Monday, January 22, 2007

Seven Weeks Remaining

We are less than seven weeks from Selection Sunday. The conference slate is quickly approaching the midway point and races are beginning to take form. Bracket Board Bias has been severely cut back in this bracket. It is always tough at the bottom, but I am a sucker for Top 50 wins, so teams with bulky win resumes won out over some other hopefuls even if they had some bad losses early on.

So, in this week's bracket, I like Syracuse, Boston College, Creighton, and Vanderbilt as my last four IN. They edged out LSU, Drexel, Bradley, Georgia, California, Illinois, Purdue, and West Virginia among some other more fringe-y teams.

Not including LSU will undoubtedly send some folks into a tizzy, but while they did beat Texas A&M, they also are 3-5 against the Top 100 RPI and they were demolished by 20 at Arkansas this weekend. Plus, those losses to Wichita State and Washington do not look so "quality" now. They just have not done enough.

Vandy is in because they have beaten Tennessee, Alabama, and Kentucky in the last 10 days. Keep an eye on the 'Dores. The SEC East is packed with NCAA hopefuls.

BracketBusters standings are on tap for tomorrow with a Bubble Boy Breakdown and Lockbox update coming Wed.

Oh, and let me take a moment to trumpet my 3-0 Upset Picks last week. New Mexico State did indeed take care of Nevada on Saturday. I'm sure I'll lose my mojo at some point.

Multi-Bid Conference Breakdown
ACC (8): North Carolina, Clemson, Duke, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, Maryland, Florida State, Boston College
Big East (6): Pitt, Notre Dame, Marquette, Georgetown, Villanova, Syracuse
Pac-10 (6): UCLA, Arizona, Oregon, Washington State, Southern Cal, Stanford
SEC (6): Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Arkansas, Vanderbilt
Big XII (5): Kansas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas Tech
Big Ten (5): Wisconsin, Ohio State, Indiana, Michigan State, Michigan
Missouri Valley (4): Southern Illinois, Missouri State, Northern Iowa, Creighton
Mountain West (2): Air Force, UNLV

Tonight's GOI
--UConn at Louisville. Both of these teams look like NIT teams right now. A win here could kickstart their NCAA hopes a bit.
--Oklahoma at Oklahoma State. In-state rivalry alert! Bedlam: hardwood style.