I’m not going to claim this is going to be a live blog because to be honest the last hour was kind of exhausting trying to keep up with 2 channels and I’ll be popping in-and-out while making dinner. I’ll be offering my thoughts on what they say in between cooking/eating.
– Apparently, Bobby Knight doesn’t like the current format. He either wants only the at-large teams in or a huge 128-team tournament with a play-in at the higher seed’s home court.
– Digger and Dick Vitale are arguing for VTech getting in the tournament. Dick also agrees that Arizona State should be in. I think Dick would like this to be a tournament where your intramural team could register to play in the tournament. You want 128 teams, Knight? I’ll raise you and make it 512 teams, baby!!!
– Ok, Vitale backs off his earlier comments and he contradicts himself. Nothing new here.
– Seth Greenberg is on the phone now with ESPN. As one of the schools snubbed by the committee, I guess he has a reason to be angry although I pointed out yesterday that he would be headed to the NIT thanks to Mr. Hansbrough. He’s complaining that more teams should be allowed in the tournament to give the kids the “experience”. I think their $30,000 scholarship to some of the top schools in the country (plus whatever is delivered under the table–either by boosters or the co-eds) is more than enough. He also wants people to ignore the RPI. I’m sure that he would be for the RPI if his team was highly ranked in the RPI but had been snubbed.
– Greenberg just pointed out that college football players all get to experience the moment by playing bowls. I just checked and there were 36 bowl games this past year so 72 teams got the “experience”. That means only 7 more football teams get Greenberg’s college experience. I would also argue that the New Orleans Bowl is more comparable to getting into the NIT than the Big Dance (although it could be like the Play-In game).
– It looks like that’s the last of Greenberg for the show. As a parting gift, we’ll leave you with this slideshow of his daughter(she’s 20 so we don’t think this is a Nick Saban’s niece situation).
– It seems like the experts agree with me that the East Regional is brutal. It’s not quite the “Group of Death” from the World Cup, but not exactly a present for the #1 overall seed. Indiana-Arkansas will be one of the best opening round games. It’s amazing that Indiana was ranked 11th (maybe higher) before all the Sampson stuff went down. Less than a month later, they are an 8 seed.
– Louisville as a 3 seed is interesting given how far they fell at the beginning of the season when they were hit by the injury bug. Pitino did a great job of turning their season around. I wonder if he gave them the “Pervis Ellison is not walking through that door. Milt Wagner is not walking through that door. . .” (Ok, I’m a little bitter about the Boston Celtics fiasco).
– Dick Vitale was just silent on camera for a few seconds. I think that’s a record. He thought he had been cut off. I sort of wish he had pulled a Chris Berman and went off on everybody in the room. That would have been great.
– The potential Pitt-Memphis Sweet 16 matchup is intriguing given the contrast of styles and Memphis’s athleticism versus Pitt’s physicality. Should be an interesting game if both teams get there.
– The Committee has a sense of humor setting up the all-nerd matchup with Stanford versus Cornell. It’s sort of funny that the game will be decided by Brook Lopez who was academically ineligible earlier this year.
– It seems like the ESPN guys don’t have faith in Memphis as they seem to be leaning toward Texas getting to the Final 4 in their first year AD (After Durant). Some of them even have the Tigers going out to Pitt in the Sweet 16.
– The West region looks like the easiest out of the four regions with UCLA, Duke, Xavier, and UConn as the top 4 seeds. UCLA should be able to overcome the loss of Luc Richard Mbah a Moute to advance to San Antonio out of this region.
– Wow. Knight just ripped Beasley’s consistency. I’m not sure how he sees that. Let me check his game log.
– With the exception of a 5 and 12 versus Xavier, Beasley has been consistently beastly. Check out his game log to see.
– I think Digger was trying to get Knight to punch him with his “Raleigh” monologue. Knight has done a good job of self-censoring although I am beginning to find him pretty boring. He obviously has a great basketball mind, but I think he’s holding back on the emotion that makes him so enjoyable in his press conferences.
– Side note: Luke Winn of SI.com offers his early thoughts on the bracket.
– Wow. I think Knight just had an aneurysm with Vitale’s little “Knight for Indiana’s head coach” rant. I really hope he goes off.
– Ok. Somebody needs to put that clip of the split screen with Vitale and Knight on YouTube.
– Here are the Final 4 picks from the ESPN guys:
Hubert = UNC, Kansas, Texas, and UCLA with Kansas and Texas in the final and Kansas winning. He has 1-2 in the East and Midwest, but 1-3 (Xavier) in the West and something else in the South (can’t remember).
Digger = UNC, Kansas, Memphis, and UCLA with UNC and Memphis in the final and Memphis winning. The Elite 8 is all 1-2 except for Louisville as the #3 in the East Regional.
Knight = UNC, Kansas, Pitt, and UCLA with Kansas and Pitt in the final with Pitt winning. He has also has Louisville as the #3 in the East and USC as the #6 in the Midwest making the Elite 8.
Bilas = UNC, Kansas, Memphis, and UCLA with Kansas and UCLA in the finals and Kansas winning. The Elite 8 is all 1-2 except for Xavier as the #3 in the West Regional.
Vitale = UNC, Georgetown, Texas, and UCLA with UNC and UCLA with UNC winning. All 1-2 except for Louisville as the #3 in the East Regional.
– I think I got most of their picks although I might have missed something with Knight (and obviously Hubert) as I was trying to catch up on the 3 guys before him.
– Well that’s it for tonight folks unless the blog’s biological father returns and wants to offer some wisdom. I’ll be posting Regional analysis over the next 3 days leading up to Thursday’s games. Based on my predictions from yesterday, I’m assuming that nobody will be stealing my picks for their bracket so the integrity of our pool should be intact.
Note: I just set-up the official RTC NCAA pool on Yahoo. Hope to see you guys there. If people prefer another site, ESPN, CNNSI, etc. Let me know and I’ll see what I can do.