We thought it would be interesting to see how the bookmakers in Vegas and beyond see the final sixteen teams of this year’s NCAA Tournament.  We’ll take a fairly simplistic look at this with some brief analysis after the jump, but we suggest that if you really want to delve into a greater detail of analysis behind these odds, you head over to Vegas Watch who will be breaking down each region throughout the week.  Here’s how the people who do this for a living handicap the remaining teams in the field.  We’ve broken it down into three categories (from left to right): percentage chance of making the Final Four, the Championship Game and winning the national title.

(ed. note: this was calculated prior to Truck Bryant’s injury for West Virginia)

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Each day this week during the regional rounds of the NCAA Tournament we’re asking some of our top correspondents to put together a collection of notes and interesting tidbits about each region.  If you know of something that we should include in tomorrow’s submission, hit us up at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

Midwest Region (Tom Hager)

• Northern Iowa coach Ben Jacobson has insisted that his players are handling the added attention well, but it is hard to keep your composure when you walk into a lecture hall and receive a standing ovation, as Ali Farokhmanesh experienced on Monday.
• Many people know that Farokhamnesh transferred to UNI, but most people do not know that UNI, like most other schools, knew about him in high school and passed up on him.
• According to Dan Blank, the key for Michigan State will be to push the ball (something Kansas failed to do when they let Jordan Eglseder score 14 points in 18 minutes).  However, given the injuries they have recently sustained, Blank says hastening the pace may not be so easy.
• Ohio State has been criticized for a lack of bench production, but Blank points out that the short bench may benefit the Buckeyes.
• The Buckeyes are underdogs in this game, but Inside Tennessee’s Patrick Gibson reported that the Vols had a solid practice session on Monday.  That should come as no surprise, as this week Doug Gottlieb listed Bruce Pearl as one of his top coaches in the country.

West Region (Andrew Murawa)

• Here we are, a couple of days away from the start of the Sweet 16 round and Syracuse is a likely favorite to play in the national championship game in two weeks, a lofty set of expectations that were entirely unlikely four and a half months ago when expectations for the Orange were low, and got even lower with an exhibition loss to LeMoyne.
• While Syracuse is led by a Hall-of-Fame head coach, their opponent in the Sweet 16 has a coach that is younger than Jim Boeheim’s coaching career. Butler head coach Brad Stevens is 33; Boeheim is in his 34^th year as the Syracuse coach.  Nevertheless, Stevens has his Bulldogs a weekend away from potentially playing in the Final Four down the street from the school’s campus.
• In the other regional semifinal, Xavier will face Kansas State, a matchup between two balanced teams. Xavier head coach Chris Mack sees his Musketeers playing their best offensive basketball of the year, but a key may be their ability to keep their strong offensive rebounding opponent off the glass. Beyond that, the Muskies will need to have answers not only for stars like Jacob Pullen, but also role players like Dominique Sutton.

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And then there were 16.

With the greatest four days of the year now in the rearview mirror, there’s still plenty to get excited about. The regional semifinals and finals can provide heart-pounding drama and unforgettable moments with games involving the best teams the sport has to offer. It only takes a quick rewind to five years ago: remember the West Virginia-Louisville and Illinois-Arizona regional final doubleheader?

If any team still standing — whether it be Cinderella Cornell or favorite Kentucky — wants to spend the first Monday in April cutting down nets in Indianapolis, they’ll first need to get by their Sweet 16 opponent. In order to jump over that next hurdle, there are a few in-game factors we deem imperative. Let’s run down what needs to happen for each team to advance and what will go wrong if each team finds their season has come to a heartbreaking conclusion:

Will the senior Dale frustrate the freshman Wall?

East Region- #1 Kentucky vs. #12 Cornell

If Kentucky advances: The Wildcats need to speed up Cornell and go crazy in transition. Cornell loves to keep teams in the halfcourt where they can run their sets and explore a two-man game with heady point guard Louis Dale and seven-foot center Jeff Foote. If Kentucky is forced into a halfcourt game, DeMarcus Cousins and Patrick Patterson must get a touch on each and every possession. The Big Red will have an incredibly difficult time containing two lottery picks if Cousins and Patterson receive the ball in prime post position. It would also help tremendously if Eric Bledsoe’s hot shooting streak continues. Bledsoe has nailed 75% of his three-pointers in the Dance thus far, giving Kentucky yet another dimension.

If Cornell advances: Cornell emasculated Wisconsin on Sunday, shooting the ball at over a 60% clip and scoring an otherworldly 1.45 points per possession against a Bo Ryan defense. If the Big Red continues their red-hot stroking from the outside with star Ryan Wittman, Dale, Jon Jacques and Chris Wroblewski, there’s a fair chance Kentucky won’t be able to answer. When the Wildcats struggle, they take and miss a plethora of long-range shots. Cornell runs the ninth most efficient offense in the nation, largely due to the intelligent play of their senior guards. With Kentucky starting a freshman backcourt, it’s possible the Big Red could frustrate the turnover-prone John Wall into mistakes.

East Region- #2 West Virginia vs. #11 Washington

If West Virginia advances: The Mountaineers need to stick to what they do best- namely hitting the boards with an unmatched intensity, beating Washington up physically, and getting the ball to Da’Sean Butler in big spots if the game comes down to the wire. Washington only has one main contributor that’s 6’9 and most of their forwards are more long than bulky. West Virginia is the second best offensive rebounding team in the nation and could rack up the second-chance opportunities, much like they did against an undersized Missouri squad in the previous round. A key matchup to watch is Devin Ebanks guarding Quincy Pondexter. It’s vital that Ebanks bring it on the defensive end; in fact, if I’m Bob Huggins, I tell Ebanks to transfer his complete focus to the defensive end and guarding Pondexter.

If Washington advances: The Huskies underachieved during the regular season for many reasons, the top two being an inability to win on the road and shooting woes from behind the arc. A 34% three-point shooting team the entire campaign, Washington has shot 47% or better from downtown in both of their tournament wins. Isaiah Thomas and Elston Turner have played tremendously well in this regard, and they’ll need the hot shooting to continue on Thursday because the Huskies can’t hold a candle to West Virginia in the paint. Also, Mountaineers point guard Joe Mazzulla is an above-average defensive player and can frustrate Thomas into poor shot selection and turnovers. Thomas needs to keep his head and continue to find Pondexter in the right spots and Turner off screens for open looks.

For the other three regions, read on…

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This one is for our readers, who are with the exception of a few notable gadflies, the most knowledgeable and erudite group of college hoops fans around.  Rather than just giving our opinions on some of the big controversies and issues of the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament, we want to throw it at you guys.  What do you think?  Each of the below polls will allow comments, so let’s build some discussion through there.   

Q1: Does Last Weekend’s Performance Show That the Big East Was Overrated?

Our answer on this one is a resounding yes.  Eight teams down to two, and four of them among the top twelve seed positions?  The Big East was historically good last year but they failed pretty miserably on the big stage this year. 

Q2: What Was the Biggest Surprise of the Weekend?

A lot of good choices here, but we have to go with Cornell’s margin of victory.  It doesn’t shock us that the Big Red are in the Sweet Sixteen, but the way in which they completely solved two of the better defensive teams in the country in Temple and Wisconsin is astounding. 

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Dave Zeitlin is the RTC correspondent for the Ivy League.

Preview—Redux

The Friday before Selection Sunday, we published what we thought would be our last Ivy League column of the season. In it we gave some of our thoughts on the tournament as a whole and the Ivy representative, Cornell, in particular. Using what we thought were keys to victory, we thought that St. Marys (#10) and Xavier (#6) would outlive their seedings. They are still alive. We said, that based on those keys, Duke would be the national champion. The Blue Devils have looked impressive. And most importantly, we said that Cornell had the stuff to reach the Sweet 16 and that the country would be talking Ivy hoops. They did and everyone is.

Now it’s on to the Carrier Dome on Thursday and the mission … slay the Big Cats from Kentucky. So whether you are eating Buffalo Wild Wings, 550 calorie meals from Applebees, or any $5 footlong; even if you are walking the Fidelity green line or joining your bags and flying for free, its time to provide an in depth RTC analysis of Kentucky vs. Cornell.

Does Former Cat Mark Coury Bear the Secrets to Beating UK?

Overview

Let’s begin by getting a few things out of the way. We will start with what is sure to be the CBS story line — academia vs. the hired guns; the four year seniors vs. the one-and-dones; the biochem majors/theoretical math minors vs. undeclared. And of course the jokes that will fly around the internet – Kentucky has a lot of double figure scorers but is their aggregate GPA in double figures? Etc. None of that, of course, is relevant. The fact is, if they played this game 50 times Kentucky may win 48 of them. Cornell only has to win once – on Thursday night.

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How far-reaching is the NCAA Tournament?  Check out these tweets from famous people in other walks of life — actors, musicians, mostly athletes — who have nothing to do with this year’s tournament but are just fans of a particular school, a player, or college hoops in general.  We like that John Legend is diggin’ Ohio State.  Not surprising, since he attended Penn but was born in Ohio.  But given Evan Turner’s versatility, we wonder if a duet with Legend could be in the works.  Anyway, other than one spot where we xxx’d out an innocent person’s Twitter ID, every tweet here is presented exactly as it was found on each user’s account, and none of them are re-tweets. We think it’s pretty cool — you never know who’s watching.

Dara Torres (American Olympic swimmer, gold medalist x 4) — U guys watchn college hoops?? Kinda dig when there’s upsets…except not when it happens to the Gators!! Hehe!

Joel McHale (ex-Washington, and star of NBC’s Community and E!’s The Soup) — Holy crap.  Way to go Northern Iowa.

Pete Yorn (musician) — Wow! Kansas. [Ed. note — posted moments after KU’s loss to UNI]

Conan O’Brien — Hey sports fans, here’s my NCAA pick: bet it all on the Savannah College of Art & Design. Go Fighting Acrylics!

Unless you WANT to be told on, Ms. Banks...

John Legend (musician) — Great day today. Ohio St going to the Sweet 16. I had a great show in Miami Gardens. And the health care bill passed. Happy Sunday

Elizabeth Banks — No, dummies. I didn’t go to Cornell. I went to Penn (*cough* better school). But def pulling for the Ivy League team. Big Cornell win!

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It’s the Monday after the first two rounds, so that means it’s time for conference report cards!  With only eleven of the 32 BCS conference teams remaining, we have a feeling that the major conferences aren’t going to perform so well in this year’s grading.  But you never know.  It all depends on the individual matchups and our mood as we break out the red marker.  We review the conferences with multiple bids below…

WCC (2 bids, 1 remaining, 3-1 record, expected PASE = 1.4 wins)

Obviously, any time a WCC team makes the Sweet Sixteen it’s a great year for the conference.  It’s especially great this time around because #10 St. Mary’s shows that the conference has some talent and depth in its league beyond the same old Zags.  With two relatively low seeds (Gonzaga was a #8), many people were expecting the league to go oh-fer in the Dance this year, but now one week later the Gaels are a popular darkhorse pick to come out of the South Region as a true F4 Cinderella.

Verdict: A.  The only thing that would have made this an A+ would have been if Gonzaga had upset #1 Syracuse.  Every additional win from here on out is just gravy.

Big 10 (5 bids, 3 remaining, 7-2 record, expected PASE = 7.1 wins)

The Big Ten is having a good tournament after a somewhat disappointing regular season, and every year the league does this everyone acts surprised.  #2 Ohio State rolled in its two games and appears a very strong contender to get to the Final Four after Northern Iowa blew up the Midwest Region.  #4 Purdue and #5 Michigan State both survived extremely close games that support the contention that the Big Ten style of play (gutting out close games) helps when it comes Tourney time.  OSU and MSU are on a likely collision course to the regional finals for an all-Big Ten extravaganza, but even if nobody wins another game, the league has already reached this year’s expectations.

Verdict: A-.  Minnesota wasn’t expected to do much and they didn’t, but #4 Wisconsin was upset by a vastly underrated #12 Cornell in the second round.  That upset is more than compensated by Purdue’s showing against #5 Texas A&M, a game where it was clear just how much they missed Robbie Hummel yet they still found a way to win.  OSU and MSU give the Big Ten the most Sweet Sixteen teams of any league this season.

Pac-10 (2 bids, 1 remaining, 3-1 record, expected PASE = 1.2 wins)

West coast bias reared its head as the two Pac-10 invitees won first round games over Big East squads to move into the next round.  #11 Washington then followed that up with a pasting of #3 New Mexico, while #8 Cal was simply outclassed by Duke’s talent.  The way Washington is playing right now (nine in a row), we wouldn’t automatically assume a loss to WVU in the Sweets, but regardless of that result the league has already far outperformed what most people expected this year (which was an 0-2 record).

Verdict: B+.  The league was undoubtedly way, way down this year, but UW and Cal gave it back a wee bit of respectability with their showings over the weekend.

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Each day this week during the regional rounds of the NCAA Tournament we’re asking some of our top correspondents to put together a collection of notes and interesting tidbits about each region.  If you know of something that we should include in tomorrow’s submission, hit us up at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

West Region Notes (Andrew Murawa)

• Lower-seeded teams like Cornell, Washington, Northern Iowa and St. Mary’s advancing to the Sweet 16 surprised college basketball fans all over, but Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim was not among them, saying that “there’s not a big gap” between teams in the tournament. Of course, he said that after winning by an average of 22.5 points in the first two games, but college basketball coaches never stretch the truth, right?
• When junior forward Wesley Johnson visited Boeheim at the Syracuse campus to inquire about transferring, the hall-of-fame coach initially turned him down. Luckily for the Orange, he changed his mind.
• With the big dog in the state back at home watching, the Kansas State Wildcats will be carrying the Sunflower State banner. The Wildcats beat up on their Sweet 16 opponent, Xavier, pretty good in early December in the Little Apple, but Fran Fraschilla says the Musketeers are a different team these days.
• Pitt and head coach Jamie Dixon are in the unfamiliar position of having to watch the Regional Semifinal round, but the Panthers will be strong contenders heading into the 2010-11 season, when they are expected to return all of their key contributors except graduating senior guard Jermaine Dixon.
• Gonzaga fans on the other hand will likely have to sweat out some key personnel decisions in the offseason, including the possibility that head coach Mark Few could leave and return to his alma mater, Oregon, to take over the program from recently fired Ernie Kent. With a sparkling new arena in Eugene and all the money that Nike can throw at him, this is undoubtedly the biggest run that another school has made at the popular and successful coach who has reportedly declined numerous other offers from big-name schools in the past. But, while point guard Matt Bouldin having played his last game in a Zag uniform and freshman forward Elias Harris a promising NBA prospect, some big changes could be coming to the recent prototype for mid-major success (no matter how much they despise the term).

Midwest Region Notes (Tom Hager)

• If there was any question that Northern Iowa might suffer from a hangover after the upset over Kansas, the team did not even wait for Saturday night to end before already getting focused for the next round of games.
• In addition to his ability to hit clutch shots, Ali Farokhmanesh has also been improving on the defensive end.  Although Kwadzo Ahelegbe usually covers the best guard each game, Farokhmanesh held Sherron Collins to 0-6 shooting from beyond the arc.
• Joe Rexrode reminded fans today that although Michigan State will miss Kalin Lucas in their next game against UNI, it won’t be the first time the Spartans played shorthanded this year.  In addition to the injury Lucas suffered against Wisconsin, he was also suspended earlier in the season for disappointing Tom Izzo as the team’s leader.  Chris Allen was also suspended earlier this season, and Durrell Summers was benched for a walk-on.
• As good as Evan Turner has been lately, the Bleacher Report’s Drew Gatewood points out that he turned the ball over nine times against Georgia Tech and had eight turnovers against UC-Santa Barbara.  With the Vols ranking #7 in defensive efficiency, Turner’s assignment may become even more difficult.
• Although Mark Wiedmer of the Chattanooga Times Free Press may be getting ahead of himself, he says Tennessee is very close to the first Final Four in UT history.  According to Wiedmer, UNI has overachieved and Michigan State is banged up, so the OSU matchup could be the deciding game in who will advance to the national semifinals.

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Ryan Restivo is an RTC correspondent and contributor.  He writes for SienaSaintsBlog as well as RotoSavants.com in his spare time.

Norm Roberts and Bobby Gonzalez joined the unemployment line this past week after both failed at Big East jobs.  Roberts, a former Kansas assistant coach and player at Queens College, could not hold onto the local talent in New York City to win at St. John’s. The Red Storm barely missed out on Lance Stephenson, losing him to Big East foe Cincinnati, which combined with an 81-101 record in six years brought him to the firing line.

Roberts Was Let Go on Friday (AP/N. Wass)

Meanwhile, across the Hudson in South Orange, it was Bobby Gonzalez’s fiery personality that did him in at Seton Hall. After four years and no NCAA Tournament appearances, Gonzalez was shown the door.  The firing came days after former Pirate Robert Mitchell was arrested and charged with kidnapping, robbery, burglary and possession of a weapon. The Pirates didn’t show much discipline on Tuesday night either: star Herb Pope was ejected in Tuesday night’s NIT game for punching a Texas Tech player in the groin and Gonzalez receive his seventh technical foul of the season.

The Dean of Seton Hall Law School, Patrick E. Hobbs, who also oversees the athletic department, said the school decided to fire Gonzalez before learning of Mitchell’s arrest.  Now both will be in the search to find candidates to bring more energy, and most of all wins, to the New York metro area schools.  Hobbs said that the contract extension given to Gonzalez was no additional financial risk for a school that cut four sports in February to save $1.5 million. Sources have said Seton Hall is expected to be looking to pay around $500,000 or slightly more as an annual salary to its next coach.

Meanwhile St. John’s was paying Roberts approximately $650,000 annually and could be expected to shell out more money for the candidate they desire. St. John’s Athletic Director Chris Monasch said the parameters of the coach they are looking for include NCAA Tournament appearances and good character. “We want to hire someone who has a record of success of getting into the NCAA tournament,” Monasch said to the AP. “In trying to find the right person, probably the safest choice is someone who has done it at this level, someone who believes in the mission of school and understands New York.”

Would Greenberg Entertain a Move to NYC?

No doubt the job that has better upside is St. John’s over Seton Hall. The Red Storm will return over 90% of its roster, nine scholarship rising seniors, and went 17-16 this year in Roberts’ highest win total. The Red Storm could be one big-time star New York City recruit away from being a Big East contender next year.  Here are some of the top names floating around as potential candidates for each of these two jobs.

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How’s Your Bracket? Of the sixteen top seeds in this year’s NCAA Tournament, eight are now gone — one #1 seed, one #2 seed and three each of the #3s and #4s.   The last time that half of the top sixteen didn’t make the Sweets?  2005 (8).  Before that?  2000 (9).  So maybe this is a cyclical thing of around twice a decade, but we’ll take it.  It makes for a wild attention-getting opening weekend, and builds a buzz about the Dance that had been lacking in the last couple of years during the early rounds. In addition to that, we have a #9 (Northern Iowa), #10 (St. Mary’s), #11 (Washington) and #12 (Cornell) crashing the rarefied air of the regionals, the most teams from the lower half of the bracket to make it since 1999 when five double-digit seeds made it to the second weekend.  To the players on those four teams, they don’t care about any of that — the unlikelihood of its occurrence is lost on their youth; all they know is that they’re still playing and they believe they can continue to advance in this tournament.  And why shouldn’t they?  None of the four teams above fit the definition of an overmatched Cinderella that just happened to catch a favorite looking ahead or on a very off night.  No, these four teams have combined to win 113 games this year, and each has shown the ability to win convincingly over quality competition.  Cornell’s 13-point victory over Temple was one thing; but an 18-point pasting over Bo Ryan’s Wisconsin while scoring 87 points is quite another.  St. Mary’s knocking out a strong Richmond team was impressive; but holding Big Shot Scottie Reynolds to 2-11 from the field is a different story.  Same thing for Washington dominating a 30-win New Mexico team, and well, we’re still in astonishment over the UNI victory over Kansas on Saturday afternoon (more on this below).  It was a bracket-busting kind of weekend, and it provided more thrills and memorable moments than the last few NCAA Tournaments combined.  It’s the reason we all love this sport, and it provides additional evidence (although none is needed) that the Tourney is already in its sweet spot in terms of the right number of teams allowed to participate.  If #9 seed Northern Iowa had to play an additional game to get to #8 UNLV before a chance to take on #1 Kansas on Saturday, would they have had the legs to get past the overall top seed?  Would any of the above teams still be dancing?

Un-Farokhing-Believable.  We were among the biggest supporters of top overall seed Kansas as a dominant team that had a great shot at steamrolling to this year’s title, but Ali Farokhmanesh and Northern Iowa had other ideas.  It wasn’t enough that the Iowan with the Persian name that no major college wanted drilled a 25-foot game winner during Thursday’s first round game versus UNLV; no, he one-upped that shot with another three (“a dagger,” according to Bill Self) on a 1-on-2 fast break opportunity where the ‘smart’ play appeared to be pulling things out and running clock.  His platinum-balls three from the right wing was all net, giving UNI a four-point lead with around thirty seconds to go.  After KU’s Tyrel Reed charged on the ensuing possession, the upset was in the books, and it will go down as one of the greatest in NCAA Tournament history.  No matter what the revisionist historians will try to argue, Kansas was the prohibitive favorite to win the NCAA Tournament this season, and in the 64/65-team era, there has never been a bigger Second Round upset.  Bigger than Stanford and Kentucky in 2004, Stanford again in 2000, and yes, even Kansas’ loss to UTEP in 1993.  The difference between those teams and this one is that 2009-10 Kansas was considerably better than all of those other #1 seeds.  If you disagree that they weren’t the prohibitive favorite, send us a screen shot of where you had the Jayhawks losing.  42% of America in the ESPN Tournament Challenge had the ‘Hawks winning it all, and nearly 75% had them in the Final Four.  We would agree that it was the biggest overall upset since George Mason over #1 UConn back in 2006, but at least by that point in time we had a decent idea of what the Patriots were made of (with wins over UNC and Michigan State already).  Here, we had no idea that Ali and his Magic Panthers had in store.

Color Us Impressed…

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