OT(ish) - It's March

1. I think that Notre Dame is a Sweet 16 team, probably not quite as good as the record and rankings suggest. If you look at ND’s Pomeroy numbers, the Irish are three point reliant, but not absurdly so, and they do a lot of things well on offense, including taking care of the ball. They also have decent size for a perimeter-oriented team. As with any Brey-coached team, defense and road play are the big question marks. ND’s D is better than usual, and they did win at Pitt, but have had some rough performances away from South Bend. Still, what they did to Villanova last night was impressive. But to answer your question, everyone is a first round upset waiting to happen, especially this year.

2. Texas. I have no idea. I haven’t really watched them. Texas almost always seems to fall back to the pack. Speaking of the Big 12, it looks like Doc Sadler will be bringing more than his awesome name to the conference when Nebraska joins up next year. The Huskers have an outside chance at making the NCAA and have only one senior who plays meaningful minutes.

3. Purdue, OSU, and Wisconsin are in. Illinois is in absent an implosion that I hope IU can supply. I still think MSU will make it. Michigan might. Minnesota, now 6-10, is toast. I try to avoid getting hung up on what number a conference deserves. Sometimes a conference is strong top to bottom but has only 3 or 4 teams with an NCAA resume. Sometimes there are 7 really good teams and 5 that are garbage.

4. I’m not paying much attention, other than watching highlights on the news. It’s a shame, and the bigger shame is that class basketball means that the 4A schools get the bulk of the attention. I do hope that Etherington does well, which will be more difficult without his brother. With all of IU’s commits and targets, there are a lot of teams to follow.

5. Shows that I don’t even follow 4A that closely that I didn’t know that Kokomo was having a good year. As a graduate of a small school in the shadow of the North Central Conference, I have a love/hate relationship with those schools, but it is sad to see the overall decline of most of those towns and their basketball programs. And, of course, class basketball means that most of those great gyms sit empty during the state tournament. The Wigwam and the Tiernan Center (Richmond) are vacant this week. The Muncie Fieldhouse hosts a 3A sectional hosted by Southside. Also empty this week are Washington and Southport, although those gyms host later tournament action.

I trust Travis will be wearing his Jimmy Rayl jersey at Conseco if the Wildkats make it that far.

Oh, and another thing. I’m glad that the NCAA stood at the precipice and backed away from the 96 team tournament, avoiding the odd decision to turn the best two days in all of sport into something resembling the NIT. Still, the people who brought us FBS and FCS still couldn’t quite avoid some douchebaggery. Now that there are four “play-in” games, they have decided that the round of 64 is the “second round” and the round of 32 is the “third round.” This is just goddamn brainless. For 60 of the 68 teams in the field, the round of 64 is the first round. for the last 26 years, the round of 64 has been the first round. But now, it’s all out of whack. I guess I’ll have to refer to them as the “round of 64” and “round of 32.” I know that the NCAA doesn’t like the “play in” terminology. Fine. Call it the “preliminary round” and leave the rest of the jargon alone. These people are neither leaders nor legends.