Random Thoughts

Time for some College Basketball blogging!

1) I arrived back in Dayton last night from Iowa---the FRONT PAGE story on the Dayton Daily News was:
"City prepares for BIG game"
It took me a while to figure out what they were talking about. (And if I didn't know immediately, I'm sure none of you would know).

They were talking about the Raiders - the Wright State Raiders! #9 Butler (11-1, 23-2) comes to town for a Horizon league showdown against Wright State (11-2, 18-9). If Wright State wins, it's their first win over a top 10 team and also would LEAD the Horizon over the Butler Bulldogs.
I've actually played basketball on Wright State's floor--- their arena is located less than a mile from my old office in Dayton.
Butler favored by 4 on the road, o/u is 119.5. Tip off at 7 pm from the Nutter Center.

It's a sad year when Wright State is playing in the biggest game of the year for all of the SW Ohio college teams (Cincy, Xavier, Dayton, Miami...).

2) You may have seen that the NCAA invited 20 writers to participate in a mock bracket creation process. They locked the writers in a hotel and instructed them to create a bracket in 36 hours. Here's the story from Jay Bilas.

The story laid out the process for filling the bracket - and it enlightened the authors along the way. The key points that Jay Bilas (and others) got out of it:
1) there is no way the committee could keep track of the # of bids per conference. That is not talked....whoever are the best at large teams are selected, no matter what conference they are from.
2) the "interesting" matchups are not created by the NCAA for CBS's sake; they just happen by coincidence.

Hmmm..that's nice to hear, but it is what the committee says every year! Every year, the commnetators say "the big east deserves 6 bids", the committee says "we just look at the teams, not the # of bids from a conference" - and then the bracket comes out and the committee is ripped.

It seems like these commentators - Bilas and Digger are two of the worst * - have never gone through a bracket-filling exercise before today. This mock committee was the best thing to happen to educate these guys and show how tough this process is. Maybe they will remember these principles that have been spelled out to them before as we head into March.

* - Yes, I am ignoring Vitale, who every year makes the case for every bubble team and whose mock bracket would include 87 teams. He's beyond hope. But for Digger? There's no excuse. **

**- and I am ignoring Billy "any hoops played east of Virginia or north of Maryland is CRAP" Packer. I don't think he realizes how much creidibility he lost last year with his rant on the MVC and mid-majors.

3) God, Maryland is in BIG BIG BIG trouble. I am predicting that they need to win TWO of the upcoming three games against Duke (2) and UNC. That's the only way they can get back inthe discussion.

4) More ACC: a commenter to Lunardi's chat on ESPN actually asked a question about Duke - if they may not even make the NCAAs! It's not as preposterous as you think! They are 5-5 in conference and have FOUR road games left (Md, UNC, Clem, BC). It's easy to see them losing 3! One more home loss makes them 9 losses. A 7-9 team in the ACC would be squarely on the bubble - what if the team's name is Duke?

Who would have guessed that Duke's best win on Feb 10 is a win vs. Air Force? That win may be what ultimately saves the Blue Devils.

I predict them to be over-seeded as a #7 seed in the tourney, playing someone like BYU or Vanderbilt or George Washington or Missouri State. And Duke will lose.