Oklahoma (#2, South, Kansas City pod)

Morgan State (#15)
Mar. 19 @ 9:40pm

Vegas Line:  Oklahoma -16.5

Thanks to Vegas Watch for providing these graphs that measure the moving average of a team’s spread (moving avg.) over time vs. the spread for each individual game (indiv).  If a team’s moving average is higher than zero, then Vegas currently has a higher opinion of them than Pomeroy, and vice versa.

General Profile

Location: Norman, OK
Conference: Big 12, at-large
Coach: Jeff Capel, 66-32
08-09 Record: 27-5, 13-3
Last 12 Games: 8-4
Best Win: 87-82, Purdue, November 28th at Preseason NIT
Worst Loss: 96-88, at Arkansas, December 30th
Off. Efficiency Rating: 117.8; 7th
Def. Efficiency Rating: 93.5; 46th

Nuts ‘n Bolts

Star Player(s): Blake Griffin 21.9 ppg, 14.3 rpg; Willie Warren 14.7 ppg, 3 apg, 1.2 spg
Unsung Hero: Taylor Griffin 9.6 ppg, 6rpg
Potential NBA Draft Pick(s): Blake Griffin, 1st overall; Willie Warren 15th
Key Injuries: none
Depth: 20.7% (332nd nationally); percentage of total minutes played by reserves
Achilles Heel: Poor point guard play
Will Make a Deep Run if…: the guards play like they did in January and early February
Will Make an Early Exit if…: the guards play like they have the past 3 weeks

NCAA History

Last Year Invited: 2008, 2nd round
Streak: 2
Best NCAA Finish: 1988, runner up
Historical Performance vs. Seed (1985-present): -0.47; on average they win 0.47 less games per year than you would expect from a team with a similar seed based on historical performance

Other

Six Degrees to Detroit: Coach Jeff Capel played for Duke; Duke’s former football coach is Steve Spurrier; Steve Spurrier coached Heisman trophy winner Danny Wueffel; Billy Sims who won a Heisman was drafted number 1 by the Detroit Lions in 1980; which leads us to the Final Four site of Detroit
Distance to First Round Site: 368 miles (Kansas City, MO)
School’s Claim to Fame: Being that Oklahoma is a football school mainly; our claim to fame is 7 football National Championships and 5 Heisman winners. This year however we will be able to say we are the only school to have both the Heisman winner and The Naismith College Player of the Year for the same school calendar year.
School Wishes It Could Forget: Any ties to Kelvin Sampson and recent BCS bowl games
Prediction: If you had asked me for a prediction two weeks ago, I would have said Final Four or bust for this team. However the way this team has played over the last few games has me wondering if they will make it out of the first weekend.

Major RTC stories: Former Oklahoma Great Wayman Tisdale Loses a Leg
Preview written by… Nick Juby of Crimson and Cream Machine

Purdue (#5, West, Portland pod)
vs. Northern Iowa (#12)
Thurs., 3/19 at 2:30 PM
Vegas Line: Purdue, -8

Thanks to Vegas Watch for providing these graphs that measure the moving average of a team’s spread (moving avg.) over time vs. the spread for each individual game (indiv).  If a team’s moving average is higher than zero, then Vegas currently has a higher opinion of them than Pomeroy, and vice versa.

General Profile
Location: West Lafayette, IN
Conference: Big Ten Conference, Automatic Bid
Coach: Matt Painter, 81-49 (60.5%)
08-09 Record: 25-9, 11-7
Last 12 Games: 8-4, 3-game winning streak
Best Win: 72-54, Michigan State, 2/17
Worst Loss: 61-64, Northwestern, 3/4
Off. Efficiency Rating: 110.5, 48th
Def. Efficiency Rating: 86.9, 5th

Nuts n Bolts
Star Player(s): JaJuan Johnson (13. 2 pts, 5.6 reb, 2.1 blk); Robbie Hummel (12.7 pts, 6.9 reb, 2.0 ast); E’Twaun Moore (13.9 pts, 4.8 reb, 3 ast)
Unsung Hero: Chris Kramer (2.2 stl, 2.5 ast)
Potential NBA Draft Pick(s): N/A
Key Injuries: Robbie Hummel, cracked L5 vertebrae
Depth: 31% (167th nationally), percentage of minutes played by reservs
Achilles Heel: Purdue is a streaking shooting team and had a tendency to go cold for minutes at a time during the second half of the Big Ten season…and Purdue is not a deep team
Will Make a Deep Run if…: Moore and Hummel shoot well
Will Make an Early Exit if…: Kramer gets into early foul trouble, Hummel’s back flares up

NCAA History
Last Year Invited: 2008, beaten by Xavier in the round of 32
Streak: 3 years
Best NCAA Finish: 1932 National Champs, 1969 Runner-up, 1980 third-place
Historical Performance vs. Seed (1985-present): -0.45. On average the Boilermakers win 0.45 less games than they would be expected to based on their seed compared to historical averages

Other
Six Degrees to Detroit: Purdue’s football team won the Motor City Bowl in 2007
Distance to First Round Site: 2,224 miles
School’s Claim to Fame: 22 Purdue alums later became astronauts including Neil Armstrong
School Wishes It Could Forget: Gene Keady’s hairdo…or his post-season woes
Prediction: Purdue’s lack of depth might hurt during the NCAA tournament as Purdue only goes about 8 deep…foul trouble can kill this team defensively, which is Purdue’s strength.  And Big Ten officiating seems to allow a more physical brand of basketball than does much of the nation’s officiating.  Plus, Purdue’s offensive woes have been painful during periods of this season, especially versus zone defenses.  I look for Purdue to lose in the round of 16 versus Uconn as the Huskies depth will come into play in a close, possibly overtime, loss.
Major RTC stories: ATB: ACC & Big 10 Deadlocked 3-3

Preview written by boilerdowd of BoiledSports.com

Northern Iowa (#12, West, Portland pod)
vs. Purdue (#5)
Thurs., 3/19 at 2:30 PM
Vegas Line: Northern Iowa, +8

General Profile
Location: Cedar Falls, Iowa
Conference: Missouri Valley Conference, Automatic Bid
Coach: Ben Jacobson (3rd season), 59-37
08-09 Record: 23-10, 14-4
Last 12 Games: 8-4, 5 straight wins
Best Win: 57-51, Auburn, 11/29/08-Chicago Invitational
Worst Loss: 74-65, @, Wyoming, 12/13/08
Off. Efficiency Rating: 109.9, 57th
Def. Efficiency Rating: 98.9, 129th

Nuts ‘n Bolts
Star Player(s): Adam Koch, 12.3 pts./game, 5.1 rebounds /game and Kwadzo Ahelegbe, 10.3 pts./game, 3.2 assists/game
Unsung Hero: Ali Farokhmanesh, 73 3-pointers, 38% from three.
Potential NBA Draft Pick(s): None
Key Injuries: None
Depth: 30.7% (177th nationally); percentage of minutes played by reserves
Achilles Heel: The team is still pretty young. Only one Senior on the team.
Will Make a Deep Run if…: They get hot from 3
Will Make an Early Exit if…: They do not control the tempo

NCAA History
Last Year Invited: 2005-06, First round exit (Wisconsin)
Streak: 1
Best NCAA Finish: 1989-90, 2nd round
Historical Performance vs. Seed (1985-present): Not enough data (minimum 8 appearances)

Other
Distance to First Round Site: 1,912 miles
School’s Claim to Fame: Kurt Warner, MVP quarterback for St. Louis Rams and most recently starting quarterback for the Arizona Cardinals in the past Super Bowl
School Wishes It Could Forget: Rick Hartzell. Rick was both Athletic Director and an NCAA referee at the same time he was at Northern Iowa. Since he left Northern Iowa, he is still an NCAA referee and now referees Missouri Valley Conference games except for ones involving Northern Iowa. Some question whether he should be involved in refereeing these games because of his former affiliation with UNI and how that could affect games that directly impact Northern Iowa.
Prediction: With the right matchup, this Northern Iowa team could be a real pain for a major conference team that just got in on the bubble. The guard play is tough and they can shoot from anywhere. With a 7 footer that can provide some inside play, they could have an inside/outside presence. They could probably get to the 2nd round, but not the Sweet 16.
Major RTC stories: N/A

Preview written by Patrick Marshall of Bluejay Basketball

With the release of the brackets on Sunday evening there has been quite a bit of controversy (Arizona over St. Mary’s being the predominant gripe) and there have been some interesting moments with Jay Bilas and Digger Phelps ganging up on Dick Vitale and almost bringing him to tears. However, it was nothing compared to the furor that we saw when the BCS released its final poll that determined the BCS bowl games and more importantly the national championship. We thought it would be a fun exercise to try to make a mock BCS basketball system. I used the AP and ESPN/USA Today polls as the human polls and ESPN.com’s InsiderRPI, KenPom.com, and Sagarin’s ratings as the computer polls. There are a couple polls I excluded for other reasons: Kenneth Massey’s (wasn’t updated yet) and Jerry Palm’s (not free). I did not throw out the high and low computer polls for two reasons: (1) we only had 3 available and (2) they were fairly similar with a few exceptions (Gonzaga in the RPI, but they weren’t going to be a factor anyways because of Memphis). ESPN.com’s InsiderRPI didn’t include the games from Sunday, but after looking at the final results they would not have had any impact on the rankings  based on the teams involved. Here are the results:

If you want to try and follow along, here are the BCS criteria.

Now onto the match-ups. . .

Read the rest of this entry »

Ed. note – check back often as this post will be updated regularly…

How about those brackets?  If you’re like us, you’ve already figured a way that just about every team will both win and lose its first round game.   For example, Arizona has better talent than Utah, but which Wildcat team will show up – the one from mid-season or the one from the last three weeks?  Decisions, decisions…

To help you think more clearly about your bracket as well as to institute some fun into the analysis that you’re no doubt already obsessing over, we have put together a nice breakdown of each region for you.  We’ll give you the teams that are overseeded, underseeded, and are guaranteed to advance.  The best games to watch in the first round and in the later rounds.  The juiciest match-ups for purists and casual fans.  Some sleeper teams for both the Sweets and the Four.  Upsets.  Thanks to the RTC Region correspondents, basically, you name it, we’ve got it.

We will be doing Boom Goes the Dynamite! all weekend starting with Thursday’s games, as appropriate.  Since our manpower will be lower than usual, we’ll be relying on you guys to help us out in the comments as we move through the first 48 games.

We are also privileged to have RTC Live at the Philadelphia pod this weekend.  The games we will be covering are:

• #8 BYU vs. #9 Texas A&M – 12:30pm Thurs. 3/19

Here are the links for each QnD Region Analysis (+ correspondent), which will take you to another page on the site called 2009 Tourney Previews (which can also be accessed through the handy-dandy tab above):

• East (Dave Zeitlin and Steve Moore)
• South (Mike Lemaire)
• Midwest (Zach Hayes)
• West (Ryan ZumMallen)

We also have Game-by-Game Analysis for the entirety of the First Round…

• East (Thu. games and Fri. games)
  
• South
• Midwest
• West (Thu. games and Fri. games)
  

Here are some of our other features celebrating what we like to call, “Christmas in March“:

Mascot Death Match – First Round (vote for which mascot would win a battle to the death!)

• Thursday Games
• Friday Games
• Day 3
  

The Top 3 Sweetest NCAA Moments

• #1 – The ’79 Tourney – More than Just Magic & Larry
• #2 – The Open Road Leads to the Final Four
• #3 – Loved, Hated But Never Ignored
  

Behind the Lines – NCAA Tourney

• NCAA Tournament Day One
  

Some Hooponomics

• Why You Should Be Wary of Pitt
• Pythagorean Consistency
• Offensive Variation and A Short Word about Defense
  

Columnists

• Beware Bracket Advice! (John Stevens)
• It’s Christmas in March (Dave Zeitlin)
• NCAA Basketball 2009 – the BCS Version (nvr1983)

John Stevens from Las Vegas – coming soon…

… and more.

2009 Team Tourney Previews: We enlisted the help of our legion of correspondents and readers to put together previews for all 65 teams in order to give you the most insightful analysis you will find anywhere. We’ll be uploading previews over the next 24 hours so check back frequently.

Read the rest of this entry »

WEST REGION PREVIEW (by Ryan ZumMallen)

Favorite
UConn, #1, 27-4

Should They Falter
Memphis, #2, 31-3

Grossly Overseeded
Washington, #4, 25-8

Grossly Underseeded
Mississippi State, #13, 23-12

Sweet Sixteen Sleeper (#12 seed or lower)
Mississippi State, #13, 23-12

Final Four Sleeper (#4 seed or lower)
Purdue, #5, 25-9

Carmelo Anthony Award
Tyreke Evans, 16.6 pts, 5.5 assts, 3.8 rebs

Stephen Curry Award
Northern Iowa’s Adam Koch, 12.3 ppg, 5.2 rebs – relatively unknown player who can take his team a long way

Home Cooking
#4 Washington – 148 miles, #11 Utah State – 293 miles, #1 UConn – 238 miles

Can’t Miss First Round Game
#4 Washington vs. #13 Mississippi State, 3/19

Don’t Miss This One Either
#6 Marquette vs. #11 Utah State, 3/20

Lock of the Year
#6 Marquette upsetting #3 Mizzou and heading to the Sweet Sixteen

Juiciest Potential Matchup – purists
#2 Memphis vs. #7 Cal, Second Round – this matchup would be for those who want to see great basketball

Juiciest Potential Matchup – media
Mike Montgomery (#7 Cal) vs. Gary Williams (#10 Maryland)

We Got Screwed
Purdue, #5 – How are the Boilermakers rewarded for winning one of the nation’s toughest conference tournaments?  With a five-seed matchup against a dangerous Northern Illinois team… in Oregon.  If they move on, they’ll likely draw Washington just a short jaunt from the Huskies’ hometown.

Strongest Pod
Portland – #4 Washington, #5 Purdue, #12 Northern Illinois, #13 Mississippi State.  Three conference tourney champions and one regular season conference champ.

Wildcard, Bitches
Texas A&M had a difficult time in the rough Big XII (9-7), but has shown they can beat good teams and beat UConn if they play above themselves and catch the Huskies napping.

So-Called Experts
Memphis.  The Tigers showed last season that you can dominate a weak conference and still make it to the title game.  Now they carry the nation’s longest winning streak into the tournament and their toughest competition is a talented but flawed UConn team (struggling with the injury to Jerome Dyson).

Vegas Odds to Win Region

TBL, BIAH, CHJ and RTC have a little bet going where we both will choose the 34 at-large teams with the blog picking the most right getting access to the other’s vast collection of “cinema verite.”  Faces will be obscured to protect the innocent enterprising.  So here goes…

*we’re also sick of using the word “bubble,” so we’re starting a new one – the Globule.  Until further notice, that’s our word.

At-Large Teams

The Globule aka Enjoy the NIT, Fellas: Providence, San Diego St., Dayton, Boston College

A10 (1)

Xavier

ACC (5)

UNC, Wake Forest, Florida St., Clemson, Maryland

Big 12 (5)

Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma St.

Big East (6)

Connecticut, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Villanova, Marquette, West Virginia

Big Ten (6)

Michigan St., Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Purdue/Ohio St.

Horizon (1)

Butler

Missouri Valley (1)

Creighton

Mountain West (1)

BYU

Pac-10 (5)

Washington, UCLA, Arizona St., California, Arizona

SEC (2)

LSU, Tennessee

WCC (1)

St. Mary’s

It’s officially here. . .Selection Sunday is upon us. Time for a bunch of whining and complaining by grown men about how their team that went 20-12 deserved to get in or for Billy Packer to rip some mid-major for getting in at 26-7 over an ACC team that went 17-15. Thankfully, the slate today is a little lighter to let us get some work done on our NCAA tournament preview. We’ll be covering all 4 games today and we will be doing a separate live blog (RTC Live style, but we won’t be inside the Selection Committee room although give it time). Here are the games today in chronological order and a brief synopsis of what is at stake in each game:

• 1 PM: #22 FSU vs. #8 Duke on ESPN, Raycom, and ESPN360.com: This is only for seeding purposes. FSU is probably a solid #5 after knocking off UNC yesterday. A win here might be able to move them up to the last #4 seed. Duke is pretty much locked into a #2 seed. There is no way they are getting a #1 seed and they won’t fall to a #3 seed because the two teams above them and three teams below them in the rankings all had worse weeks.
• 1 PM: Tennessee vs. Mississippi State on CBS: This is the biggest game of the day because of its implications on the bubble. I’m guessing 95% of the people who have any rooting interest in this game will be pulling for Tennessee. The Vols are solidly in the field at a #7 seed in most predictions and I can’t see them jumping much higher, which would essentially mean they should be ranked, if they beat a good, but not great MSU team. The Bulldogs on the other hand can wreck a bunch of teams NCAA dreams by winning the SEC title.
• 1 PM: Texas-San Antonio vs. Stephen F. Austin on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: The winner of this game will end up with a 14 or 15 seed. SFA might be an interesting first round opponent since they actually had a decent RPI for a Southland team (#79) and boast a win over #94 North Dakota State. Honestly though, unless you’re a fan/grad of one of the schools, you’re not going to be watching this over the other two games.
• 3:30 PM: Ohio State vs. #24 Purdue on CBS: Another game that is about seeding. I think Purdue has moved up about as far as it can after destroying Illinois in a game that wasn’t as close as the final score indicated. Ohio State has a chance to move up to a 7 if they can win this after knocking off Michigan State yesterday.

12:20 PM: Ok. Some quick questions for you that ESPN.com posed this morning:

1. Which teams are the #1 seeds?
2. Is UConn better off as a #2 seed?
3. Which conference will send the most teams to the NCAA tournament?
4. Will the SEC really only put two of its teams into the NCAA field?
5. Will Arizona’s 24-year bid streak finally end?
6. Which teams will be seeded higher than you think?
7. Which teams will be seeded lower than you think?
8. Which mid-major teams will the big boys hope to avoid in the first round?

Let me know what you think and I’ll give you my thoughts in a little bit.

12:45 PM: Why does CBS drag these Selection Committee people onto the show? I know they’re trying to hype up the Selection Special at 6 PM, but they add absolutely nothing. They just give generic, PR firm answers. I almost prefer the bickering that ESPN has arguing whether or not a team deserves to be in.

Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome back to the weekend edition of Boom Goes the Dynamite. First off I’d like to commend rtmsf for his strong work on yesterday’s BGtD. You guys really have no idea how exhausting it is doing a full day’s worth of this is and he managed to do it with only a short break although it almost caused me to give up working on the site after being forced to endure the American–Holy Cross game yesterday. As he outlined in his After the Buzzer post last night/this morning, there are 12 conference championship games today. For the sake of maintaining our sanity and having enough energy in the tank for our huge March Madness preview, we’ll be taking multiple shifts but we promise to coordinate it so you won’t miss anything during our handoffs.

6:00 AM: Yes. That’s actually the time I’m starting this thanks to a “short nap” that ended up going from 9 PM to 5 AM. Obviously my posts will be infrequent in the early morning hours, but I’ll be passing along some news and links to you before the games start at 11 AM. The New York Times has been stepping it up with their college sports blog “The Quad” recently and has an interesting post on Louisville‘s Terrence Williams and his pre-game ritual of the giving himself a pep talk during the national anthem. Before anybody thinks this might be a Chris Jackson Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf situation, it should be noted that Williams actually stands during the anthem and is supposedly talking about family members that he has lost and asking that everyone on the court avoids injuries. Of course, we can’t verify this, but if we have any lip-readers in our vast legion of RTC readers, we would love hear your take on this particularly if you have seen this is in person.

7:00 AM: Before I head out for a few minutes to take care of some errands like stocking up on groceries for the coming storm where I probably won’t leave my apartment for 3 weeks. I thought I would pass along one of my favorite things we are doing at RTC right now. We enlisted the help of our correspondents and got them to send us their favorite March memories. We narrowed down the submissions to the 16 best entries and are counting down to #1, which will be revealed on Wednesday (the day before the tournament starts). I’d encourage you to check out the entries we have so far and keep on coming back throughout the day to see what they selected as their favorite March memories and then chime in with your memories on those moments.

8:45 AM: Ok. False alarm on that grocery run. Apparently Costco doesn’t open until 9:30 so after this post I’ll be on a short break. So today’s RTC East breakfast is brought to you by Flour Bakery and consists of their Bobby Flay-slaying “Sticky Buns” and a twice-baked brioche. Here’s a quick run-down of the games (title game in red–there’s a lot of red) that I will be focusing on today:

Early Games

• UMBC vs. Binghamton at 11 AM on ESPN2 for the America East title
• Memphis vs. #3 Tulsa at 11:35 AM on CBS for the Conference USA title

Afternoon Games

• Mississippi State vs. #16 LSU at 1 PM on ESPN2 and Raycom in the SEC semifinals
• #6 Michigan State vs. Ohio State at 1:30 PM on CBS in the Big 10 semifinals
• #1 UNC vs. #22 FSU at 1:30 PM on ESPN and Raycom in the ACC semifinals
• Tennessee vs. Auburn at 3 PM on ESPN2 and Raycom in the SEC semifinals
• Maryland vs. #8 Duke at 3:30 PM on ESPN and Raycom in the ACC semifinals
• #25 Illinois vs. #24 Purdue at 4 PM on CBS in the Big 10 semifinals

Evening Games

• #23 Arizona State vs. USC at 6 PM on CBS for the Pac-10 title
• Baylor vs. #15 Missouri at 6 PM on ESPN for the Big 12 title
• Temple vs. Duquesne at 6 PM on ESPN2 for the Atlantic 10 title

Late Night Games

• San Diego State vs. Utah at 7 PM on Versus for the Moutain West title
• Morgan State vs. Norfolk State at 7 PM on ESPNU for the MEAC title (Periodic score updates for this one)
  
• Buffalo vs. Akron at 8 PM on ESPN2 for the MAC title
• #5 Louisville vs. #20 Syracuse at 9 PM on ESPN for the Big East title
• Jackson State vs. Alabama State at 9 PM on ESPNU for the SWAC title (Periodic score updates for this one)
• Utah State vs. Nevada at 10 PM on ESPN2 for the WAC title
• Cal State-Northridge vs. Pacific at 11:59 PM on ESPN2 for the Big West title (This one is questionable)

10:55 AM: Ok. I’m back from my extended Costco run and have enough food to last me through the week. A quick summary on the early games. In the America East, Binghamton is a 5-6 point favorite (depending on your gambling establishment of choice). Honestly, I’m surprised that they aren’t bigger favorites since they come in at 22-8 while UMBC comes in 15-16 and the game is at Binghamton. It could be interesting though as they split the season series in the regular season with Binghamton winning the last game of the regular season at home against UMBC 71-51. I’m guessing the America East commissioner is rooting for UMBC to avoid the embarrassment of the CBS announcers having to explain why the conference’s regular season leading scorer (D.J Rivera) was left off the all-conference team. In Conference USA, Memphis is a 14-point favorite against Tulsa. Memphis might be playing for a #1 seed even with their ridiculously easy schedule. We’re hoping this game is more like the first time they met (a 55-54 Memphis win) rather the last time they met (a 63-37 Memphis win). I have a sneaking suspicion that it is going to be more like the latter, but we’ll be following it anyways to get a last look at Memphis before CBS’s new Billy Packer rips the NCAA selection committee for putting them over a Big East team.

Read the rest of this entry »

There were no Fast Breaks this weekend as I was in Atlanta all weekend and returned only to find a ridiculous amount of work still left to do in the real world. But all that means is that the limits of the phrase “link dump” will be put to the test today. I am even skipping out on last minute studying for a history midterm to bring you more links…because that is just the kind of guy I am.

• More great work from Vegas Watch as they used Pomeroy ranking to try and graph the opinions of oddsmakers for each team.
• O.J. Mayo is still influencing the guys at USC, but will he have enough juice to make Taj Gibson stay around another year?
• The close relationship between Oklahoma’s Jeff Capel and Blake Griffin helped them both stay at school this year, and brought untold joy to Sooner fans.
• Tennessee’s Bruce Pearl just refuses to wear more clothes than he has to.
• CBS got a little too up close and personal with Purdue coach Matt Painter during the Boilermakers loss to the Spartans yesterday, and TV viewers paid the price.
• While it was Tyler Hansborough’s day yesterday, the folks at Fanhouse don’t even think he is the best player on his own team.
• One ambitious writer decided to take on the task of picking an All-Big East team.
• Umm…word of advice for Kentucky AD Mitch Barnhart. It is important to put on a confident front when your team is on the brink of the tournament…yes that includes not prematurely saying you would accept an NIT bid.
• A great look by BP’s John Perrotto at the Memphis Tigers staunch defense.
• Jameson Fleming laments the fact that we probably won’t get to see some of the mid-majors brightest stars on the sports biggest stage.
• Bizzaro Joe Lunardi is gearing up for Selection Sunday by breaking down each conference.
• Andy Katz looks at possibly this year’s best story…the good basketball that is being played in Fargo, North Dakota.
• Jeff Goodman takes one last chance to sing Tyler Hansborough’s praises.
• What makes college basketball great? Stories about the day Anthony Brock was having when he woke up, and the day he was having by the end of the night.
• If Ohio State is going to make the NCAA Tournament and make noise once they get there, they may have to do it without big man Dallas Lauderdale.