The Madness begins

[Jetsfan80]

It's not yet March, but Selection Sunday is just 11 days away, and the NCAA Tournament commences just 2 weeks from tomorrow.

The Selection Committee will have its work cut out for them this year. There are, by my estimation, approximately 15-20 at-large bids that are entirely up for grabs, and about 40-50 teams that have legitimate chances to attain them.

The Big East is a mess (anywhere from 4-9 teams have a chance), the Big 12 is lousy (only 3 teams - Kansas, Texas A & M, Texas- have locked up bids and the rest have mediocre resumes), while the ACC has made a very strong case to get at least 6 teams into the dance. The rest of the major conferences (except for the unimpressive PAC-10) should get their usual 5 teams in, and while the Big 10 appears to have two potential top seeds coming out (Ohio St, Wisconsin), Florida has really shot itself in the foot in trying to get a 1-seed out of the SEC.

As for the borderline and "mid-major" conferences, parity is also the name of the game. The A-10, WAC, and C-USA may be 1-bid leagues this year (Xavier, Nevada Memphis, respectively), but the Mountain West (UNLV, Air Force, BYU), CAA (Old Dominion, Drexel, VCU) and, of course, the Missouri Valley Conference (So. Illinois, Creighton, Bradley, Missouri State) all should receive multiple bids. Southern Illinois in particular have busted the doors for the "little guys", and could be seeded as high as 3rd in the tournament. Even smaller conferences like the Southern Conference and Big South could get more than 1 team in if favorites Winthrop and Appalachian State lose deep in the tourney. It is also intriguing to note that, for the first time in nearly a decade, Gonzaga is no lock for a bid (but, they should take care of business in the West Coast Conference tourney anyways).

But there are many major conference "bubble" teams that still have a chance to make their statements in their respective conference tourneys and steal some bids away from the little guys. The long list includes Michigan State, Georgia Tech, Mississippi, Iowa, USC, Oregon, Kansas State, Villanova, West Virginia, Alabama, Stanford, and many more.

So expect many head-scratching decisions from the selection committee and even more head-scratching upsets when the conference tournaments and the NCAA tourney takes place. The dominant freshmen classes of the major conference teams (like Greg Oden of OSU and Kevin Durant of Texas) could make the difference, one way or the other, in this tournament. Meanwhile, some of the veteran mid-major teams could very well use this "transition year" in college basketball to their advantage. Even more surprising will be the fact that some of these teams will be EXPECTED to make deep runs into the tournament; it will no longer be a surprise.

[Bugg]

Bad news for degenerate gamblers on the East Coast and beyond-the Jody's Bar pool in Staten Island is no more. They got tired fo the IRS hassling them and threw in the towel.