bierce

Nothing bigger than Texas @ Arkansas today as far as the bubble goes. Winner stays in, loser likely drops out but could climb back in with a win in its next game. Vandy @ A&M Penn St @ Indiana OU hosts Kentucky WF hosts Virginia Boise State hosts Utah State tOSU @ USC, after which tOSU has a home game against Nebraska and a road game against Indiana, so two chances to get a win and knock down or out the competition there SMU @ Cal. I only put SMU here because 10 of the 106 brackets updated since SMU's home loss to Clemson still include SMU for some absolutely unfathomable reason.

WVU won by a bunch. Rather than try to climb back into contention for a bid, TCU laid two eggs on the road. Was always a long shot, anyway. WVU looks to be in very good position now with so many bubble teams dropping games over the last 9 days. New Mexico played an extremely sloppy first half and had problems with transition defense after committing turnovers. I was particularly amused by the guy who gave us a steal on a lazy pass between midcourt and the arc, chased the Aztec on the breakaway, and tried to depants him while he was going up for a dunk. SDSU 73-UNM 65. UNM had a chance to wrap up the conference title on this road trip to Boise State and San Diego State, but now it needs to win @ Nevada to avoid worrying about falling behind Utah State. It swept Utah State, so it has the tiebreaker there.

McCaffery's team just took another nuking. Iowa may try to get him first.

Florida made all 3 ft, Georgia got it in, was fouled, made a pair, and Florida missed a bunny. Georgia by 5 and now has three great q1 wins--St. John's (neutral) and Kentucky and Florida at home. Will be coming to Austin looking to move back into the field and probably needs to win 2 of its next 3 to clinch a bid. Newell will be really hard for our bigs to handle. I still say we missed more by losing out on him than Toppin, but I suppose it was always likely he was going to stay home.

Wow. Georgia fouled a three point shooter letting it fly from 30 feet!

Newell owned the paint in the final minute to carry Georgia to a 86-80 lead with 10 seconds left. Georgia blew a 25 point lead in the first half and let Florida briefly take the lead with about a minute to go. Cincy beat Baylor 69-67. Pitt trails Ga Tech by 4 with 18 seconds to go. Will be final nail for Pitt.

Three P4 hires there because Bama poached from UDub who poached from Arizona. But I don't think we'll be poaching from an SEC or Big Ten program with huge money to turn around and poach a P5 coach, and with the greater number of basketball programs, there is always a bigger pool of rising coaches.

Jordan was making a joke about someone's earlier post calling Mississippi an average team after we lost a one possession game in Oxford.

Silliness to think we would cause some avalanche of movement in P5 schools by firing Terry. We would affect at most one other P5 school. Even if we steal a Miller or Otzelberger from Xavier or ISU, it isn't like they would poach from a third P5 school. They'd probably have the smarts to hire Wade, McCollum, Pitino, Murray, or some other up and comer and wind up doing very well for themselves.

We already have openings at Florida State, Indiana, Utah, and Miami. Ron Sanchez's brief flirtation with support after winning a couple of games against tournament outsiders has already evaporated. The only thing protecting Mike Young at Va Tech is athletic department finances. Syracuse may give the lie to the notion that a coach has to get three full seasons. Tang's on thin ice, missing tourney for the second straight year. Neptune is the same way, only about to miss his third--at Nova. Hurley has students screaming for him to be fired every ASU home game. Is Porter Moser safe, and if he is, then is he sick of not getting good NIL support and willing to listen to another school? The idea that the busy-ness of a spring coaching carousel should be determined by whether Terry is let go or not is ridiculous.

Lunardi has been higher on Texas than most bracketiwanians for much of the year.

Davis has a second place finish and a sweet sixteen appearance in three full seasons and could climb back into the tournament this year with a good showing in the ACC tournament (or a win at home over Duke, but that seems unlikely). There is only one senior to go with two freshmen, two sophomores, and three juniors in the top 7 guys in minutes played for UNC this year, and if Wilson stays with his commitment, then UNC would have a very strong incoming class. That could be a very good team next year.

Arkansas and OU are included on more brackets that updated after the weekend games, so it is more like we are the third to last right now. We seem to be a little ahead of the triumvirate of tOSU, WF, and Indiana, but don't sleep on Xavier. Xteam didn't do itself any favors by slumbering through the second half and barely beating an awful Seton Hall team, but it could win out and finish with 21 wins, including 11 wins over top 100 teams. It is just 1-9 in q1 games, but 3 of those were road games decided in OT or one possession against top 40 teams, and Freemantle missed 2 of those games. I remember Gerry saying weeks ago that 7-11 would probably get us there. I remember saying at the time we needed 8-10 without a bad loss in the conference tournament, so I think I'm in agreement with you, Bob. Our OOC SOS militates very much against us. The only thing that really militates for us at this point is the quality of our three good wins (Kentucky, Missouri, and A&M).

I don't know if the articles' writers really know anything about the Utah opening, but I find it interesting that many of them seem to think one of several NBA assistant coaches would be the way to go.

Golden will get another raise from Florida after this season, and he won't leave a school that completely had his back when a Title IX investigation hit.

He already makes $8M a year in the NBA. I mean, wtf?

I'd like to raise a practical question here. If you don't beat a dead horse, then how do you tenderize the meat?

Did Tech really only play 6 players?

We've been run out of the gym most times we played against a top 35 team outside of Austin, and twice here. Mississippi is about the only exception.

Tuesday's bubble action Georgia hosts Florida. Still not too late for a team that beat St. John's to get in with a 7-11 conference record, but Georgia has to start winning now. Four game losing streak has dropped it out of even most First Four in mentions. Cincy hosts Baylor. I think Cincy is done, but a win here followed by a win @ Houston (chuckle, snort) could resurrect it. Pitt hosts Ga Tech. Win won't help it. Only a win @ Louisville this weekend and a good conference tournament showing can. WVU hosts TCU. WVU still hanging on for dear life, but trending wrong and on a 3-7 run. Can still get in if it avoids bad losses. This would be only a q2, since TCU has climbed into the top 75. UNM @ SDSU. My must watch game of the night. While I doubt we will hire Richard Pitino, I'm convinced he would be better than a lot of more expensive options, and one P5 school or another will hire him this spring. I don't see him staying at UNM another year since the MWC is splitting apart, and the bigger draw schools are leaving to join Oregon State and Washington State in a reconfigured Pac 12. I don't think Pitino will stick around to coach in a severely diminished conference.

Down 45-44 under 30 to go, NU had to start fouling. Michigan made the first two. NU was fouled in return and made two. Then Michigan missed a front end, NU got it up court in a hurry but took and missed a rushed three when it had time to work for a better shot. Michigan cleared the long rebound, was fouled with 2.6 seconds left and made both ft. Nebraska inbounded with a 65 foot pass to Buyunktcel, who took a dribble, let fly from the arc, and missed. Nebraska loses 49-46. Still in the field, but still on the bubble. A win would have been its 6th q1 win, which would have virtually guaranteed a spot.

UNC 96-85. UNC still has only one q1 win, but every q2 helps it. I thought Nebraska was done after getting called for an intentional foul while down 4 with 3:30, but it turned out to be a brilliant foul. Michigan missed both ft and stepped out of bounds after catching the inbound pass. But Nebraska has bricked a pair of threes in its subsequent possessions. Still 45-41 with 1:55 left, Michigan ball.

And still able to give a DC an earful.

Welcome, Mr. Shoe. Still eating paste, I see. We've discussed Ivey a bit. Just have no idea if he's being considered by the administration. One thing I would note as a word of caution--he did play while Terry was an assistant here for two years. He might not like the idea of replacing him after a relatively quick hook. But I don't know anything about their relationship then and now.

With Texas Longhorns athletics and message boards? Say it isn't so.