John Stevens is a featured writer for Rush The Court.

You’ll have to excuse John Bryant if he doesn’t exactly dwell on the past, these days.  Why should he?  When you’ve got as much going on as this guy, the past is something from which you’ve become expert at taking whatever lessons you can, and then letting it fall away.

Wait, what’s that name?  John Bryant?  Right now you are likely wondering why that name sounds familiar.  You are wondering exactly where you’ve heard it before.  In a moment, I’ll tell you.

Bryant plays center for Santa Clara University.  And he doesn’t just play center — he’s one of the best big men in the nation.  He currently has 21 double-doubles (points and rebounds) on the year, a mere one behind likely player-of-the-year Blake Griffin’s 22.  Yes, that’s more than some other guys you might hear more about, like Harangody, Thabeet, Blair, and Hansbrough.  Bryant is second in the nation in rebounds per game (an unreal 13.8), not to mention tied for 14th nationally with 2.6 blocks per game, and is now the all-time leader at SCU in that category.

But that’s not where you know him from.

In the middle of finishing up his senior season, including leading the Broncos to wins in seven of their last eight games, John was good enough to find time to answer some of my questions:

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Farking.  The Word is Farking, Roy.  From last night’s post-game press conference vs. NC State.  So Coach, why didn’t you press Miami again?

Game of the Night.  UCLA 85, Washington 76. This game was essentially for the top of the Pac-10, because if Washington had won it would have been nearly impossible for UCLA to catch them in the remaining two weekends.  The Bruins therefore did exactly what they needed to do, essentially outscoring the Huskies in a key stretch of the late second half behind a Darren Collison mini-run and Josh Shipp’s 20/8 and Nikola Dragovic’s 15/8.  We know we were hyping UCLA a mere week ago before they lost both games on the Arizona swing, but their usually stalwart defense just isn’t what it used to be.  Washington was able to get most of the shots they wanted, and that’s the first time in several years we could say that about a team playing the Bruins.

Upset of the Night.  Charlotte 65, Xavier 60.  Xavier dropped into a tie for second-place in the A10 with three losses (behind Dayton with two) with this loss, XU’s third in the last four games.  Make no mistake, though, this is a bad loss for the Muskies, as Charlotte entered the game 10-15 overall and 4-7 in the conference.  Sean Miller had no explanation for why his team is faltering lately, having lost its last three road games, but they’ve had two of their worst offensive efficiency performances in their last two losses.  Xavier is still safe as far as the NCAA is concerned, but with games at St. Joe’s and home against Dayton looming, the Musketeers seed could really plummet with a couple more late losses.

Some Other Nonsense.

• W. Kentucky 78, Arkansas-Little Rock 69.  WKU got a key Sun Belt win tonight to go take a one-game lead on UALR in the Sun Belt race for the outright title.
• Wisconsin 68, Indiana 51. The Badgers couldn’t afford to lose this game, and they didn’t behind Trevon Hughes’ 21 pts.  The middle of the Big Ten is a mess, with five teams with either six or seven conference losses.
• Villanova 82, Rutgers 72.  Rutgers hung in this game for thirty minutes, but Nova got it together during a decisive 12-0 stretch where Corey Fisher made several key plays.  You know what we really like about the Big East top six?  They just don’t lose to bad teams, Villanova included (only exception: USF over Marquette two weeks ago).
• Gonzaga 91, Loyola Marymount 54.  The Zags clinched the top seed in the WCC Tournament for the ninth straight year behind Steven Gray’s career-high 23 pts.
• California 78, Oregon 60.  The Ducks remain winless in the Pac-10 as Cal got one step closer to getting off the bubble with a win to go 9-4 in the conference.
• USC 61, Washington St. 51.  USC keeps its slim hopes alive for an at-large by moving to 7-6 in the Pac-10 – what they really need is a win this weekend over UW, though.
• St. Mary’s 65, San Diego 61. The Gaels continue to keep their head above water without Patty Mills leading their way.   Omar Samhan had 20/11 in the win.
• Michigan 74, Minnesota 62.  Big bubble game goes to the Wolverines at home.  Both teams are now 7-7 in the Big Ten.  Tubby’s team may be wearing down, having lost four of its last five games.
• Duke 76, St. John’s 69.  We don’t know why the Johnnies continue to schedule this game, it’s just embarrassing for SJU most years.  Should we read anything into SJU giving Duke a mild test when they’ve only won three games in the Big East this year?  Eh, probably not.

On Tap Friday (all times EST).  There’s one early Bracketbuster game worth keeping an eye on Friday night…

• VCU @ Nevada (ESPNU) – 9pm.  Nevada isn’t getting into the NCAAs short of a run to win the WAC Tournament, but VCU is in a battle with George Mason and Northeastern to win the CAA, so this game could potentially help VCU move up a seed line should they take care of business in their tournament.

As a member of the CBB Blogpoll, we’ve been asked to join the weekly roundtable, where we’ll be answering a series of questions about the state of the season.  A Sea of Blue is this week’s host – be sure to stop by over there to see some of the other blogs’ answers (ed. note: we tried and failed to keep our eyes on our own paper).  

Who really looks like the best team in college basketball this season?

On “look” alone, it has to be Pittsburgh.  The Panthers have only sustained two losses, and in both of those losses (@ Louisville and @ Villanova), the manchild known as DeJuan Blair was in foul trouble.  But will that translate in March this time around?  Remember, the Panthers have never played past the Sweet 16 in the history of the program.   Why is this year any different?  For one, Pitt’s offensive efficiency is the best it’s ever been (currently #3 nationally).  For another, they have a scoring option from each of the key positions on the court (point/wing/post) in Levance Fields, Sam Young and Blair.  We hesitate to think Pitt will win it all this year, but we have to believe that this is a Final Four team.

Is Blake Griffin the Player of the Year already, or can somebody catch him?

Over.  Blake Griffin is your 2008-09 POY, and it’s not even close.  The only player that could have caught him in the last month was Stephen Curry, but his recent injury plus some media backlash (ahem) about his play in “big” games this year has rendered that point moot.  We all know how sick Griffin’s numbers are (23/14/3 assts), but Oklahoma has had only one slip-up despite several close games they could have dropped. 

What currently ranked team is the biggest disappointment so far this year?

Michigan State.  We’re tired of hearing excuses about this team.  They were top 5 to begin the year, and they’re still top 10 in most polls, but they have a bigger tendency to completely quit than any other team near the top of the rankings.  Witness the shellacking at Ford Field by UNC in December or the recent rape at the hands of Purdue just this week.  Maryland of all teams also destroyed them earlier this year.  The pieces are supposedly there, with Kalin Lucas, Goran Suton, Durrell Summers, Raymar Morgan and so forth… but from our view it appears that there are no great players here, just a collection of very good ones. 

Predict the next team to beat Oklahoma.

The easy choice is at Texas or at Missouri in the next couple of weeks, so we’ll be a little contrarian and predict a home loss to Kansas on Big Monday next week.  KU is playing much better than anticipated this season, and Bill Self’s defense is good enough to shut down everyone except Blake Griffin in that game.  We like the Jayhawks to do it, especially if OU is elevated to #1 in next week’s polls. 

Zach Hayes is RTC’s resident bracketologist.   He’ll be regularly out-scooping, out-thinking and out-shining Lunardi over the next three months.

Selection Sunday is sneaking up on us, folks. The conversations around college basketball are focused squarely on the bubble as we crawl closer and closer to March 15th and the unveiling of the new bracket. Whose schedule is looking favorable down the stretch? Which teams need to win out? Is the ACC approaching the Big East in terms of expected bids? Here’s your latest bubble update on Your Bubble Has Burst here at Rush the Court:

Note: all computer numbers prior to Wednesday’s games.

Atlantic Coast

Locks: North Carolina built a hefty lead in the ACC this week with their wins over Duke and Miami, while their rival Blue Devils have fallen in 4 out of 6 to drop 2.5 games behind the Tar Heels. Both Duke and Carolina, along with 7-4 Clemson and 7-4 Wake Forest, appear to be locks at this point. Despite Wake’s slip-ups to unranked ACC opposition, their home wins against Duke and North Carolina and road wins at BYU, Clemson and Boston College should be enough.

Comfortably in: Sure, they laid an egg in Winston-Salem, but Florida State still sits in a nice position. A 21 RPI and 32 SOS with 2 wins against the RPI top 25 in the #1 RPI conference means Leonard Hamilton will finally lead his Seminoles to tournament action. The schedule down the stretch does provide room for a collapse, though, with a home-and-home against Virginia Tech, trips to BC and Duke and home contests vs. Clemson and Miami. No gimmes on that schedule.

Work left to do: Those buzzer-beater losses to Xavier and Wisconsin would look very good as wins on Seth Greenberg’s resume right about now. Virginia Tech has done a nice job turning it around in ACC play to compile a 51 RPI, 49 SOS and wins at Wake and Miami. Still, the loss to Virginia hurts big and their non-conference wins are less than impressive. With @Clemson, Duke, North Carolina and two games vs. Florida State left on the slate, they are far from a sure thing. Boston College will probably hear their name called on Selection Sunday after the win against Duke on Sunday. They really only need to go 2-2 down the stretch and 9-7 should be enough. Their last three games are favorable: FSU, @NCST, GT. At 4-8 in the ACC, Miami needs to win out to get to 8-8. Period.

On the brink: Maryland’s throttling at the hands of halfway decent opponents in seemingly every game save Michigan State can’t impress the tournament committee. At 5-6, they’re still alive. They absolutely need to steal one of their three remaining home games with Carolina, Duke and Wake Forest while also knocking off NC State and Virginia on the road. It’s a tall task for coach Williams.

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Story of the Night.  There weren’t any particularly compelling games tonight from a national must-see perspective, but there were a multitude with bubble implications.  Our bracketologist will be posting his Your Bubble Has Burst tomorrow morning, so we’ll just do a brief rundown of observations from tonight’s key games.

• Florida St. 80, Miami (FL) 67.  FSU moved into a four-way tie for second place in the ACC with this win, and has seemingly positioned itself for its first NCAA bid in many a year (last app: 1998) heading into the final three weeks.  Miami, on the other hand, now at 4-8 in the league needs a minimum of three of its next four to remain alive.
• Florida 83, Alabama 74. UF hit twenty wins for the 11th consecutive season behind Nick Calathes’ 22 pts.  There are now four teams (incl. Florida) tied at 7-4 at the top of the SEC East.
• Georgetown 65, S. Florida 40.  Georgetown got the first of several it needs to make a run at 9-9 in the Big East behind Greg Monroe’s 12/10.
• West Virginia 79, Notre Dame 68.  Both of these teams really needed this game, and WVU got it after getting behind early in the first half.  “Gody had 26/13 in the losing effort, and now ND absolutely must get four of its final five to get to 8-10 in the Big East.
• Penn St. 38, Illinois 33.  We already talked about this abomination elsewhere.
• Citadel 64, Davidson 46.  No Steph Curry meant Davidson shot only 25% and got run out of the gym at home tonight.  How will the NCAA Cmte. view this loss w/o Curry?
• Louisville 94, Providence 76.  Louisville went on a second-half 22-3 run to put Providence’s hopes of getting a signature win to rest behind Earl Clark’s 13/10/7 assts.  Four Big East teams are tied in the loss column with two losses each.
• Wake Forest 87, Georgia Tech 69.  Wake got payback for its most confounding loss of the season behind James Johnson’s 24/11 to get to 7-4 in the ACC.
• Ole Miss 81, Tennessee 65.  There’s literally nothing that impresses us about this UT team, of course that’s true of the entire SEC.
• UNC 89, NC State 80. Tyler Zeller made his second debut of the season, contributing eight minutes of depth in the frontcourt.  He didn’t help the UNC defense, though, who allowed NCSU to shoot 54% from the field for the game.
• Memphis 90, SMU 47.  Memphis won its seventeenth game in a row in an absolute destruction of Matt Doherty’s team.  All five Tiger starters reached double figures.
• Virginia 75, Virginia Tech 61.  Va Tech is flailing right now, having lost four of its last six games, while UVa won its second in a row after having started 1-8 in the league.
• Wisconsin-Milwaukee 63, Butler 60.  Butler has now lost two in row, leaving UWGB only one game behind in the Horizon race.  There was some funny business going on with the game clock in this one – ah, such is the life of mid-major world.
• Mississippi St. 75, South Carolina 70.  These middling SEC teams are starting to all look the same to us.
• Kansas 72, Iowa St. 55.  KU is really good at avoiding letdowns in games like this despite their relative youth and inexperience.  Cole Aldrich had 22/11 in the win.
• LSU 72, Arkansas 69. LSU moved to 10-1 in the SEC with a hard-fought road victory at Arkansas.  The Tigers erased an 18-pt deficit and used an 11-1 run in the final few minutes to pull out the win.
• Northwestern 72, Ohio St. 69.  We really wish that NW had pulled out that Illinois game last week so that we could realistically put them on the bubble.
• Wyoming 77, UNLV 68. Terrible loss for the Rebels, who are slipping out of any contention for an at-large bid.  Hard to believe this team won at Louisville two months ago.

You know that you’re coming to the end of the regular season when the McD’s Burger Boys are announced.  This annual rite of late winter signals that it’s time to hunker down and prepare for some warmer weather and a little thing called March Madness, and this game always gives us a peak of some of the next few years’ stars to watch.  Last year’s F4, for example, featured freshmen Kevin Love, Cole Aldrich and Derrick Rose – all three were Burger Boys in 2007, not to overlook Darrell Arthur, Sherron Collins, Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington and James Keefe from the 2006 game, and Tyler Hansbrough, Bobby Frasor, Danny Green and Super Mario Chalmers from the 2005 game.   In all, a total of twelve McDonald’s All-Americans played in last year’s Final Four, and you can expect a multitude most seasons.

Keep in mind that aside from the top ten or so consensus players (this year, guys like Boynton, Henry, Sidney, Cousins and Favors are on that list), there is a fair amount of political posturing that goes into these selections.  Don’t believe us?  Then check some of the names of the last ten McD’s games and their career stats (you’ll notice a lot of “rep” schools on this list:

• Rolando Howell – 2000 (South Carolina): 10/6 in 4 yrs
• Neil Fingleton – 2000 (UNC/Holy Cross): 3/2 in 3 yrs
• Michael Thompson – 2002 (Duke): 5/2 in 4 yrs
• Travis Garrison – 2002 (Maryland) – 8/5 in 4 yrs
• Ivan Harris – 2003 (Ohio St.): 6/2 in 4 yrs
• Jawan McClellan – 2004 (Arizona): 8/3 in 4 yrs
• Bobby Frasor – 2005 (UNC) – 4/3 in 4 yrs
• Eric Boateng – 2005 (Duke/Arizona St.) – 3/2 in 3 yrs
• Lance Thomas – 2006 (Duke): 5/3 in 3 yrs
• James Keefe – 2006 (UCLA): 2/3 in 3 yrs

Another thing to remember is that while the McDonald’s game annually has many of the best players, it’s not the end-all.  Here’s a list of this year’s collegiate stars who never sniffed the grease, special sauce and Ronald’s creepy smile while still a prep star, yet turned out ok.

• Hasheem Thabeet – 2005 (UConn) – ranked #64
• Terrence Williams – 2005 (Louisville) – ranked #44
• Jerel McNeal – 2005 (Marquette) – ranked #57
• Jack McClinton – 2005 (Miami) – unranked
• Sam Young – 2005 (Pittsburgh) – ranked #58
• Luke Harangody – 2006 (Notre Dame) – ranked #83
• DeJuan Blair – 2006 (Pittsburgh) – ranked #40
• Stephen Curry – 2006 (Davidson) – unranked
• Jodie Meeks – 2006 (Kentucky) – ranked #57
• E’Twaun Moore – 2007 (Purdue) – ranked #23
• James Johnson – 2007 (Wake Forest) – ranked #43
• Patty Mills – 2007 (St. Mary’s) – unranked
• Jeff Teague – 2007 (Wake Forest) – ranked #58
• Isaiah Thomas – 2008 (Washington) – ranked #85

No, this is not a typo…

Penn St. really did win a 38-33 thriller in Champaign tonight.

Apparently, with six minutes remaining, the score was 31-24 in favor of the Illini, but PSU made a mad rush to outscore Bruce Weber’s team 14-2 down the stretch (a veritable blitzkrieg) to secure the win.  Or, as ESPN’s copy editors put it, Penn St. powered past Illinois.

The two teams combined to shoot 28-96 (.292) from the field and 6-33 (.180) from three, which by any objective measure is also known as an abortion on the court.  There were more bricks thrown up in this one than in Modesto and West Palm during the height of the housing bubble.   One of our earliest memories of basketball was this crime against hoops-manity which helped inspire the original 45-second shot clock in 1985-86; it’s nice to see that we can count on the Big Ten to set new modern records for offensive futility.  The combined total of 71 pts is the lowest output in four years (since Monmouth defeated Princeton 41-21 in 2005).  We have no idea how long it’s been for a BCS conference, but this might just be the worst of the shot-clock era.  Ugh.

We just saw ESPN break down the NCAA Tourney chances of both of these teams, and we’re disgusted that either of these teams are even in the conversation given the putrid display they each put forth tonight.  Oh, it was a defensive battle, right?

RTC is growing and we’re in dire need of an intern who has a love for college hoops and a keen sense of how to aggregate and analyze news from various RSS feeds.  We can’t pay you any actual funds, but if you’re in college, we may be able to work with your school to provide credit for the few hours a week you’d be giving us.   If you’re looking to move into blogging and/or writing, working at RTC could boost your career prospects, and if things work out on the initial tasks, there is also a possibility of writing assignments going forward. 

Send a one-paragraph description of yourself to rushthecourt@yahoo.com and why your skills and talents would make for a good fit at RTC.  Please refer specifically to how you keep up with sports news (particularly college basketball news) and how you would analytically distinguish between hundreds of daily stories to isolate key issues and trends in the news. 

And if you look at all similar to this prospective intern, please send a photo. 

ESPN Ruins Gillispie-Edwards Part III. If you read our post on this today, you know that we sorta saw this coming.  As much as ESPN tried to officially act that the blogosphere doesn’t exist, they undoubtedly knew that the biggest attraction of tonight’s games was the potential for another icy conversation between Jeannine Edwards and Billy Gillispie.   So short of a major blowup by Gillispie, the game producers weren’t about to let that happen.  Instead they gave us the amiable  Vandy coach, Kevin Stallings, who wasn’t about to berate Jeannine Edwards for her questions.  Thanks, WWL.

Update: The Nashville Tennessean reported today that Edwards made the decision to “cut her losses” by interviewing Stallings instead of Gillispie.  Avoidance – the classic, tried-and-true female strategy. 

Vanderbilt 77, Kentucky 64.  As for this game, Kentucky is now in serious trouble of missing the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1991.  With Patrick Patterson on the shelf because of a sore ankle, UK only had one offensive weapon, and Jodie Meeks’ 26 wasn’t enough as UK dropped to 18-8 and 7-4 in the SEC.  In a normal year for the SEC, they’d be in good shape, but this league is shaping up as a 3- or 4-bid conference, and UK’s RPI is hovering in the 60s with games still looming at South Carolina and Florida.   We figure UK needs to go 4-1 the rest of the way to remain squarely in the conversation.  Anything less and it’s SEC Tournament run or bust.

Purdue 72, Michigan St. 54.  Purdue got Robbie Hummel back for this game, and Purdue is a much better team when he is on the floor.  The Boilermakers held MSU to 33% shooting from the field, and it was clear early in the second half that Tom Izzo’s squad wasn’t going to make a comeback in this one.  MSU is really capable of laying gigantic eggs on occasion, even now that they have all their pieces back, and we’re not sure what that means for the Spartans come March, but it’s probably not a good thing.

Some Other Games on a Quiet Tuesday Night.

• Clemson 93, Maryland 64. Clemson dropped 59 on the Terps in the second half behind Trevor Booker’s 11/14, including at least one jaw-dropping follow slam.  The Tigers moved into a five-way tie for second in the ACC (all with 4 losses).
• Marquette 79, Seton Hall 67.  Wesley Matthews had 24/4/4 assts in a game where Marquette only woke up in the mid-second half to put Seton Hall away.
• Creighton 89, Evansville 84.  Creighton has gotten itself in position to become the second MVC team into the Tourney (the bracket matrix has CU on the brink) with their seventh straight win.
• BYU 73, New Mexico 62.  Jonathan Tavernari had 22/7 as BYU kept the pace with San Diego St. at 8-3 in the Mountain West.

On Tap Wednesday (all times EST).

• Miami (FL) @ Florida St. (ESPNU) – 7pm.  Key bubble game in the ACC race.
• Alabama @ Florida – 7pm.  Must-win for the Gators at home.
• Georgetown @ South Florida (ESPN360) – 7pm.  Speaking of must-wins, Georgetown can’t afford a Marquette showing here.
• Notre Dame @ West Virginia (ESPN360) – 7pm.   Who wants to make the NCAA Tournament, third edition.
• Penn St. @ Illinois – 7pm.  PSU’s dwindling NCAA chances could really use an upset here.
• Citadel @ Davidson – 7pm.  If Curry doesn’t play, Citadel could give DC a game here.
• Drexel @ George Mason – 7pm.  A key game in the CAA for two teams trying to catch VCU and Northeastern (one game ahead).
• Providence @ Louisville (ESPN2) – 7:30pm.  Despite being 8-5 in the Big East, PC’s RPI is not impressive (#69), so they need this game desperately.
• Georgia Tech @ Wake Forest – 7:30pm.  Can Georgia Tech win its second game of the ACC season against the only team it’s beaten so far?
• Tennessee @ Ole Miss (ESPN360) – 8pm.  UT can’t afford another bad loss.
• NC State @ UNC (ESPN360) – 8pm.  NC State is playing better, but don’t expect an upset here.
• Virginia Tech @ Virginia (ESPN360) – 8pm.  Can UVa pull another upset at home?
• South Carolina @ Mississippi St. – 8pm.  Key bubble game in the SEC between two surprise teams.
• LSU @ Arkansas – 8pm.  Can the Hawgs pull another home upset against a ranked team?
• Ohio St. @ Northwestern – 9pm.  NW has proven tough at home, OSU had better bring its best game.
• Oklahoma St. @ Texas Tech (ESPN2) – 9pm.  What a terrible nationally-televised game.

We haven’t seen much written on this yet, so we thought it would be worth our 1000th post here at RTC (woohoo!) to mock the media’s mock bracket that came out last Friday.   You remember the drill – the NCAA invites twenty distinguished members of the hoops cognoscenti to Indianapolis to go through the same exercise of filling the bracket in twelve hours that the NCAA Selection Committee goes through in five days (we’re still awaiting RTC’s invite).  According to Mike DeCourcy, this abridged media experience somehow proves that there’s no time for shenanigans amongst the committee in terms of potential made-for-tv matchups and backroom wheeling and dealing – “demystifying and demythifying” were the words used – even though the fact that the Selection Committee has five full days (vs. 12 hours) to consider other variables, such as ensuring compelling matchups, seems lost on him.  Demythifying?  We’re still trying to figure out how UNLV was selected over Vanderbilt and Notre Dame in the 2000 Tourney.  Oh yeah, Craig Thompson.

Anyway, here’s the media mock bracket (as of last Friday):

Clemson as an overall #2 seed is abominable, and that was true even before the Tigers’ loss to Virginia on Sunday.  And we have to agree with the commenters on Decourcy’s piece who take issue with Florida as a #8 seed ranked ahead of SEC leader LSU (#10 seed).  He’s right in that LSU’s out-of-conference schedule reads like a Big South slate, but credit has to be given for essentially dominating a BCS conference, which is what LSU at 9-1 has done to date.   The fairer way would have been to give both #9 seeds and be done with that dilemma.  Butler as a #3 seed, Utah as a #5 seed and USC as a #9 seed are so absurd it’s not even worth further mention.

We were also really surprised to see Georgetown in the bracket anywhere, much less as a #10 seed.  The Hoyas have top-tier talent and a decent RPI, but goodness, at 13-9 and 4-7 in the Big East at the time of this bracket, this has every hallmark of a rep pick.  And what happened at the #11-seed level of this bracket?  Cornell (ok, which reporter went to Cornell?), South Carolina (ok), Davidson (will be higher) and Arizona (will be a good bit higher)?   Decourcy mentioned the Davidson dilemma, but if the Wildcats win the SoCon again, they’ll be no lower than a #10 this year – mark that down.

Cross-referencing with our bracketologist Zach Hayes’ latest report which came out yesterday, we see that our guy’s analysis is significantly stronger and well contemplated than the bracket that the media came up with by themselves.  Seriously, we can’t believe some of their seeding selections.  This is comprised of America’s college hoops experts?  Wethinks that the bloggers could have done a better job, even in such a small slice of time as twelve hours.

Update:  we were tipped to Kyle Whelliston’s excellent column describing the events of the media mock selection process, and it makes things considerably clearer.  First, the mock committee were given scenarios based on automatic qualifiers that helps to explain why some of the seedings are out of whack with current relative positions; second, there was a major technical glitch during the proceedings that led to the seed lines 6 and below getting filled based purely on RPI.  Whelliston made pains to say that this is not how it would typically go.  DeCourcy never mentioned it.  This makes us feel a little better about the process, and the resultant bracket, although we still don’t think that it proves anything about conference affiliation considerations and/or other backroom shenanigans.  After all, the real committee has more time and are better versed in how to do this.