bierce

Cincy dispatched Okie State with ease. Gets Iowa State tomorrow. A win there could start earning it a vote or two. Follow it up with a win over BYU in the quarterfinals, and it will get on 1/4 of the brackets. Follow that with a win over Houston, it will be looking like a serious candidate to make the tournament.

Pepperdine wasn't in the game in the second half against Gonzaga. San Fran went to the half up 2, was behind by only 1 before Ike completed an and one with 6:45 to go, and Gonzaga slowly pulled away from there. So the only risks for dance crashers now will come from the AAC (only Memphis is worth an at-large bid), the Big West (UC San Diego), the A-10 (VCU), and the more unlikely scenario that a multi-bid conference has a team come from nowhere to get multiple wins over tournament quality teams to claim a bid. No bubble teams in action today, unless you think Pitt and Cincy can still get in without an autobid. Both are in first round conference tournament action.

I guess Brownell isn't big enough of a name, but he has a buyout around 3.3M.

San Fran won last night, so there is at least one team with the ability to challenge St. Mary's and Gonzaga in the WCC semis. I really don't give Pepperdine much of a chance today. It will be on its fourth game in 4 days, and it lost to St. Mary's by 30 and 24 already this year. San Fran beat St. Mary's once and stayed within 11 @ Gonzaga. Nothing else of bubble interest on the slate today.

Maybe now that May has gone 0-4 against ranked teams since receiving a contract extension, Michigan will pay us to take him off their hands.

Pepperdine (4-14 in the WCC and playing its third game in three days) was trying to upset Santa Clara in the WCC quarterfinals, and nearly pissed the game away. Up 5 with the ball and a little over a minute to go, it lost the dribble without pressure on the perimeter, giving Santa Clara a breakaway to cut it to three. Then Pepperdine ran the entire clock down without even remotely trying to work offense. Shot clock violation with 17 seconds left on the game clock. SC with a chance to tie. SC got an open three. Missed the rim completely. Pepperdine got the rebound and made a pair of ft to clinch it with 2.8 seconds left. So much for one (Santa Clara) of the two WCC teams I thought might be a risk to manage to crash the dance. San Fran is up next against Washington State.

So has Dan Hurley for most of his career.

He would, but Luke Murray probably wouldn't. He would have the same pedigree as a top assistant at a perennial power before taking a head coaching role.

Gene Hackman and Flip Wilson are gone, but Gabe Kaplan is still around.

The Beard myth will never go away. We should always remember Beard got us only to the round of 32. The next year he lost the only game we played outside of Austin against a team with a pulse.

Drake won with ease today. That makes for one less dance crasher for bubble teams to worry about.

Something that also would not be a problem for a school hiring Wade, McCollum, Pitino, Odom, or Murray.

Texas is on 1 of 43 brackets that updated this morning. TheNightVenom is the weirdo. But here is the thing. How far out are we? Boise State had 4 votes. UNC had 6. Nebraska had 2 but it lost today and missed the B1G tournament, so it can't climb up. I'd say we are pretty far out. The matrix is in almost complete accord for keeping those teams out and everyone who is in the matrix in. Xavier and tOSU are each on 34-35 of the 43. Everyone else is nearly unanimously in or out. So Texas has to jump teams two teams that get a few more votes today than Texas does, has to jump at least one team is running at 80% in, and has to jump another team each time a dance crasher shows up. A win over A&M could do that, but it might not be enough. I think 14 SEC teams in the field would be ridiculous. The SEC has a few great teams (Auburn, Florida, Alabama, maybe Tennessee), a few really good teams (Missouri, A&M, Kentucky, maybe Mississippi), and a bunch of mediocre teams (Miss State, Arky, Georgia, Vandy, OU, Texas). All the mediocrity should not be rewarded at the expense of more deserving mid-majors that might play a bad game in their conference tournaments.

Nebraska nadired in dramatic fashion by losing to Iowa 83-68 for its fifth straight loss and fourth straight loss in Lincoln. Horrible season end for Hoiberg. NU was a near cinch to get in and found the only way to play itself out. B1G will have five teams tie for 12th-16th at 7-13.

I think two might be enough if other things break favorably. The second win would have to be over A&M, which would give us 4 wins against the top 20 teams, 7 q1 wins, and 7 wins against the field (assuming OU also sneaks in). A third game would be against Auburn. But with a 50% chance of beating Vandy, we're looking at less than a 20% chance of winning two games in the SEC tournament. It could happen, but I'm not banking on it.

And NC State jumped them all since it missed the ACC tournament altogether. Keatts gone.

I disagree about the final four run being a fluke. It would have been a fluke if NC State had faced nothing but double digit seeds after the first round, but it beat 2 seed Marquette and then 4 seed Duke for the second time in 17 days. Add the win over UNC in the ACC tournament and the 13 point win over Tech, that was a run of great play, not luck.

I would have hoped by now that everyone would have gotten past suggesting Beard, Wright, Self, Donovan, and a few others who obviously are not coming to Austin.

I'm expecting a flurry of movement next weekend. With conference tournament action about to begin, it is time to look at which (other) schools might be making announcements soon. Virginia won the tiebreaker among the teams finished tied for 9-12 in the ACC, received a first round bye, and will play Georgia Tech in the second round of the ACC tournament Wednesday, noon ET. I suspect they will announce a new coach there very quickly if Virginia loses that game. Ryan Odom of VCU is supposedly the leading candidate now. Villanova has conference doormat Seton Hall on Wednesday, but it then has to play UConn Thursday. Nova is likely to miss the tournament for the third straight year under Kyle Neptune, and in the first two years, it was bounced from the NIT in the first round. Neptune is toast. It isn't just the three years without a tournament appearance, it is also the way Nova lost a bunch of games this year with late game collapses, despite being a team with 5 senior starters.

And that is it for the Terry tenure. We have to win at least two games in the conference tournament to even have a chance at the NCAA tournament, and it isn't happening. Worst season since Shaka's second year here.

UNC lost 82-69, so the day got a little better.

Really bad day so far for teams on the outside looking in. Arky, Georgia, Indiana, and Xavier all won. WVU is winning bigly. The only good thing that happened was Drake pulling the game out in the second half against Belmont, so it made it to the MVC finals. If it wins tomorrow, there is one less chance of a dance crasher.

If only the losing coach would go all Denethor on us.

OK, if we are only looking at the 3 who could have finished in 12th instead of the 4 who finished tied for 9-12, then I guess I would pick Vandy because it is by far the worst defensively.

Mississippi State