It was a busy night Thursday, and that meant thirteen more eliminations from the national title race.  You can start to see a few holes in the below Circle of March, as Jacksonville, High Point, St. Francis (NY), St. Francis (PA), Mt. St. Mary’s, Wagner, UT-Martin, Illinois State, VMI, UMBC, Southeast Missouri State, Lipscomb and Drake are now all looking forward to next season.  With last night’s losses, there are now 289 teams still alive for the 2011 national championship.

Coming next: Huge Friday night of eliminations, with 21 games knocking out one team or another.

Three more conference tourneys kicked off last night, and that meant more eliminations from the national title race.  From the Atlantic Sun, OVC and Patriot League, let’s bid good tidings to Kennesaw State, Campbell, Tennessee State, Eastern Kentucky, Colgate, Holy Cross, Army and Navy — there are now 302 schools still alive.

Coming next: a big night, as thirteen more teams will be eliminated from the national picture this evening.

Last night’s Big South and Horizon League losers knocked eight teams from the ranks of national title contenders.  That leaves a total of 310 teams vying for the crown this season.  Liberty, Winthrop, Charleston Southern, Gardner-Webb, Illinois-Chicago, Green Bay, Loyola (Ill) and Youngstown State — we’ll see you again next year!

Coming next: eight more teams eliminated from the Atlantic Sun, Ohio Valley and Patriot Leagues tonight.

Conference tournaments start tonight, as both the Big South Conference and Horizon League tip things off with opening round postseason action.  As of right now, there are approximately 325 teams still “alive” for the 2011 national championship.  Each of their names is somewhere below in the Circle of March, as we’re calling it.  When a team is formally eliminated, either through a loss in their mid-major conference tourney, a discharge by the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee, or a subsequent defeat in the NCAAs, we’ll remove its name from our circle.  On April 4, there will only be one team left from amidst this chaos — see if you can find which one. 

To celebrate the start of the postseason, we’ve also put together a nice little chart to help you follow along.  The next thirteen days — a/k/a Championship Fortnight — will without question be wild as teams play their way in and out of the NCAA Tournament picture and correspondingly exhibit the heartache and unadulterated joy that goes along with the beauty of March Madness.