Another great sports weekend. Tiger just won it on 18, Rockets about to win 22 straight and now the Selection Show. Does not get any better!

ESPN has all these "bubble team" coaches (i.e., Villanova, Arizona State)pimping their team to try to get them in the tourney. Do they think the committee is watching this?

Patrick and Vitale, slangin the ACC's D since '83

ESPN says they're releasing the brackets at 5:59 PM. Didn't they learn their lesson from the MLB All-Star game?

/sxfgb

As Rece Davis starts to pitch it to Sports Center, the "regulars" are grinning and yukking it up. Knight is sitting there in his ugly sweater flipping through papers paying no attention to any of them.

Jim Nantz: a comb-over unlike any other.

I would have liked to see more bubble teams, Baylor is the only team there who might get left out

GMU over ND- my upset special.

So. Alabama gets a game in Birmingham.

How many times will these CBS suck-ups "congratulate" the committee?

St. Joe's an 11? They were really 59th or 60th team?

Rece, Hubert and Bilas think the east is a "stacked" bracket.

A lot of people were picking St. Joe's as high as 11th. Of course, they often mess around with seeds to get the geography and meet the "nobody can play a conference member until the Elite Eight" rule, which is tougher than you think.

Washington State at a 4 is patently ridiculous. It seems like they're ALWAYS overseeded.

Committee leakage!!!!

Lunardi TOTALLY got a tip. Villanova my butt.

Knight's nose resembles Coughlin's during the Green Bay game. He's either been out in the freezing cold or slugging down the Jack Daniel's in order to put up with these guys.

What is upest AA?


And Wazzu should be at best a 6 seed.

K State v. USC - that will be fun. Winner of that has a good chance to get to sweet 16.

THANK GOD they didn't send Duke to Raleigh; Georgetown is there (just like last year!). When Duke has to play in the same arena as UNC in rounds 1-2 it's like a road game for Duke, and probably unfair to a high-seeded team.

I have tickets there, obv.

Oregon made it? What nonsense.

Upsets! are games I'm marking as upsets....thought that was obvious. And Oregon in is such Bullshit.

Texas got a sweet draw. Is Rick Barnes' cousin on the "committee"?

Oregon is WAY better than Arizona State at least. My guess is it was their 4-2 against 51-100.

I think the last spot isn't Va Tech but Baylor, by the way.

I'm shocked- Duke got a 2 seed. They don't deserve it.

ASU and Va. Tech got seriously screwed.

OH SNAP on my Baylor guess.

Anyway.

It's weird-looking that Duke is going to DC and Georgetown is going to Raleigh....

When UGA won, that was it for VA Tech. I can't wait to hear Seth Greenberg bitch and moan now.

Alright, I was rooting for VA Tech against UNC, and if they won that game they would have deserved to get in. But, they didn't win, and they didn't beat ANYONE.

Why is the Anaheim site hosting a West and a South sub-Regional?

Has this been done before - multiple regionals at a single site?

Knight's been hating on the conference tournaments all day. And that it should be the "best 64 teams" (he didn't get the memo either that it is 65). Digger asks Knight how he can get his proposal implemented and Knight says "my influence with the NCAA is not too high".

It's official...Hubert Davis is retarded.

If the 2-seed 3-seed argument is between Wisconsin and Duke, it's pretty hard to forget that these two teams did play each other, and Duke absolutely crushed their faces back in December. Duke as a 2 makes sense; their RPI is very good.

Again, the reason Duke got sent to DC and Georgetown got sent to Raleigh is because a Duke game at the same site as UNC, if it's local, is essentially a road game. This happened in 2005 and it was hell on wheels.

There are Duke fans all over the country, but around NC they're definitely outnumbered. It's not fair to send a 2-seed to a road game in front of screaming Tar Heels.

Bilas just NAILED it. If you aren't represented on that committee, you are shafted.

I think MD losing screwed VT big time. If you're 9-7 in the top RPI conference you deserve to be in. They took Butler to OT in the beginning of the year too. Basically 5 points kept them out of the tourney.

You're right, Drake should be a #4.

I guess if you've got a CBS camera on you during the Selection Show, you're making the Tournament. I'm looking at you, Baylor.

I don't really see all the hype for Virginia Tech. RPI 53, Non-conference SOS 138, 1-7 vs. RPI Top 50. 4 losses versus 101+, too! That's worse than UMass' and Dayton's resumes, way worse than Villanova's. If the committee likes RPI for evaluating power-conference teams, it's really hard to see how VT being out is "wrong."

We should get a contest going here for $$$.

Someone tell Bob Knight that the show has started. Bob sit up in your chair and plug in your mic.

It's coming tomorrow Brett. I'm looking where to host it and I think I'm going to throw up some cash money for the winner.

I guess I can kind of understand VT not being in, but comparing them to Dayton isn't where I'm going. I think Dayton should be in too. If they win either the Carolina or Butler game then they're in.

5 points and you're out is hard to swallow.

Hahaha you hit the nail on the head a-town. He just does not want to be on TV.

AA, please don't tell me that you actually believe that VT deserves a bid over Baylor. The Hokies did finish 9-7 in the ACC, but they went 1-5 against the other teams in the top 5 in the ACC. Additionally, they lost to Penn State, Richmond and Old Dominion in the non-conference slate and NC State in the conference schedule.

Baylor, on the other hand, had no bad losses at all until they lost to Colorado in the Big 12 tournament. Their nonconference losses were to Wazzou and Arkanas by a total of 10 points, and went 9-7 in the #3 RPI conference with wins against Kansas State and Texas A&M and no losses against the bottom feeders until the Big 12 Tournament.

I just don't see how you can justify Va Tech getting in over anyone in this field, save for maybe Villanova.

-Va Tech didn't deserve to be in, and Arizona State deserved to be in over Arizona

-Everyone bitching that Duke shouldn't get a 2 seed over Wisconsin needs to check the box score from that game in December

-Butler a 7 seed? Really?

-The Gonzaga/Davidson and Butler/So. Alabama games are designed to keep mid majors out of the Sweet 16

Just my 2 cents

Oh, and AA - something tells me that finishing 8-8 in the Atlantic 14, including losses to Richmond, La Salle, Duquesne and George Washington (who didn't even make the A-10 tournament) might have had more to do with Dayton not making the field. Even when they had to make a big statement to get in, they lost to Xavier following an overtime close-call to Saint Louis, of all teams.

I had to run out for a minute and caught some of ESPN radio. Scott Van Pelt was part of a team interviewing Dan Dakich, IU Coach. During the discussion Dakich comments to Van Pelt that he likes him on SportsCenter. Van Pelt replies "it helps if you're drunk, which I usually am". Hilarious. Van Pelt is so counter to so many at the WWL.

coach knight doesn't drink. he also happens to be an outstanding analyst.

@ed:
Lozo's been making that case over at his blog all day, too. I'm not sure what to think, it'd kind of be like someone cheating to win a pickup basketball game

By the way, Bilas apparently doesn't know the RPI formula - he said it's 50% winning pct. and 25% opponent's winning pct. (it's the other way around).

@ed:

Ohio State's AD is on that committee, y'know.

Bob Knight's reaction to Vitale was classic. Best broadcasting moment all weekend!

Dick Vitale needs to go away already!!!

Dear lord....Bob Knight might have walked off the set...he showed tremendous restraint

Patrick and Vitale, slangin the ACC's D since '83.

Maryland...a #5 Seed? Man, they got shafted! Oh, wait. That was the NIT bracket I was looking at. Sorry.

I am watching ESPN2 Bracketology...can someone explain to me why Ben Hoagland Coach of a public university UCLA has, at ESPN's insistence, shilled for Direct TV TWICE in the last hour.

So under the auspice of speaking about his tourney appearance...ESPN has allowed IN SHOW advertising as Hoagland is sitting in front of a Direct TV banner and shilling their tourney package ...

What in the f'n hell is going on....a coach...shilling for a privately held company...in the middle of a segment regarding COLLEGE basketball..

does anyone else find this to be as absurd as I do..... seriously...

Players get a $50 handout and they are vilified ...yet a coach can do what the hell he wants for a buck ....university integrity be damned...

ESPN and Hoagland should be ashamed....


-nihole

I really want a screencap of Knight's face during that bizarre Vitale rant.

Washington State at a 4 is patently ridiculous. It seems like they're ALWAYS overseeded. (Steve B.)

Steve B. must be high

and Oregon is not WAY better than ASU. ASU has a more exciting style and one of the top 10 players in the game in Harden.

@nihole:

"Hoagland" is Ben Howland and that's a recent phenomenon since DirecTV got the rights to show the March Madness package. Many coaches have been appearing on radio (Fox & ESPN) doing the same thing, so it's not anything that ESPN is doing solely. Blame the NCAA.

Thx Anon.....
I should have figured that nothing like this would happen without the blessing of the almighty NCAA

-nihole

Thursday, March 20
12:20 PM [14] Georgia at [3] Xavier
12:25 PM [16] Portland State at [1] Kansas
12:30 PM [12] Temple at [5] Michigan State
2:30 PM [11] Kentucky at [6] Marquette
2:50 PM [11] Baylor at [6] Purdue
2:55 PM [9] Kent State at [8] UNLV
3:00 PM [13] Oral Roberts at [4] Pittsburgh
4:00 PM [14] Cornell at [3] Stanford
7:10 PM [15] Belmont at [2] Duke
7:10 PM [11] Kansas State at [6] USC
7:20 PM [13] Winthrop at [4] Washington State
7:25 PM [9] Texas A&M at [8] Brigham Young
9:40 PM [10] Arizona at [7] West Virginia
9:40 PM [14] Cal State Fullerton at [3] Wisconsin
9:50 PM [12] George Mason at [5] Notre Dame
9:55 PM [16] Mississippi Valley State at [1] UCLA
Friday March 21
12:15 PM [15] American University at [2] Tennessee
12:25 PM [10] Davidson at [7] Gonzaga
12:30 PM [12] Western Kentucky at [5] Drake
12:30 PM [10] Saint Mary's at [7] Miami (FL)
2:00 PM [15] Austin Peay at [2] Texas
2:45 PM [10] South Alabama at [7] Butler
2:55 PM [15] Maryland-Baltimore County at [2] Georgetown
3:00 PM [13] San Diego at [4] Connecticut
7:10 PM [11] St. Joseph's (PA) at [6] Oklahoma
7:10 PM [16] Coppin St. / Mount St. Mary's at [1] North Carolina
7:20 PM [13] Siena at [4] Vanderbilt
7:25 PM [9] Oregon at [8] Mississippi State
9:40 PM [9] Arkansas at [8] Indiana
9:40 PM [14] Boise State at [3] Louisville
9:50 PM [12] Villanova at [5]Clemson
9:55 PM [16] Texas-Arlington at [1] Memphis

anyone know the announcing assignments for each location?

I love it when Bilas complains about Mid-Majors getting a free pass (or whatever) from the committee. That's right.

Clearly, all SIX mid-major at larges are the benefit of unfair favoritism.

Jay Bilas and Digger Phelps turned in a pair of all-time Wuss Brackets. I didn't catch all of it, but both had a single 3 as their lowest Elite Eight team and all four 1s in the Final Four.

(Of course, my standards for a non-wussy bracket are insanely high; I felt like a wuss last year for not picking a 14-over-3.)

Hey AA, you said there was only one spot left before the last bracket but two of the teams you thought were out found spots. So what was the other team, other than V-Tech, that you thought was in that really wasn't?

Vitale's comments to Knight about going back to Indiana should be on ESPN Classic as an "Instant Classic." Had they been on the same set I think Knight would have gone all Neil Reed on Vitale.

sorry, Neil Reid*

My issues with this years bracket are as follows....

Arizona getting the nod....They should make a rule that you need to have a winning record in the conference to qualify for an at-large bid. Arizona couldn't even do that.

I'm also not a big fan of teams from the "BCS" conference getting 11 seeds or lower. Although Georgia is an exception this year but still, a 14 seed?!! They should have been a 12 and Villanova probably shouldn't have gotten in if the best you could give them was a 12.

Explain to me how V-tech got screwed? They sucked this year. They were 1-7 against the RPI top 50. Is it because they played well against UNC? Cuse played well again G'town, Marquette, and Pitt. Is there some sympathy vote for them?

Really Steve, Wazzu is always overseeded? What, in their 3 tourney bids in the last 20 years? Give the Cougs a little love!