1. We have seen a lot of strange transfers over the years, but the decision by Katin Reinhardt to leave UNLV is among the more puzzling ones we have seen. Coming out of high school Reinhardt was a highly regarded shooter, but not considered among the truly elite members of his senior class. Reinhardt is hardly alone in his decision to transfer as it has become an epidemic not only within the UNLV program, but college basketball overall. The interesting aspect of Reinhardt’s decision to transfer is that he felt he needs to showcase his talents more particularly his ability to play point guard if he hopes to play in the NBA. It is true that Reinhardt did not get to play point guard much in his freshman season, but that does not mean he did not have the ball in hands enough to showcase his skills as he took the second most shots on the team last year despite making an atrocious 35.8 percent last season (that’s below the 38.1 percent that the relatively selective Marshall Henderson shot last season). The early buzz is that Reinhardt may be headed to USC and with their Dunk City offense he may be ideally suited to run the offense as his errant shots can serve as lobs for his teammates.
2. The Julie Hermann saga continues to unfold at Rutgers and it seems to get more complicated with each passing day. It seems like there are more and more people from Hermann’s past coming out on both sides of the accusations from her days at Tennessee. Yesterday, Hermann came out and stated that Rutgers President Robert Barchi had assured her that her job was safe. That might be news to New Jersey political leaders who seem to be less than thrilled about the hiring at this time. At this point if Hermann and Barchi keep their jobs they will probably be on very thin ice.
3. As part of their ongoing series on NBA Draft trends, CBSSports.com took a look yesterday at how the major conferences have done in the NBA Draft in the past 15 years. The fact that the ACC comes out on top should not be too surprising, but some of the trends in other conferences are interesting particularly the lack of first round picks coming out of the Big Ten, which has probably been the best conference in the country the past two seasons. The one caveat when looking at this analysis is that it keeps the picks in the conference that the school was in when the player was drafted so the relative strength of conferences in this analysis will shift when that is taken into account assuming that they were drafted because of the type of player they were and the school they went to more than the conference they played in.
4. In the narcissistic world of prep recruiting, it isn’t all that often that young wunderkinds like Andrew Wiggins shun the over-the-top pomp and circumstance in favor of a short and sweet announcement to announce their college destination. Yet Wiggins’ subtle announcement two weeks ago, given in the presence of a single local Huntington, WV, reporter and some family members, characterized how far Wiggins is willing to go to eschew the typical circus atmosphere that surrounds a player of his caliber (some players a decade his elder would do well to take note). Wiggins one-upped himself on the understated but classy front on Sunday with a thank you note in the Herald-Dispatch to the citizens of the community of the small Ohio River burg who spent the last two years supporting him at Huntington Prep. It’s a gesture that many of us are taught to do at a very young age by our parents — the simple thank you note — but so few in his position actually remember. So far, if these early indications represent the true character of Wiggins rather than just another choirboy charade, he has an early fan in all of us here at RTC.
5. For anyone who has ever worked in the confluence merging between politics and policy-making, what appears to be simple on its face may be quite a bit more complex behind the scenes. Such is likely the case in the matter of DePaul‘s promise from Chicago to partially fund a new home arena, and the near-simultaneous closing of over 50 city schools because of a lack of funding ($1 billion in the red). Mike DeCourcy tackles the topic as an exercise in juxtoposition, and again, on its face it sounds like another example of whacked-out priorities. But the fact of the matter is that city budgets are hugely complex organisms — a fact that DeCourcy notes in  his final paragraph — and there is likely to be a set of tradeoffs that makes substantially more sense when digging into the numbers of each initiatve. Still, the key takeaway here is that questions should be asked and the Mayor’s Office should explain those reconciliations. Otherwise, well, it just looks like misplaced priorities.

Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn. 

The transfer market didn’t betray the Oregon Ducks last season, so they gave it another shot this week. They went after coveted former UNLV forward Mike Moser, who instantly became one of the hottest transfer pieces on the market this offseason following his release from the Rebels. Moser could play right away thanks to the graduate transfer exemption, and he could have chosen any number of teams — who wouldn’t want to add an athletic and imposing 6’8” power forward to bolster their frontcourt? Washington, Oregon and Gonzaga had emerged as Moser’s most likely landing spots in recent weeks, and on Tuesday, Moser finally settled on his home state school.

Adding Moser is not an unfamiliar move for the Ducks, who have liberally welcomed transfers in the past (Getty Images).

The Portland native instantly raises Oregon’s chances of competing in a winnable Pac-12. That is the most conspicuously plain reaction to Moser’s news, and it’s probably right. Moser makes Oregon better. Elucidating the scope of that description – how much better? – requires a quick revisiting of Moser’s two-year career to date. In 2011-12, Moser was an absolute force. He played 77.1 percent of the available minutes, posted a top-10 defensive rebounding rate, a top-100 steal percentage, and showed promise on the offensive end. Moser’s athletic skills and instinctual defensive and rebounding work made him an obvious All-America candidate heading into last season. He was big and athletic and skilled, and just beginning to scratch the surface of his immense potential – Moser seemed like one of safest bargains on the table. Not only would he shine individually, Moser would power a talented UNLV group, built on the back of a highly-ranked freshman class that included likely lottery pick Anthony Bennett, to an easy MW title. Moser’s monster season was pre-scripted. He was a virtual lock for stardom.

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After weeks spent considering Oregon, Washington, and Gonzaga, Mike Moser has apparently chosen the Ducks, according to Matt Prehm of 247Sports.com. Moser, who started his collegiate career in the Pac-10 back in 2009 with UCLA before spending a pair of seasons at UNLV, will be eligible immediately with one year of remaining eligibility. And for an Oregon team coming off a Sweet Sixteen performance, but needing to replace four departing frontcourt seniors, the decision begins to clear up the picture of who Dana Altman will be able to play with next season. In short, expect the Ducks to be in the thick of things in the Pac-12 again next season.

Reports Have Mike Moser Ready To Join Oregon For His Final Collegiate Season (Ethan Miller, Getty Images)

Moser’s time at UNLV was up and down, but when things were going good in Sin City, things were going real good. He broke out in a big way early in his sophomore campaign, bursting onto the national scene with 16 points and 18 boards in an upset win over then-#1 North Carolina back in November of 2011. And for the year, his numbers were very good, grabbing 10.5 rebounds per game (28.1 DR%, 9.5 OR%), scoring 14 a night and providing some decent punch from deep (33.1 3P%). He thought about bolting to the NBA after that performance, but returned to Vegas for his junior year and things didn’t go as planned. Looking to cement his credentials as a small forward prospect, Moser struggled with injuries, struggled to find a place alongside transcendent freshman talent Anthony Bennett, struggled with his shot and, well, let’s just say he struggled. His numbers dipped to 7.1 PPG and 6.1 RPG (23.4 DR%, 6.8 OR%), he never really found the range from deep (26.7 3P%) and his minutes dwindled, especially late in the season following a return from a dislocated elbow.

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1. Yesterday was not a good day if you like to defend the NCAA as it released its annual financial statement (sort of like a corporation) and it showed that the NCAA had a record $71 million profit in 2012. As you would expect this figure brought out quite a few comments asking how the NCAA could justify not sharing the profits with the student-athletes. We believe that paying student-athletes (and the economics behind it) are far more complex than most writers have made it out to be, but the numbers are pretty impressive. Our favorite part of what has been released from the report is their analysis of their current legal cases: “The NCAA and its legal counsel are defending against lawsuits and claims arising in the normal course of its day-to-day activities. The NCAA does not believe the ultimate resolution of these matters will result in material losses or have a material adverse effect on the consolidated financial position, change in net assets or cash flows of the NCAA.” We have a feeling that we could be recycling this quote if the Ed O’Bannon case goes against them.
   
2. It was about a year and a half ago that Taylor Branch published his epic piece on the NCAA and its curious mission in The Atlantic. The latest piece in The Atlantic about the NCAA will not generate the same interest, but it probably might lead to an equal level of disgust from readers as Meghan Walsh examines the (lack of) healthcare coverage provided by schools for its student-athletes. We tend to take many of these anecdotes with a grain of salt since they are only one side of the story since the schools often decline to say anything of any substance on the allegations, but they should make recruits and fans think a little bit more about the schools and programs that they commit to or choose to root for in the future.
3. One of the many criticisms of the NCAA is that they tend to move at a glacial pace and yesterday’s decision to suspend the previously accepted chances to recruiting communications only reaffirms that. This suspension will not affect basketball because the rules have already been in place for nearly a year (and why would the organization have similar rules for all of its sports?) so we may not see much of a change. The actual decision to at least temporarily hold on the rules change is not that remarkable, but the fact that they can pass a rule (at least temporarily) that such a large percentage of its member institutions oppose is always alarming.
4. Last month, Jerry Tarkanian was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame and it appears to have set in motion a chain of events that are bringing increasing notoriety to Tarkanian’s impressive and underappreciated career. The latest such tribute is a statue of Tarkanian that was unveiled as part of UNLV‘s Jerry Tarkanian Project. The school plans on not only placing a bronze statue of Tarkanian (complete with a towel in his mouth) outside the Thomas & Mack Center, but also establishing a scholarship fund in his name. The project is still in the fundraising stages and they are soliciting donations now so it may take a while before it is complete (we have no idea how much it will take or how far away they are), but it should help reestablish a sense of tradition in a program that is just returning to national relevance after nearly two decades in the shadows.
   
5. Joining the ranks of the Big Ten and Texas among others, the SEC is set to launch its own 24-hour network. The network, which will be run with ESPN, will debut in August 2014 and is part of a 20-year deal. The key to this deal is clearly SEC football, but it will mean more than 100 extra SEC basketball games broadcast nationally, which could be good or bad depending on which games they show, but it will also provide additional exposure for many of the programs on a national level. We are not sure how much it will do for the football programs as their level of play should be enough to entice any recruit, but it could help basketball programs particularly the lower-tier ones attract talent on a more nation-wide level than they are used to.

Though it is not official yet, news came down on Friday that Mike Moser, formerly of UCLA and most recently of UNLV, may wind up at Washington for the 2013-14 season. He’s expected to graduate from UNLV this summer, making him eligible to play his final season immediately in Seattle. There remains a chance he will make himself eligible for the NBA Draft this season, according to Jeff Goodman of CBS Sports, but most likely he will spend his final season of collegiate eligibility playing for Lorenzo Romar. Aside from the fact that this would make for a wild, back-and-forth college career for the 6’8” combo forward, it gives Romar and the Huskies a much needed talent boost as they try to earn their way back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in three seasons.

After Stops At UCLA and UNLV, Mike Moser May Be Wrapping Up His College Career At Washington (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

The Huskies lose Abdul Gaddy, Aziz N’Diaye, and Scott Suggs from this year’s middle-of-the-Pac team, but with wing C.J. Wilcox expected back for his senior campaign (although he has submitted paperwork to he NBA Undergraduate Committee to gauge potential interest if he were to leave school early), and with McDonald’s All-American Nigel Williams-Goss expected to step right into the starting point guard spot, the addition of Moser could put the Huskies back into the conversation in the Pac-12. Coming on the heels of a miss on highly regarded recruit Aaron Gordon, the addition of Moser would go a long way towards patching an athleticism gap on this team. He had a nightmare of a junior season in Vegas, where a dislocated elbow conspired with his inability to play effectively alongside freshman phenom Anthony Bennett knocked Moser from preseason All-American consideration down to a guy who averaged just seven points and six rebounds per game (huge drops from his 14/10 averages as a sophomore. Still, he is a long and lanky athlete with a great nose for a rebound, the ability to knock down threes and the frame to be a terrific and disruptive defender.

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Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn. 

Tonight’s Lede. Tournament Commencement. Day one of the NCAA Tournament proper, the field of 64, is officially in the books. Games were won, upsets were wrought, careers ended and through it all, bracket hope springs eternal for those who survived their first big test. The second half of “second round” competition will tip off in just a few hours, followed by a weekend of further elimination and refinement. There is no mistaking it: the NCAA Tournament is here and we’ve only barely scratched the surface of the drama to come in later rounds.

Your Watercooler Moment. What? Harvard?

The most shocking result of the day came as an almost unthinkable late-night surprise (Getty Images).

Next year was going to be the year I picked Harvard to not only win its opening round game, but – depending on how the matchups shook out – quite possibly rip off a sweet-16 or even Elite 8 run. The Crimson get seniors Brandyn Curry and Kyle Casey, snagged this offseason in a sweeping academic scandal, back for 2013-14, along with another solid recruiting class and a promising young backcourt in Siyani Chambers and Wesley Saunders. The Crimson have all the pieces to crash the field next season. It is from this backdrop that you can understand why what Harvard pulled off Thursday night at EnergySolutions Arena was a year ahead of schedule. The Crimson downed three-seed New Mexico in the biggest upset of the Tournament’s first day. It was also Harvard’s first ever NCAA Tournament win, and it came thanks to a depleted roster holding one of the nation’s best backcourt duos, Tony Snell and Kendall Williams, to a combined 17 points and two assists. The Lobos were a trendy Final Four pick. They had size and experience and a skilled seven-foot big man to anchor their offensive attack. They had the considerable weight of being the Mountain West’s Tournament entrepreneur. Harvard has its first Tournament win in school history and maybe the most remarkable upset we’ll see this March.

Also Worth Chatting About. A 12-5 Upset Double. You Saw it Coming.

A seeding mismatch left Oklahoma State with a brutal first-round matchup (AP Photo).

Because there was so little immediate uproar about teams actually getting in/left out of the Tournament, people channeled their anger towards the bracket itself. Two of the biggest points of contention within were Oregon’s mystifying 12 seed following a Pac-12 conference Tournament championship and Cal’s comfy opening-round location (San Jose). The Ducks deserved more respect than a 12-seed and the Bears, for all their success in conference play, did not deserve the benefit of playing so close to their Berkeley Campus. Oregon’s underseed wasn’t just a slight to Dana Altman’s team, it was a menacing first-round predicament for Oklahoma State, a five-seed criminally burdened with a Ducks team that was in contention for a Pac-12 regular season crown for much of the season. Oregon dominated Marcus Smart and company from start to finish; an innocent observer would have suggested Oregon was the five seed, and OSU the 12. A few hours later, fellow Pac-12 12-seed Cal did not disappoint the hometown crowd in avenging a regular season home loss to UNLV. Neither of these P-12 squads belonged in their respective bracket locations. Oregon is not a 12 seed; it’s just not! And the Rebels, with their putative seeding advantage, never should have had to play what amounted to a road game in their opening-round matchup. None of it was very fair, and all of it confirmed what most instinctively believed upon bracket reveal Sunday afternoon: the committee screwed up.

Tonigh’s Quick Hits…

• Two One Seeds. Two Totally Different Stories. There are big expectations for Gonzaga this season. The questions aren’t about the Zags’ worthiness as a No. 1 seed so much as they are what follows: can Mark Few’s team finally break through into the deep rounds? Judging by their-opening round game against 16-seed Southern, the answer is an emphatic no. The Jaguars pushed Gonzaga to the brink in Salt Lake City, and were it not for a couple of clutch deep jumpers from point guard Kevin Pangos, Thursday may have brought the first-ever 16-1 toppling. Phew. Louisville’s first-round game was far less interesting. The Cardinals whipped North Carolina A&T, holding the Aggies to 48 points and validating their overall No. 1 seed in every which way.
• Memphis! Whenever Josh Pastner’s name cropped up in conversation, the impulsive reaction was to spew out the following statistic: 0. As in, tournament wins since Pastner took over the Tigers’ head coaching job in 2009. No longer will Pastner be juxtaposed with Tournament ignominy so immediately – Memphis fans will very much want another win or two before Pastner is off the hook – not after the Tigers fought off Matthew Dellavadova and Saint Mary’s in a highly anticipated 6-11 matchup Thursday. With Memphis headlong into a round-of-32 date with Michigan State this weekend, Pastner’s Tournament run is probably over. But the first one is always the toughest, or so they say, and Pastner and his team managed to accomplish that much in a year where first-round failure would have triggered an unrelenting stream of local fan venom throughout the long offseason.

…and Misses.

• Three Trendy Upset Picks Fall Short. In any given year, there are a few matchups where you feel confident enough, matchup-wise, to pull the trigger on a brave and courageous high seed victory. I heard a wide selection of suggested first-round knock offs in the lead up to Thursday, and three of the most frequent were (11) Bucknell over (6) Butler, (14) Davidson over (3) Marquette and (11) Belmont over (6) Arizona. All of which seemed very reasonable for different reasons: Mike Muscala can really work the paint; Davidson boasts one of the better frontlines in the country along with an elite in-game coach; Belmont is almost perennially Tournament-worthy under Rick Byrd. I wouldn’t have been shocked in the least to see any of those dominoes fall. None of them did, only Davidson really came close and now those doubted favorites (Butler, Marquette, Arizona) can press forward without the burden of potential first-round upset embarrassment.
• Not So Efficient Now, Pitt. According to Ken Pomeroy’s win prediction formula, Pittsburgh went into Thursday’s 8-9 game against Wichita State with a 73 percent chance of advancing. Pomeroy’s efficiency ranks have recommended the Panthers all season (they ranked eighth as of Thursday in his per-possession database), and many data-savvy bracketeerists took that as a cue to simply and heedlessly push Pitt on through to a third-round matchup with Gonzaga, where Jamie Dixon’s team would give the Zags all kinds of physicality matchup issues. The only problem? The Shockers, ranked 34^th in Pomeroy’s system, were more efficient than Pitt in every conceivable way throughout their 40-minute second-round tussle, and after an 18-point win it is Wichita, not the Panthers, who will get a clean shot at dropping the Zags this weekend.
• The Point Guard Duel That Wasn’t. More than a genuine interest in seeing whether South Dakota State could pull off an unlikely upset of three-seed Michigan Thursday night, there was considerable buzz about what Nate Wolters – a semi-nationally known lead guard with an alluring all-around game – could conjure up against consensus First Team All-American and projected first-round draft pick Trey Burke. Fans were expecting a back-and-forth, individual, put-the-team-on-my-back kind of PG battle; this was Wolters’ night. It never materialized. Burke finished with just six points on 2-of-12 shooting and Wolters dropped 10 while making just three of 14 field goal attempts. The game itself was competitive going into the half, but without Wolters doing crazy, Wolters-like, 53-point things, the Jackrabbits never really stood a chance. The point guard battle of the Tournament was a dud and the game wasn’t much better.

Game-Winner of the Night. Everyone’s confident Davidson upset pick looked really convincing for about 35 minutes. Then Marquette shifted gears, found its three-point stroke late and Vander Blue did the rest.

(h/t Rob Dauster, CBT)

Thursday’s All-Americans.

• Derrick Nix, Michigan State (NPOY) – The first game on Thursday was not what anyone would call competitive: Nix poured in 23 points and 15 rebounds as the Spartans controlled Valpo throughout.
• Dwayne Evans, Saint Louis – A lot of people like Saint Louis as an Elite 8-Final Four-range team. Evans (24 points, six rebounds) gave you no reason to reconsider in Thursday’s stomping of New Mexico State.
• Arsalan Kazemi, Oregon – Scoring touch aside, Kazemi affects the game exclusively with his defense and rebounding more than perhaps any other player in this Tournament. His 11-17 double-double Thursday is standard issue evidence.
• Dorian Green, Colorado State – Not all of the Mountain West flopped Thursday. UNLV and New Mexico are good as gone, but CSU, thanks in part to Green’s 26 points against Missouri, are gearing up for an intriguing third-round fixure with Louisville.
• Kelly Olynyk, Gonzaga – I can’t ignore Olynyk’s 21 points and 10 rebounds – Olynyk has been consistently awesome all season. Whether he can lift the Zags to a win Saturday over Wichita State, I’m not so sure.

Tweet of the night. Beating a rugged three-seed like New Mexico, who many believed actually merited deserved a two-seed, is a huge feat in the moment. It’s even bigger for Harvard in a historical context.

New Mexico just became the Land of Disenchantment. And brackets implode nationwide. Like everybody else on Twitter right now #Harvard

— Chuck Carlton (@ChuckCarltonDMN) March 22, 2013

RTC is providing game-by-game coverage throughout Thursday from the San Jose pod.

Three Key Takeaways.

Cal Took Care of UNLV in Its “Home” Game

1. Cal Tried Very Hard to Give This Away. California outplayed, outhustled and outlasted UNLV in the #5/#12 match-up this evening, but the Bears certainly made an adventure out of it at the free throw line. After taking what seemed to be a commanding seven-point lead and heading to the line to salt things away with 45 seconds left, the Bears proceeded to miss eight of their next 12 attempts, giving UNLV multiple opportunities to stop the clock and narrow the gap. Although the lead was reduced to one point with a couple of ticks left, the Rebels never got the lead and their disappointing season mercifully came to an end. As for the rest of the game, the Bears clearly were not going to give this game up without a best effort after last year’s First Four debacle in Dayton against South Florida. Allen Crabbe (19 points), Justin Cobbs (13 points), Richard Solomon (11 points) and Robert Thurman (12 points) ate up the lazy UNLV interior defense, repeatedly and effectively driving and dishing for dunks and layups. Cal deserved to win the game, frankly, but the Bears were still lucky to finish off the victory.
2. Same As It Ever Was With UNLV. University of No Legitimacy in Vegas, that’s the Runnin’ Rebels new name after this season. When you can bring out a frontcourt of a future lottery pick in Anthony Bennett, two other talented guys in Mike Moser and Khem Birch, and a solid if not spectacular backcourt of Anthony Marshall and Bryce Dejean-Jones and Katin Reinhardt… well, let’s just say that Billy Donovan won a couple of national titles with a similar makeup. Dave Rice? He lost to Fresno State, got run out of his own gym by New Mexico in the MW championship game, and suffered a complete meltdown of disinterest and desperation as a #5 seed against California today. Bennett finished with 13/11 on 3-of-10 shooting but he barely cared, while Moser spent much of the game looking lost. This is the team that the Rebels became, for better or worse, and UNLV fans will have to live with an offseason of what might have been with this much talent on the roster.
3. Is the Pac-12 Actually Good This Year? With the #12 seed Cal Bears and Oregon Ducks out of the Pac-12 knocking off #5 seeds here in San Jose, and #6 seed Arizona easily handling bracket darling #11 Belmont in Salt Lake City as well, the question needs to be asked. UCLA and Colorado have yet to play, but with an early 3-0 record in three games that many were choosing league members to lose, this could be a harbinger that perhaps the conference really was quite a bit better than people thought it was this year. It’s worth tracking the rest of the weekend, that’s for sure.

Star of the Game. Robert Thurman, California. Not only did Thurman come off the bench for 19 solid post minutes that include a plurality of chin-ups on the rim, but he also helped to neutralize the size and strength of UNLV’s Anthony Bennett inside. Perhaps even more impressively, his hustle and scrap was contagious among his teammates, as he at one point met Bennett at the rim for a big-time block that seemingly shocked everyone — perhaps even Thurman himself.

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After starting the season 18-1, Syracuse looked to be poised for another run at a Big East title and a top seed in March. However, the Orange struggled down the stretch of the regular season, losing seven of their last 12 contests in Big East play. With their hot early start and a few big wins — including one at then top-ranked Louisville — the NCAA Tournament was never really in question, but their seeding looked to be in real jeopardy as the losses piled up. Jim Boeheim was able to right the ship in his last Big East Tournament, and with wins over Seton Hall, Pittsburgh, and Georgetown before a tough championship game loss to Louisville, Syracuse seems to have regained a lot of momentum heading into the Big Dance.

Has Syracuse Regained Its Midseason Momentum; Or Is This a Mirage?

Region: East
Seed: No. 4
Record: 26-9 (11-7 Big East)
Matchup: vs. Montana in San Jose

Key Player: Michael Carter-Williams is Syracuse’s most talented player, and C.J. Fair is certainly the most consistent player on the squad, but no individual may be more important to Syracuse’s Final Four aspirations than senior forward James Southerland. Southerland put on a clinic from long range in the Garden last week, hitting 19 of his 33 three-point attempts in Syracuse’s four games. When he is on, he’s as good a shooter as there is in the country, and his mere presence really spreads the floor for the Orange, opening things up for Carter-Williams to penetrate opposing defenses and Fair to get good looks on his dangerous mid-range jumpers.

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I. Renko is an RTC columnist and the author of the weekly column, The Other 26. Follow him on Twitter @IRenkoHoops.

This is part two of our TO26 bracket analysis, focusing on the 17 non-power-conference teams that populate the East and Midwest regions. The teams are grouped into five rough categories, and, within each category, they are ordered by their likelihood of advancing.  For our analysis of the South and West regions, see here.

Regional Threats

These are the teams that have a credible chance of dancing all the way to the Sweet Sixteen and beyond.

• St. Louis (#4 Midwest) — The Bilikens are flying a bit under the radar, but this is a team that should be a favorite for a Sweet 16 run. They have one of the best defenses in the country, a group of experienced guards who can attack and shoot (Kwamain Mitchell, Mike McCall, Jordair Jett), a surprisingly effective post presence in Dwayne Evans, and a pair of pick-‘n-pop big men (Rob Loe, Cody Ellis) who can drain the three. It should be said, though, that the Bilikens’ draw is not necessarily ideal. A first-round game against New Mexico State presents some matchup quandaries (see below), as does a potential Third Round game against Oklahoma State — both teams are prepared to bang and grind with the Bilikens down low. Ultimately, I think the St. Louis’ defense is strong enough to get them to the Sweet 16, where their steady guard play gives them a non-trivial chance of knocking off the Cards.

Can Rotnei Clarke Lead Butler Back to the Final Four?

• Butler (#6, East) — Yes, they’re back. Neither Bucknell nor their potential Third Round opponent (Marquette or Davidson) will be an easy team to conquer, but all three of these teams will give Butler an important reprieve from its biggest vulnerability — a tendency to turn it over. Bucknell and Marquette will also play at the kind of grinding pace at which the Bulldogs excel. And they’ll focus their offense on the areas of the floor where Butler’s defense is strongest — the paint. Butler also has the shooters — Rotnei Clark, Kellen Dunham — to bombard Marquette’s compact defense and the rebounders to exploit Marquette’s weakness on the glass. If anything, Bucknell may pose a bigger matchup problem, as they tend to chase teams off the three-point line and they don’t give up much on the offensive glass. The Bison will be a tough opponent, but when you look at Butler’s pod as a whole, a Sweet 16 run looks well within reach.

One and Done

These teams have at least a 50/50 (or better) chance of picking up a win, but are unlikely to get two.

• Colorado State (#8, Midwest) — I would actually bump the Rams up to the tail end of the “Regional Threats” group if not for the uncertain status of starting point guard Dorian Green. The team’s unquestioned floor general, Green suffered an ankle injury in the first round of the MWC tournament, and though he played in a semifinal loss to UNLV, was ineffective. With a fully healthy Green, the Rams’ have a good chance of toppling Missouri. The two teams are somewhat similar in that they try to score in the paint on offense, while keeping opponents out of the paint of it on defense. Neither team is especially potent from the three-point line, and both rely a fair amount on offensive rebounding, though the Rams’ have the advantage here, especially as they are equally adept at controlling their defensive glass. That, along with Missouri’s tendency to be a bit loose with the ball, may be the difference-maker. And don’t sleep on Colorado State’s chances against Louisville in the next round. The Cardinals’ weak points are defensive rebounding and three-point shooting. The Rams are the best offensive rebounding team in the country, and as noted above, their defense forces teams to beat them from the three-point line. They also take pretty good care of the ball, which will serve them well against Louisville’s pressure defense. But this analysis could be all for naught if Green isn’t healthy enough to be effective.
• Creighton (#7, Midwest) — Doug McDermott is perhaps the most fundamentally sound player in college basketball. His All-American status owes itself to his incredibly precise offensive footwork, positioning, movement, shot, and cuts. He has inside-outside skills that present a very tough matchup if you’re not used to guarding him. And he’s surrounded by lots of great three-point shooters. Cincinnati’s defense has generally been strong, so they might be able to contain McDermott and the Bluejays’ three-point attack. But they’ll have to be especially effective because their offense has been truly miserable. I like the Bluejays’ chances here. A Third Round matchup with Duke would be a tougher proposition, as the Blue Devils combine a defense that shuts down the three-point line with an offense that is far more high-powered than Cincinnati’s. McDermott may well get his points, especially posting up inside, but that’s not likely to be sufficient.

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With the NCAA Tournament officially underway as of last night’s game between North Carolina A&T and Liberty — although, let’s be honest, things don’t really begin to heat up until Thursday afternoon — we are unveiling the Official RTC Bracket today. Up first are the South and East Regions with the Midwest and West Regions to follow later this afternoon. Prior to revealing the picks, some quick analysis, and four questions to our bracket experts, here’s our methodology.

The inspiration behind the bracket largely comes from our weekly Blogpoll where a number of ballots from key contributors are combined to form a single Top 25. Rather than have eight people put their heads together and collectively fill out the bracket, we asked each to select their own bracket. Afterward, those selections were tallied up and the team with the majority vote in each slot is the one picked to advance below. As an example, you will notice that in the #8 vs. #9 game in the South Region, North Carolina was picked to advance in seven of eight brackets — hence the 88% tally next to the Tar Heels’ name. Deeper into the bracket, you may wonder how it’s possible for Kansas to advance past Michigan in the Sweet Sixteen with just 50% of the brackets choosing the Jayhawks, but that’s because three brackets had Michigan and one bracket had VCU, thereby giving Kansas the edge.

Here’s the first half of the 2013 Official RTC Bracket:

Quick Hitters From the South Region

• Advancing to Atlanta: #3 Florida
• Round of 64 Upset: #11 Minnesota over #6 UCLA
• Later Round Upsets: #3 Florida over #2 Georgetown in the Sweet Sixteen and #3 Florida over #1 Kansas in the Elite Eight
• Three Most Disputed Games: #11 Minnesota over #6 UCLA, #4 Michigan over #5 VCU, #1 Kansas over #4 Michigan

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