If you’re like us today, you’re probably feeling a little bit like you do when you realize that the blue lights in your rear view mirror weren’t intended for you even though you were about +15 over the speed limit.  As the friendly patrolman roars by on your left, that adrenaline-fueled fear of getting a ticket (or worse) melts into a somewhat euphoric state of well-being as you realize that you’ve dodged a terribly unpleasant situation.  We all spent the last two months lying hogtied on the tracks watching the 96-team locomotive steaming toward us, and the surprising (shocking?) news that the NCAA will instead move to only a 68-team scenario feels like Clint Eastwood or Rambo or freakin’ Michael Cera stepped in at the last moment to save the day.  Perspective is everything.

NCAA HQ Can Cancel That Security Detail Now

Yet imagine for a moment if we’d never heard about the 96-team debacle from the inner circles of the NCAA.  Without that particularly bilious perspective to abhor, excoriate, lambaste and dread for months leading up to today, the news that the NCAA was expanding to 68 teams would probably have been met with complete and utter derision across the board.  Four play-in games, pfshaw!  Yet when considered against the alternative, today’s news was met with guarded optimism and in some cases downright celebration.  Was this a brilliant strategem of managing expectations pulled off on us, the unsuspecting public, by the cunning NCAA (probably not), or simply a realization that the organization was treading ever so closely to killing off the goose that laid the golden egg (more likely)?  Either way, the decision is a reasonable and defensible one that we can all live with, so let’s get to the business of reviewing it now and analyzing it to death in coming weeks.

Here’s what some of the best in the business have to say…

Luke Winn, CNNSI – More importantly, it represents a major victory for college basketball. The NCAA did the right thing. While I’d prefer a pure, 64-team format without play-in games, 68 teams is immensely more palatable than 96. The sanctity of the NCAA tournament has been preserved for the time being, and that’s something to celebrate, even if Jim Isch, the NCAA’s interim president, admitted that 68 wasn’t guaranteed to be the format for the entire length of the new TV deal. […]  Public reaction had to have played at least some role in them settling on 68 rather than 96. The public’s response to the 96 idea was overwhelmingly negative, and I wonder if Isch, Shaheen, CBS and Turner didn’t want to be regarded as the villains who ruined college sports’ crown jewel.  […]  Eventually, we’ll get back to worrying about how Isch left the expansion door open by saying two words: “for now.” But for now, at least, we can rejoice. The NCAA tournament has been saved.

Mike DeCourcy, Sporting News – Turns out, they were listening. Nobody came out and said the public’s revulsion at the prospect of a 96-team field was a factor in settling on 68, but if you’d loved the idea like chocolate-chip cookies, we’d be talking about a far different NCAA Tournament next March.  It wasn’t at the start of negotiations that someone with CBS/Turner suggested a 68-team tournament would be workable with the dollar amounts being discussed. That came after the general public declared 96 teams to be a product no more appealing than the XFL.  […]  How should a 68-team tournament work?  That’s fairly obvious. Although it might be most fair to have the teams at the bottom of the field play for the right to be No. 16 seeds, it’s hard to imagine anyone at CBS or Turner Sports, the networks that just agreed to pay roughly $740 million annually to televise the tournament, being thrilled about showing four games that this year might have involved such matchups as Robert Morris-Winthrop or Morgan State-East Tennessee State.  The solution would be to have the last eightat-large teams play for the right to be seeded into the middle of the field—as No. 12s or No. 11s. This season, that might have meant Virginia Tech-Minnesota and Illinois-Florida.  People would watch those games. CBS and Turner saved us from the dread of a 96-team tournament. They deserve something for their money.

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1. Today’s comings and goings were actually very limited for the first time in two weeks.  The biggest news in this regard was that Arkansas sophomore guard Courtney Fortson, projected as undrafted in June, has signed with an agent and will not return to school next year.  We’ll never quite understand the self-deception that guys such as Fortson must enable to convince themselves that they’re ready for the NBA by giving everything up to chase that dream.
2. Now that Mark Titus‘ career at the end of the bench at Ohio State is over, he ruminates about what the future holds for his phenomenal blog Club Trillion.  We’re sure whatever he does with it, it’ll be hilarious.  And Mark, if you ever need a side gig, give us a tweet.
3. The state of Arizona’s new proposed anti-immigration legislation (SB 1070) that will potentially open the door to racial profiling of Latinos by law enforcement may threaten to diminish the Phoenix area’s chances at obtaining major sporting events in the future, including the Final Four.  Stupid is as stupid does, we guess.
4. Sign of the (hard) times or something deeper?  The ACC Tournament, long considered the toughest ticket in the conference postseason hierarchy, had trouble selling out its games this year.
5. Oregon State head coach Craig Robinson joined the Colbert Report on Wednesday night.  Yeah, we know he’s the first bro-in-law, but it’s been two seasons at OSU now, and we’re starting to tire of the same old questions.  Although Colbert is funny, as usual.

Over the past few months this site and many others that cover college basketball were filled with columns about what was viewed as an almost certain expansion of the NCAA Tournament to 96 teams. It turns out that almost everyone in the media (including us) had it wrong as the NCAA announced its plans to expand to a 68-team tournament while being broadcast on CBS and the 3 Turner networks (TBS, TNT, and truTV). Technically the NCAA Board of Directors still has to approve the changes next Thursday, but that should be a rubber stamp situation given the unanimity in today’s decision. The deal, which should account for approximately 96% of revenue for men’s college basketball, will pay the NCAA $10.8 billion over 14 years (or a little over $771 million per year) compared to the previous deal of $6 billion over 11 years (or slightly more than $545 million per year). That deal, which was signed in 1999, allowed the NCAA an opt-out by July 31 of this year. Once the NCAA exercised that option it was widely believed that their intention was to sign with ESPN in the network’s attempt to take over all things sports-related. When it became clear that ESPN was no longer the front-runner in the bidding, everyone’s attention turned to the CBS/Turner bid. We will get to the whole 68 team thing in a bit just bear with us while we go through the TV issues.

Coming soon to TBS. . .

While everybody is familiar with CBS’s work on the NCAA Tournament since they have broadcast every NCAA championship game since the 1982 Tourney which involved a freshman named Michael Jordan hitting the game-winning shot, Turner’s association with college basketball is a little less well-known. When I say “less well-known,” I mean that I am unaware of any prior association between Turner Sports and college basketball.  Some news reports are indicating that the NCAA was leaning towards the joint bid because of their desire to have every game broadcast nationally, which would require four channels broadcasting games. Even though ESPN would have that capability (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNews, and ESPN Classic) and we are still searching for truTV on our local cable provider (Comcast in Boston) it is being reported that this desire favored the CBS/Turner deal. All of the games will continued to be streamed online. What this will do is eliminate the need for Greg Gumbel to switch you to a different game (often at inappropriate times) and allow those of us who don’t get DirecTV’s March Madness package to watch two close games at once on a split screen (assuming you have picture-in-picture on your TV). [Ed. Note: TNT/TBS reaches almost six times as many households as DirecTV (99 million versus 18 million).] It is unclearexactly how much ESPN bid for the NCAA Tournament, but it is believed to have been relatively close to the CBS/Turner bid.

We won't be seeing these two broadcasting NCAA Tournament games any time soon

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Marquis Teague, the top-rated point guard and fourth-ranked player overall in the high school class of 2011, announced moments ago that he planned to attend Kentucky and play for John Calipari a couple of autumns from now.  This news had been unofficially broken on Twitter yesterday by Teague’s friend Tony Wroten, Jr., another highly ranked (and still undecided) PG prospect in the class of 2011, so today’s announcement came as little surprise.

Teague is the latest Kentucky commit. There will be more. (IndyStar)

This verbal gives Calipari his second top 5 prospect for 2011 in the last week.  The top-ranked player in that class, 6’7 SF Michael Gilchrist, committed to Kentucky last Wednesday, the same day that big-time PG prospect Brandon Knight decided to bring his skills to Lexington for next season.  As if that week weren’t good enough, at Saturday’s Jordan Brand Classic (so-called) in New York City, Doron Lamb, a 6’4 shooting guard ranked in the top 30 for 2010, also pledged to Kentucky.  And the commitments — for both 2011 and 2010 — don’t look to be done, yet.

Despite the lack of surprise, Teague’s verbal today is also noteworthy because of where he isn’t going.  Hoop fans know all about Marquis’ brother Jeff Teague, the former star at Wake Forest and current Atlanta Hawk, but Teague’s father Shawn played for Rick Pitino at Boston University.  Like Jeff before him, Marquis stars for Pike High School in Indianapolis, not even a two hour drive from Louisville.  The Cardinals could use a point guard now that Edgar Sosa’s gone.  We’re not saying the two things are related or how much effect it ever really could have had, but as of late last season Pitino’s staff at Louisville includes a former assistant at Pike High School named Shabaka Lands, hired as “special assistant to the head coach.”  It’s easy to see how badly Pitino wanted Teague, and with the Cardinals having only (as of now) one verbal commitment from a player within the ESPNU-100 — 6’5 SG Justin Coleman, from Huntington WV — and considering that Teague was at one time considered a virtual lock for Louisville, Cardinal supporters are worried that Teague’s verbal commitment today is an indicator of how highly-ranked high school prospects regard these two programs in the Bluegrass State.

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Has there ever been a non-prime number so beautiful as this one? 

The NCAA made the right decision, from its release this afternoon:

Late Wednesday, the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee unanimously passed a recommendation to the Division I Board of Directors to increase tournament field size to 68 teams beginning with the 2011 Championship. The recommendation will be reviewed by the Division I Board of Directors at its April 29 meeting.

Much more later…

1. Happy Earth Day, everyone.  Take care of it, folks.  Yesterday’s NBA Draft entries are getting even more obscure.  Ole Miss’ Eniel Polynice joined UTEP’s Arnett Moultrie in putting their names into the NBA Draft pool, which is now bigger than the NBA Draft itself.  Polynice is not projected as a draft pick, but he is due to graduate this spring and has decided that his college career is over.  At 6’11, Moultrie is a very raw but intriguing prospect who had a disappointing sophomore campaign but still could be worth a look in the second round for some team.  Whether that will be enough to keep him in the draft is unclear at this point.  It’s going to be a fun May 8 this year (the early entry withdrawal date).  One player expected to stick around is Kansas State’s Jacob Pullen, who feels that he needs to handle the ball more to improve his draft stock for next year.
2. New Wake Forest head coach Jeff Bzdelik was able to convince all five of the Demon Deacons’ top ten ranked recruiting class to stay with the program, a somewhat impressive feat given the negativity surrounding his hiring.  Clemson’s Brad Brownell is finding a little more trouble hanging onto star recruit Marcus Thornton, who is said to be considering many options other than the Tigers at this point.
3. The big guns are coming out, as the Big East hired former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue to help the league navigate the NWO of conference superpowers and whatever shakes out residually from Big Ten and other expansion in the coming years.  This is a very strong hire, and the rest of the major conferences should take note of this move.  If the Big East knows one thing, it’s marketing and business savvy.
4. This is a cool piece at Fanhouse that describes the unknown connection between the two mid-majors who crashed the Final Four party in the last five seasons — George Mason and Butler.  Who knew that Dick Bennett had any part of this, but he did.
5. In a possible Q-rating litmus test of Calipari vs. Pitino in the recruiting world, junior superstar guard Marquis Teague is expected to announce his choice of school this afternoon, and apparently Cardinal Nation is already throwing itself into the Ohio River over the following tweets from Tony Wroten, another junior guard who is claiming that Teague told him his choice last night on the phone:

If you were anticipating some clarity coming out of the BCS meetings in Arizona this week involving league commissioners from the various heavy-hitters across the college sports landscape, you’ll have to wait a little longer.  It was widely speculated that Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany may have used the forum to announce some form of targeted expansion for his conference that could have blown a torpedo-sized hole in the existing structure of major college athletics.  Didn’t happen.  In fact, according to the commish of the richest conference in D1 sports, a whole bunch of nothing is going on.

There are no announcements here and there are no notifications here.”  Delany said the expansion process remains in an early phase. He said it’s too early to tell whether the 11-team conference would add one or as many as five teams. He said his thinking wasn’t being heavily influenced by a desire to hold a conference championship game in December. He also said he doesn’t know how quickly an expanded league could be put together.  He would not deny, however, that programs are being evaluated for their potential fit in the Big Ten.  “I didn’t say we weren’t at that phase, I said we are not at the phase of any need to provide notice to an institution, that we were in formal discussions with an institution.”

We counted at least five uses of the negative in his two quotes there.  Delaney uses two more in another interview with USA Today, where he said the Big Ten is: 

“not anywhere near” [approaching or adding new schools.]  “We have not accelerated anything” [with respect to the 12-18 month timetable.]

Delany’s manner of speaking reminds us of the old unknown unknown bit from Donald Rumsfeld in the mid-2000s.  It wouldn’t have surprised us to hear Delany segue into a similar lecture on what the knowns and unknowns are with respect to conference expansion, all the while dropping double-negatives and enough qualifiers and derivatives to make Goldman Sachs blush these days. 

The bottom line is this, though.  Missouri, Pitt, Rutgers, UConn and Notre Dame fans can all rest easy now.  Until they can’t anymore, which will happen at a time and place known only to Delany and his cronies  and will be pushed upon the American people without provocation or consideration.  All we ask is that when it comes time to actually add one, three, or five new teams to the Big Ten Conference, Delany doesn’t continue to play this game by telling us that, for example, “Missouri may not be under consideration in the current phase, but that doesn’t mean that they weren’t ever under consideration nor does it preclude them from future consideration.  It wouldn’t make good business sense to not consider them at some point.”  Um, thanks.

1. The pickings are getting a little lean on the NBA Draft front, as Louisville’s Samardo Samuels, Oklahoma’s Tiny Gallon and Nevada’s Luke Babbitt all declared yesterday.  Babbitt has the best shot at becoming a first rounder, as Gallon and Samuels are not considered by most experts to be in that range.  By our count, these three players make a total of 62 early entries for thirty guaranteed first round spots in the June 24 NBA Draft.  Although the May 8 withdrawal deadline is a complete and utter joke, we hope that many of these players will find the proper counsel needed to make an informed decision about their realistic prospects.
2. This situation involving the new women’s head coach at Missouri could get interesting.
3. The three reasons that Kyle Singler decided to buck the trend and return to school despite being a guaranteed first round pick?  1) Duke; 2) improvement; 3) his senior year.  If he played anywhere other than Duke, everyone would be holding this kid up as everything that’s great about college basketball.
4. Keep an ear to any choice quotes coming from Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delaney today, as he will be holding a press conference in Arizona as part of the annual BCS meetings.  Question we’d pay a reporter to ask: why, sir, must you and your ilk try to ruin everything?
5. Butler’s Brad Stevens will throw out the ceremonial first pitch for the Chicago Cubs’ May 10 game against the Florida Marlins, and as if that weren’t enough, he’ll also lead the crowd in the singing of Take Me Out to the Ballgame during the 7th inning stretch.  Afterward, Stevens will save a kitten from a tree outside the stadium and offer a homeless man a job.  Seriously, though, good for him so long as he does a little better with the pitch than the Prez did…

Louisville head coach Rick Pitino, in a press conference Monday morning:

My goal for [Samardo Samuels] next year is to leave next year same as Mashburn whatever year that was ’92 or ’93. That’s my goal for him, get through this junior year, get your rebounds up to 9.5 run the floor those things then it’s his time to go.

From the Jamaica Observer very early Tuesday morning:

Samardo Samuels, who hails from the home of Usain Bolt in Trelawny, Jamaica, has entered this year’s NBA Draft.

Samardo May or May Not Get Those Rebounds Up to 9.5 Per Game

So who’s right — newspaper or coach?  The Jamaica Observer, of course.  Louisville blog Card Chronicle documents the back and forth yesterday through Adam Zagoria’s tweets.  Interesting stuff, and clearly great evidence of how well Coach P communicates with his players.  To his credit, Pitino now says that he’s “100 percent” behind Samuels’ decision to test the waters of the NBA Draft.  That is, until he returns, at which time he’ll be 100 percent behind him returning.

Lord only knows what he’s telling superstar prep guard Marquis Teague (rumored to be leaning Louisville with his decision pending Thursday).

1. Whew, things aren’t slowing down much in comings and goings.  Colorado filled its open head coaching position with Tad Boyle, the Northern Colorado coach who took a transitional D1 program to 25 wins and second place in the Big Sky this season.  Appalachian State is reported to be filling its open position vacated by Buzz Peterson with another former UNC player, Jason Capel.  The 30-year old Capel has only one season of experience as an assistant under his belt, but he clearly has the name recognition in the state of North Carolina that should help with recruiting.  Washington’s Lorenzo Romar parlayed his run to the Sweet Sixteen into a ten-year contract extension (through 2020), which shows again how important March has become.  On the NBA Draft side, Richmond’s Kevin Anderson will test the waters to see what he needs to improve upon for next season, and BYU’s Jimmer Fredette will do likewise.  Neither player will sign with an agent, leaving open the possibility of a return to school next season.  Fredette is currently projected as a late first/early second round pick, while Anderson is likely undrafted at this point (which means he should return).
2. The Fred Hill saga at Rutgers has finally ended, with the embattled head coach agreeing to a settlement with the school worth $850,000 to resign his position.  This was an embarrassing week for the State University of New Jersey, but the school can now get back to the more important issue of finding a coach to save this moribund basketball program.  Eddie Jordan, Fran Fraschilla and Jim O’Brien are reportedly on the short list.
3. Meet Zach Lipson, the next Kentucky equipment manager, and one of the neatest stories you’ll read about keeping your head up and having faith in your abilities.
4. This is an incredible column.  First, we’d been wondering why we hadn’t seen Bill Walton on any NBA/NCAA broadcasts for a while, and this explains why.  But second, it now puts the notorious UCLA loss to Notre Dame in 1974 to end the 88-game winning streak in a completely new light.  The Big Redhead played with broken bones in his back — take that Evan Turner!
5. From yougotdunkedon.com, This is a fun mix of some of the best dunks of the 2009-10 season.  Which is your fav?  For our money, it’s Travis Leslie… wow!