.5 million incentive bonus that was due on April 3. The story at ESPN has 450+ user comments already.

Seth Davis story at CNN/SI.

A good collection of links to various web links covering the Tubby Smith story at the KYBasketball blog

Louisville Courier Journal story

Scott's Shots commentary on the coaching change

Seth Greenberg (Virginia Tech coach, and CSTV analyst) commenting on the situation: "Why not go after Pat Riley?" when responding to the possibility of KY going after Billy Donovan. He said that the Florida program was "built in Donovan's image". Why would he leave?

Caller "Keith from Kentucky" on CSTV's Tourney Talk wants Tom Izzo to be the new Kentucky coach... CSTV's Hoops Insider Brian Curtis predicts Tom Crean will be the next Kentucky coach

Oh and yes, this is as shocking as shocking can be, Tubby Smith has accepted the .......... Minnesota job! I kid you not!

ESPN story on Tubby Smith leaving Kentucky for Minnesota for $1.8 million per year. Money talks!

"Sources" cited by ESPN point to the following as potential candidates: Tom Crean, Mark Few, Tom Izzo, John Calipari (and leave Derrick Rose behind), Rick Barnes, Mike Brey (what???), Jay Wright and Billy Gillespie. Billy Donovan's name will probably come up, especially since he delayed signing an extension, but with a possible repeat championship, it's hard to see why Billy Donovan would want to change jobs now that he is doing so well.

So why the Gophers instead of Michigan? Perhaps Michigan wasn't willing to pay top dollar? Perhaps not as much pressure?

I am not sure why Tubby made such a swift move. He could have easily gotten a better job (eg Michigan) or high-profile openings as a result of his move out of Kentucky, or he could also look at various NBA jobs. This is a shocker with capital A baby!. It's unbelieable!

Reaction from Kentucky Fan sites: A Sea of Blue, FireTubby.com

Recapping the Louisville Cardinals season at Yahoo Sports.

Biggest job openings as of right now: Kentucky, Michigan, Iowa, South Florida (only because they are in the Big East), and Utah

Coaching Carousel (Spring Edition)

updated 4/17

updated 4/9 with Kentucky, Texas A&M, Kansas State, Arkansas, LB State, Marshall

updated 4/5/07 with West Virginia/Kansas State, Santa Clara, Butler, Iona.

updated 4/3/07 with the Creighton/Arkansas UNDO, Louisianna Tech and Colorado/Air Force

ESPN.com keeps track of all the coaching changes, firings and hirings.


Current Job Openings for 2007-2008

Saint Louis, Texas A&M Corpus Cristi, Princeton, UC Riverside, and a few more low-majors.

None of the TV analysts left their comfy analyst chairs for a coaching job this spring.


Filled Job Openings for 2007-2008

Kentucky, Arkansas, Kansas State, Minnessota, Michigan, Iowa, South Florida, Colorado, Texas A&M, West Virginia.

MWC: Air Force, New Mexico, Colorado State, Wyoming, Utah (5 of 9 teams have new coaches!)

Valley of Darkness (MVC): Wichita State, Drake, Illinois State, Indiana State, Evansville. (Re)FILLED: Creighton. Half of the teams have new coaches.

Louisiana Tech (LaTech), St Bonaventure, South Alabama, Bowling Green, Winthrop, Butler

Everybody wants to be the next Gonzaga on the west coast: Hawaii, San Diego, Santa Clara, Long Beach State.

Ha'av'ad (Harvard), Marshall, Denver, Binghampton, Liberty, Southern Utah, Iona


Select Assistant Coach Job Openings for 2007-2008

Louisville (Kevin Willard went to Iona) FILLED: with his son!

UCLA (Kevin Keading went to Santa Clara)


Hiring Head Coaches vs Hiring Assistants Coaches (as of 3/24)

Of the 17 jobs filled so far nine were given to current/former head coaches. The remaining eight jobs were given to assistant coaches, from either the same program (2) or from another program (6).

Assistants at Georgetown, Kansas, Michigan State, Virginia Tech, Gonzaga, Fresno State got their first head coaching jobs at mid-majors.

Two #2s got promoted from within to become the head coach: North Dakota State and Drake (daddy's son)

Rod Barnes was an assistant at Oklahoma this year, but he was the Ole Miss head coach before.

One lower division coach was given a D1 job (Evansville)


Recently-fired coaches quickly get new jobs

Ricardo Patton from Colorado to Northern Illinois

Ritchie McKay from New Mexico to Liberty

Ray Giacoletti from Utah to Gonzaga as the top assistant

Stan Heath from Arkansas to South Florida

Louis Orr from Syracuse to Bowling Green

Tommy Amaker from Michigan to Harvard

Dan Monson from Minnessota to Long Beach State

Joe Scott from Princeton to Denver (pushed-out as opposed to fired?)


Top Available Candidates

TV Analysts: Rick Majerus, Steve Lavin, Pete Gillan, Steve Lappas, Perry Clark, Mike Jarvis, Paul Westphal, Fran Fraschilla (Frachilla? Franchilla? Frachila?)

Fired from the NBA: Mike Montgomerry, Larry Brown, Flip Saunders

Comeback longshots: Nolan Richardson, Gene Keady, Eddie Sutton, Dick Bennett, Dr Tom Davis (PhD)

Recently fired: Brad Sodenberg, Jim Molinari, Dan Monson, Riley Wallace, Dick Davey, Robert McCullum, Dale Layer, Anthony Solomon, Steve McClain, Brad Holland, Rob Jirsa, Dan Dakich, Jeff Ruland, and a few more

Fired last year: Rob Evans, Quin "bad hair day every day" Snyder (HA!), and a few more



Reference data

Standings of the 2006-2007 regular season.

Historic records with RPI/SOS data at KenPom RPI, going back to 1999


Who should be fired (in my opinion)

Steve McClain of Wyoming

The AD of Santa Clara for pushing Dick Davey out after 30 years at SCU. Sorry Santa Clara but you are not going to become the next Gonzaga just because you hire a 35-year old coach. Unless of course you already have an under the table agreement with Mike Montgomerry with his son taking over at some point in the future.

Cincinatti President Nancy Z and her fellow administrators/beauraucrats along with the AD for scapegoating Huggins for all their problems and issues. Clearly Huggins was only the tip of the iceberg. And unlike the real icebergs, Global Warming won't make it go away.

Matt Doherty at SMU. A corrosive and abrasive personality, has not stayed anywhere long enough and the one place he did, he almost ruined Carolina basketball (and he was one of them even!).


Coaches on the Hot Seat, Tipping Point: Success of a Rival
A number of coaches (as expected) are having average to mediocre seasons. This is happening every year simply because every time a game is played exactly one team wins and exactly one team loses. A number of these coaches manage to avoid the hot seat or avoid getting fired, but one thing that may tip the scales and force a (firing) decision is success at a rival school. Here are some examples:

Utah: If Dave Rose can take over a struggling BYU team and turn it into a back-to-back NCAA team, how come Ray Giacoletti has been struggling for two years? Decision: Fired

New Mexico: If Reggie Theus (a TV coach) comes in and brings in all sorts of transfers to New Mexico State and makes them a top-tier WAC team just by arriving on campus, how come Ritchie McKay is going sideways. Decision: Fired!

Michigan: If Thad Matta can come in and in three years turn Ohio State into the most desirable recruiting destination despite NCAA violations (albeit not as severe as Michigan's) and a Final Four contender, how come Tommy Amaker has not been to the NCAA after six years? Decision: Wait and See.

Oregon State: If the Bennetts come in and turn Washington State into a top 25 team and a contender for the Pac-10 title, how come Jay John is barely able to win a conference game? Getting CJ Giles probably bought Jay John one more year, but the further Washington State goes into the NCAAs, the more Jay John's seat will heat up. Decision: Wait and see

Kentucky: If Rick Pitino can come in and take Louisville to the Final Four, and now turn a rag-tag fleet of injured but talented players into a contender, how come Kentucky is facing yet another 10-loss season, no wins against ranked teams, an unbalanced roster, losing streaks and the like. Decision: Wait and see



Coaches potentially on the Hot Seat

This is not necessarily deserving, I'm merely guestimated based on reaction by fans, alumni and ADs, and also by their record. Names are in random order:

Tommy Amaker at Michigan, especially if they don't make it to the NCAAs (this is probably more fan-based, it seems like the university is happy with Michigan?). He still has Jay Bilas to defend him on national TV.

Stan Heath at Arkansas (lots of raw talent, fans want more tangible results)

Tubby Smith/Kentucky (fans want a Final Four every year, AD non-show of non-confidence, Tubby's frustration with the whole situation)

Ben Braun at California Berkeley. This is only based on his record. The 420 crowd seems happy with Braun. Granted he has had a boatload of injuries and premature NBA-draft entries

Jay John, Oregon State. This seems more record-based than anything else. Especially when comparing to what the Bennett's did at Washington State

Steve McClain at Wyoming. Diminishing returns and results. Been stewing on the hot seat the last couple of years. Classless reaction after the loss at TCU should seal the deal.

Leonard Hamilton at Florida State. Year 5 and despite some high profile wins and losses, still no NCAAs. Hamilton should probably be okay because of his record both as an NBA and NCAA coach, but underachieving is never a good recipe for success.

Robert McCullum at South Florida. He got a nice vote of confidence last year, and he is faced with a huge mountain to climb in the Big East, but in the effemeral world of big money college sports...

Steve Alford at Iowa. Continues to trail sideways. Probably won't be fired unless Iowa thinks they can get a better coach.

Jim Molinari at Minnesota. He is an interim coach and the expection is that he will not be picked up.

Brad Soderberg at Saint Louis. With all the success in the Valley of Darkness surrounding the city of Saint Louis and Missouri on the uptick with the exciting Mike Anderson, St Louis will be tempted to get a bigger name and become relevant again

Kirk Spiraw at Central Florida. One of the largest universities population wise, combined with an upgrade to a more high-profile conference than before. Although Spiraw had a relatively successful run there, and finished 2nd in the regular season, the temptation to get a bigger name coach and fight for the national spotlight will be there if the right candidate is available.

Dale Layer at Colorado State, high profile recruits, low profile results


Happily Off the Hot Seat

Ernie Kent at Oregon. The run and gun Ducks are winning games again.



Coming Soon

Available candidates


Archives - previous editions of the Coaching Carousel
February 2007
Late January 2006

Daily Tourney Talk (Thursday)

The Kentucky story has moved to its own post since it is so BIG!

Sweet 16, Friday March 22, 2007 CBS TV Schedule

4:10pmPT/7:10pmET Butler vs Florida

4:27pmPT/7:27pmET Vanderbilt vs Georgetown

6:40pmPT/9:40pmET UNLV vs Oregon

6:57pmPT/9:57pmET USC vs North Carolina

Elite 8, Saturday March 23, 2007 CBS TV Schedule

12pmPT/3pm ET: Road to the Final Four

1:40pmPT/4:40pmET Memphis vs Ohio State

4:05pmPT/7:05pmET UCLA vs Kansas


Sweet 16 Recap

Ohio State managed another comeback this time against Tennessee, with Greg Oden earning his (scholarship) money with a last-second block that sealed that deal... On the other game, UCLA out-slugfested Pitt in an emotionally draining game for the Dixons and the Howlands.

Clark Kellogg has taken the day off because one of his kids is playing in some high-school or peewe playoffs!

Jay Bilas is sitting there while Dick Enberg advertises CSTV. I wonder if he can't help it but say, "Hey watch ESPNU instead!".

The first block of games gave us two highly contested games that went down to the wire... Southern Illinois earned national respect even among the BCS homer as it gave Kansas all that it could handle. Bill Self breathed a sigh of relief as he avoided another NCAA loss to a "mid-major". Had Kansas lost, the FireBillSelf.com sites would probably start springing all over the place (enboldened by the Kentucky coaching change perhaps)... On the other game, Memphis (as I predicted) was able to match Texas A&M's intensity, wear out Acie Law who is famous for his clutch performance in the last four minutes, and eek out a win thanks to Antonio Anderson bothering Acie Law enough to make him miss a layup and then hit two clutch free throws. As far as the zebras taking an eternity to decide how much time it was left, they probably decided that the ball bounced in-bounds and then included the time it took for it to hit the floor out of bounds or something like, otherwise it doesn't make any sense... This win made John Calipari a lot more money as it increased his stock both at Memphis and also as a candidate for some of the big openings that have popped up or will pop up as a result of the Kentucky/Michigan dominos. His last five NCAA wins were against mid-majors and a lot of people thought he could never beat a solid "BCS" team. Not only did he beat a very solid Texas A&M team, he beat them in San Antonio, Texas, in front of a decidedly pro-A&M crowd. Two back to back Elite 8 appearances, and Derrick Rose coming in next year.

New College Basketball Drinking Game: Everytime a coach gets hired or fired. And by drink, I mean drink water, orange juice, milk, soy milk, diet soda, tea or vitamin water :-)



Draftology

Josh McRoberts is a big spoiled Dookie cry baby caught crying in a towel. Even his crying was mechanical! And oh yes, he declared for the NBA draft. Happy Trails Mecha-Cry-Baby!

Derrick Caracter announces he will return (ha! where did he think he was going? the USBL (ha!) or the NBDL or the Belgian league?)


Sweet 16 Part One today

Four games today, played two at a time, airing live on CBS

CBS TV listings press release and CBS TV listings here

Check with your local CBS station to find out which game will be shown in your city/state.

The games start at 4pmPT/7pm ET on CBS and CBS-HD

Also don't miss a 90-minute pregame Tourney Talk show on CSTV at 130pmPT/430pmET, and a recap of the press conferences right before it also on CSTV

Post-game coverage on 1) your local CBS station, 2) one hour long ESPN Gameday at 10pmPT/1amET and ensuring SportsCenter, 3) 30-minute official March Madness highlights show on CSTV, repeating throughout the night.

Sweet 16 Part 2 will air tomorrow night on CBS, starting at 4pmPT/7pm ET


Drama Queen Carousel

Illinois AD turns into a drama queen, calls player Warren Carter an idiot, and yelling at Bruce Weber and players. Now he (is forced to) apologize.


Crying Carousel Update

This time it was one of Jim Boeheim's kids caught by the ESPN cameras crying uncontrollably after Clemson beat Syracuse in the NIT quarterfinal. At least Boeheim's kid is just a kid... On the other hand, Josh McRoberts is a big spoiled Dookie cry baby caught crying in a towel. Even his crying was mechanical!


Coaching Carousel Update

Tubby Smith is out of Kentucky!

Minnessota has a new head coach, his name is .....Tubby Smith!

CSTV Insider Brian Curtis predicts Lon Kruger at Michigan

Grouchy and bitter was Jeff Ruland during their almost winningless season, just one year after being considered a hot coach leading his team to post-season play. So as all things effemeral, Jeff Ruland is out as the Iona head coach! I wouldn't want to be the AD facing him to break the news, unless I had Paul Bunyan as a security guard!

It is official, Steve Alford joins Bob Knight in the Southwest as he will become the new New Mexico head coach, hoping to turn the Pit into a strong homecourt advantage. ESPN story. New Mexico is allegedly commiting millions to upgrade the storied Pit (their home arena).

Colorado State stays in the neighborhood as they pick up the North Dakota State head coach who led ND State to an impressive debut in D1, with some very high profile road wins in the last couple of years (Wisconsin, Marquette)

Biggest job openings as of right now: Michigan, Iowa, Minnessota, South Florida (only because they are in the Big East), and Utah

ESPN's Coaching Carousel Tracker


Transferology

Cleaning house is Norm Roberts at St Johns as Ricky Torres and Avery Patterson announce their intention to transfer out. Don't be shocked if in a couple of weeks St Johns picks up two new 2007-2008 players or transfers.


OJ Mayo Mania

A recent NY Times story chronicles the recruiting of OJ Mayo, which surprised some people as OJ Mayo refused to give Tim Floyd his cellphone number.

However, Tim Floyd gave his version of the story today as he appeared (via telephone) on ESPN2's Cold Pizza. Floyd set the record straight (or gave his own spin) on the situation as he stressed that Mayo is a very mature person ("he is like a 35yo"), and Floyd explained the cellphone to "financial reasons". Floyd also said/claimed that he now has Mayo's cellphone number but does not call him frequently. Floyd pointed out that Mayo does not need the usual "babysitting" that most recruits are accustomed to. ("Babysitting" is continuing to show "love" to recruits after they commit. If a coach stops going to their games, calling, texting or writing, the recruits get insecure). Floyd also confirmed that OJ Mayo recruited himself to USC and came to him with a game plan. Floyd also chastised Wilborn of PTI for criticizing OJ Mayo's behavior based on the NY Times story.

So what really happened? The truth is out there and probably somewhere in between...

Daily Tourney Talk (Wednesday)

Recruiting News

CBS buys MaxPreps.com and puts it under the CSTV umbrella

Malik Story (2008) transfers to Oak Hill Academy

California high school basketball state championships to air on Fox College Sports and FSN

Commitment updates from the Hodge Report (CSTV)

Tyreke Evans (top 2008 player) featured on SSoT

Details and links at Recruiting Wars

NCAA Basketball TV Ratings on CBSpress release by CBS

A quick recap of the latest news in the College Hoops Repor(t)

Arena renovations at Tennessee, with luxury suits and fancy scoreboard, but that will cost, in both money and seats lost. Capacity will drop to 21,000.

Revealing in-depth analysis of Arizona's season by the Sliver Fox, Lute Olson.

Superstitious!, a column by Pat Forde on coaches and their quirky superstitions.


Sweet 16 Predictions

Kansas double-scores Southern Illinois, while UCLA beats Pitt 39-38 in overtime :)

Memphis shocks the world as they win a road game against Texas A&M (this is really a shocker since Memphis got beat on the road this season (Tennessee, Arizona)... Meanwhile Ohio State makes another strong comeback to overcome the feisty Bruce Pearls

Tim Floyd comes up with a clever game plan but there's too many players and too much talent at North Carolina and they overcome the cunning Floyd plan. Remember when USC beat Carolina last year at the old LA Sports Center Carolina was without Raymond Lawson (ooops! Tywon Felton... oops! Tywon Lawson!), and without as many offensive weapons (Wright, Ellington, Deon Neon Thompson), and USC had a solid point guard in Ryan Francis... On the other side of the bracket Georgetown will deliver a woodshed beating

On the run-and-gun side of the bracket, Florida will steamroll Butler by 25, while Oregon will outshoot UNLV in a high-scoring high-tempto affair.

These predictions should be treated as contrarian indictors :-)


Transferology

Ben Eaves transfers out of UConn. This type of thing typically happens when a coach wants to give scholarship(s) to better player(s) and "encourages" his 13th/12th/11th players to "seek out new life and civilizations and boldly go away"


Coaching Carousel

Andy Katz: Greg Marshall of Winthrop a hot commodity (New Mexico, South Florida). Of course whoever hires him has to worry that he might pull another College of Charleston on them. According to Katz New Mexico is also looking at Steve Alford, Rob Evans, and a WNBA coach. The $$$-package may be in the 600-800K range.

Tom Davis is apparently retiring again, this time from Drake, increasing the body count of fired/gone coaches in the Valley of Darkness.

Surpring everyone was Joe Scott as he returned to the state of Colorado, this time to take over Denver, leaving Princeton without a coach. Joe Scott is proving to be one of the fastest job-switchers in the industry.

So demanding is Long Beach State that they decided not to renew Larry Reynolds despite giving them their first NCAA bid in 12 years and switching to a run and gun offense. It looks like there is pressure in the WCC and Big West to become the next Gonzaga. That explains why Dick Davey was pushed out of Santa Clara after 30 years at the school (half as head coach, half as assistant).

A Kansas assistant accepts a mid-major job which promotes the delightful D-Manning to an assistant.

TV Guide

TV wars between cable and satellite for the Baseball out of market Pay Per View package

The Sweet 16 press conferences are underway, look for coverage on both ESPN News and CSTV. CSTV will be rebroadcasting their press conference highlights show throughout the day (Full Court Press)

The last two NIT quarterfinals are on tonight on ESPN2 (ESPN has NBA action), at 4pmPT/7pmET, Syracuse at Clemson, and at 6pmPT/10pmET DePaul at Air Force.

The College Hoops Repor(t)

Tonight, the NBA fines me for talking about the people getting fined for talking about Oden and Durant, Long Beach State is more demanding than Kentucky (they fire Larry Reynolds after he got them their first NCAA bid in 12 years), Jim Calhoun must have found a good 2007 recruit (Ben Eaves will transfer), and Big Baby is signing with an agent (but who will pay for the road meals?)...

Tip of the Hat: Kansas for making Danny Manning an assistant after one of their assistants for a mid-major head-coaching job (aren't they still playing?)

Wag of the Finger: Long Beach State for firing Larry Reynolds, Ernie Kent for talking about Michigan while his team is still playing.

On Notice: Greg Anthony for considering Coach Dirty Rat K as possibly the best college basketball coach of all time. Props to Skip O'Bayless for calling the rat "overrated"!

Getting to know a conference: The official basketball conference of Battlestar Galactica is the... Colonial Athletic Association!

This segment is inpsired by the Colbert Report

Daily Tourney Talk (Tuesday)

The biggest story so far (off the court) is the situation at Kentucky and Michigan. A Sea of Blue has a nice story recapping reaction from fans and media on the Kentucky front... My opinion: At the start of the season I thought this was a non-issue, but as things developed during the season, I am now starting to think that it might be in the best interest of both Tubby and Kentucky if they go their separate ways. Tubby could become the next Izzo or Gary Williams at a place like Michigan or Tubby can give the NBA a shot because the last time Tubby coached NBA players (1998 Kentucky) he won the national title...

A feature on the Ewings (no, not Dallas) and the Thompsons on today's edition of Outside the Lines. Airs on ESPN at 1230pm pacific / 330pm eastern.

The first two NIT quarterfinals will air on ESPN tonight, at 4pmPT/7pmET and 6pmPT/9pmET: Florida State at Mississippiiii State and the feisty NC State at West Virginia. Kudos to the NCAA for making the NIT a more streamlined and competitive tourney. No longer can the high-major programs take the NIT for granted. They have to earn an NIT bid! No NIT for you this year: UConn, Iowa, Washington. These teams would have usually gotten an NIT bid because the field was 40 and there were no automatic bids two years ago. No more Greg Escherick (of "he's just a kid" fame) declining NIT bids because he was too good for them (ha!)... The other two NIT quarterfinals were air on ESPN on Wednesday at the same time slots.

TV Guide
*** Two three-game blocks of classic games on CSTV today, one starts at 930am PT/1230pmET and the other at 3amPT/6amET (Wedn).
*** Also don't miss College Gamenight at 9pm PT on ESPN, and the March Madness Coaches Show on FSN and Fox College Sports at 3pm, 4pm and 930pm PT...
*** Also don't miss the last installment of the six-part series Pistol Pete Diaries on Fox College Sports. Feature they do Mark Kriegel, the writer of the latest book on Pistol called "Pistol: The Life of Pistol Pete Maravich".

Daily Tourney Talk (Monday)

Coaching Carousel: Michigan
There will be three types of coaches flirting with Michigan and vice versa:
1) The ones who want to coach at Michigan and Michigan wants them to coach there (the new coach will likely come from this group)
2) The ones who want to boost their current salary and status but they are not really interested in Michigan, but Michigan wants them and will talk to them, if nothing else to make the job appear more appealing. Remember Rick Barnes and John Calipari taking a look at NC State and then a couple of weeks later getting salary and contrast boosts? :-)
3) The ones who want the job, but Michigan doesn't really want them, but would consider them if they can't get anyone from the list of who they want or they can't afford them.

So with that in mind

Dick Vitale heavily encourages Michigan to hire Tubby Smith (on Mike and Mike)... And he goes on a shaming spree for all those who dare to complain about Tubby's record.

Michigan fan blog Conquering Heroes has a long list of potential candidates.

The ESPN story has a long list of candidates according to Andy Katz, including two of his co-workers (Majerus and Lavin). Also included is Ben Braun but I have a hard time believing Michigan would hire Braun since his record at Cal is not that much different from Amaker's record at Michigan (with the exception of a few NCAA tourney appearances)

A quick recap of the latest news in the College Hoops Repor(t)

The Greg Oden foul continues to get some talk, should it have been just a hard foul or something more?

Logic and common-sense says Texas A&M will disect Memphis like a frog (a Steve Lavin term; no animals were harmed during this phrase). But don't sleep on the Memphis Tigers! Calipari can throw all sorts of defenders on Acie Law from fire-hydrant Allen to 7-foot wing-span Robert Dozier. And Calipari has at least a dozen of them.

Dust up your VHS tapes! The 2005-2006 North Carolina at USC game could have a similar outcome in the Sweet 16? The Tennessee at Ohio State game from January is also repeated in the Sweet 16!

Where are you ACC Homers?. Dan Bonner wanted nine (9) ACC teams in the NCAA tourney. They got seven. I thought BC was a bubble team without Sean Williams, but what do I know? The ACC only has one team in the Sweet 16!


Xs and Os

If you are Xavier, do you let Ron Lewis shoot and make a heroic three or do you foul him? Not fouling did not help Xavier. The three-point line is so close and the shooters are good!

Tennessee did both against Virginia, in the first such possession they fouled, in the second possession they didn't. It worked out for them both times.


NCAA Tourney primetime ratings

Thursdays games got CBS a 6.2 rating (9%), and the #6 spot. The 18-49 age group got them a 3.5. Last year they got a 7.3 (12%) and 4.0 among 18-49 year olds.

Friday's games got CBS a 5.9 rating (10%) and the #1 spot. The 18-49 age group was a 3.4 and also #1. Last year they got a 6.1 (11%) with the same 18-49 rating.

Saturday's games got CBS a 3.8 in the advertiser-interest 18-49 age group, compared to 3.2 last year.

Sunday's games sneaked into primetime (Kentucky vs Kansas, Nevada vs Memphis, Texas vs USC), giving CBS an 8.4 rating (15%), and #2. In the advertiser-interest 18-49 age group it got a 4.0 and was #2. The Kevin Durant boost?

The College Hoops Repor(t)

Tonight, Danny Ainge gets fined $30K for flirting with a certain lottery pick's mom, Brook Lopez remains in college (who said he wasn't?), Rod Barnes joins the hot Colonial Association party as the new Georgia State coach, while Ricardo Patton downgrades from Colorado to Northern Illinois in the MAC-attack... On the medical front, all the best for a speedy recovery for Coby Karl as he will undergo cancer-related surgery next month after the NABC All-star game (Atlanta, March 31, college seniors)... The coaching carousel rumors are flying, Michigan is the big cheese, and what about Alex Legion? So many rumors, not enough answers... NEXT!

Daily Tourney Talk (Sunday)

Tourney Recap: Due to time constraints this will be posted Monday night.

Pink Slip Madness: Michigan and Tommy Amaker
As expected (after failing to reach the NCAA tourney with a group of seniors) Tommy Amaker had to be let go (even though he may have been liked at Ann Arbor). As Amaker said during his exit interview (paraphrasing) "it is a humbling experience to realize you have failed". This (Michigan) becomes the biggest open job as of right now!. Some of the concerns with regards to the next coach are:
1) Are they willing to pay top dollar for a high caliber coach? (eg around 1.5 million per year)
2) Are they willing to commit to upgrading the facilities?

Some of the names thrown around (Brian Curtis of CSTV): Tubby Smith, Bob Knight?, Lon Kruger (coached at Illinois and Kansas State), Ernie Kent (Michigan connection), Mike Montgomerry (Palo Alto to Ann Arbor has some similarities).

This also has major recruiting reprocussions. I will get deeper into this later on. For now, here are some of the top recruits who are affected by the coaching carousel. Typically universities want to give the next coach a shot at re-recruiting the signed recruits, before allowing them to go elsewhere if they don't want to stay... It doesn't mean all of the players will want to transfer, but a lot of them do in such cases. That's how Arizona got Andre Iguodala, Texas got Damion James, Villanova got Scottie Reynolds, UAB got Mayfield, etc, etc, etc...

Alex Legion (Michigan), 2007

Corperryale Harris (Michigan), 2007

Al Nolen (Minnesota), 2007

Andrew Brommer (Minnesota), 2008

Jesse Woodward (Colorado State), 2007

Also from Brian Curtis on CSTV: There could be a coaching change at Iowa (new AD; their previous AD (Bob Bowlsby, former NCAA selection cmte chair) went to Stanford). Curtis confirmed that there was some preliminary interest between Steve Alford and New Mexico. After all Bob Knight went southwest, so why not his prized pupil?



CBS TV listings - Sunday March 18, 2007
*** all times pacific; add +3 for eastern ***

CBS goes in the 1-4-3 Sunday format (8 total games in 3 blocks)

830am, Pregame show on CSTV (not on CBS)

9am Tennessee vs Virginia on CBS

11:15am Purude vs Florida OR 11:30am UNLV vs Wisconsin OR 11:40am Virginia Tech vs Southern Ilinois OR 11:50am Winthrop vs Oregon on CBS

1:45pm Nevada vs Memphis OR 2pm Kentucky vs Kansas OR 215pm USC vs Texas on CBS

4pm Tourney Talk (90 minutes) on CSTV

9pm March Madness official highlights on CSTV

9pm College Gameday on ESPN

Women's NCAA tourney on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Full Court (not sure about ESPNU)

National CBS TV listings. Check with your local CBS affiliate to find out which game will be shown in your area/region
*** all times pacific; add +3 for eastern ***

Daily Tourney Talk (Saturday)

You know your team is going to have a tough and highly contested NCAA game, not when the brackets are announced, but when the announcement teams are announced. Gus Johnson has a way of attracting (or inducing?) instant classics! Gus Johnson is the only play-by-play guy that never takes a possession off, and sometimes plays harder than some of the players on the court!


Recap of the second block of games

The two most exciting games had a total of three overtimes and heartbreaks as Vandy had game-momentum and rode that wave to the Sweet 16 (a popular destination for Kevin Stallings), while VCU almost, almost, almost managed to beat Pitt despite Pitt having a 19-point lead.

A valiant Izzo State gave North Carolina all they could handle in Winstom-Salem. If only Izzo had two each of Pistol Pete Neitzel and Raymar Morgan. But unlike #6 seed Louisville at Rupp, Carolina earned the right to play near home in the regular season and received a #1 seed. The other good news for Carolina is that Hansbrough had a 33 point game without the mask.

Fire Ben Howland and Kelvin Sampson. What a horrible slugfest! And to think these are two of the top six programs in the NCAA. I can assure you they didn't win all those national championships with the kind of slugfest exhibited in the first half.

(Master of the Obvious) Tourney Observation: Right after a team loses in the NCAA tourney, there seems to be an increase in the internet recruiting interest as it relates to that team. Fans are starting to look towards the 2007-2008 season in larger and larger numbers...

NCAA-related installment of "Costas Now" on HBO. The latest installment of (Bob) Costas Now on HBO is dealing with college athletics. It includes a panel discussing whether student-athletes should get paid featuring Big Brother himself (Myles Brand) and the best-ever Ferengi basketball player. It also features a one-on-one interview with Coach Dirty-K, where he whines about 100 Duke professors criticizing Duke athletics at the time of the lacrosse incident. I have not watched it yet (NCAA games get in the way), but expect a very long review on that episode after Monday...

Recap of the first block of games

Two highly contested games (watch them online on repeat if you missed them, or when CSTV does its tourney repeat-a-thon) as Ohio State had an almost miraculous comeback against Xavier while Texas A&M managed to beat Louisville at Rupp. Great games, sad that there had to be a losing team, but that's the nature of the game... Great news for the mid-majors as Butler is carrying the mid-major flag in the Sweet 16 for yet another year. Butler is a tough out because you have to beat them, they are not going to fumble the game. This game probably made Gary Williams long for the days of having a space-eater in the middle like Lonny Baxter...

New Nike Uniform Record: 3-1 (Arizona the loss, Ohio State (2) and Florida the wins).


CBS Schedule on Saturday March 17, 2007
*** all times pacific ***

9am: Road to the Final Four (1 hour)

10am: Xavier vs Ohio State

1220pm Butler vs Maryland or 1240pm Louisville vs Texas A&M

240pm Vandy vs Washington State or 245pm BC vs Georgetown or 250pm VCU vs Pitt

510pm Indiana vs UCLA or 515pm Michigan State vs North Carolina
On CSTV

4pm Full Court Press (press conference highlights)

Official highlights repeat throughout the night (March Madness Highlights)

Daily Tourney Talk (Friday)

Recap of the fourth block of games

CBS and Billy Packer got their wish! Kansas and Kentucky will square off on Sunday in the 2nd round. Kentucky took down Villanova, with Sumpter and Nardi saying goodbye and Nova nation now officially starting the countdown to next year's "four-guard offense - the next generation"

Southern Illinois beat Holy Cross and Ralph Willard

Florida toyed with Jackson State and then reached the prestigious 100+ scoring mark

Arkansas started strong, Stan Heath gets excited, but slowly USC took over and the commentators started talking about OJ Mayo


Kentucky Watch: Fueling the fire was Billy Packer by saying fire the assistant who messed up the starting line-up paperwork and ended up having Bobby Perry's cousin Dwight Perry starting the game at an NCAA game! (not an exhibition game). Tubby had to resort to a quick foul so he could insert Bobby Perry in the line-up... Our Senior Coaching Carousel Editor Dr Lei Off is projecting major changes at Kentucky in the summer...


Recap of the third block of games
* The Arizona Moody Blues performed as expected, Purdue played better and toughed and they earned the right to be blown away by Florida on Sunday
* Reggie Theus made a national stage debut with his all-transfer team by giving Texas and Kevin Durant all they could handle. This bodes very well for the future of New Mexico State (if they can keep Theus there for more than a year)
* Kansas took all its first round frustrations on Niagara. They scored 100+ and a margin of 40+. Bill Self and the Jayhawk nation can now forget about the 1st round jinx and concentrate on a Final Four run
* Illinois "got lucky" (thank you B10 member of the selection cmte) and got an NCAA bid despite a disasterous season. Tonight's game was a microcosm of the season as they tasted the victory all game long but they faltered under the full court press of the unpredictable Greenies of Virginia Tech


Recap of the second block of games
* Two of the #3 seeds had to sweat it out but they managed to "survive and advance"...
* Oregon started 0-9, then went 20-0, and ended up winning by two. Nowhere near as hot as they ended the season (blew out of USC in the Pac-10 conference tourney final). They will face...
* ...Winthrop who survived a comeback by Notre Dame, but ultimately Winthrop was the team that closed the game and made the fewer mistakes and finally got their NCAA win. Last year they lost to a last second shot by Chris Lofton and two years ago they barely lost to the Designer Zags.
* Meanwhile Tennessee and Long Beach State reminded everyone of how games should be played, with 200+ points scored and the Vols getting a 12x-8x win. Once upon a time this was the rule, not the exception in college hoops.
* In the only overtime and in a closely contested game Nevada beat the Funk of Creighton despite two nickle-dimers causing Fazekas to foul out.
* Come on NCAA already, let's go to six fouls! Let the best players play!
* Texas A&M Corpus Cristi thought they were having their Cinderella night. Wisconsin scored just 4 points (yes, four) in the first 9 minutes of the game (yes, nine). That was on pace to finish the game with just over 40 points. Unfortunately for A&M-CC the Badgers kept chipping away at the lead and managed to take control of the game.

CBS TV note: The morning games that get played on the west coast start later, therefore the 2nd game of the morning block is not shown nationally. It is only shown in the local/regional markets. This was the case yesterday with George Washington vs Vandy (but it was shown nationally on CSTV), and today with Miami of Ohio vs Oregon (not shown on CSTV).

Recap of the first block of games
* Memphis had to earn their win against the feisty North Texas team
* Virginia "scrimmaged" against Albany. And that was a game my March Madness editors (*cough* me *cough*) picked as an upset special.
* UNLV managed to beat Georgia Tech in a hard-fought game where scoring was at a premium

2005-54 rescinded!: That's what Billy Packer said. And that's a good thing because it essentially turned them into free agents. Now if this was followed in the spirit of the law there would be no issues, but you know how coaches are, if a player is eligible, they will recruit him (directly or indirectly) regardless... 2005-54 was a new NCAA rule of last year that turned student-athletes into free agents providing their got their undergraduate degree, had remaining eligibility and were accepted in a graduate program at another university. Typically this affected five year seniors who had a year left (eg redshirt, medical or otherwise). Some may call it the Lon/Kevin Kruger Rule. And it worked out for them as they are moving into the 2nd round of the NCAA. Others that moved because of this rule: Jermaine Maybank (StJohns to Kansas State), Jason Walberg (St Mary's to Pepperdine; another one going to play for daddy), and Alm. Thierro (Memphis to Duquesne). The last one probably the only one that happened with the 100% blessing of both teams.

Speaking of Georgia Tech, this was one of the teams I was most looking forward to watching before the season started. However, their on-court performance seemed disjointed, out of sync and without flow most of the time. Not sure what the root cause is, perhaps the absence of enough ballhandlers/true guards? On paper this team promised to be of the mold of the 2004/2005 Georgia Tech teams with Jack, Ish Muhammad (who can forget the announcer saying after a monster dunk "take the women and children out of the lane"), BJ Elder, etc...

We are ready to call it!: Our Senior March Madness Editors Volf Blidzor, power-forward Jamez Cafforty and Andersen Koopor 180x2 are projecting that Texas A&M Corpus Cristi will upset Wisconsin. Book it! :-)

Unlucky CSTV: Both of the two live NCAA games shown on CSTV have been blowouts from the start...

Conference Realignment Madness!: Samford will leave the Ohio Valley Conference after the 2007-2008 season and join the Southern (not Southland) conference for the 2008-2009 season.

The madness continues both on CBS with a full slate of games and one live game on CSTV airing right now (915amPT/1215pmET) Albany trying to upset Virginia. Detailed national CBS TV listings here. For local TV schedules check with your local CBS TV stations...

Meanwhile on ESPN, another 5 1/2 hour College Gameday Scoreboard marathon from 9amPT/noonET through 3pmPT/6pmET. It will feature analysis, highlights, pre and post-game press conferences, interviews and all sorts of other goodies.

Gerald Henderson's dirty foul may have caused Duke a first round loss!... Why? Duke has a very high RPI/SOS, which would have given the selection committee all the excuses/justification they needed to give Duke a #4 or a #5 seed. All they needed to do was beat NC State and maybe their next opponent in the ACC tourney. Gerald Dirty-Foul Henderson was one of their hottest players offensive at the time of the incident. With him they had a good chance of beating NC State. With a #4 or #5 seed Duke would have been matched up against an easier opponent and would most likely have won... So Dirty Foul ---> 1st Round Exit... Some may call it karma, some may call it divine justice, some may call it "they deserved it". Thank you NC State and VCU!...

As far as the question of Duke's talent and depth let me point out a few things:

His starters are Top 100 talent and McDonalds All Americans (granted some of them were chosen to the Burger game because they committed to Duke, not because they deserved it, but they are still Top 50/100 talent).

His bench players were Top 100 talent coming into college. Most "BCS" teams don't have that many Top 100 players in their starting lineup.

It's no one's fault that Coach Dirty-K-Rat does not trust his bench players so he has to play only 6-7 of them

It's no one's fault that Coach Dirty-K-Rat did not develop his players

If you don't play them any minutes at all, guess what, they will transfer! (Eric Boateng, Jamal Boykin, and one more this year to be revealed later on).

If I was Kyle Singler I would really really really consider ejecting and staying near home. The last time I checked Oregon was doing real well :-)

If I was Nolan Smith I would really really really consider ejecting and playing where his dad played. The last time I checked Louisville was doing real well :-)

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

Daily Tourney Talk (Thursday)

Where have all the Cinderellas gone??? With all the parity a lot of people were expecting more upsets. Instead we only got one upset, #11 VCU beating #6 Duke. That was it. No other upsets. Which makes Duke's first night loss in the tourney even more embarassing... Yes, some of the other games were close, but the higher seeds prevailed... No, I don't consider a #9 Xavier beating #8 BYU an upset since #8s vs #9s are an evenly matched...


Round 2 Predictions based on today's games

Predictions for the first four games are further below in this post

Xavier vs Ohio State: The first of the possible 2nd round "story" games has materialized. Thad Matta will face his previous team, who was disappointed to see him leave so soon when the Buckeyes job opened. Matta has the advantage of knowing the Xavier personnel probably better than their current coach. Prediction: Oden blocks out the sun and Ohio State wins a close game

VCU vs Pitt. The tough VCU team will face off the Pitt Panthers who are desperate for March success. Aaron Gray is not as gooey as Josh "Cry In a Towel" McRoberts, but he's not far off. Prediction: VCU (how can I not???)

UCLA vs Indiana: First one to 44 wins! Prediction: UCLA wins in a very ugly slugfest

North Carolina vs Michigan State. Carolina can get away with letting teams like Eastern Kentucky back in, but it may not be as easy when they play at-large caliber talent. The good news for the Heels is that Hansbrough is back, he scored 21 points. Prediction: Carolina wins...

All these Round 2 games will be played on Saturday

Thank you VCU! Thank you VCU for beating the Dookies! Thank you Anthony Grant, Eric Maynor, Anderson, BA, Pella-Rosa, Fameni and everybody else! Thank you for beating the Dookies!!!!!!!!!... If you are not familiar with the Colonial already, check some of the CAA blogs... Despite the Ole defense that got DeMarcus Nelson an easy bucket to tie the game, VCU's Maynor delivered one more time. As Raft would say, onions!... Thank you VCU!

What a wonderful VCU victory and wonderful Duke loss. I bet this will become an instant classic game. Anthony Grant showcased his coaching skills and if you didn't know you would have never guessed this was his first head-coaching job! Of course it didn't hurt being an assistant at Florida last year and cutting down the nets. Awesome with capital A!

Coach Dirty-K, you should have paid more attention when Turnaround Tom Penders said that VCU was the best pressing team: Turnaround Tom knows all about pressing... It will be interesting to hear what Coach K will say during the post-game interviews and press conferences. Will Josh McRoberts cry again? Will Coach K pretend he had a cold all season long and ask the AD to put this year's record on Johnny Dawkins's record and remove it from his?

Now how is the Dirty Rat going to sell high-priced TV ads after losing a first around game to an underdog? The Dirty Rat's Marketing Empire is a sandcastle!

On Timeouts You may have noticed that the media timeouts take slightly longer than regular season games. Not only that, but CBS also converts the first coaches timeout in the first half into a full timeout. During the regular season this only happens during the 2nd half. But this may be a good sign for college hoops: more companies want to advertise!

Desperately Seeking ...Upsets! Upsets where are you? :-)

Round 2 Predictions based on today's games

Maryland vs Butler: Butler cannot afford to fall behind. They clearly need to score more to beat Maryland, unless Maryland has a horrible game. Likely winner: Maryland

Georgetown vs Boston College: The only advantage I can think of that BC has over Georgetown is Ty. Rice. Other than that Georgetown has the edge. So unless Rice has a 30+ scoring game, I can't see BC winning

Washington State vs Vanderbilt: Both teams were playing slow last season, but Kevin Stallings has sped things up (let's not forget he is a Roy/Carolina guy so he is no stranger to a faster style of play), and Tony Bennett is not his dad, he plays faster too. The big question is whether Vandy's offense can score consistently over Washington State's stingy defense

Louisville vs Texas A&M: Pitino's team played like the 1996 Kentucky Wildcats at Rupp Arena in the first half. They will probably need another half like that to have a chance to beat Acie Law and Texas A&M. Billy Gillespie the next Kentucky coach??? (just a thought, not a rumor by the way). Prediction: The magic of Rupp gives Louisville an overtime win

Fallen behind on recruiting? Catch up at Recruiting Wars

First ever live NCAA game on CSTV starts right about now on CSTV (Vandy vs George Washington, national game).

Next wave of analysts on ESPN's 5+ hour impromptu college gameday scoreboard marathon: The one and only Howie Schwab (no chips in hand?) and Digger Phelps. Airs live right now on ESPN!


Cinderella Dreams Smashed by the Gravity of Reality's Anvil
- great line by Bob Ley of ESPN on OTL
* in reverse chronological order

Penn: They gave Texas A&M more than they could handle, and more than most people anticipated as this was not the Penn team of the past, this was a Penn team with a brand new Miller genuine coach (Fran Dunphry moved next door to replace the legendary John Chaney). But ultimate A&M's defense and the one and only Acie Law got A&M the big W.

Old Dominion: Just because you are playing another mid-major it doesn't mean you have a better chance of beating the #5 seed. This game was the biggest slugfest of the tourney so far.

Belmont A quick start against Georgetown was all that was left of the Cinderella dream before the giants of Georgetown stomped on their music sheets and instruments

Oral Roberts had a great first half with first-year coach Tony Bennett and his team having a "deer in the headlights" moment. But two last second buckets at the end of the first half woke up Washington State and the dream was over for the Suttons. Len Elmore apparently did not watch a lot of Washington State games this year as his comments in the first half indicated he was probably referring to the Dick Bennett teams, not the singer's team, which showed up in the 2nd half. You can bet the three Suttons and the two Bennetts were probably up all night breaking down tape. (Not bet like Pete Rose, even if it's always for your team to win).

Davidson lost to Maryland after a valiant effort. Dell Curry's kid has a good game as well.

Time-Warp The team playing at Rupp Arena coached by Rick Pitino looks a lot like the 1994-96 Pitino teams. This must really hurt Kentucky fans as the team coached by Pitino is not Kentucky but Louisville. Tubby's ballline defense cannot produce this type of excitement... Stanford got punched in the mouth and never recovered. Pitino downplayed playing at Rupp just 70-some miles away from their home co(ur)t, but judging from the cheers from the crowd they have a significant home court advantage... Another surprise is the relatively high score between Boston College and Texas Tech... The Maryland vs Davidson game was expected to be a shootout...

Remember you can watch the NCAA tournament games live online on your computer for free at March Madness On-Demand. Broadband is highly recommended for video. Enjoy the tourney and watch the brackets unfold and surprise... New this year: Live Radio Broadcasts, you can get streaming live audio from Westwood One's radio broadcasts of the first 56 games of the Championship, and an exclusive half-time show with Norm Roberts and Bobby "Gonzo" Gonzalez and Jason Horowitz. Also of note the video player is now 480x360 pixels, not quite VGA-size, but 50% increase over last years webcasts.

Let the games begin on CBS!!! Check your local CBS affiliate listings to find out which games are broadcast in your region. Check my TV listings below with links to the CBS schedule page for national listings. How to figure out what games will be shown on your local CBS station?. Here are some rules of thumb (in my opinion, not an official CBS statement): Local teams take priority, in-state teams, in-conference teams. If none of those are playing then they will likely show what they consider either the biggest game or the biggest name (eg UCLA, Duke, Carolina, Florida, etc). Basically they'll show whichever game they think will get more people to watch with local-priority in mind...

Also ESPN has made a last-minute decision to have a 5 1/2 hour college gameday scoreboard show from 9amPT/noon ET through 230pmPT/530pmET (Yes, 5.5 hours). If the CBS games get boring, you can always turn to Tom Brennan, Doug Gottlieb and Dave Revsine yapping for hours (literally!). It also includes live post-game press conferences and press conferences of tomorrow's games with media magnets such as Bruce Pearl and John Calipari (their teams play on Friday). ESPN News may also have live pregame and postgame press conferences...

Also for the first time ever, CSTV (now part of CBS Sports) will feature two live NCAA games. Today they have a pregame show at 130pmPT/430pmET and at 2pmPT/5pmET the game shown nationally will be Vanderbilt vs George Washington (also shown regionally on CBS (I presume in Tennessee and DC areas)).

Let the Madness begin!

A new book called the "The Enlightened Bracketologist" uses the Brackets approach to answer many questions. Written by NY Times sports tv columnist Richard Sandomir. Some examples: Their bracketologists picked the "Raging Bull" as the top sports movie... Homer Simpson faced off Ghandi as the top bald guy...

Daily Tourney Talk (Wednesday)

this will be updated throughout the day...

This rumor has legs??? Steve Alford to New Mexico? Neither team is playing in the post-season, so they are not constraited as far as making future/forward-moving decisions...

Mascot Wars: Two similarly-sounding nicknames are facing off tomorrow, Louisville Cardinals (the birds) vs Stanford Cardinal (the tree).

This may affect your brackets: Arizona's defensive minded reserve guard Daniel Dillon is suspended for the Purdue game after a DUI arrest. This will be a factor if Arizona needs a defensive stopper off the bench.

You can watch all the NCAA games online for free at MMOD (March Madness OnDemand

What to watch and when? Let Gary Parrish be your Bracket Tour Guide as he recommends what games to watch and when

Rating the Bracketologists: Gary Parrish of CBS sports has a segment on how the different bracketologists and bracketology sites have faired after the NCAA tourney was announced. Ironically the most famous bracketologist, ESPN's Joe Lunardi (aka Joey Brackets) finished towards the bottom of the pack!

There is still plenty of time to fill up your multiple brackets! The cutoff time for most websites is just before the game tipoff tomorrow (Thursday noon ET/9am PT). Brackets are all over the place, CBS, ESPN, CSTV, Fox Sports, and just about any major website that covers sports! You could win fabulous prizes if you get them right. And if you use my picks, please don't forget to send me a gift too :-)

You can watch NIT games on the ESPN family of networks, but you can also watch some NIT games online via XOS Live Streaming! (I do not know if it is free to watch them online). Details and schedule at the official NIT page

Taco Bell has a clever publicity stunt - they want to make Thursday March 15 a National Hoops Holiday since a lot of people will be paying more attention to the NCAA tourney and less attention to their jobs. They even managed to include a letter to the Federal Reserve Chair. (It would be interesting to see what Alan Greenspan would have said had he been the Chair). This coincides with the March 19 introduction of their 99c Zesty Nachos. Their website is a messy Flash site so I can't link directly to the letter, but you can get to it from the main page by mousing over the "Our Company" button and clicking on "Latest News". Thanks to blog reader EP for the tip!

Press Conference Highlights

From what I have seen so far, surprisingly no one (other than Bob Knight) has said anything exciting or out of the blue. The coaches seem to have been ...coached well so as to say the right things and avoid anything controversial.

Bob Knight: Ideally he wants a tourney of the 32 best teams chosen in some way without any automatic bids given... No issues with expansion in the current format since it would only add one more game (128-team pool)... He wants former coaches on the selection cmte such as Dean Smith, John Thompson, Gerald Meyers instead of "amateurs"... He wants Gary Waters to be a "permanent chair of the cmte" because he is both a basketball mind and a smart guy... Knight declined to answer the question "would your team be one of the best 32" in typical gentle Bob Knight fashion ;-)

Pitino on playing at Rupp Arena: "It's all about the teams and execution, not the fans"... "my 87 Providence team beat UAB on its home cot" (cot = Pitino-speak for court)... On Palacios: "expecting some quality minutes"... On the one-year NBA limit: "I take the opposite view of Bob Knight", "I lost four of them without the rule plus guys like Rondo", "I have two of them now that are discovering they are not ready for the NBA" (presumably referring to Derrick Caracter and Earl Clark).

Doug Gottleib is sitting in the ESPN News studio analyzing games in between press conferences. A must for "Gott Hoops" fans.

March Madness Drinking Game: Every time Jim Nantz says "Billy" (referring to Billy Packer). And by drinking I mean drinking water, orange juice, green tea, milk, soy milk, or diet soda :-)

My attempt to fill up the brackets while trying to capture the randomness of NCAA single-elimination games is right here.

Right now and throughout the day, NCAA Regional Press Conferences on both ESPN News and CSTV!

AOL's Fanhouse editor appeared on ESPN's Cold Pizza and talked about some of the hottest topics on the blogosphrere: Joakim Noah (his dancing and his alleged video-interview to DimeMag saying "when I enter the NBA draft"), Psycho-T (Tyler Hansbrough), the bloggers waking up and figuring out all the BS Coach Dirty-K has been spewing, including an excellent column at JoeSportsFan.com

Quotes

Bob Ley on most of the Cinderella dreams in the NCAA tourney: "smashed by the gravity of reality's anvil".


Pistol Pete Madness on Amazon Unbox
Pistol Pete's Homework Basketball videos are available as Amazon Unbox downloads for $10 each. You can also rent them for $4 each. These are not DVDs, they are online videos for downloading. Before buying make sure your computer system is compatible with the Unbox downloads and read the technical details and terms. They are:

Shooting

Dribbling

Passing

Bracket Picks: Capturing the Randomness

Here is my attempt to fill up the brackets by trying to capture the randomness of single-elimination NCAA-environment games. The picks below are not necessarily which teams I think would win in a best-of-seven series, or which one is the best team.

Florida region

Florida beats Jackson State. Arizona beats Purdue. Florida beats Arizona

Maryland beats Davidson, Butler in double overtime beats ODU, Maryland smokes Butler.

Florida beats Maryland in the Sweet 16

Texas A&M CC upsets Wisconsin (scores only 51 points), UNLV in overtime beats GaTech in a very entertaining game, UNLV beats A&M-CC.

Oregon scores 22 threes on Miami of Ohio and wins, Notre Dame blows out Wintrhop, but loses to Oregon 103-102 in regulation (!).

Oregon beats UNLV in the Sweet 16

Florida beats Oregon in an up-and-down game and Florida wins the region

Kansas region

Kansas beats Niagara by 45 (Bill Self takes out his frustration on the last two first round losses). Villanova beat Kentucky, and gives Kansas all they can handle, but Kansas wins

Holy Cross beats Southern Illinois on a buzzer beater, Virginia Tech beats Illinois handily, and they beat Holy Cross in the 2nd round

Kansas has another tough game but they prevail over Virginia Tech's Greenies in the Sweet 16

UCLA cake-walks Weber State. The Zags go back to their roots of being a true star-less Cinderella and beat the Kelvin Sampson slugfest, and they also pull the upset by beating UCLA, in a game similar to last year, but this time Gonzaga holds on to the lead.

Pitt scores threes like crazy and beats Wright State, VCU owns the Duke guards and sends Coach Dirty K home whining like crazy, but VCU cannot beat Pitt.

Pitt is too strong inside for the Zags and Pitt makes it past the Sweet 16

The region is decided between Kansas and Pitt. Just like the Big East final against Georgetown, Pitt falls apart and gets blown out by 20+. Kansas wins the region!

North Carolina region

NC beats Eastern Kentucky in a nervous and jittery game. Never in doubt, but never comfortable. Meanwhile Marquette's two Musketeers put on a shooting display with Dominic James (not Damion, thanks for the correction blog reader A!), going 30+ and they beat shaved-head Pistol Pete-wannabe and Michigan State. But Marquette is no match for NC and NC wins by 20+

Texas gets all they can handle from New Mexico State but they prevail to face USC that outgrinds Arkansas. Tim Floyd comes up with a great game plan to slow down Durant to under 30, but he cannot stop DJ Augustin who wins the game for Texas

Sad to see such a great game in the Sweet 16 instead of the Final Four, but after an instant double-overtime classic and 40+ points from Durant, North Carolina wins

On the other side, Georgetown beats Belmont and Texas Tech (who beat Boston College handily after Bob Knight comes up with a brilliant game plan). But Texas Tech gets blown out by Georgetown and in the post-game press conference Bob Knight sings the praises of JT3 and the Georgetown team for playing the game the right way.

Washington State comfortably beats Oral Roberts (sorry Doug Gottlieb), and GW upsets Vandy. Washington State beats GW and moves on...

... to lose to Georgetown in the Sweet 16.

This sets up an exciting regional final between Georgetown and North Carolina, another game we would have liked to see in the Final Four, not the regional final. Hibbert gives Carolina fits, but outside shooting from Terry, Ellington and Miller give the Tar Heels a very narrow win.

The Ohio State region

Ohio State blows out Central CT, Xavier buzzer-beats BYU, setting up a Matta vs previous team matchup. Ohio State wins but not easily.

Albany upsets Virginia as their guards have an average night. Long Beach State shoots like crazy but Tennessee wins on a late surge led by Lofton who is having an off shooting night. But then Tennessee proves too much to handle for Albany

Ohio State has a good game against Tennessee, an entertaining game, but Oden blocks out the sun and Ohio State wins in the Sweet 16.

On the other side of the bracket Memphis blows out North Texas. Nevada falls to the Funk Express. Creighton leads Memphis for the first 30 minutes but a last quarter surge puts Memphis comfortably ahead.

Texas A&M dismantles Penn (win by 30+), while Pitino works his magic against the Lopez twins. Texas A&M is bothered by the Pitino press and Caracter gives Jones and Kavalauskas a headache, while Padgett is a non-factor. Ultimately T-Will is too hot to handle for A&M and Pitino moves to the Sweet 16.

The classic Pitino vs Calipari matchup does not disappoint as we watch a very exciting game. Ultimately no one can stop Jeremy Hunt's hot shooting and Memphis wins

So the region is down to the Thad Five and the AASAA Tigers. Greg Oden blocks out the sun once again and Ohio State gets a comfortable win over Memphis


Final Four

Florida takes revenge over their Vegas loss and blows out Kansas by 20

North Carolina beats Ohio State as Greg Oden gets in foul trouble early, and they face Florida in the final.

The Final: Florida plays its best game of the season and cuts down the nets. Roy Williams cries during the post-game interview with Bonnie.

Daily Tourney Talk (Tuesday)

post will be updated throughout the day...

NCAA Press Conferences on Wednesday on TV!
* CSTV will have a seven hour block starting at 10am PT/1pm ET. The seven hour block will repeat at 5pmPT/8pmET on CSTV.
* ESPN News usually features the press conferences as well

New documentaries from CSTV to debut in March:
* One to One: Gene Keady
* One to One: Voices of March: Dick Engberg, Billy "Coca Cola" Packer and Jim "Golf" Nantz
* National TV debut of the 2006 Florida Gators "Gator Glory" official NCAA tourney documentary
* Also repeats of their library of NCAA-related documentaries. Check their college basketball tv schedule page for details. Please note that their schedule is subject to change (and I mean it!).

Idea Box: If the NCAA is really interested in the best interest of student athletes, why don't they announce the teams playing in the opening round game a bit earlier so the teams can have more time to prepare for a quick turnaround and a Tuesday night game in Dayton, Ohio. If the NCAA really has the student athletes interest in mind, this is a very simple thing to do that can make life a lot easier for the two opening round teams (or just get rid of the opening round game and decrease at-large bids from 34 to 33).

Bracket Buster: Marquette's Jerel McNeal is out for the NCAA tourney. This is bad news for Marquette fans, but they can still win... Doug Gottlieb pointed out that Marquette may have strategically timed the announcement, so it wouldn't have affected their seeding... Also from Gottleib on SportsCenter: "Arizona is like the Lion in the Wizard of Oz". They are the Wildcats after all...

Trends: Kansas first round exits. The last two tourneys Kansas was defeated in the first round of the NCAAs. This year they are playing the winner of the Niagara vs Florida A&M play-in game. Can Kansas do it this year? Talent-wise they are even better than last year, and neither Niagara nor Florida A&M are as good as the 2005 Bucknell or 2006 Bradley teams. Common-sense says Kansas gets a comfortable win. But then again so it did in 2005 and 2006...

The Rat (Jim Rome's term for Coach Dirty-K) has a new TV ad: State Farm Insurance ad set in a fictional Coach K basketball camp. No recruiting violations on this one - at least college basketball wise. There may be insurance agency recruiting violations in it :-)

We are ready to call it: After 400 hours of research our Senior Mock Bracket Expert Volf Blidzor is projecting Albany to beat Virginia. Super-scintilating super-sensational upset pick special baby! Albany with capital A!

More from ESPN News: Big "Glen Davis" Baby will enter the NBA draft but not sure if he'll sign with an agent yet (press conference next wednesday)... Mike Nardi is hopeful for the game against Kentucky... Michael Jordan will get a new coach after this season is over...

Billy Packer on ESPN News wearing a big bright red Coca Cola shirt (and he is critical of Vitale being a circus act?). Packer wanted to see Drexel in the field, he picks the four #1 seeds to go to the final four so CBS can get good ratings and he thinks Florida is the team to beat. His cinderella team is Winthrop.


TV Listings

TV listings just updated at the March Madness TV listings section. Don't forget to double-check with your local CBS station as local game coverage varies from region to region and affiliate to affiliate. Also some local CBS stations on some occasions may show a different game on their HD channel, especially if the regular CBS game is not in high definition.




Tourney Talk

Tonight! at 430pmPT/730pmET the play-in game of the NCAA in opening-round mecca Dayton, Ohio: Florida A&M vs Niagara. The NCAA wants to sugar-coat it and call it "opening round" but it's really a play-in game. The spin stops here :-) Prediction: Florida A&M wins in overtime! Also two NIT games on ESPN and ESPN2 tonight.

Upset pick candidate: Don't forget about the Zags. Remember the Zags did their damage in the tourney when they flew under the radar and played like a team and had no superstars. Don't be surprised if they win 1 or 2 games (and yes I know they would play UCLA in the 2nd round). Pargo/P-Mac can bother Collison while the open-post oafense can minimize the impact on the boards of UCLA's starting wrestler Lorenzo Mata.

Texas hall of fame women's coach Jody Conrad retires after 900 wins and a perfect season (early 80s). This is the 2nd year in a row her team did not make the NCAA tourney.


Quotables

Doug Gottleib predicts VCU beating Duke because of guard play

Both Jemele Hill of ESPN.com and Skip Bayless pick Duke vs Carolina in the women's tourney.

Skip Bayless on so many people picking Georgetown: "Big East Lunacy"

Paul Hewitt also supports tourney expansion (not 128, but enough to include more deserving/talented teams)

Lenn Robbins: The South region is very soft (#2 seed Memphis weak, picks Texas A&M to prevail). Lenn Robbins is a Big East guy by the way...


Kentucky Talk Doug Gottleib continues to not sugar-coat things (props to Mr Gott Hoops for that), and he talked about the recruiting issues at Kentucky, giving an example of a recent recruit who did not even consider Kentucky because he wasn't impressed by the KY assistants (even though he liked Tubby). Gottlieb did not give the players name but he provided a list of schools he was looking at, so those of you who really want to know who it is, you can just look at the recruiting sites and find the player with those teams on his list. Doug also mentioned the recruiting of Jai Lucas could be another thing to watch recruiting-wise with KY implications... I'm sure Kentucky fans are parsing each word in their AD's comments. Even if you don't parse it word by word however, it is rather obvious that the intent of the statement was to quiet the unrest among the fans and let the players/coaches focus on the game(s) ahead.


Selection Sunday revisited once again

Championship Week Flashback: NC State got Duke's number in both men's and women's ACC conference tourneys this year!

NCAA admits socio-political issues determine who is not in the Opening Round game. They don't want to have two HBCU teams face-off in the opening round. This raises questions about basketball fairness to the other teams that instead of playing in the tourney they have to play an opening round game. But the root cause of this issue is having the opening round game so the "BCS" teams can retain their 34 at-large bids. Solution: Reduce at-large bids to 33 and get rid of the opening round game Problems solved... Or have the last two at-large teams play the opening round game. How about that? Sounds a lot more fair to me.

The Selection Cmte seems to (directly or indirectly) point to the CBS 6pm ET/3pm PT deadline for some of the seeding snafus. I believe that. I'm sure they can figure out a way to give the cmte more time. Perhaps play the games on Saturday? :-) But that doesn't explain Arkansas, Illinois and Drexel. They (10-drone selection cmte) still refuse to give clear answers. Perhaps it is time for glastnost in the Selection process. After all reality shows continue to be popular. Here is an example of what could have happened: Desperate Bubble Teams NEXT on CBS: Tonight Jim Boeheim whines about the tourney on PTI, Sportscenter, The Pulse, College Gamenight, Oprah, Dr Phil, Nightline, The O'Reilly Factor, Jerry Springer, Newshour with Jim Lehrer, G4's Attack of the Show, the Daily Show, and Quite Frankly. Leonard Hamilton prepares highlight clips of FSU with Toney Douglas, Drexel makes a giant poster that lists their 13 road wins, and Appalachian State posts ads promoting their team across every single mile of the Appalachian Trail... On tomorrow's show, the Selection Cmte Chair teaches the cmte members how to answer a "Yes or No" question with 200 words without actually giving an answer...


The Lighter Side of Hoops

Mark Few gave Rece Davis the "John Stockton point guard" award for being able to handle all the egos on the set of College GameDay.

Bob Knight was joking about zone defenses with Digger Phelps

Following the recent events, Pokey Chapman is strategically positioned to be the first woman to coach a men's college basketball team...

A new book called the "The Enlightened Bracketologist" uses the Brackets approach to answer many questions. Written by NY Times sports tv columnist Richard Sandomir. Some examples: Their bracketologists picked the "Raging Bull" as the top sports movie... Homer Simpson faced off Ghandi as the top bald guy...

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

USA Today Monday: Special coverage of the Brackets!

The Monday edition of USA Today has a bonus section devoted to March Madness...

A short (p)review:

20 pages in bonus section "E"

brackets printed on one full page

multi-page multi-feature coverage on various teams and topics

regular season team-by-team results of all teams included in the Field of 65

Revisiting the 2002 Final Four (Maryland, Kansas, Oklahoma, Indiana)

One-page preview for each regional final with a couple of paragraphs on each team (total four pages)

One page of coverage by Dickie V (yes, Dick Vitale baby!)

another half-page bracket this one including days and tip-off times

Saggarin numbers (in small print)

Comparative statistics of the 65 teams (ppg, fg%, etc)

final regular season conference standings (all conferences)

Sheridan's odds

NIT schedule with days and tip-off times

Overall Rating: Buy It!

TV Listings for Selection Sunday March 11, 2007

Sunday March 11, 2007, Selection Sunday
*** all times pacific; add +3 for eastern **
*** DST changes at 2am on Sunday to 3am (spring forward) ***

10am, SEC final, Arkansas vs Florida, CBS. Big Stealer Candidate: Arkansas

10am, ACC final, North Carolina vs North Carolina State, ESPN. Big Stealer Candidate: NC State

11am, Southland final, Northwestern State vs Texas A&M Corpus Cristi, ESPN2. Whoever wins could give teams trouble in the first round, could even win the game. NW St almost beat Iowa last year! If Texas A&M Corpus Cristi loses, they are guaranteed an automatic NIT bid.

12pm, Big 12 final, Kansas vs Texas, ESPN

1230pm, Big 10 final, Ohio State vs Wisconsin, CBS



SELECTION SUNDAY-related SHOWS (lots of them!!!)

Bracket Madness is here!

9am, Road to the Final Four, 1-hour preview, CBS

9am, Gameday, ESPN (1 hour)

2pm, Bracketology (1 hour), ESPN.

230pm, Crystal Ball (30 minutes), CSTV

3pm, Brackets Revealed on CBS (1 hour)

3pm, Sportscenter with bracket updates as they are revealed, ESPN

4pm, Bracketology (2 hours) - analyzing the brackets, ESPN.

4pm, 830pm, (more overnight repeats), March Madness Bracket Breakdown (1 hour) on CSTV.

6pm, NIT Selection Show (30 min), brand new this year! on ESPN2.

630pm, ESPNU's version of Bracketology (90 minutes)

Bracketology repeats overnight on ESPNU



Other Stuff

6am, Game of the Week repeat, ESPN Classic. Not sure which game.

7am, ACC Basketball Today, Fox College Sports

7am, Washington 3A high school final, Fox College Sports

730am, Iona at Manhattan, Fox College Sports

9am, Texas 5A high school final, Fox College Sports

9am-11am, Hardwood Heavens marathon on INHD, four episodes: Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky and North Carolina (their storied arenas)

2pm, Hall of Fame: Jim Boeheim, FSN

230pm, New Jersey high school final, Fox College Sports

430pm, 11pm, 5am, Pac10 semifinal repeat, Cal vs Oregon, Fox College Sports

7pm, Lake Oswego at Mater Dei, Fox College Sports. Kevin Love repeat.

1am Monday, from 2001, USC at UCLA, Fox College Sports


If you find these listings useful, you can encourage this blog to continue posting them by making your Amazon.com purchases via the affiliate link here or the Amazon logos in the blog.

Daily Bubble Talk (Saturday)

This will be updated throughout the day. Newer posts will appear on top.

Boston College does not deserve an at-large bid?!?!?!!?! The last game Sean Williams played was January 16 vs Miami. He is not coming back. So BC should be evaluated on how they did after Sean Williams was ejected. Since then, they were 5-6 in the ACC, 1-1 in the ACC tourney and 1-0 in OOC games (home vs Hartford). Home: 3-2 (+Hartford win), Away: 2-4, Neutral: 1-1. At home, they beat Florida State, Virginia Tech and Clemson, while on the road they beat Miami and Florida State. Their six losses were two at home (Duke, Carolina) and four on the road (Duke, Clemson, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech). In the ACC tourney they beat Miami in overtime, and lost to Carolina. So they split with Virginia Tech and Clemson, swept Florida State and lost to NC (2x), Duke (2x), and Georgia Tech. Thus they are 1-4 against NCAA locks, and 4-2 against the bubble, and 3-0 against no-post-season teams. Subjectively they look like an NIT team to me, regardless of how much Dick Vitale praises them. With the bubble squeezing, I can think of a handful of more deserving teams for the last few remaining at-large spots.

MAJOR SQUEEZE of the NIT Bubble!: Three more (regular season conference champions) lost today in their conference tourney so that qualifies them for an automatic NIT bid. This brings the automatic NIT bids up to 8, and significantly shrinks the NIT at-large pool, now down to 24. Just two years ago the NIT bubble was 40 teams, so that's major shrinkage. The "BCS" teams that took the NIT for granted will now have to really earn it. Two more conference tourney finals remain that could result in an automatic NIT bid (Big West tonight and Southland tomorrow). More coverage at NIT Central

On the NCAA front, into the Big Dance goes Miami of Ohio (heartbreaker for the Akron LeBrons), while hope lives for King Sidney "Leonidas" Lowe and his 300 WolfPack as they move on the ACC Final tomorrow on ESPN. Is Engin Atsur this year's Gerry McNanamara?

Instant Update: A miraculous three-pointer gives Miami of Ohio the win over the Akron LeBrons! However, the zebras are reviewing the last few seconds to make sure there were no timing errors...

Quick Hitters: Bilas was throwing diva-fits when Lunardi dared to make a case for mid-majors to get some at-large bids. Is Bilas funded by the "BCS" Basketball Conference Lobby?... Speaking for the need for full disclosure, Doris Burke's husband is the Rhode Island AD... Dick Vitale was suggesting that South Florida should hire Pete Gillen... Bob Huggins on ESPN: "the only one of your analysts with any insight on your network is Digger". On a totally unrelated note Digger Phelps has always had Kansas State "IN" even before they blew out Texas Tech... If the other North Carolina players played with 50% the intensity of Psycho-T, Carolina would have been unbeatable... Speaking of which, Bobby Frasor twice almost let Boston College back in the game. Perhaps Q Thomas needs to become the backup point and Frasor move into a combo-guard position (part of it being his earlier injuries perhaps)...

Reader Comments/Questions:
1) Anonymous reader said: "Lodrick Stewart is fat"
2) The SEC deserves more than four bids and my response to that.
3) Question: Why do they show the MEAC tourney on ESPN Classic? Answer: Because the other two ESPN channels are busy with the Big 12/ACC semifinals and the finals of the A-10 and MWC. Also the SWAC final is on ESPNU. Too many games, not enough channels for ESPN, that's why!

Bracketology Critique: Creating False Expectations: Every year the brackets are projected assuming no one steals a bid. When fans see the projections of the last four in, they may think that they are in, but they are not because bid stealers and "bcs" winning-streakers (a BCS team that wins 3 games and loses in the conference tourney final, piling up enough quality wins to leapfrog the other bubble teams) are not factored in. Every year there are bid-stealers (this year: A-10 and WAC so far) or "bcs" winning-streakers. So the last-four-in should really be treated as the last-four-out and the next-to-last four in are really the last four in. What do y'all think? :-)

Recruiting: Rosters of the various high-school all-stars games has been announced. They feature OJ Mayo, Kevin Love, Eric Gordon, Derrick Gordon, Michael Beasley and many more. Details and links at Recruiting Wars

Bonus NCAA games for cable/satellite TV subscribers!: CSTV is planning to show an additional NCAA college basketball game on Thursday and Friday (according to published TV schedules). More details as they become available...

Daylight Saving Time alert: Time changes at 2am Sunday.

The sixth automatic NIT bid was given a few minutes ago to Vermont as they lost the America East conference title to Albany. Tom Brennan is probably crying in the ESPN studios.

Candidates for automatic NIT bids: If they lose in their conference tourney games today/tomorrow, and assuming they won't get an NCAA at-large bid, these teams will then receive an automatic NIT bid: Long Beach State (Big West), Delaware State (MEAC), Texas A&M Corpus Cristi (Southland), Mississippi Valley State (SWAC).

Dirty Karl: Coby Karl, NBAer's George Karl's son committed a dangerously hard foul on a New Mexico State player that caused TV coach Reggie Theus to get so upset that he stormed the court. So you see I'm not just picking on Duke :-) Memo to the NCAA: It is time to clean up play and keep basketball basketball, not wrestling or football or kickboxing. It's very simple really: Suspend a player for 3-5 games, suspend a coach for 3-5 games, and no one will commit dirty fouls :-) Preferably do it on a high-profile coach, not on a team from the SWAC or the MEAC, that way everyone will take notice.

Storming the Court is the topic of Sunday's Outside the Lines with Bob Ley on ESPN. It profiles the story of Jay Kay who got stomped by a storming the court crowd in Arizona a couple of years ago. It airs on Sunday at 630am PT/930am ET (watch out for the early DST time change if you are planning to record it).

New Nike Uniforms Record: 3-2

Interesting resume comparisons at ESPN's College Gamenight: Kentucky vs Missouri State, and Virginia vs Appalachian State. Also of interest they pointed how similarly the last two Utah State-Nevada games ended, with the same score 79-77 and Spicer hitting the last two free throws.

It's a small world: Levon Kendall blocked a shot, the ball went into the crowd and hit Aaron Gray's mom in the face/nose. Ouch!

Pink Slip Madness: As expected South Florida's Robert McCullum was let go. South Florida is a very tough situation basketball-wise, I'm not sure what they are expecting. They are a mid-level Conference USA baketball program (at best) and the only reason they are in the Big East is because they needed another football team.

Pac-10 tourney Notes

The X-MO (slower slow motion) proved a handy feature during the Pac-10 tourney coverage on FSN

Washington State continues to show different faces/line-ups which can be very confusing to new opponents. Wild Bracket Pick suggestion: Final Four

The Pac-10, FSN and the Staples Center have announced an extension of their deal to continue to host the Pac-10 conference tourney there until 2012.

Ben Howland's mom made some comments on Paul Westphal's comments and created a non-issue issue that was quasi-mentioned during the broadcast.

What is CBS thinking? They are sending Bob Wenzel to do the Pac-10 final game. That's just silly. Why don't they pick someone who actually does Pac-10 games on a regular basis? Bob Wenzel usually does ESPN+ games (eg Big East), and the Basketball Weekly show on Comcast Sports South. Similarly ACC homer Dan Bonner is doing the Memphis game!

TV listings are below

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.

Daily Bubble Talk (Thursday)

Last item for today, the TV schedule for Friday's games
Fri March 9, 2007

9am, 11am, Big 10 quarterfinals one and two, ESPN

9am, 11am, 4pm, 6pm, ACC quarterfinals, ESPN2

930am, 1230pm, 4pm, 630pm, Big 12 quarterfinals, ESPN Full Court

10am, 1215pm, 430pm, 645pm, SEC quarterfinals, ESPN Full Court

1pm, Hall of Fame documentary: Jim Boeheim, FSN. Has anyone calculated his lifetime OOC SOS/RPI? :-)

130pm, Patriot final, ESPN2

330pm, 6pm, Big 10 quarterfinals 3 and 4, ESPN Full Court

4pm, 6pm, Big East semifinals, ESPN

4pm, 630pm, Conference USA semifinals, CSTV

4pm, 6pm, MAC semifinals, ESPN Full Court

5pm, 730pm, WACo semifinals, ESPN Full Court

6pm, 830pm, Pac-10 semifinals, FSN/FoxCollegeSports

6pm, 830pm, Mountain West semifinals, CSTV

7pm, midnight, Basketball Weekly, CSN

10pm, College Gamenight, ESPN

I do not have easy access to ESPNU listings until/unless Comcast adds ESPNU to its lineup.

that's all folks!

Reader Segment (sort of)

Question: What college basketball coach dropped his gum on the floor?

Answer: Thad Matta of Ohio State

Question: How do I become a McDonalds All American? (This one from the Recruiting blog)

Answer: The easiest way to do that is to commit to Duke.

Question: Who are North Carolina's commitments for 2007-2008?

Answer: Zero, nada, nobody as of right now

Question:

Unfounded??? Rumors: Steve Alford to New Mexico???


Thank you Engin Atsur for leading the Wolfpack into an excellent victory over the dirty-deeds-done-dirt-cheap Dookies!. Thank you NC State! Thank you Sidney Lowe! Thank you bright red jacket! Thank you! Take that Dirty Dookies! What are you going to whine about this time Dirty-K? Oh this is so exciting :-) Meanwhile the Big 10 doesn't really help itself after three slugfests galore in the opening round as Michigan, Michigan State and Illinois barely beat inferior opponents but lose points on the qualitative aspect of their sub-50 game... Doug Gottlieb: "The Arizona Wildcats should change their name to the Dogs" (after their horrible performance against Oregon... Doug Gottlieb: "Air Force should still be in despite their loss to Wyoming"... Yet another instant classic between West Virginia and Louisville. Memo to Big East schedulers: these teams should play each other twice per year, not zero times!.

Tubby on being on the hot seat: On his own TV show Tubby mentioned that he is not affected by all the naysayers and criticism, and he went back to the examples of someone trying to feed his family, or people dealing with natural disasters being serious issues, not the criticism by demanding fans. Tubby: "the players recover a lot quicker than we do... we grown-ups tend to harbor a lot of malice and bad thoughts...". He was talking about recovering from a tough loss, but he could have easily been talking about all the critics :-)

Hope lives for these Bid Stealer Hopefuls: California, NC State, Miami, and Wyoming...

Pink Slip Madness St Bonaventure fires head coach Anthony Solomon. Now all the NY/NJ-area assistants and mid/low-major coaches will be looking for the Bonnies AD cell phone number... Apparently there is smoke and fire in the sudden Pokey Chapman resignation at LSU (women's basketball team).

Update 550pm/850pm ET: The 420 Bears have done it! The 420 Bears have done it! The 420 Bears have done it! This busts open the Pac-10 brackets, and at the same time a heavy cloud moves over UCLA's hopes for a #1 seed. Cal's Ubaka had another clutch performance with 29 points. Meanwhile the player of the year award anchored Afflalo to just 3 points. Ben Howland should have been T'ed a couple of occasions where he was inside the lines playing defense and he partially but inconsequently affected the game. The refs should really give him a warning. This is really embarassing for the UCLA coach to be acting like a Little League dad. The Ben Howland House of Cards is falling apart. Or may not. They only lost two back-to-back games. UCLA is not Kentucky after all... With 4 minutes to go, Sidney Lowe's 300 are still valiently fighting the Dirty Dookies. Lowe's bright red jacket must be lighting rooms with big-screen TVs... Instant update: Thank you Gavin Grant! NC State is up by 4 with 3 minutes left!

Update 5pm/8pm ET: The Cal Bears despite being so tired (insert Ozzy's song here), are giving UCLA all they can handle. Has Ben Howland burnt out his team? Has he overcoached him? Has he drained the lifeforce out of them like Coach Dirty-K does?

Update 430pm pacific/730pm eastern: Chicken or the egg? Lute Olson has been an outspoken critic of the conference tourney and his team has not done well in it... The fastest first 4 minutes in a game? It only took 4:35 of wall clock time to play the first 4:04 of game time of Arizona vs Oregon... The FSN reporter mentioned that Ernie Kent made a cellphone call after being told about the four teams sporting the new unis, but not the Nike Ducks. Speaking of the unis, this is the first major uniform overhaul since 1990... On top of that, Ernie Kent has found the secret to beating Washington State: you have a higher percentage if you hoist wild shots than if you go against the set Cougars defense... The new Nike unis are not doing so well, their record is 1-2 so far... Thank you NC State! They are currently ahead of the Dirty Dookies. Sidney Lowe's 300 are ready to pull the upset!!! Go Pack!... Keeping the dream alive: Morris Almond and Rice beat #2 seed UCF and move on to the C-USA semifinals. Miami upsets Maryland and moves on to face Boston College. This in turn makes the game a must win for Boston College, and open up the door for Florida State to go to the ACC final if they can beat Carolina. Let's not forget that FSU is an athletic team and Virginia Tech swept NC. However FSU does not have two big, athletic, talented, and mature guards like Jamon Gordon and Zabian Dowdell.

Over-valued: Notre Dame With Digger singing Notre Dame every time the camera turns on him, some people may have forgotten to actually look at the Domer's record. They won @Maryland, but that was before Maryland re-imagined themselves. Regardless a very good win. Then what? Their only other OOC win was a struggling Alabama team (at home), and other than a loss to Butler, the next best OOC team they played was a #199 RPI (Rider). Nice, very nice! Load up the cupcakes please... In the Big East they were mediocre on the road (with the exception of a win @Syracuse). Their best at home wins were Louisville (when they were struggling), Nova, West Virginia, Marquette and Providence. I am not sure this is an NCAA lock resume. I'm not saying they won't get in, but the resume is not particularly impressive. They played five conference games against teams that didn't make the Big East tourney (out of 16 conference games). I really don't like it when teams line up cupcakes at home and Notre Dame scheduled 9 of them. Sorry Domers, but as far as I am concerned you are in the bubble group, not the locks group :-)

Update 1pm pacific/4pm eastern: Continuing the trend of big leads but not closing the door from the two Pac-10 games last night, Georgetown owned Nova but then they let them back in... In the play-out game, Florida State squeaked by Clemson (thank you Al Thornton for the free throw). Florida State (which was left out last year) has been undervalued because people ignored the injury of Toney Douglas. Florida State should be in if they have a good showing against Carolina... Michigan tempts the selection cmte to leave them out by slug-festing a win over the mediocre (at best) Minnesota TimberGophers (yes, another 48-40 game in the Big Bore)...

Why should Drexel get an at-large bid: I just posted a more readable version of this at Armchair GM.
The NCAA selection committee has stressed year over year the value of playing road/neutral games and playing a challenging schedule. They went out of their way to encourage this by adjusting the RPI to give more weight to road wins. And here is where Drexel is a poster-child for this. Aside from having one of the coolest nicknames and mascots (Dragons), they are 13-4 in road games this year. This is just road games, not road/neutral. In neutral games they are 1-1 (CAA conference tourney), although their loss was a semi-away game (played almost on VCU's campus). However, some of the road wins were Big 5+ games, which are more semi-away than road games. Regardless those wins are "very nice" as Borat would say, three Big 5+ wins (Drexel being the "+" in Big 5 since they are not officially in the Big 5, but they play them anyways). The three Big 5+ wins: Villanova, Temple and St Joe. The only Big 5 team they lost to was Penn (they didn't play La Salle). Other road wins of note: @Vermont, @Syracuse and @Creighton. Also "very nice". They split two overtime games with Hofstra (each winning on each others' home floor). They are 0-4 against ODU and VCU, but that's more of a reflection of how good ODU and VCU are. Why pick a team like Syracuse that sits at home and tries to eat 13 cupcakes (and can't even do that) instead of picking a team that actually played and won road/neutrals? Their 3-1 record in Big 5 games is also another indicator that this team would do well in a neutral tourney environment. ODU has a big win @Georgetown. Hofstra herself is not a bad team, but their record is not pretty enough for NCAA consideration (not that it helped them last year when they had a prettier record). On the plus side this will get Tom Pecora a more prominent role on CSTV's March Madness coverage. Why is that important? The CSTV karma! The CSTV karma got Seth Greenberg a great season this year after his stint as CSTV analyst! Also watch for CSTV karma rewards in the next two years for Gonzo (Seton Hall's Bobby Gonzalez) and Norm Roberts (St Johns). Okay where am I? I think I was trying to make a point or two. Oooh the Drexel Dragons. If they don't get in, and some wishy-washy flaky BCS team with 1-2 road wins gets in instead of them, then the NCAA selection cmte should not be taken seriously... Speaking of which, Billy Packer has promised that he will reveal some intriguing suggestion to the selection sunday on Selection Sunday, presumably when he and his caddy (Jim Nantz, fitting since he does a lot of golf tourneys) interview the selection cmte chair after the brackets are announced. Not sure if it will be groundbreaking suggestion or some silly pro-BCS silliness... Okay back to the Drexel Dragons, from a TV ratings perspective, think of how many new fans will tune in to see the cool Dragon mascot! The UAB Blazers won't be there this year... But seriously, this is (as others have said) a litmus test of how serious the NCAA suits are about playing a tough/challenging road schedule and winning some of them.

More NCAA bids: Weber State and Central Connecticut State.

NIT Bubble teams should rejoice because the above two teams could have taken an NIT automatic bid if they lost last night in their conference tourney

Tonight ESPN goes all "bcs", FSN is all Pac-10 and CSTV is all Coaching-Rehab conference (C-USA). Why did I give C-USA this new name? Look at all the coaches rehabing their careers there: Larry Eustachy, Matt Doherty, Mike Davis, Tom Penders, and John Calipari.

No NCAA bids will be awarded tonight. Next automatic bids are Friday (Patriot League), Saturday (America East, MEAC, MAC, Mountain West, Atlantic 10, WACo, Big West, SWAC, Pac-10, and Big East), and Sunday (Southland, SEC, Big 10, Big 12, ACC).

Of those above (who are not NCAA locks), the ones who could get an NIT automatic bid if they lose are: SWAC (Miss Valley State), Southland (Texas A&M CC), Big West (LB State), America East (Vermont), Patriot (Holy Cross), MAC (Toledo), Mountain West (BYU - look at their OOC wins!). Highly unlikey is Atlantic-10 (Xavier) since they are almost an NCAA lock. There is still plenty of time for things to happen, such as mid-major bid stealers, and crazy runs in "bcs" conferences that could shrink the at-large pool and have some bubble teams leapfrog others. So when you look at Bracket projections, treat the last-four-in as the last-four-out. As more conferences are decided, then the last-four-in become more solid. Until then, the next-to-last-four-in are the last-four-in (if that makes any sense)

One last thought from last night: You know you are watching a #8 vs #9 seed game in a 10-team conference when one team goes on a 32-2 run (not a typo), yet they let the other team in the game. I am talking about Oregon State vs Cal.


TV Listings
*** all times pacific; add +3 for eastern ***

TV listings of all March Madness here

Thur March 8, 2007

9am, 11am, 4pm, 6pm, Big East quarterfinals, ESPN

9am, 11am, 130pm, Big 10 first round, ESPN2

10am, 1230pm, 4pm, 630pm, and overnight repeats, Conference USA quarterfinals, CSTV

1030am, The Drive, covering the Big 12 and specifically the state of Kansas, Fox College Sports

1130am, Pac-10 preview, Fox College Sports (an FSN Arizona production)

12pm, 230pm, 6pm, 830pm, Pac 10 quarterfinals, FSN/FoxCollegeSports

1230pm, Hardwood Heaven: Indiana's Assembly Hall, INHD

4pm, ACC Round 1 Game 3, ESPN2

6pm, Big 12 Round 1 game, ESPN2

10pm, College Gamenight, ESPN

this is probably the craziest day of all of championship week with dozens of games on TV

ESPN Full Court Games
* 9am, 11am, 6pm, ACC Round 1, Games 1, 2 and 4
* 9am, 11am, 4pm, 6pm, MAC quarterfinals
* 930am, 12pm, 4pm, Big 12 Round 1 games
* 10am, 1215pm, 430pm, 645pm, SEC Round 1 games
* 11am, 130pm, 5pm, 730pm, WAC quarterfinals

Daily Bubble Talk (Wednesday)

*** this post will be updated throughout the day ***

Update 730pm pacific/1030pm eastern. While quantitatively only one team could win, Providence gained some points on the qualititative part as they played reasonably well and the Mountaineers were raining threes (17/31, new Big East conference tourney record). Certainly this game was favorable for both teams compared to 49-48 slugfests in the Big 10 and *gasp* the Pac-10... Speaking of West Virgina, their schedule was supposed to be stronger, they were supposed to face Virginia Tech and Southern Illinoins in the inaugural Disney tourney, but because of unpredictable results they ended up playing... This sets up a rematch of the 2005 Elite 8 game between Louisville and West Virgina (same coaches, different players)... In the battle of the Fallen coaches in the Coaching-Rehab conference Larry Eustachy beat Matt Doherty... In another squeeker St Louis beat Duquesne... The Big East forgot to announce one more regular season award, the 420 player of the year:, Kyle McAlarney of Notre Dame... Hello NCAA: Central Connecticut State. No NIT automatic bids rewarded for the NEC as Central CT St was the regular season champ as well...

Update 6pm pacific/9pm eastern FSN's coverage of the Pac-10 tourney started with the three analysts stressing how important defense is. Why is that funny? Because the three analysts are Don McLean, Paul Westphal, and Marques Johnson: all three were defense-optional in their time as players/coaches... ESPN's night-shift studio crew is Tom Brennan and Doug Gottlieb (does he ever sleep?)...

Update 4:50pm pacific/7:50pm eastern (Time-warp corrected) Tubby Smith on "Five Good Minutes" on PTI addressing the criticism and being on the hot seat. Tubby seems to be in a good mood and brushing aside the pressure as "part of the job" and "monday morning quarterbacks", and praising the Kentucky fans as "the best basketball fans". Also: "I enjoy coaching at Kentucky", "this is home for me", "Florida is the best team"... Tubby-mania continued at the 3pm SportsCenter. Doug Gottlieb compared Kentucky's recent record with the other big programs (Carolina, Kansas, UCLA) and said that the criticism is fair when comparing at that elite level. They also played back soundbites from Pitino's "defense" of Tubby on Mike and Mike.

Update 3:30pm pacific/6:30pm eastern: Two more Big East first round games on ESPN and the two Pac-10 opening round games later on FSN. Check the TV listings below for airtimes... Tired of the Ron Arrest (intentional mispelling) stories? How about some Good News in College Sports?

Update 1:50pm pacific/4:50pm eastern: Syracuse breaks away from UConn in the 2nd half, UConn goes full court, gives the Orange some cause for concern, but too little too late and Syracuse moves on to face the Digger Phelps Fighting Irish of Notre Dame tomorrow. A good win for Syracuse, but I wouldn't put them in as a lock because of that horrible out of conference at-home schedule... Rice beats UTEP and Morris Almond continues to hope for an NCAA appearance with three more wins... Fordham beats Richmond in a tight game and moves on to take #4 seed surprising Rhode Island with Digger's former assistant as a head coach... Meantime a new twist in the Tubby Smith vs disgruntled Kentucky fans saga: Rick Pitino defends Tubby, just days after Billy Donovan did...

Update 12:40pm pacific/3:40pm eastern: UConn is giving the Orange and their new unis all they can handle. Will UConn be this year's Syracuse in the Big East tourney?... Details on the Nike Hoops Summit rosters via Recruiting Wars... Thanks for the link to the March-to-Madness blog!

Update noon PT/3pm eastern: Syracuse is breaking out the new aerodynamic snuggly Spandex uniforms by Nike. The Orange are one of four schools (Florida, Ohio State and Arizona) breaking out new Nike unis during Championship Week... Fired: The Southern Utah coach, continuing the "Pink Slip Madness" which runs in parallel to March Madness.

Update 1130am PT/2:30pm eastern: DePaul was trailing Nova all along and lost a relatively close game. DePaul didn't hurt themselves by playing poorly or getting blown out although Nardi only made guest appearances because of his injury. But DePaul didn't help themselves either. Now they can hope that all the teams they beat do well (eg Kansas wins the Big 12 handily) and wait for things to unfold. As far as Nova, while there are rumors of Jay Wright to the Sixers, Jay Wright will be busy this summer cooking up the next generation of the four-guard offense, with the two Coreys (Fisher and Stokes) and Malcolm Grant coming in next year, along with Scottie Reynolds (unless of course he goes the Lowry-way (bolts for the NBA)). In the post-game interview Wright called Nardi the team's "spiritiual leader". The ESPN games are called by the entertaining trio of Jay Bilas, Bill Raftery and role-player Sean McDonough, which is a plus in case the games get boring or they are blowouts... You can watch the games live for free online at espn360.com... Digger is a Jim Boeheim cheerleader... Dayton beat Charlotte handily and will face Xavier tomorrow in a #1 vs #8 game...

Update 9am PT/noon eastern: Seth Davis, Steve Lapas and Rutgers coach Fred Hill were guest analysts on MSG's "College Basketball Weekly" previewing the Big East Conference tourney. The predictions? Lapas and Fred Hill picked Marquette, Seth Davis picked Louisville, and the nameless show host picked Pitt. They will return at 330pm pacific/630pm eastern to preview the next two games (Providence/West Virginia, St Johns/Marquette). The show airs nationally on Fox College Sports.


As the Big East tourney is about to begin in what is an elimination game for DePaul...

TV Listings for Wednesday March 7, 2007
*** all times pacific; add +3 for eastern ***
*** some online tv listings for March 11 and later on may not be not adjusted for the earlier start of DST (daylight saving time) that got some computers confused. I adjust my tv listings before I post them, but double-check if looking at other websites.
*** start times for games at the same location may slip if the previous games take longer (or have overtimes, or someone breaks the backboard, etc, etc)

9am, 11am, 4pm, 6pm, Big East Round 1 games, ESPN.
* 9am #9 Villanova vs #8 DePaul
* 11am (1120am really) #12 UConn (wow! they was #1 last year) vs #5 Syracuse
* 4pm #10 Providence vs #7 West Virginia
* 6pm (620pm really) #11 St Johns vs #6 Marquette

4pm, NEC final, #2 Sacred Heart vs #1 Central Connecticut State, ESPN2. If Central Conn St loses, they have an automatic NIT bid.

6pm, Big Sky final, Weber State vs NAU, ESPN2. If Weber State loses they have a guaranteed NIT bid.

6pm, 830pm, Pac-10 first round games, FSN/FSN+/FoxCollegeSports
* Some regional FSNs may show them tape-delayed or on FSN+, so pls check local listings
* 6pm, #8 California vs #9 Oregon
* 830pm #7 Washington vs #10 Arizona State

10pm, College Gamenight, ESPN
Repeats and Classic games

830am, 330pm, College Basketball Weekly, an MSG (TV network) production, Fox College Sports. A preview of the Big East Conference Tourney with Seth Davis, Steve Lapas and Mr Jersey Fred Hill. The four Big East coaches who don't make their conference tourney become TV analysts right after that! Look for Gonzo (Seton Hall's Bobby Gonzalez) to do a lot of TV work for CSTV during the NCAA tourney.

11am, Cal at USC, Fox College Sports (regular season game)

1pm, Cal Poly SLO - CSF, Fox College Sports (regular season game)

130pm, 5pm, 1130pm, ASU at Cal (regular season), CSN

5pm, 530pm, Hardwood Heavens featuring Illinois's ASsembly Hall and the Phog (Allen Field House) in Kansas, INHD. Yes it has a small feature on the "Rock, Chalk, Jayhawk, KU" chant so if you are allergic to that chant, turn down the volume :-)

1am, Knight School reruns, ESPN

5am, BC at Ga Tech, Fox College Sports

three high school games on Fox College Sports



Bubble Talk

Three more tickets issued for the dance: Wright State, North Texas and Oral Roberts. Bubble teams in general were crying as Butler is very likely to get an at-large bid well ahead of the bubble teams.

No NIT bids were awarded last night. Two of them could be awarded today if Weber State or Central Conn State lose their conference tourney final. A total of four automatic NIT bids so far.

Catch up with the latest state of the bubble with Warren Nolan's Nitty Gritty Repor(t), color-coded for an easy read. For that repor(t) it looks like Eastern Kentucky, North Texas and Niagara will battle it out for the opening round game. But there will be a few more low RPI teams coming in, and Niagara is on a 10-0 winning streak so they will probably get a higher seed as a "hot team".

The Injury Repor(t)
Courtesy of Detroit News. Some significant ones:

Arizona, Jawan McClellan (knee bothering him) according to the Pac-10 preview on FSN-Arizona

Alabama, Ron Steele (as usual)

Dayton, Nick Stafford (flu)

Dirty Dookie Gerald Henderson suspended for Thursday's game against NC State in the ACC tourney.

Kansas, Jeremy Case

Louisville, Palacios questionable (as usual)

Marquette, Jerel McNeal doubtful

NC, Tyler Hansbro, probable

Penn State, Ben Luber, out for the season

Providence, Sharaud Curry, probable (finger)

StJohns, done for the year: Showtime Hill and Lamond Hamilton

Stanford, Anthony Goods, questionable. Stanford would sleep easier if they beat USC in the Pac-10 quarterfinals and Goods gives them a good-er chance of doing that :)

Nova, Nardi probable

For all the details visit the above website



Dirty Dookies Exposed, Part III

Yesterday it was national sportsmanship day and fittingly Tyler Hansbrough spoke out for the first time about the incident, trying to diffuse the situation. It sounded like he had spoken with Dean Smith before talking to the media :-)

Thankfully Jim Rome is not afraid of Coach K, so once again in "Jim Rome is Burning", he called out Coach K's spinning and nonsense of "open hand" vs "elbow". "Does Henderson rebound with his elbows?"

If you find these listings useful, you can encourage this blog to continue posting them by making your Amazon.com purchases via the affiliate link here or the Amazon logos in the blog.

Shopping News: Seinfeld DVDs one day sale!

The Seinfeld DVD collection (Seasons 1 through 7) is on sale today only in Amazon's Gold Box Deal of the Day for $99 with free shipping. It comes out to $15.50 per season! A must for Sienfeld fans! This is a one-day only deal (Tuesday)

Dirty Dookies Exposed (Daily Bubble Talk)

This post will be updated throughout the day...

The size of the bubble
Let's look at what 31 bracketologists think about the bubble.

Here is my opinion on which teams are not guaranteed an NCAA bid just yet or could get one if they go all the way to their conference tourney final (obviously winning it would get them in):

ACC: Georgia Tech, Boston College (people are underweighing their record without Sean Williams), Clemson, Florida State (people are overweighing their record without Toney Douglas)

A10: Xavier, UMass

Big 10: Michigan State, Illinois, Purdue, Michigan, Iowa

Big 12: Texas Tech, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State

Big East: Syracuse, West Virginia, DePaul, Providence, UConn - I'm scared of Jim Calhoun so I'm including his team ;-)

Colonial: Drexel, ODU, Hofstra?

Mountain West: Air Force, San Diego State, BYU (check their schedule first! - it's horrible!). Picking BYU would be rewarding a very mediocre schedule. Their best OOC wins are all at home...*drumroll* Utah State (in-state rivarly), Oral Roberts and Seton Hall.

Pac-10: Stanford

SEC: Ole Miss, Miss State, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia?

Valley of Darkness: Missouri State

WAC: Fresno State, New Mexico State

Other mid-majors: Toledo, Akron, Wright State, Bucknell

Here is my opinion 31 teams guaranteed an NCAA at-large bid:

ACC: North Carolina, Virginia Tech, Maryland, Virginia, Duke

Big 10: Ohio State, Wisconsin, Indiana

Big 12: Texas, Texas A&M, Kansas

Big East: Georgetown, Louisville, Pitt, Villanova, Marquette, Notre Dame

C-USA: Memphis

Horizon: Butler (forgot about them!)

Mountain West: UNLV. They have built up a solid resume

Pac10: UCLA, Washington State, Oregon, Arizona, USC

SEC: Florida, Tennessee, Vandy, Kentucky

Valley of Darkness: Southern Illinois

WAC: Nevada



Dirty Dookies, Sour Losers Part II - media reaction

Jim Rome said it much better than I could on Jim Rome is Burning and his radio show, summarized by the above title.

Wilborn of PTI: "the foul was wreckless and excessive"

Woody Page: "Coach K should apologize"

JJ Adande: "suspend Henderson for one NCAA game"

Jay Mariotti's eyes were opened by this incident. He thought Duke was a classy program before this incident. (Finally Mariotti woke up!)

Coach K's indirect admission of guilt by saying "he shouldn't have been in the game". You are not fooling anyone Dirty K. Now the average sports fan knows what hardcore basketball fans knew all along

Also Patrick McEnroe made strong statements about this "hit" ordered by Godfather K

The only one defending Coach K was ... well, you guessed it, field-goal kicker Skip O'Bayless

And one more thing on the substitution debate, if you recall from past Duke/Carolina games there have been some incredible last-minute comebacks. So unless the losing team waves the flag, the opposing team has to continue to play, otherwise they risk losing the game. Coach Krapola was calling time-outs and had Henderson and Redick-wannabe (Scheyer) in the game.

I wouldn't be surprised if Gerald Henderson gets booed every time he touches the ball at the ACC tournament by the fans in general, not just fans of opposing teams. Assuming Duke gets passed NC State

It is time to clean up play by penalizing both players and coaches for "goon" plays. This is what Godfather K ordered and Henderson was following orders. As many have pointed out Henderson did not even bother to check on the condition of Hansbro after the hit: Because he planned to hit him. If you suspend a player for five games and a coach for two games, everyone will think very very very hard before doing something like this again.

Why is Coach K so frustrated? Scoreboard: Roy vs Coach K 4-1 in their last five games. Looks like K cannot deliver on his promise to Roy that "I'll kick your ass" back in the Duke-Kansas NCAA final.

Memo to Jerry Colangelo: Time to find a real basketball coach to coach the national team!. NCAA referees are not calling FIBA basketball games you know, and the ACC conference office is not running the events.


Daily Bubble Talk

Bracket Filling Tip: When you fill your brackets keep this in mind. The games are not a playoff series, and the teams play two games in three days. So when you fill each bracket, don't pick the same thing over and over. Instead introduce some randomness to simulate the randomness of the NCAAs. You may miss some of the more predictable games, but you can catch some surpring results that not many others will. This tip course coming from someone (me) who never got a bracket right :-)

George Mason came so close! So close! CBS would have loved it for the ratings. The turning point in the game was probably the turnover by Smith, it led to two back-to-back turnovers-turned-to-buckets by VCU. But probably the injury to Mason's point guard earlier may have been the root cause of the loss. Almost!

Brackets, the bubble and projections at the Where Sport and Thought Intersect blog.

More NCAA automatic bids earned last night: VCU, Gonzaga and Niagara

No new NIT automatic bids last night

Tonight!: Up for grabs three more NCAA bids (see TV listings below for the games). Also two more NIT automatic bids will be given if Oral Roberts and Wright State lose the championship tonight. NIT Central. NIT bracket projections at The Bracket Project.

Funny ads promoting ESPN360 with a "sports video deficiency" theme and a guest appearance by Bill Walton who cartoonishly (literally) towers over the athlete suffering from "sports video deficiency"

Never too late to get the Blue Ribbon Yearbook. They are also producing a 144-page Tournament yearbook, $10 for an online PDF file or $45 for the print edition with overnight shipping included. A sample page of the PDF version is available for download on their site.

Speaking of Bubble and In or Out, here is my opinion on the 2007 Basketball Hall of Fame

Great page!: Comparison of all major bracket projections at the The Bracket Project. They compare more than 30 bracketology sites! BOOKMARK THAT PAGE!. It includes links to all the bracketology sites mentioned. All you can eat brackets.



Not Bubble Talk

The shy, introverted and never-self-promoting Dick Vitale revealed on Mike and Mike that Bob Knight has collected 31 letters from prominent college basketball coaches including a hand-written letter by John Wooden, Pete Newell and Coach K recommending that Dick Vitale be placed in the Basketball Hall of Fame. On a totally unrelated note Dick Vitale has been a staunch defender of Bob Knight throughout the years.

More firings in the Valley of Darkness: Illinois State. Also Harvard is looking for a coach as well. More details at the Coaching Carousel (Spring edition)

The rosters for the 2007 Round Ball classic have been announced. The Roundball along with the Jordan Classic and of course the McDonalds All American game are the three premier post-season all star games. The Nike Hoops Summit is under the umbrella of USA Basketball and FIBA so it's not an all-star game in that sense. Details at Recruiting Wars

Newspaper Review: Tuesday's edition of College Hoops coverage in USA Today!

Conference by conference coverage of the conference tourneys, not just the BCS schools, but mid-majors as well, including game times and national tv coverage (ESPN, ESPN2, CBS and Versus. No CSTV or ESPN Full Court or Fox College Sports). Save this page (3C)!

Half-page commentary on the Tyler Hansborough foul by Mike Lopresti.

A story on Dwight Howard and one of his childhood friends now in college and how Dwight Howard has remained a down-to-earth person despite the fame, glory and riches of the NBA

Select overnight TV ratings. The Duke/Carolina game got great ratings for CBS, a 3.0 rating with 2.3m households. This handily beat the NBA game on ABC (Lakers vs Suns). The Kentucky-Florida game got a 2.1/1.6

Super 25 high-school basketball rankings (page 13C)

Scores of conference tourneys and upcoming schedule, in tiny font (page 13C)

Coaches Poll (capsules of the top 25 teams)

Recap of conference tourney action including Gonzaga (WCC), VCU (Colonial), and another story on Winthrop. Also featured are the women's conference tourneys with Stanford winning the Pac-10 being the spotlight

Overall rating: Buy it! (and then recycle it)


TV Listings, Tuesday March 6, 2007, Championship Week!
*** all times pacific; add +3 for eastern ***

Comprehensive Championship week and March Madness TV listings here

130pm, Mark Fox of Nevada guests on Jim Rome is Burning, ESPN. (Yesterday's episode featured Chris Lowery of Southern Illinois)

3pm-430pm, Pistol Pete Diaries Marathon (episodes 1 thru 3), Fox College Sports

430pm, Pistol Pete Diaries, Episode #4, Fox College Sports

4pm, Midcontinent final, Oakland vs Oral Roberts, ESPN. Oral Roberts gets an automatic NIT bid if they lose this game.

6pm, Horizon final, Wright State vs Butler, ESPN. Wright State gets an automatic NIT bid if they lose this game.

6pm, Sunbelt final, North Texas at Arkansas State, ESPN2. The winner will be a candidate to play the NCAA Opening round game next Tuesday.

6pm, Pac-10 preview, Fox College Sports (also repeats on Thursday before the Pac-10 tourney games start)

9pm, College Gamenight, 40-minute edition, ESPN

*** Repeats, and Classic games ***

10am, 3am Wedn, Utah at BYU, CSTV

11am, from 1995, the SEC conference tourney final, Arkansas vs Kentucky, Nolan Richardson vs Rick Pitino, on ESPN Classic

12pm, 5am Wedn, Memphis at SMU, CSTV

2pm, 9pm, from 1999, Duke at StJohns, CSTV

4pm, UCLA at Washington State, Fox College Sports. Total slugfest, don't watch it!

630pm, 10pm, ASU at Cal, CSN

midnight, rerun of last year's Knight School, ESPN

1030pm, 1am, 3am, various high school hoops games, including Mater Dei vs Artesia, Fox College Sports

5am wedn, Boston College at Georgia Tech, Fox College Sports

Dirty Dookies, Sour Losers (Daily Bubble Talk)

Dirty Dookies, Sour Losers And there you have it folks, the Dookies are exposed once again this time on national TV on CBS. Coach K went into spin control as usual and the ACC conference office (Coach K's puppets?) went into bobblehead mode (once again) and agreed with him. As usual most of the TV analysts are also scared of offending Coach K so they danced around the issue, however Doug Gottleib pointed out that an "Aaron Brooks"-like punishment would be fair (suspending Gerald Henderson for the 2007-2008 Duke game at Chappel Hill). Len Elmore, one of the most knowledgeable and level-headed basketball analysts astutely pointed out that someone with the athletic ability and precision of movement of Henderson should have been able to not deliver such a blow to Hansbro's head unless he intended to do so. The CBS cameras caught Henderson mouthing "my bad" while on the bench, while the refs were reviewing the TV footage. If you review the footage from various angles it looks like Henderson probably did this before and planned the approach/angle so it would look like he was going for the ball. Perhaps Coach K has a practice drill for this? ...The only reason the game was that close was because Duke won the hassle plays. However, this incident may fire up the Carolina players who haven't always played with fire this season. Imagine if all ten Carolina players increase their intensity. If they meet Duke again in the ACC final, and if all ten Carolina players play with intensity, they are probably going to beat Duke by 40 (revenge factor). Perhaps that's why Ole Roy wasn't as upset about this incident. This may be the trigger that gets North Carolina the 2007 national championship... This also brings up another topic: It is time to clean up rough play and make basketball basketball again instead of wrestling and boxing and pushing and shoving and stop allowing players to use the "respect" card when they commit flagrant intentional and combative fouls. This is Basketball, not the international fight league.


Daily Bubble Talk

March Madness comprehensive TV listings

More NCAA automatic bids: The Dana Altman Funky Bunch (Creighton)

More NIT automatic bids: Marist with triple-double waiting to happen Jared Jordan (watch him as a sleeper in the 2007 NBA Draft), and South Alabama with a rising star coach. This brings the total of NIT automatic bids to 4 with 28 remaining in the at-large pool. The pool is likely to shrink even more as conference tourneys continue. More on the NIT at the NIT Central

Guess who's back??? George... MASON! George... MASON! Tonight at 4pm/7pm ET/PT on ESPN! A win will send the unlikely Cinderella back into the Dance.

Three degrees of separation: Duke beat the Zags, the Zags beat Carolina, yet Carolina beat Duke twice!

How the mighty have fallen segment... Duke is the #7 seed in the ACC tournament, yet the various Duke worshipers think they should get a #3 or #4 seed in the NCAA tourney. This was a funny ACC regular season seeding-wise. Carolina would have dropped all the way to #5 if they lost to Duke, and gotten the #1 with a win. No middle ground! ... The Bobby Perry Show wasn't enough to get Kentucky a much-needed road win at Florida. The numbers continue to stack up against: Kentucky lost to the same conference team for the sixth time in a row for the first time ever, and Kentucky has yet to beat a ranked team (first time since the Dark Ages of KY basketball).

Coming Soon: Coaching Carousel Spring Edition

more coming soon...

Daily Soup

New NCAA March Madness Drinking Game: Every time Jim Nantz says "Billy". Maybe he is contractually obligated to end every other sentence with "Billy". (Billy being Billy Packer).

And for a change of mood and pace, here are some inspirational stories at Good News in College Sports including Kay Yow, a Florida volleyball player, a father/son team part of the Louisville band, and many more.

Wooden Award nominees and profiles

Performance of the weekend: Al Thornton of Florida State scoring 45 on Miami when his team needed them the most.

Embarassing moment: UCLA's starting wrestler (oops starting center) Lorenzo Mata tackled Washington's A. Oliver to prevent a fast-break. This time however the refs actually penalized him for his wrestling moves. It is very embarassing for the storied UCLA program to have a wrestler-bully as a starting center. Nothing against Mata, he is who he is, the problem is with Ben Howland and for turning UCLA Basketball into UCLA Wrestling. As long as he is successful people won't complain loudly but once he starts losing games, he'll find himself on the hot seat real fast. Go back to Pitt or the Big 10 (Michigan and Minnessota may be hiring) and let a basketball coach take over UCLA.


TV Listings: Monday March 5, 2007 - all times PACIFIC!

4pm, Colonial (CAA) final, George Mason vs VCU, ESPN. Prediction: George Mason!

430pm, 7pm, SunBelt semifinals, ESPN Full Court

6pm, WCC final, Santa Clara vs Gonzaga, with Rick Majerus, ESPN. Prediction: Santa Clara wins and gets Dick Davey the perfect retirement gift, an NCAA bid!

6pm, MAAC final, Niagara vs Siena ESPN2

9pm, 9am, College Gamenight, 20-minute version, ESPN
Repeats - all times PACIFIC!

4pm, 1130pm, ASU at Cal, CSN

5pm, SoCal High school hoops: Mater Dei vs Artesia, Fox College Sports, with Marques Johnson. Must see TV! as a number of touted recruits including the Wear twins, Taylor King, James Harden, and many more are playing.

430pm, 5am, Boston College at Georgia Tech, Fox College Sports

1130pm, 5am, Sunshine State conference tourney final, a division 2 conference in florida, Fox College Sports

11am Tuesday, 1995 SEC final, Arkansas vs Kentucky, ESPN Classic. Nolan Richardson vs Rick Pitino!

Daily Bubble Talk (Midnight Madness edition)

Automatic NCAA bids: Penn, Belmont, Davidson, Winthrop and Eastern Kentucky

Automatic NIT bids: Austin Peay, East Tennessee State

Valley of Darkness: The coaches of Indiana State and Evansville have just resigned, just hours after they lost in the MVC tourney.

Marquette just beat Pitt without McNeal (out for the game) and Dominique James (injured during the game)

Great win for NC State's women's team and coach Kay Yow in her continuing battle with cancer

ESPN's Midnight Madness projected the field of 65, chosing 12 teams out of a field of 23 bubble teams.


Who helped themselves?

Kansas State beating Oklahoma

Florida State with Toney Douglas back made a furious comeback behind a 45er from Al Thornton and won at Miami in overtime

Arkansas got a nice win @ Vandy

Villanova beat Syracuse at home

Iowa outgrinded Illinois

Texas Tech winning at Iowa State


Who hurt themselves?

Oklahoma State losing at Baylor, without Boggan and despite 40+ from JamesON Curry

Illinois losing at Iowa

Georgia losing at home to Tennessee

Michigan fumbled the game, a microcosm of their season. The winds of change are blowing across the land (Utah, New Mexico, MVC, very recently), will another NIT trip be enough to keep Tommy "Dookie" Amaker at Ann Arbor?


Who stayed the course?

Xavier winning at LaSalle

Notre Dame winning at Rutgers

Purdue, West Virginia, Ole Miss, Drexel, San Diego State and DePaul winning as they were expected to.


Game Notes

Bill Self should have taken the free throws on AJ Abrams. Instead he insisted on the correct call and instead of two free throws, AJ Abramas scored a three-pointed on them. Sometimes being right is ...wrong

Ben Howland is going to break all of Pete Gillen's timeout records. He used four of them in the first half at Washington

If you are an upcoming Top 20 recruit and you watched the top games in each conference where do you want to play after watching Texas at Kansas, UCLA at Washington State and Wisconsin at Ohio State? Where do you think the next Kevin Durant is likely to go if he had to chose from those six?

Check the last February edition of Sports Illustrated for a three-page story on North Carolina's offense. The story by Grant Wahl (sp?) has two pages of text, one picture and a small Xs and Os diagram.

This time of the year the cliche is to say that "freshmen become sophomores". Well, in the case of Texas, after so many highly-contested multiple overtime games, the freshmen have become "redshirt sophomores" :-) Overtime games are a good teaching tool

Good luck Dick Vitale getting into the Hall of Fame after those Hooters commercials<. There is a segment of basketball purists who do not vote Vitale in the Hall of Fame because they consider him a circus act that takes the spotlight away from the game. The Hooters ad will only cement that perception and perhaps get a few voters on the fence join them...


Media Segment

ESPN's Cold Pizza mistakenly presented highlights from the CIAA tourney and said they were high-school teams. No Cold Pizza, they are a Division 2 college teams!

ESPN News had a segment with CBS Sportsline personality Greg Doyel who took a few parting shots at some of the ESPN analysts

Pistol Pete on Amazon Unbox downloads!

Pistol Pete's Homework Basketball videos are available as Amazon Unbox downloads for $10 each. You can also rent them for $4 each. These are not DVDs, they are online videos for downloading. Before buying make sure your computer system is compatible with the Unbox downloads and read the technical details and terms. They are:

Shooting

Dribbling

Passing

Daily Bubble Talk (Friday)

Coaching Carousel Instant Update!!!

Giacoletti will be gone at the end of the season. After three years of attempting to follow in the large shadow of Majerus. The buyout was just $175,000 for four years remaining (just???). Utah is now hiring! Will Majerus go back?

I would be shocked if sour loser and failure Steve McClain wasn't kicked out of Wyoming. Talk about a classless act!


Bubble Talk

In the Valley of Darkness, Bradley beats Northern Iowa on a late three-pointer.

Updated March Madness and Championship week TV listings

NIT coverage

A Big 10 game broke out in the Pac 10, as UCLA sealed an NCAA #1 seed by beating Washington State in a total slugfest. At one point Washington State had an 8-2 "run" in a spun of 8 minutes (!). What have you done with my Pac 10? Bring me back the Pac 10 of run and gun please!



NBA Draft Early Entries

Marcus Williams will enter the draft. While the timing may sound a bit early or strange, it has the pleasant side-effect of ending all speculation and questions about it.

Budinger claims he will return

Oden and Durant won't decide until after the season

The Big 12 Preview show mentioned that DJ Augustin has created enough NBA-buzz that he may bolt for the NBA at the end of this season

Randolph Morris is an NBA free agent (a rare case when a players get digested undrafted). He could sign with anyone at the end of the season

Take what players say now with a grain of salt (or even a whole packet). Sometimes they'll say whatever it takes to make reporters stop bothering them...



Not Bubble Talk

Not bubble, but the Thad Matta gum story won't go away!

Jump on the Calipari Express! A number of teams got stung by the 17-game-winning streak bug. Florida, Clemson and even an NBA team. But not Calipari's Tigers. The AASAA Tigers managed to beat Tony Barbee's UTEP and get to an 18-game winning streak. Them and of course the undefeated Lady Devils of Duke who are on their way to 30-0.

Memo to Roy Williams: Don't just bench Tywon Lawson. Bench all the freshmen and return to last year's starting team who overachieved. Make the freshmen earn their playing time by coming off the bench and making a difference.

Frustration Boulevard: Wyoming's coach Steve McClain makes a diva exit that would make Mariah, Celine, Diana Ross, Whitney, Madonna, the Dreamgirlz, and Beyonce jealous. Has he been fired already? It's about time :-) Also gone is the Liberty coach, but they may have a hard time finding a replacement: who would want to coach in such an exteremely liberal university? :-)

Funniest comment of the day: Jay Bilas described two Georgia Tech players getting tended to by the trainers for cramps as a "Yoga class".

Okay Illinois is not having a great season and perhaps they want to drown their sorrows in some alcohol, but do they have to all drink and drive? When I saw Rich McBride's name I thought the ticker had a typo and was reporting on Jamar Smith. Not so. This will probably nudge the team into the NIT or even the great beyond. And to think that just two years ago Illinois and Bruce Weber were on top of the world with the almost undefeated team.

Skip O'Bayless did it again by dissing college hoops in favor of meaningless NBA regular season games.

It's Mike Jarvis in the house. His is writing for Yahoo Sports. And he found a way to work two of his former players in the article, including one of the ...coolest names in college hoops, Alexander Kool. His final advice: Mute the announders and analyze the game yourself (as a homework exercise).

Yahoo Sports offers one free and some for-pay games available online (video or audio only)


Bubble Express: Arizona The team has a record of 19-9, 10-7 in-conference, RPI 14, SOS 2, RPI 1-50: 5-7, RPI 51-100: 8-2, RPI: 101+: 6-0, Road/Neutral: 8-4, Last-10: 6-4. Strong resume, very few games against RPI 101+ teams, beating the NIT field, doing okay against the NCAA at-large field. Their record is interesting, while they haven't played stellar out of conference teams, they have avoided cupcakes and beat up a number of at-large candidates.

Best OOC wins: Memphis, Louisville (N), @SDSU, Illinois (home-neutral), UNLV, New Mexico State

Best Conference wins: @Oregon, Stanford, sweeps of Washington and California

Conference losses of note: Swept by UCLA, USC, and Washington State.

Bad losses: Not the losses themselves, but the way they lost: blown away by North Carolina at home, 2nd largest margin of home defeat by UCLA, meltdown at Virginia (not the loss itself, but the meltdown)

In-conference schedule: true round robin

Key injuries/availability: no significant effect on their resume

Resume Evaluation: Solid at-large resume of a team that can make it to the 2nd round, maybe the Sweet 16. The fact that they are 0-6 vs the top 3 conference teams should be noted, but all their losses are against NCAA at-large teams, and wins over other at-large and bubble teams should more than make up for the 0-6 and the meltdowns.

TV Listings: Fri,Sat,Sunday March 2,3,4 2007 (Championship week)

*** all times pacific; add +3 for eastern; adjust for other time zones ***
*** predictions are not the most likely outcomes ***
*** predictions attempt to catch the randomness of each game ***
*** FSN/FoxCollegeSports games may be regionally aligned. YMMV ***
*** by the law of averages, I am bound to have some incorrect listings ***
*** please double-check with your local listings ***

ESPN Note: All ESPN family of networks Championship tourney games (over 80 games) will be available for free at ESPN360.com, March 1 through March 11


Friday March 2, 2007

Just aired on CSTV, the last episode of this season of Hawk Talk, the only coaches's show that rarely talks about basketball, with the one and only Phil Martelli

3pm, 530pm, two CAA round one games, ESPN Full Court

4pm, 8pm, CIAA Semifinals on ESPN Classic

630pm, midnight, Basketball Weekly, CSN

7pm repeat, Long Beach State at Pacific, CSN

730pm, 930pm, two MAAC Round 1 games, Iona vs Rider and Canisius vs St Peters on Fox College Sports and ESPN Full Court

8pm, 11pm, Seth Davis Generation Next on CSTV. A review of this episode will be posted soon on at Recruiting Wars

9pm, College Gamenight, ESPN2

1am Sat, repeat of UCLA at Washington State, Fox College Sports. A total slugfest, including an 8 minute segment of an 8-2 "run" by Washington State.


Saturday March 3, 2007

8am, Gameday with Bilas, Phelps, Hubert and Rece (the Davis twins) on ESPN

8am, Three point club, CSTV. Coverage of the upcoming SEC action

9am, Classic game, the 1985 NCAA final, Georgetown vs Vilanova, CSTV

9am, Texas at Kansas, CBS. Prediction: Kansas but Durant scores 44

9am, Michigan State at Wisconsin, ESPN. Prediction: Wisconsin delivers a woodshed beatdown

10am, classic game from 1988, BYU vs Hawaii, BYUTV

11am, UCLA at Washington, CBS. Prediction: Washington takes out a whole season of frustration on UCLA and they lose by 5 :-)

11am, Big South Final, high-scoring VMI vs new Cinderella darling Winthrop, ESPN. Prediction: Winthrop barely squeaks by

11am, Syracuse at Nova, ESPN2. Nice to have win by the Cuse, must win for Villanova. Prediction: Nova wins!

11am, Northwestern at Purdue, CSN/FullCourt. Prediction: Purdue has to win this game, or rather, not lose it. Same results. Purdue wins handily

1130pm, 12pm, two episodes of the excellent Pistol Pete Diaries on Fox College Sports.

1230pm, MAAC quarterfinal, Siena vs Manhattan (coached by former Pitt assistant and master NYC recruiter BR), Fox College Sports

1230pm, Arizona at Stanford, or NC State at Maryland, or Oklahoma at Kansas, on ABC, followed (or preceeded depending on timezone) by an episode of "Free Ticket Inside College Basketball. Prediction: All three home teams win! Stanford wins in triple overtime in an instant classic. Both Lopez twins have triple doubles each. Anthony Goods returns and hits exactly 7 three-pointers.

1pm, Missouri at Texas A&M, CSN/FullCourt. Prediction: A&M of course

1pm, Notre Domers at Rutgers, CSN/FullCourt. Prediction: Rutgers is supposed to be tough at home, but they are hooooooorrrribbbllle this year. Prediction: Domers wins and Digger dances on the Gameday set

1pm, Atlantic Sun final, ESPN2

1pm, Ohio State at Michigan, CBS. Interestingly CBS decided to pick up this wildcard game instead of the MSU at Wisconsin. They are smelling a bid-clinching win by Ann Arbor? Prediction: Ohio State comfortably beats them up. Oden gets a triple double and makes all the alum happy. After all, Ohio State is on the cover of the brand new edition of SI as the "the program"

1pm, Cincy at West Virgina, Full Court

130pm, MAAC quarterfinal #2: Marist vs Canisius/StPeters

3pm, Southern final, ESPN2

3pm, 7pm, 11pm, Arizona State at Cal, CSN

3pm, CAA semifinal #1, on ESPN Full Court

3pm, Oregon State at Oregon, ESPN Full Court. Prediction: Must not-lose for Oregon but they will get the in-state rivarly benefit of the doubt if they do lose.

4pm, USC at Washington State, FSN/Fox College Sports. Prediction: A win would give the Cougars a clear #2 slot and seed in the Pac 10 tourney and another good win and a chance to take out their frustrations after the UCLA game disaster, a game that was hyped for over two weeks in Pullman. USC is smarting after losses @ASU and @Washington, but Tim Floyd may be able to steal this one. USC wins!

4pm, 9pm, Cal State Northridge (the Harvard of SoCal) at UCSB, FSN/Fox College Sports.

430pm, 5am, Utah at BYU, CSTV. Once upon a time this was a game of nationwide interest, now, without Majerus, it's just another in-state rivarly game. Prediction: BYU wins!

430pm, 1230am, MAAC quarterfinal #3, Niagara vs Iona/Rider, FSN/Fox College Sports.

5pm, OVC final, ESPN2.

5pm, CIAA final, ESPN Classic. In case the conference name is not familiar, the CIAA is a Division 2 conference

5pm, Gameday pre-game edition, ESPN

6pm, Pitt at Marquette, ESPN. Prediction: Pitt wins in overtime

630pm, 7am, Memphis at SMU, CSTV. Prediction: SMU will hang tough the first 10 minutes, but then they will be steamrolled by the Calipari Express. Memphis closes the conference season undefeated and with a 19-game winning streak

7pm, New Mexico State at Nevada, ESPN2. Game of the day!. After an overtime loss at Logan/Utah, Nevada really wants to end the regular season with a nice W against the Reggie Theus Aggies, in a game that could be replayed next week in the conference tourney. The Aggies can make a lot of noise by stealing this one on the road. Prediction: New Mexico State wins in a very exciting game.

7pm, MAAC quarterfinal #4, Fairfield vs Loyola Maryland, FSN/Fox College Sports.

9pm, Midnight Madness, ESPN, with Brennan, Gotlieb and Revsine

9pm,11pm,1am, Washington and California high school state games, FSN/Fox College Sports. Check local listings for more details

Not all ESPN Full Court games are listed here. Check local listings for complete listings

coming soon


Sunday March 4, 2007

6am, Game of the week, ESPN Classic

9am, 630pm, repeat of Kevin Love's game in SoCal, Lake Oswego at Mater Dei, Fox College Sports

9am, Hardwood Heavens: Illinois's Assembly Hall, INHD

9am, Kentucky at Florida, CBS. Prediction: All of a sudden this game just got more important. Florida is struggling and beating KY would put them back on track. Likewise for Kentucky along with the increasing fan-noise about Tubby and the recent losses. Prediction: Florida comfortably wins and regains their mojo

9am, 11am, America East semifinals, ESPN Full Court

11am, MVC Final, CBS. The Valley of Darkness gets its high profile CBS games. Will Billy Packer be the one calling it? :-)

12pm, 11pm, Boston College at Georgia Tech, FSN/Fox College Sports. An ACC bracket buster! Hot after their manhandling of the TarHeels, Georgia Tech can make a solid impression on the cmte and get a nicer seed by beating BC. BC on the other hand will get a nice boost to their post-SeanWilliams resume if they beat the Jackets who just manhandled the Tar Heels. Prediction: Georgia Tech wins by 22 and sends BC deper into the bubble

1230pm, 5am, Sunshine Final, FSN/Fox College Sports. Sunshine is a Division 2 conference in (you guessed it) Florida

1230pm, 230pm, CAA semifinals, ESPN Full Court

1pm, DUKE at NORTH CAROLINA, CBS. Game of the weekend!. Prediction: North Carolina takes out all the recent frustrations on Duke and beats them by 41 :-) (ha! take that dookies ;-)

1pm, Fresno State at Utah State, CSN. Prediction: After beating Nevada in OT, Utah State beats this one too.

3pm, 5pm, MAAC semifinals, FSN/Fox College Sports.

6pm, repeat of Memphis at SMU, CSTV

630pm, 830pm, West Coast conference semifinals, ESPN2

830pm, repeat of UCLA at Washington State, Fox College Sports. A slugfest, don't watch it :-)

9pm, College gamenight, ESPN


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Daily Bubble Talk, Part II (Thursday)

New content/commentary added hourly! Check the top and bottom of this post for new content!!!

An excellent visual aid in digesting all the RPI/SOS data is Warren Nolan's Nitty Gritty Repor(t). It wins the Oscar for Best Visual Presentation of the RPI data! The site color-codes positive/negative numbers, bubble teams, and automatic bids (when they start rolling in). The site also has a weekly mock bracket projection as of Feb-25. Also of interest is their Predicted RPI feature where they project all remaining unplayed games/matchups (a what-if RPI). Also handy is their detailed conference breakdown also showing the RPI, the last 10, and the streak of each team (the CAA is shown in the link; you can chose your team/conference of choice from the pulldown menu)

Want more RPI and SOS data? Take a look at Real Time RPI and KenPom RPI

Winningest division 1 men's basketball teams by percentage at RPIRatings.com. Also handy is a list of home-court arenas and records for each team. And yes, the Carrier Dome has the highest capacity with 33,000 Oranges :)

Conference Tourney tracker at CBS Sportsline. Select your conference of interest from the pull down menu. The MVC is shown in the link.

Gary Parrish projects the Field of 65. Updated today. He has 19 teams on the bubble.

Some love for Division II: CIAA commish interview at CSTV.

CSTV and Jerry Palm came up with their own bracketology terms, such as Palm Readings and Bracketanica. Palm has 7 ACC teams but only 6 Big East teams in the field of 65 (updated last Friday)

CSTV has also embarked on a search for Cinderella, giving teams slipper ratings. Teams from all non-BCS teams are eligible in their Cinderella. Ironically super-Cinderella Gonzaga is not even receiving a single vote!

Selection Sunday B-story: Of the teams left out last year from the tourney, Hofstra and Missouri State were among the most justified to complain. As they are on (or near) the bubble again this year, it will be interesting to see if last year's snub pushes them in the field of 65 this year if the bubble situation is too close to call otherwise.

CollegeRPI.com has a free bracket projection and tape-delayed RPI data (as of Feb-25). Paid subscribers get access to more recent data. Also using the subscriber model with some free content is RPIratings.com.


Media segment

CBS Sports schedule for all upcoming college basketball games including the NCAA tourney.

Your favorite mid-major team playing a critical game but not shown on TV in your region? CSTV's online Pay Per View has C-USA, MWC, Patriot, A-10, and Southland. Also taking advantage of the CBS relationship, CBS regular season basketball games are available for purchase, in addition to CSTV, Versus and mtn games. They also have an unlimited games package (called XXL) for one monthly or annual fee. Individual games prices are $5 to $10. Ouch!

Please note that the CSTV website is one of the most multimedia-obnoxious sites. Just because broadband exists, it doesn't mean you have to bottle up the pipelines with MySpace-style bandwidth-wasting content :)


BUBBLE EXPRESS
Data courtesy of KenPom RPI
Let's look at some teams on the bubble, starting with Huggins State.

Bubble Express: Kansas State. The team has a record of 20-10, 9-6 conference, RPI 60, SOS 90, OOC RPI/SOS 75/219, Last10: 6-4, RPI 1-50: 1-6, RPI 51-100: 4-2, RPI101-200: 7-2, RPI201+: 8-0. The raw numbers show that they can beat teams who won't get any post-season play, and they can beat NIT teams (RPI 51-100). However they have a losing record against the at-large teams (RPI 1-50). How about the actual games?

Best OOC wins: USC (N), New Mexico (N), @Rutgers

Best conference wins: @Texas, Missouri sweep

Schedule holes: very soft OCC schedule loaded with cupcakes

In-conference schedule: Played Kansas twice, Texas, Texas A&M and Texas Tech once. Played struggling Big 12 North teams twice which doesn't help NCAA-wise, but it helps NIT-wise.

Key Injury/Availability: Billy Walker

Resume Evaluation: Solid NIT-level resume right now. Concurring opinion: Projected as one seed in the NIT at NITology.

What they need to do for an NCAA bid?: Win more games!

More Bubble Express coming later on (time permitting)...


SHOCKING SECRETS REVEALED BY THE RPI! Okay, they are neither shocking, nor secrets, but I ran out of catchy names :-)

Less likely to lose a 1st round game if they get a high seed? (undefeated vs the RPI 101+): UCLA, Ohio State, Pitt, Wisconsin, Memphis, Florida, Kentucky, Duke, Arizona, Texas A&M, Georgetown, Nova, Nevada, Michigan State, Indiana, Oregon, Texas, Illinois, Louisville, Winthrop

Most cupcake games (RPI 201+): Some are by choice, others are by conference affiliation: Memphis (20), Wisconsin, Ohio State, UNLV, Pitt, Texas A&M, Kansas, BYU, Nevada, Illinois, Butler, Air Force, Marquette, Texas, ODU, Bradley, Drexel, Michigan, Appalachian Trail State, West Virginia, SDSU, UMass (18), VCU (20), Kansas State, Davidson (23!), Utah State, Hofstra, Winthrop, Holy Cross, Gonzaga, New Mexico State, Akron (19), Vermont (20), Kent State, Wright State (20), etc, etc. All these teams have at least 14 cupcake wins! Don't hold it against the mid-majors as they have no control of their conference schedule, but do hold it against the "bcs" teams :-)

RPI Top 50 teams with losing records to the RPI Top 50: Pitt, Memphis, Kentucky, Nova, Nevada, Indiana, Michigan State, Washington State, Air Force, Texas, Illinois, Missouri State, Alabama, Louisville, Bradley, Purdue, Texas Tech, Clemson, FSU, Syracuse, and Michigan. This is not an indicator for an NCAA bid, but rather an indicator of whether they could make the Sweet 16

Upset Candidates? These RPI Top 50 teams have losses against the RPI 201+: BYU, BC, Vandy, Xavier, ODU, and Oklahoma State

Best records against the RPI Top 50: UCLA, Ohio State, North Carolina, Southern Illinois, Wisconsin, Virginia Tech, Oregon, and Butler

Road Warriors among the RPI Top 90: Teams with at least 15 road/neutral games: Southern Illinois, Villanova, Washington State, Air Force, Bradley, Drexel, Appalachian Trail (oops State!), UMass, VCU, Kansas State, Davidson, hofstra, Winthrop, Holy Cross, Gonzaga, Vermont, Wright State, Bucknell, Long Beach State, Toledo, St Joe's, Western Kentucky

Top RPI teams with long winning streaks: Memphis, Ohio State, Southern Illinois, Nevada, ODU, Davidson, Winthrop, Vermont, Bucknell

Debbie Downers: Top RPI teams with losing Last-10-Games record: Oregon, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, Clemson, Florida State, Meeeecheeeegan, Arkansas, California, (2-8), Northern Iowa, Dayton, LSU (2-8), South Carolina aka NIT Dynasty, Nebraska and UConn. Obviously this also depends on who their last 10 opponents were.

Data from KenPom RPI and Warren Nolan's Nitty Gritty Report

Daily Bubble Talk (Thursday)

Coach's K's Who's Praising Me Now? segment They are building a new practice facility in my name! I am so great! They named the court after me and now they are naming the new practice facility after me! I am the best! Did I mention my American Express commercials and all the great business leaders who pay $1500 for my seminars to watch me verbally abuse my players? I am so great!

Thank you MARYLAND
Thank you Maryland for beating the Dookies! Thank you Gary Williams, Comcast, players, fans, students, professors, janitors, Matt Damon (ooops wrong movie), ushers, alumni, donors, boosters, boosted, terrapins radio network, and everyone else supporting Maryland!

Speaking of the Terrapins, there was a funny moment in this week's Gary Williams's coaches show. Probably this was an editing error (or perhaps an inside joke?): People working behind the scenes were featured, and the last one, a graduate assistant, was mentioning how everyone is considered equally important to the team regardless of what function they perform (doing laundry, game plans, radio, logistics, etc). Well, as he was finishing up his comments, the audio from his last 2-3 sentences was muted as the editors were fading out the segment. So much for being treated like an equal :-)

Basketball and Politics
Just two degrees of separation: What's the link between Brown's college basketball coach Craig Robinson and Democratic Senator and presidential nominee Barrack Obama? Craig Robinson is the brother in law of Barack Obama. Coach Robinson appeared on this week's edition of CSTV's Taking Issue and revealed that Barack has a good jumpshot. The spillover effect of primaries, they find their way to March Madness! Speaking of basketball and politics, there is a movement to finally give the Ivy League a conference tourney. This would also have the positive side-effect of giving the Ivy an automatic NIT bid if the regular season champ does not win the conference tourney (or get an NCAA at-large bid).


Bubble Talk

Every single Championship week game on the ESPN family of networks (over 80 of them) will be available online for free at ESPN360.com. Great job ESPN! Also nice is the new three-screen view of ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPNU coming off time-outs. This is a great idea by ESPN. However, what really annoys me is interrputing live games for those stupid 30/30 updates. ESPN fix it, and fix the item below as well:

BCS bias alert: ESPN's College Gamenight is almost completely ignoring conference tourneys of the mid-major conferences. Last night they only showed the Patriot League brackets for 5 seconds.

Memo to everyone: Please STOP saying that 20 wins will get a team in the NCAA tourney. This is an old-school metric, when conference schedules were balanced and all teams played 28 games. Now most of the "bcs" conference schedules are unbalanced and teams play 30+ games because of the early season exempt tourneys. Lining up 13 cupcakes (UConn, Syracuse, etc) means that a team not good enough to make the (new) NIT can get to 20 wins. So stop already :-) This includes you too Digger. You keep repeating that like a broken record. And please stop projecting every single Big East team in the tourney. A couple of days ago on SportsCenter he hesitated a bit before saying UConn was out. UConn is barely in the NIT bubble (fewer bids, automatic NIT bids should chop off the at-large NIT field to 24 or so). Also, stop saying that 10 conference wins, or a conference winning record will get a team in. The criteria are: who did you play, when, where and how well. That's what matters. As you may recall Jim Harrick's last Georgia team was given an at-large bid with (I believe) around 17-18 wins because they played a tough schedule, and they played well. They were a Final Four sleeper that year had they been eligible.


Not Bubble Talk

Stupidest Ideas of the Day: Brian Curtis of CSTV on Taking Issue thinks 1) there are too many teams in the NCAA field (how stupid is that?), 2) does not want to include too many teams from one conference 3) does not want to include teams with losing conference records (have you heard of unbalanced scheduling Brian?). Brian Curtis does a decent job most of the time, but sometimes he desperately tries to be "edgy" but instead he comes across as a "me-too wanna-be" :-) (I hope he is not reading this!) His show "Taking Issue" airs on CSTV on a weekly basis. This week he has two college basketball coaches as guests: Villanova's Jay Wright and Brown's Craig Robinson. He is also a contributor to CSTV's excellent weekly preview show "Crystal Ball".

Bizarre Timing for Marcus Williams to announce that he will enter the NBA draft. Probably a record-early announcement? But perhaps this was Lute's idea. In the past he has been known to want playes to make up their mind as soon as possible, so he may be the one who forced the issue. So now everyone knows that he is looking for another forward for next year (any recruits listening?) and that his players can get NBA-Draft-ready (different from NBA-ready, but then again, no one is these days) in just two years. Negative Recruiting? Rumors were circulating that the Silver Fox is suffering from Parkinson's, which he dispelled at his weekly news conference. First it was old age, and since that didn't work, apparently now the negative recruiters are going down the list of illness and conditions. Everything is fair in recruiting it seems...

Spin Wars at Kentucky: Tubby brilliantly spun the press release by the Kentucky AD. Perhaps Tubby should consider a career in politics. A losing streak of more than 0 games is usually cause for concern at UK, so when Tubby lost a handful in the last few weeks, well that didn't sit well. Earlier in the season I didn't think there would be a coaching change at Kentucky but after this incident, I am starting to think that either Tubby will get tired of all the complaining and opt for the NBA (or another college job, or perhaps some TV analyst work) or Kentucky will go after some big names to replace Tubby. Which could lead to the unthinkable: Pitino returning to Kentucky???

Great job by Pat Summitt in showing school spirit, team-work and also opening the door for a new era of co-operation between women's and men's basketball programs. Great job Pat! Pat Summit is already in the hall of fame, she has national championships and 940+ wins, Bruce Pearl needed this more, so this makes Pat's effort even more so impressive. Also this had a pleasant side-effect of creating a lot of noise about Tennessee's men's and women's basketball.

On a related note Skip Bayless has been obnoxiously objecting to the Bruce Pearl body-paint and Pat Summitt's singing and cheerleading. On a totally unrelated note Skip is a Vanderbilt graduate. Totally unrelated I assure you ;-) Oh Skip...

Giving people second chances is a risky business, but the Suttons specialize in that. Latest example being the bonehead (pun intended) play by Mario Boggan.

Idea for ESPN: Put Dick Vitale and Mike Patrick in the Cameron Crazies section, take away their microphones, dress them up in Dookie gear, during timeouts show them dancing with the Crazies, and and let Doris do the game. She is clearly the only one paying attention to the game and the only one who really analyzes the game. Validation point: Doris figured out how to properly pronounce Vasquez's name while Vitale and Patrick did not.

Frustration Boulevard Jim Calhoun was caught by the ESPN cameras, fully animated, screaming "bullshit" at the officials.

Another triple-double by Stephan Lasme of UMass. Perhaps they are a triple-double away (which would be an NCAA record) from an at-large bid! Remember the name NBA Draft fans!

Duke's students will have to take "diversity classes" after the lacrosse incident. Make sure Coach K attends those classes too...

TV listings: Thursday March 1, 2007 (Championship Week!)

*** all times pacific; add +3 for eastern; adjust for other time zones ***
*** predictions are not the most likely outcomes ***
*** predictions attempt to catch the randomness of each game ***
*** FSN/FoxCollegeSports games may be regionally aligned. YMMV ***
*** by the law of averages, I am bound to have some incorrect listings ***
*** please double-check with your local listings ***

Comprenensive March Madness listings here

NIT Central here

ESPN News Alert!: All ESPN family of networks games (80+ games) of Championship week, March 1 through March 11 will be broadcast for free online at espn360.com. Thanks to ESPN for making all these exciting games available to fans on the net for free! Thank you ESPN :-)



Championship Week begins, Thursday March 1, 2007
LIVE or new

12pm, 2pm, first two CIAA quarterfinals on ESPN Classic. This is a recent schedule change. Previously they were listed at 10am and 12pm

4pm, Virginia Tech at Virginia, ESPN. I bet ACC purists love this one! The ACC title may be decided in Virginia, not in the state of North Carolina. Prediction: While it's hard to beat the Cavaliers at their new shiny facility, the fighting Greenies will win in overtime

4pm, George Washington at Charlotte, ESPN2. Prediction: GW steals one on the road

430pm, 630pm, 9pm, 1230am, Seth Davis Generation Next, Episode V, CSTV

6pm, Nevada at Utah State, CSN. Prediction: Nick Fazekas leads the way to a tough road win

6pm, 8pm, last two CIAA quarterfinals, ESPN Classic.

6pm, Memphis at UTEP, ESPN. ESPN loves the "student vs teacher" matchups as Calipari's former player/assistant will try to beat him. Prediction: Memphis wins

6pm, North Carolina at Georgia Tech, ESPN2. This promises to be an exciting game with two young, talented and athletic teams matching up. Georgia Tech needs the win for an NCAA bid, Carolina needs the win to build up toughness for the tourneys (ACC, NCAA)

730pm, UCLA at Washington State, FSN/FoxCollegeSports. Game of the day!. UCLA fans may tell you this is the only game UCLA could lose from here onwards. Tony Bennett has shown some new wrinkles with Hopson and Cross. Prediction: Washington State wins! Washington State wins! Washington State wins!

730pm, Arizona at California, regional-FSN/FoxCollegeSports. Arizona needs to win, not just to solidify their at-large chances but also to boost their seeding. Prediction: Arizona squeaks by, just barely

9pm, 9am, College Gamenight, ESPN




Classic or repeats

9am, Portland at Gonzaga, Fox College Sports. Senior Night

No ESPN Classic game because the CIAA conference tournament quarterfinals are aired live on ESPN Classic

11am, the last two episodes of ABC's "Free Ticket Inside College basketball" presented by Chase. They feature the Wisconsin Badgets and Bo Ryan going all Improv with the "10 missed calls" joke

5pm, Kevin Love alert!, Lake Oswego at Mater Dei, Fox College Sports. UCLA bound K-Love visited SoCal with his hs team to cut the ribbons on Mater Dei's long awaited new facility. I don't want to spoil the result, but it made UCLA fans happy. Ben Howland was caught by the cameras watching the game from a prime location (they call it "baby-sitting" in the recruiting world).

5am Fri, North Carolina at Maryland, Fox College Sports. Great game!

5am Fri, Cal at USC, Fox College Sports.

11am Fri, ESPN Classic continues with the conference tourney theme as it showcases the 1996 Big East final between UConn and Georgetown


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