Andy

Well, I knew Pitt would have problems in round 2...I just picked the wrong team to give them problems.

I'm pretty sure they've done it in past years also. So dumb. Since the 2nd-day sessions are always together, it's also the only way to give CBS an exclusive window for 2 games in a row, which they clearly wanted to do.

9:40 pm ET start time for ND/Florida State which could be later based on how the Purdue/VCU game goes. It'll be a late night Sunday evening.

If Korver takes that last shot, Collison sends it into the fifth row. Rose had a good look at it.

Would be way too much schadenfreude fun for me if Long Island did that. Not gonna happen.

I was more worried about A&M than Florida State. But if FSU's defense is really that good, they may give the Irish some problems on Sunday.

Because he's butt-hurt that Deron Williams isn't the best PG in the NBA I'm guessing. Or because of his SAT flap, since IG and most of the Illini fans are all about college hoops integrity, hence their hatred of all the rule-breakers, rumored and confirmed in NCAA coaching.

1) Lesley Visser is a train wreck. Plastic-surgery nightmare. The cameras were purposely staying on her as little as possible when her parts came up, too. 2) For all the talk of the Southeast, today the bracket went straight chalk except for Gonzaga over St. John's. 3) I've already lost four Sweet 16 teams and two Elite 8 teams. The lesson: being daring is stupid.

I'm not remotely exaggerating when I say that any of the top 12 seeds could end up in Houston from the Southeast and I wouldn't be surprised.

I'm all for the NFL changing to the college replay system, except that I don't want some shrouded-in-mystery "replay official" making the judgments. Keep it so the refs review video replays.

Very true, but if those quotes are remotely in context, there's no real defense of Kelly to offer.

Rumors about Mike Brey being interested in NC State. I'm hopeful - and expecting - that this is just Brey using leverage to get some better facilities (ND has ranked 14th in the Big East in hoops spending of late).

Upon review, we got 65 of the 68 teams in, seeded 30 of them correctly and got 52 within 1 seed line. Far from great, but considering how inane some of the choices were, I don't think that's that bad. It's a Paymon score of 317, which is the same as last year, although obviously the max points went up with 3 more teams added.

I had Gonzaga. I couldn't pick Michigan State to the Elite 8 fast enough out of the Southeast. It's the easiest region by a large margin.

In my first gut picks, I somehow ended up with two double-digit seeds in the Elite 8 (Missouri and MSU), Old Dominion and Gonzaga in the Sweet 16, only 2 Big East teams in the Elite 8 (Syracuse and ND - I fully expect that after last year when the Big East bit me by sucking, they will now bite me by doing well), and a Kansas over Duke final. I damn near picked A&M to beat ND in round 2 but I couldn't do it.

Notre Dame could have been a 1, but like I said, they missed their chance. I can't complain too much about the draw. A&M is a tough 2nd round game, but I'm not particularly scared of Purdue or G-Town. And to soccer regarding ND's placing in Kansas's bracket, that was probably for travel purposes. I'm sure ND was the top 2, but they weren't going to ship them cross-country just to accommodate that. I'm probably biased but I feel like the Southwest is the toughest bracket. Pitt's feels like it's easiest.

Go for it. Looks good to me.

Gonzaga and ND played this year so I'd recommend switching one of the other 10 seeds into their pod.

I agree that PSU should be in there over BC, also.

Michigan would only go to Chicago if they were a 10 in Notre Dame's 2 pod (or a 9 in their 1 pod). Obviously they can't go with Purdue or Wisco to a Chicago pod. I'd be surprised if the NCAA allowed that kind of home-court advantage for UM, but they've allowed weirder short-distance trips before.

I just tossed this together based on our S-curve, making some adjustments for the BYU rules, conference restrictions and travel allowance. I'm going to go ahead and note that I would switch BYU and SDSU's seedings and that there's about no way the committee doesn't get carried away with Kembamania and move UConn up to a 3 seed if at all possible, but I'll defer to the group on both if there's disagreement there. East Regional Cleveland, OH 1 Ohio State vs 16 Alabama State/Hampton 8 vs 9 Tampa, FL 4 Louisville vs 13 Princeton 5 vs 12 Washington, DC 6 vs 11 3 Syracuse vs 14 Wofford Tulsa, OK 7 vs 10 2 Texas vs 15 St. Peter's Southwest Regional Tulsa, OK 1 Kansas vs 16 UNC-Asheville 8 vs 9 Denver, CO 4 Connecticut vs 13 Indiana State 5 vs 12 Tucson, AZ 6 vs 11 3 San Diego State vs 14 UC-Santa Barbara Chicago, IL 7 vs 10 2 Notre Dame vs 15 Long Island Southeast Regional Cleveland, OH 1 Pittsburgh vs 16 UT-San Antonio/Arkansas-Little Rock 8 vs 9 Tampa, FL 4 Florida vs 13 Oakland 5 vs 12 Charlotte, NC 6 vs 11 3 North Carolina vs 14 Morehead State Chicago, IL 7 vs 10 2 Purdue vs 15 Northern Colorado West Regional Charlotte, NC 1 Duke vs 16 Boston University 8 vs 9 Tucson, AZ 4 Kentucky vs 13 Memphis 5 vs 12 Washington, DC 6 vs 11 3 Wisconsin vs 14 Akron Denver, CO 7 vs 10 2 BYU vs 15 Bucknell I feel fairly certain that the play-in format has a 16-seed play-in and an at-large play-in on each night, necessitating a move for one of the 16 games, since both OSU and Kansas have been podded into Friday locations.

I really want him to be right about ND being ahead of Pitt and they probably deserve to be (even though they finished a game out, their Big East schedule was much more difficult than Pitt's, they beat them, and they had the extra pantsing of Cincy in the BET on the resume), but when it's a relative no-name school against two brand-name schools like Pitt and Duke, the predictable usually happens. I have no right to complain though, because the Irish had their chance to lock up a 1 seed Friday night and gagged it.

If we start from the bottom up and the top down with the S-Curve, here are the 1-16 matchups: East Regional Cleveland OH 1 Ohio State vs 16 Alcorn State*/Hampton Southwest Regional Tulsa, OK 1 Kansas vs 16 McNeese St*/Arkansas-Little Rock Southeast Regional Washington, DC 1 Pittsburgh vs 16 UNC-Asheville West Regional Charlotte, NC 1 Duke vs 16 Boston University I switched around BU and UNC-Asheville so as not to nullify Duke's pod advantage with UNC-Asheville.

Are we sure Purdue should remain a 2 seed? Lunardi has them down to a 4 and I think most of the other bracketologists have joined him.

My list of the 22 at-larges: