Andy

ND's either playing Duke in round 2, or they got bumped to a 6/11 game...

Good news for Illini: Only 3 BE teams announced so far. Only 7 can get in. That means Louisville was left out.

ND will be in Kentucky or Duke's pod. The other 2 2 seeds will be WVU and Nova, so ND can't be with them.

This is really bad for Illinois.

I could see you beating Kentucky. If you keep playing like a team and don't go back to the Luke Harangody chucking show. I could see it. I could also see Kentucky beating us by 40.

Our bracket did great there. Everyone within 1 line. Ohio is going to get absolutely destroyed by Georgetown. ND dodged Kansas and Ohio State. That just leaves Kentucky as teams I don't want to see anywhere near our pod.

Ridiculous. You're about the 7th best team in the country and end up with a 1 seed. On the bright side for me, that means ND might draw them as a potential round 2 opponent. (I have been obsessing over the round 2 matchups for 2 days.)

Duke shouldn't even be ahead of WVU, let alone Syracuse.

And West Virginia. Please please put us opposite them, committee.

He has problems, but he's started 12 games on a team that had almost literally no offensive talent and was yanked around like no 1st round signal-caller I've ever seen. There are some far worse QBs that have gotten far more time than he got. I can only hope he can beat out Kyle Orton in Denver.

I think Minnesota will be a lower seed than we have them for sure, but I think they'll still be in.

Jay Glazer reports Brady Quinn traded to Denver for two conditional picks and Peyton Hillis. Thanks for ruining him, Cleveland.

Hmm. Good catch - what's the verdict? Shall we change it? Obviously it'd be simple - could switch Houston with Montana or Ohio.

Lunardi's current projection is not a big difference from ours with a couple of exceptions (SDSU is a 9 in his bracket somehow, and Cal is a 7). He also has USU in and Florida out, reversing our picks. The Syracuse pod looks exactly like ours except that Lehigh is not in the play-in game. This is a pretty nice bracket IMO.

Oh good lord. EPIC fail for me - I just realized I have Marquette in Milwaukee, which isn't allowed. I'm going to switch them with Louisville. I also switched the seeds around to reflect that Louisville is already higher than they should be, so UNI gets bumped up to an 8 and Wake Forest down to a 9.

I think if the Browns did go QB in round 1 that defense would be their round 2 strategy.

Yeah, your draw is about as hard as it gets for a 6. I love what shook out with ND - I'd much rather play Kansas State than Ohio State (the only other 2 seed we can play). And I'm not enamored with Saint Mary's. And I promise I didn't rig up the draw to make it easy for ND. :) As I said above I actually had ND opposite Kentucky as an 8 seed until I ran into Big East matchup issues and had to switch some names around.

Lunardi probably got too much hate mail and reconsidered. So now everyone of note has Illinois in, including our selection committee.

I filled all the remaining teams in. Does this bracket fill all the rules? I had to play with seeding a bit - MSU had to switch to a 4 and G'Town to a 3 to fix some conference-rematch issues and Okie State dropped from a 7 to an 8 for the same reason. Just edited to fix a Marquette/Wisconsin rematch issue. Marquette drops to an 8 to fulfill rules and ND moves from an 8 back to a natural 7. -------------------------------------- Midwest Region - St. Louis, MO -------------------------------------- -- March 18/20 -- Oklahoma City, OK 1 Kansas 16 Winthrop 8 Marquette 9 Wake Forest -- March 19/21 -- Spokane, WA 4 Michigan State 13 Wofford 5 Tennessee 12 San Diego State -- March 19/21 -- Milwaukee, WI 2 Ohio State 15 UC Santa Barbara 7 Gonzaga 10 Georgia Tech -- March 18/20 -- Providence, RI 3 Georgetown 14 Montana 6 Texas A&M 11 California -------------------------------------- West Region - Salt Lake City, UT -------------------------------------- -- March 19/21 -- Milwaukee, WI 1 Kentucky 16 East Tennessee State 8 Northern Iowa 9 Louisville -- March 19/21 -- Jacksonville, FL 4 Temple 13 Oakland 5 Maryland 12 Cornell -- March 18/20 -- Providence, RI 2 Villanova 15 Morgan State 7 Xavier 10 Illinois -- March 18/20 -- San Jose, CA 3 New Mexico 14 Ohio 6 Texas 11 Florida -------------------------------------- South Region - Houston, TX -------------------------------------- -- March 19/21 -- Buffalo, NY 1 Syracuse 16 Lehigh/Ark-Pine Bluff 8 Florida State 9 Missouri -- March 18/20 -- San Jose, CA 4 Butler 13 Murray State 5 Purdue 12 New Mexico State -- March 18/20 -- Oklahoma City, OK 2 Kansas State 15 Vermont 7 Notre Dame 10 St. Mary's -- March 18/20 -- New Orleans, LA 3 Wisconsin 14 Houston 6 Clemson 11 Old Dominion -------------------------------------- East Region - Syracuse, NY -------------------------------------- -- March 19/21 -- Jacksonville, FL 1 Duke 16 Robert Morris 8 Oklahoma State 9 UNLV -- March 19/21 -- Spokane, WA 4 Pittsburgh 13 Siena 5 Vanderbilt 12 UTEP -- March 19/21 -- Buffalo, NY 2 West Virginia 15 North Texas 7 Richmond 10 Minnesota -- March 18/20 -- New Orleans, LA 3 Baylor 14 Sam Houston State 6 BYU 11 Washington

A big whew on behalf of Illini fans. I think Miss St is out.

Temple wins the A-10 autobid. Richmond was in anyway. I don't think the game moves either team on the curve.

Good God, more crap teams making it into the tournament. BTW, this is why I'm not nearly as scared of ND playing Kentucky as I am of Kansas (and mark my words we will play one of them in round 2).

I think Illinois and Minny deserve in over Va Tech. Va Tech has a strength of schedule of 132 thats the only reason they have the record they do. Give Illinois that type of schedule and they arent 19-14. Same goes for Minny. I agree, I think Illinois deserves to be in. But in my opinion, the committee will determine the B10 deserves 5 teams and fairly or not will have to choose between the Illini and Minnesota. Right now Minny has all factors in their favor. Which is ironic because the ACC only really deserves 5 teams and is somehow going to get 7 if they let VaTech in. I'm usually against Big 10 teams making the tourney whenever possible, but it's a pretty solid, deep league this year, and in my biased opinion the middle ACC teams just don't pass the eye test. I watched pieces of the GaTech/UNC tournament game and the Jackets looked just plain stupid out there at times.

After throwing NMSU in there, here is my full list of (now) 30 teams: At the moment, I have VaTech and Mississippi State as the first two teams out.

13 seed seem about right for them? I don't know, looking at their resume, I think they could be ahead of anyone else at the bottom of the S-Curve. They have a couple of good wins (@UTEP, Utah St 2x) and only a couple of bad losses. I've got them ahead of Wofford and right behind Siena, Murray State, and Cornell which would put them as the 2nd 13 seed. I put them a little higher, as the last 12. I have a couple of at-larges behind them.