Sunday, March 11, 2007

My 65

Auto Bids (in a rough order)
1. Ohio State
2. UNC
3. Florida
4. Kansas
5. Georgetown
6. Oregon
7. Memphis
8. UNLV
9. Creighton
10. New Mexico ST
11. VCU
12. Winthrop
13. Gonzaga
14. Oral Roberts
15. Wright ST
16. MiamiU
17. Long Beach ST
18. Belmont
19. GW
20. Davidson
21. UPenn
22. Albany
23. Holy Cross
24. EKentucky
25. Niagara
26. NTexas
27. Weber ST
28. CConn ST
29. FL A&M
30. Jackson ST
31. TX A&M CC

At-Larges (In no order until the end)
32. SIU
33. Butler
34. Maryland
35. Arizona
36. UCLA
37. Tennessee
38. Marquette
39. Kentucky
40. TX A&M
41. Notre Dame
42. UVA
43. Duke
44. Villanova
45. Nevada
46. Indiana
47. Louisville
48. WA State
49. Vanderbilt
50. Mich ST
51. BC
52. USC
53. BYU
54. Pitt
55. Xavier
56. VA Tech
57. GA Tech
58. Purdue
59. Illinois
60. Wisconsin
61. Texas

Last Four In
62. TX Tech
63. Syracuse
64. Stanford
65. Drexel


Just Barely Out-
MO State
Arkansas
App ST
KS State

Old Dominion
Air Force
FSU

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Comm240 Assignment #1

Results by record, as of 02/28

2 Losses

Nevada (26-2)

3 Losses

Ohio State (26-3)
Memphis (25-3)
UCLA (25-3)

4 Losses

Wisconsin (26-4)
Kansas (26-4)
Davidson (26-4)
Winthrop (25-4)

interesting bubble links
CBS Sportsline Field Projection: http://cbs.sportsline.com/collegebasketball/story/9805295

Pat Forde of ESPN.com recently made a point that conferences with tournaments where not all teams qualify makes them less exciting. However, I feel that whatever excitement is lost in the tournament is made up for during the regular season. It makes each conference game that much more important, instead of just affecting a team's seeding in a 3-4 day tournament that may or may not mean anything for more than one team. In a major conference like the Big East, only the top 12 of 16 teams qualify for the Big East tournament. So in February, those teams at the bottom are scrambling for wins just to qualify. It raises the effort of the players and the meaning of the games.
Take the Ivy League, which is the only Division I conference that does not have a tournament and instead awards its NCAA tourney berth to the regular season champion. To me, evaluating a team over two months of games is much more indicative than over a few days of games. So this makes sense and makes for exciting basketball. Each game has meaning in the race for the regular-season conference title, which actually means something other than denotation.
While I love the 'conference tournament season,' I would like to see a few more leagues give their NCAA tourney berths to the regular season champion, and other leagues cut back on the teams that qualify for their conference tournament. I mean, after a 1-15 conference record, does Iona deserve a "second" chance to win the national title? Not in my book.