Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Mountain West and Pac-12 conferences, and a Pac-12 microsite staffer.

Reader’s Take

A Look Back

After a 39-10 start to the season, highlighted by UNLV’s 7-0 start and win over the nation’s then #1 team, North Carolina, the Mountain West was getting some love around the country. As a result, this week’s 10-4 record, with all four losses coming as a part of the MW/MVC Challenge, including a 19-point loss for those same Runnin’ Rebels to Wichita State, had to seem as something of a step back for the conference. The MW/MVC Challenge technically ended in a 4-4 tie (I say technically, because Boise State’s 44-point thrashing of Drake on Wednesday night was not included as a part of the challenge) after the Mountain West had won eight of the nine games in last year’s inter-conference battle. Aside from the UNLV game, San Diego State also took a tough loss on Wednesday night, blowing a 17-point first half lead in a loss to Creighton, although the Aztecs did bounce back with a hard-fought win over Cal on Sunday.

Team of the Week

Larry Shyatt Has Wyoming Pointing Forward (Star-Tribune, Tim Kupsick)

Wyoming – Larry Shyatt’s Cowboys aren’t the best team in the Mountain West. They may not even be in the top half of the conference. And certainly their 8-1 record is built entirely on wins from the bottom half of Division I. But given that we’re talking about a team that was an absolute mess last season, a team that lost to South Dakota and UC Irvine, North Florida, and Northern Colorado, this 8-1 record (and a six-game winning streak for the first time in nine seasons) truly shows serious progress. Last year the Cowboys were a turnover waiting to happen, giving away the ball on 21% of their possessions, good for #236 in the nation. Thus far this year, led by point guard JayDee Luster who has turned the ball over just five times against 37 assists, the Cowboys are #35 in the nation in turnover percentage, giving it away on 17% of their possessions. Last year the Cowboys allowed their opponents to shoot an 52.9% eFG from the field; this year that number is just 40%.  Last year, Wyoming allowed its opponents to grab 33.7% of their offensive rebound opportunities; this year that number is down to just 28%. In short, under Shyatt the Cowboys have made significant progress in a short time, and while those numbers will almost certainly worsen once they get into conference play and compete against better athletes, this program is certainly on the right track.

Player of the Week

Hank Thorns, Sr, TCU – In lieu of giving credit to the entire Horned Frog team for their 2-0 week and 6-2 start to the season, we’ll give the nod to Thorns over a host of worthy contenders across the conference (apologies to Mike Moser, Chase Tapley, Drew Wiley and Wes Eikmeier). Thorns has led his Horned Frogs in assists in each of their eight games this season, and Saturday at Evansville he absolutely refused to let his team go home a loser. Thorns hit a three with 20 seconds left in regulation to tie the game up and send it to overtime, then hit the game-tying and game-winning baskets – the last with just two seconds remaining – to give TCU the win.

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Another preseason preview gives us reason to roll out the 2011-12 edition of Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball, our annual compendium of YouTube clips from the previous season 100% guaranteed to make you wish games were starting tonight. We’ve captured the most compelling moments from the 2010-11 season, many of which will bring back the goosebumps and some of which will leave you shaking your head in frustration. For the complete list of this year’s reasons, click here. Enjoy!

#22 – Where DJ Game Winner Happens

We also encourage you to re-visit the entire archive of this feature from the 2008-09, 2009-10, and 2010-11 seasons.

Another preseason preview gives us reason to roll out the 2011-12 edition of Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball, our annual compendium of YouTube clips from the previous season 100% guaranteed to make you wish games were starting tonight. We’ve captured the most compelling moments from the 2010-11 season, many of which will bring back the goosebumps and some of which will leave you shaking your head in frustration. For the complete list of this year’s reasons, click here. Enjoy!

#26 – Where Don’t Let the Door Hit You On the Way Out Happens

We also encourage you to re-visit the entire archive of this feature from the 2008-09, 2009-10, and 2010-11 seasons.

1. Consider this a cautionary tale in terms of trusting online entities claiming to have primary source information, especially when it comes to recruiting.  Meet Jonathan Paige, the recruiting guru who wasn’t.   In just two short months, Paige, a pseudonym for someone claiming to follow “AAU basketball all summer every summer,” gathered over 500 Twitter followers, was cited on numerous reputable blogs and team message boards, and generally became an up-and-coming “name” within the sometimes-shady scouting and recruiting information industry.  In his words, all he did to develop his growing profile was to tweet and re-tweet confirmed information from other sources, mine the major message boards for rumors, tailor his posts to specific fanbases, and make up the rest.  There’s no telling how much further he could have taken this should he have chosen to do so, but we should all learn from “Troll’s” deception — not in the sense of thumbing our nose at the guy, but rather to remind ourselves that anything read or viewed online needs to served correspondingly with a healthy dose of skepticism.
2. It’s been a tough several days for San Diego State head coach Steve Fisher.  Last week, several establishments including RTC noted that Fisher’s 400th career victory, achieved on January 12 against UNLV last season, was not in fact a milestone win given the NCAA’s new “Calipari Doctrine.”  Over the weekend, former SDSU transfer commitment Kevin Young announced that he would instead attend Kansas for his final two seasons of eligibility.  As a result, Fisher vented to the San Diego Union-Tribune that he was angered that Kansas (and by proxy, Bill Self) had recruited someone  he says had “made an eight-month commitment” to the Aztec program but had been swayed in recent months to view Kansas as an alternative.  Self, to his credit, claims that Young had already “de-committed” from SDSU before KU got involved, but the fact remains that Fisher will enter 2011-12 not only a few years away from that elusive NCAA-verified 400th win, but also without a roster (including Young) prepared to re-build from the loss of his top four players.
3. When we read something like this article outlining the mammoth salaries that the six BCS conference commissioners make as CEOs of their leagues, we really start wondering just how much longer the NCAA as we know it will continue to exist.  From Jim Delany’s $1.6M Big Ten salary (2009) to John Marinotti’s $366K prorated pay (half of 2009), it’s easy to forget that these organizations supposedly looking out for the best interests of their student-athletes are 501(c) non-profits.  As anyone who knows anything about the world of non-profits, when they are run like profit-making entities, the clients that they purport to serve are usually the first ones left by the wayside.
4. The long Fayetteville nightmare is over, as Arkansas guard Rotnei Clarkewas finally given his release by the school to transfer wherever he likes.  As reported by several outlets over the weekend, Clarke had asked for his release several times but new head coach Mike Anderson appeared to be stonewalling his best returning player in an attempt to keep him around for his senior year.  The 6’0 all-SEC second team guard is originally from Verdigris, Oklahoma, a town just outside of Tulsa, which makes us wonder if Travis Ford, Lon Kruger and Doug Wojcik already have the prolific scorer on their speed dials.
5. We missed this over the weekend, but June 19 wasn’t just Father’s Day it was also the 25th anniversary of former Maryland forward Len Bias‘ tragic death in 1986.  Bias is on a short list of players whose mythology over the intervening years has probably outgrown his proven abilities, but make no mistake, the guy was a stud in college and could have become an NBA superstar in the right situation.  His shocking death, a mere two days after he had been drafted by the then-NBA Champion Boston Celtics, carried repercussions beyond sports that are still felt to this very day in America’s criminal justice system.  As Salon’s Jonathan Easley outlines in an interview with the House counsel that helped write the shameful 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act, a law that Congress passed that summer that would ultimately result in an explosion of America’s prison population for drug-related crimes and utilizing an arbitrary and racially-tinged “logic” behind making the distribution of crack cocaine more “criminal” than that of powder cocaine.  The death of Len Bias, a seemingly innocent and well-spoken young man by all accounts, helped to drive this legislation in the Nancy Reagan-led Just Say No era.  It’s a very interesting read, and one you probably won’t hear when watching sentimental testimonials to Bias such as this one from ESPN’s John Saunders last week.

Over the course of the next month until the NBA Draft on June 23, RTC will be rolling out comprehensive profiles of the 35 collegians we feel have the best chance to hear their names called by David Stern in the first round that night. There won’t be any particular order to the list, but you can scroll back through all the finished profiles by clicking here.

Player Name: Kawhi Leonard

School: San Diego State

Height/Weight: 6’6, 227 lbs.

NBA Position: Combo Forward

Projected Draft Range: Mid- to Late Lottery

Overview: In his two seasons under Steve Fisher at San Diego State, Leonard took the Mountain West by storm. He won the MWC Tournament MVP as a freshman after grabbing 21 rebounds in the championship game, then backed that up by notching a second-team All-American spot as a sophomore. Leonard didn’t really bloom until his senior year of high school, and even then was still just the 56th-best prospect in the nation (according to ESPNU), but he averaged over ten rebounds per game in his time on the Mesa and developed into a versatile full-court threat, capable of pulling down a monster rebound over a seven-footer on the defensive end, turning and pushing the ball upcourt and either finishing at the rim, pulling up for a midrange jumper or finding a teammate on the break. Despite measuring out at an underwhelming 6’6, Leonard is plenty long enough to play the power forward in the NBA, with a 7’3 wingspan and a 8’10 standing reach. However, Leonard’s terrific ballhandling skills, ever-improving jumper and ability to defend a wide range of offensive players means he is just as capable of playing the three at the next level. In fact, at SDSU, Leonard was most often seen working out with the guards rather than the big men. Leonard’s athletic testing at the NBA Combine returned some very average numbers (just a 32.5-inch vertical leap and just three reps at 185 pounds), but Leonard’s frame can definitely get stronger and he’s done just fine so far without jaw-dropping leaping ability.

Kawhi Leonard Led SDSU To Its Best Season Ever

Will Translate to the NBA: Leonard’s versatility gives him any number of ways to help out his future team. A tenacious defender, capable of guarding the two, three or four spot, he could develop into a lockdown caliber player. And his rebounding isn’t going anywhere, as he’ll be at least the equal of most fours in the league on the glass, while immediately putting his name in the hat for best rebounding small forward on the planet. Throw in the fact that Leonard is a tireless worker both on and off the floor and he’s got a very bright future.

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1. Some transfer news was made Tuesday, as Michigan State sophomore center Garrick Sherman announced that he would be heading to Notre Dame for his final two seasons, while NC State freshman guard Ryan Harrow and new head Wolfpack coach Mark Gottfried agreed to part ways.  The 6’10 Sherman averaged 3/3 while shooting 70% from the field for Tom Izzo last year, and he actually started half of the team’s 34 games — Mike Brey is picking up a potentially solid offensive contributor when Sherman becomes eligible in the 2012-13 season.  As for Harrow, the former five-star recruit has not indicated where he intends to transfer yet, but NCSU said it will release him to any non-ACC school he desires.  He was clearly disappointed in last month’s firing of Sidney Lowe, and although the talented guard averaged 9/3 in 23 MPG last year for NC State, he’ll take his services elsewhere over the summer (hot rumor, later denied: Kentucky).
2. Keeping with the NC State theme, this is stupdendous.  In four years of doing this, we may have never come across a more pointless article than this one from Andrew Jones on FoxSports.com.  Apparently the relatives of NC State’s new live mascot, Tuffy the dog (a Tamaskan), were poisoned by being fed fish laced with antifreeze.  Not Tuffy himself, mind you, but the relatives of Tuffy, both of whom reside 170 miles away from Raleigh, the city where Tuffy lives and will next season begin work as the Wolfpack live mascot.  You’re probably wondering how someone could come up with 500+ words on this story, but we encourage you to read the full article where you will learn that Tamaskans are Finnish dogs, that they resemble wolves but do not share ancestry with them, and that NC State AD Debbie Yow, who proffered the original idea for a live mascot, thinks that poisoning the parents of Tuffy is “sick.”  Oh, and you’ll also learn some enlightening information as to why actual wolves cannot used at NC State games (y’know, because they’re wolves).  We’re 100% certain that somewhere Gary Williams is loving all of this.
3. That John Calipari/Dominican Republic thing from last year might come to fruition after all, as the DR apparently has an offer on the table for the Kentucky coach to lead its team in the 2011 Tournament of the Americas. The country is attempting to qualify for the 2012 Summer Olympics, and so far, Calipari is playing coy by asking “why are [they] calling me?”  If he decides to take the job, he would work with the team for a six-week period in August and September, giving his cadre of new blue chippers just enough time on campus to cause all sorts of mayhem before the head coach returns for the start of practice.
4. We hope that if Calipari takes the new summer job opportunity, he doesn’t expect to get the same kinds of crowds he enjoys in Lexington.  The NCAA released its attendance numbers yesterday, and Kentucky had the highest average home attendance with 23,603 fans jammed into Rupp Arena every night.  Syracuse was second last season with an average of 22,312 fans per game, and the sport as a whole totaled 27.6 million fans for the entire year.  Across the entirety of D1 basketball schools, that comes to an average of roughly 80,000 fans per school per season (or around 5,000 per home game).  Two Mountain West schools, BYU and San Diego State, had the largest attendance increases over last year, both averaging more than 4,000 more fans per game in 2010-11.  The full NCAA report is here.
5. In a blockbuster expose piece on Monday, the New York Times’ Katie Porter blows the cover off the sham known as Title IX and how schools manipulate their team rosters to ensure compliance with the federal law.  From discussions of female cross-country runners at South Florida stating that they didn’t know they were on the team to male fencers acting as female athletes at Cornell, it’s clear from her investigation and analysis that the original intent of this law (equity in sporting opportunities) has been bastardized to a point where reform is not only badly desired, it appears necessary.  Great read — check it out immediately if you have not yet seen it.

1. We made mention yesterday that Kansas disruption Josh Selby was too busy working out in Las Vegas to attend last week’s KU Basketball banquet; well, he made if official on Thursday.  The Rivals #1 recruit from the class of 2010 will be taking his eight points and two assists per game to the NBA, where team executives are now classifying him as a late first/early second round pick after a tumultuous freshman year in Lawrence.  The combo guard will sign with an agent, thereby closing the door on his returning to school — from Garden City to Emporia, Jayhawk Nation shrugged.
2. Moving on to players who actually performed at an elite level while in college, San Diego State’s Kawhi Leonard also announced that is going to the NBA and is signing with an agent.  The sophomore who led SDSU to its greatest two-year run in program history is projected as a mid-first rounder, and with the graduation of Billy White, DJ Gay and Malcolm Thomas pending, Steve Fisher will have a significant rebuilding project ahead of him next season.  Two others from Thursday…  Xavier’s Tu Holloway and Notre Dame’s Carleton Scott will both test the waters, but neither will sign with an agent and are expected to be back in a collegiate uniform next season.
3. If you’re looking for further insight as to why Harvard’s Tommy Amaker would turn down a much higher-paid position at Miami (FL) in the ACC, this article from The Harvard Crimson is rather insightful.  For some reason, we get a little jiggy with the idea that there’s something called Friends of Harvard Basketball, and that its core function is to write checks for things like assistant coach pay raises and upgrades to Lavietes Pavilion.  Considering that FoHB probably owns 5% of this nation’s wealth, we somehow don’t think those specific requests will be much of a problem.
4. We’ve talked extensively about how the decision to go pro impacts the players themselves and the colleges they’re leaving, but we haven’t really spoken much about how it affects the incoming freshmen who are positioned to take their time.  This article by Ryan Fagan about the incoming freshman class does.  While Austin Rivers may view Kyrie Irving leaving Duke as an “opportunity,” we’re not sure Duke fans see that the same way.
5. It’s with bittersweet feelings that we report that New Mexico and former Tennessee forward Emmanuel Negedu’s basketball career is officially over.  You certainly recall that Negedu collapsed and was literally dead for a brief period at Tennessee in 2009; he then transferred to New Mexico and played in ten games last season before a reading on his internal defibrillator gave team officials reason to shut him down.  He will remain on scholarship at UNM, but he will not count against the team total for competition purposes, and frankly, we’re just happy that this story didn’t end with us writing a heartfelt post about all the reservations we had with the Lobo program allowing him to continue to play.

From Jimmer to Kemba to a Blue Devil toe that wouldn’t heal and a Rocky Top saga that wouldn’t end, it’s been another wild season for college basketball fans from coast to coast.  As we bask in the afterglow of 68 teams down to UConn’s championship, let’s take a look back at the top 15 storylines (in no particular order) of the 2010-11 season.

In an Epic Season-Long Battle, Kemba Smiled Last

1. Kemba vs. Jimmer.  The national Player of the Year race hasn’t been this exciting since Adam Morrison of Gonzaga and JJ Redick of Duke took turns outdoing each other from opposite ends of the country back in 2006.  Yet these two one-name guards, Kemba from the Boogie Down Bronx and Jimmer from a tiny town in upstate New York, electrified fans nationwide with their unique ability to take over games at Connecticut and BYU, respectively.  Kemba Walker, the cocksure Husky guard with the ball on a string and a crossover dribble to make defenders cry, carried UConn to 32 wins, a sterling 14-0 record in knockout games and the school’s third national championship in what was supposed to be a “down” year.  Fredette, the nation’s leading scorer at 28.9 PPG and owner of a deadeye jumper pure out to 30 feet,  inspired fans to call their cable companies to add The Mountain to their channel lineup.  While it was The Jimmer who swept the NPOY awards (which are based on regular season performance only), we here at RTC factored Kemba’s Big East Tournament MVP and NCAA Tournament MOP performances into our selection of the UConn superstar as our 2010-11 Player of the Year.
2. A Tourney to Remember, a Championship to Forget.  On the opening Thursday of the NCAA Tournament, still the first “real” day of the Dance to most people, five of the first eight games of the day ended on the final possession.  In addition to close games, there were upsets aplenty in the first weekend, as Butler (knocking out #1 seed Pittsburgh), VCU, Marquette, Florida State and Richmond all broke through as double-digit seeds into the Sweet Sixteen.  The fun didn’t stop there, wither Arizona and Kentucky beating #1s Duke and Ohio State, respectively, in the Sweet Sixteen, followed by VCU shocking the world with its destruction of #1 Kansas in the Elite Eight.  The combined seed total of #3 Connecticut, #4 Kentucky, #8 Butler and #11 VCU was the highest ever in a Final Four, and although the two semifinal games were hard-fought and exciting, the 53-41 championship tilt between UConn and Butler was widely regarded as an ugly finish to what had been a tremendous tournament.  Butler’s 18% shooting for the game was the worst-ever in a championship, and the meme that the national sports media was that such a dud represented some kind of fault in the sport itself.  Last year’s Duke-Butler championship and 2008’s Memphis-Kansas games were awesome — where were those people then?
3. Kyrie Irving’s Toe.  In early December, there was some talk that preseason #1 Duke, with All-Americans Nolan Smith and Kyle Singler returning to join wunderkind point guard Kyrie Irving, could go unbeaten this year.  All of that discussion ended on December 4 when Irving sprained his toe during what appeared to be a routine play in a win over Butler.  The young player with an explosive extra gear in the open court suffered damage to a ligament and bone that made cutting, running and jumping without pain very difficult.  Subsequently, after sitting out over three months resting and rehabilitating the unusual injury, Irving returned to the court during the opening weekend of the NCAA Tournament.  While at first it appeared that Irving could be the x-factor needed to put Duke into the driver’s seat in a crowded field of national title contenders, there was some question as to whether his return to the lineup threw off the delicate chemistry that Coach K and his players had engendered throughout the season.  The Devils were thoroughly dominated by Arizona and Derrick Williams in the Sweet Sixteen — Irving played well with 28 points against the Wildcats, but his backcourt mate Nolan Smith only managed eight points while committing six turnovers. Read the rest of this entry »

After three days of quiet, it’s time to get serious about figuring out this national championship thing.  Sixteen to twelve… let’s check out tonight’s games.

#2 San Diego State vs. #3 Connecticut – West Regional Semifinal (at Anaheim, CA) – 7:15 pm ET on CBS.

Does Fisher Have Another Final Four Run in Him?

One of these teams has won two national championships. The other just got done winning their first two NCAA Tournament games ever. While the Aztecs have had a great breakout season and now stand at 34-2 on the season, UConn has won 44 Tournament games in the Jim Calhoun era alone. Luckily for SDSU, past performances in the Big Dance need have no impact on this year’s games. If you throw out the bloodlines for the two programs, you’ll find that we have the makings for what should be an excellent game. We’ve got star power on both ends of the court, with UConn’s point guard Kemba Walker a candidate for the National Player of the Year and SDSU’s Kawhi Leonard an All-American candidate. We’ve got big name coaches with national championships and Final Four experience, as Calhoun will be matched up with Steve Fisher, who won one title at Michigan in ’89, then got back to the title game in both ’92 and ’93. We’ve got an impressive freshman class including Shabazz Napier, Roscoe Smith, and Jeremy Lamb on the UConn side matched up with three starting seniors on the Aztec squad. In short, we’ve got all the trappings of a serious battle. For the Aztecs, the big goal is going to be slowing Kemba Walker. While SDSU has had plenty of experience at trying to slow another high-scoring point guard (one Jimmer Fredette – you may have heard of him), Walker is a different challenge for SDSU, as he is a quicker, shiftier guard than Fredette, and a guy who you’d rather have shooting the three than challenging his defenders off the dribble. As a result, it is likely that D.J. Gay and/or Chase Tapley will get the majority of minutes tasked with defending Walker, while frontcourt players like Leonard, Billy White and Malcolm Thomas will be left to keep one eye on Walker while trying to body-up the Huskies’ athletic offensive rebounders up front. The SDSU frontcourt will also have to provide the majority of the scoring, and given that they haven’t seen a team as big, long and bouncy as the Huskies, they’ll need to prove that their opponents’ size does not bother them. The Aztecs figure to have plenty of support from their fans, who only need to drive about an hour north to attend the game, but they’ll need to prove that their shaky performance down the stretch in Saturday’s game against Temple was an aberration rather than the norm. Until they can close out a game in the NCAA Tournament with confidence, we’re not sure they’re trustworthy against a big-time foe.

The RTC Certified Pick: Connecticut

#2 Florida vs. #3 BYU – Southeast Region Semifinals (at New Orleans, LA) – 7:27 pm ET on TBS.

Looking at this game on paper, it’s pretty hard to find any discernible differences between these two teams. The main determinant of this game will likely be tempo. BYU would love nothing more than to get the Gators caught up in a fast-paced game, forcing them to recklessly throw up ill-advised three pointers leading to long rebounds and many Cougar runouts. Dave Rose’s team excels in transition with Jimmer Fredette and Jackson Emery leading the charge. While Emery is certainly a terrific point guard, his biggest impact on this game could come defensively. He’ll guard Florida’s Erving Walker in all likelihood and that could be a major problem for the 5’8 Walker. Emery’s length and quickness has the potential to disrupt the Florida floor general, plus the BYU senior ranks #15 individually in steal percentage. If Walker can’t get the offense flowing, Florida may result to lots of isolations and quick shots, certainly not ideal for a team that does its best work at a slower pace in the half court. The Gators have a big advantage inside and have to use it to win. Billy Donovan needs to keep Kenny Boynton, expected to play after spraining his ankle against UCLA, in check and make sure his guards work the ball inside to Vernon Macklin, Chandler Parsons and Alex Tyus. This could very well be the game where the loss of Brandon Davies dooms BYU for good. The Cougars rank a paltry #222 in offensive rebounding percentage so Florida should hold a significant edge on the glass. BYU has been out-rebounded in four of their seven games without Davies and we expect that trend to continue tonight. Defensively, Florida has to keep Fredette off the free throw line and force him to make outside shots. It’s alright for the Gators if Jimmer drains more than a few bombs but he’s most dangerous when he can get into the lane and to the stripe, or create for others when defenders are drawn to him inside. Florida ranks #15 in defensive free throw rate and will have to keep that up against Fredette specifically. We have to wonder if Donovan will assign Parsons the task of defending Fredette. Parsons is a big man (6’9) but he’s fairly quick for his size and can bother Jimmer with his superior length. Quickness will be the issue because Fredette possess a terrific first step to blow by opponents. The Cougars will have an edge at the line if this is a close game since Florida struggles as a team (67%). It should be a terrific matchup but a slight edge has to go to the Gators in New Orleans this evening.

The RTC Certified Pick: Florida.

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Sixteen teams with visions of glory dancing through their heads.  But only one can be left standing twelve days from now at around 11:30 pm ET on the hardwood court at Reliant Stadium in Houston.  Everyone has their own opinions on which teams will remain after this coming weekend and those most likely to ultimately cut the nets down, but we here at RTC are always interested in knowing what the people who make it their job to set gambling markets have to say. 

To that end, here’s what one online sportsbook has to say about the odds for each of the sixteen remaining teams to win the national title.  We’ll have a few brief comments after the table (note: the arrows represent how the odds are trending, where up is more of a favorite, down is less of one).

Some QnD Thoughts:

• We’ve been tracking the odds this week and it’s interesting that Duke is dropping even with the news that Kyrie Irving will play significant minutes and there’s a reasonable expectation that he could make the Blue Devils a much more dangerous team quickly.  The oddsmakers are also boffo on Florida State this week, as they’ve risen a full percentage point over the past couple of days (that may not seem like much, but in the world of futures, it’s a significant increase). 
• The top three teams are #1 seeds and obvious favorites, but things start to break down a little bit after the first two #2 seeds, SDSU and Florida.  North Carolina is behind a couple of #4 seeds, Kentucky and Wisconsin, while #3 BYU is getting worse odds than #10 Florida State!  Did the Seminoles just sign Sam Cassell or something over the last couple of days?
• It’s somewhat surprising to see #8 Butler so low after knocking off #1 Pittsburgh and of course the distinct memory of how close the Bulldogs came last year to cutting the nets down.  Last year isn’t this year, of course, but many of the same players are there, and so is Brad Stevens; furthermore, with games against #4 Wisconsin and/or #2 Florida/#3 BYU, there’s nobody in that region with the ability to simply overwhelm BU.
• We think #12 Richmond at the bottom of the odds may in fact be a better team than #11 Marquette and #11 VCU, but those two teams don’t have to play top-seed Kansas in the Sweet Sixteen.  This indicates that there’s probably as much weight given to the path in front of a team as there is to its actual record, seeding and historical performance from this season.
• Speaking of which, #5 Arizona is the third-lowest team on this list, and not all that much higher than Richmond!  This must have a lot to do with the fact that, according to the odds, three of the six most likely teams to win the title are located in the West Region along with the Wildcats.
• If you normalize the odds to equal 100%, then according to the oddsmakers, the three #1 seeds have a roughly 61% chance to win it all.  The rest of the field correspondingly has a 39% chance.  We’re just not sure that the #1 seeds are that much better than the rest of the field this year.  If you’re looking for value, it might be worth a look at those #2-#4 seeds.