Derwood

which is what almost happened to the Illini against Arizona a couple years ago.

if Illinois loses to Penn State today they should just fold their program and give the scholarship money to women's lacrosse

glad I clicked the link, as I initially thought you were talking about Pete Vukovich from the 1982 Brewers team (my all time favorite team ever)

he's no Brad Eldred (4 HR in 12 PA's for Pittsburgh)

Lunardi and others have basically called that game an elimination game. They even go so far as to say that Clemson has to win that game AND the UNC game in the quarter finals

if only he'd just talk on his blog and not in the media

Never seen a run like that before... guess you weren't watching the 2nd half of the Bulls/Heat game last night...

wade and kapono-less

gonna be weird to have an NCAA tourney without UConn in it.

i know absolutely nothing about any of them

have fun in the NIT depaul :x

But it also stops the clock and gets Nova in foul trouble. At least you gotta make those layups that Mejia missed. ETA: They are 12/15 at the line today, not bad. yeah, shooting about 15% above their season average. How can DePaul play great defense for 31 seconds and then allow a guy to walk in for a layup? so annoying. btw, depaul has never lead in this game.

depaul sucks at free throw shooting, so maybe not getting fouls called is for the best

Yup....depending on the day they can beat anyone or they can beat no one. I can't believe the same team that has beaten Kansas has lost to Northwestern. yet they're sticking around in this one

depaul is just so damned inconsistent

jesus DePaul, what did you do at halftime, play Wii? Let's start, oh, trying

What defines a good conference tourney? Interesting matchups? Great Games? Bubble madness? Elimination games (loser misses the NCAA?)? There's so much that goes into a conference tournament that it's hard to say what is the best without the criteria to judge it by. low/middle seeds that have a chance to win. No clear cut favorite. Teams jockeying for NCAA tourney seeding (if not getting in period). Etc. Ah, well I'm biased, but I like the Big 10 tourney this year if that's the case. Any of the top 7 teams could win and I wouldn't be surprised (and possibly 8 if Michigan gets hot). The quarterfinals could have Mich vs Ohio State, who just played a thriller last Saturday and could do so again, Iowa-Purdue, which is a great even matchup that Iowa needs to win the tournament and Purdue needs to secure their spot, Wisconsin-Mich State, who have played two thrillers in the past 3 weeks, and IU-Illinois, which has this sudden even better rivalry going and Illinois probably needs it to get into the tournament. Because of how the bracket is going to have matchups, the Big 10 tournament is going to be unbelievable, and I don't think the top seeds have that much of an advantage over everyone else. Lowest seed in Big 10 = Penn State Lowest seed in Big East = UConn It's not the fault of the Big 10's tourney that the Big East tourney doesn't let everyone participate-that takes away part of the allure when everyone is not there. If you want to do a fair comparison, you should lop off 25% of the Big 10 tourney field as well (3 participants), and say that the comparison is Lowest seed in Big 10-Michigan Lowest seed in Big East-UConn my point is that the Big East has 12 teams with winning records participating in their tourney. Even if you prorated the Big 10 that wouldn't be true In conference or total records? total. nice to see DePaul rachet it up here. Down 1 with 3:30 to go in the half

What defines a good conference tourney? Interesting matchups? Great Games? Bubble madness? Elimination games (loser misses the NCAA?)? There's so much that goes into a conference tournament that it's hard to say what is the best without the criteria to judge it by. low/middle seeds that have a chance to win. No clear cut favorite. Teams jockeying for NCAA tourney seeding (if not getting in period). Etc. Ah, well I'm biased, but I like the Big 10 tourney this year if that's the case. Any of the top 7 teams could win and I wouldn't be surprised (and possibly 8 if Michigan gets hot). The quarterfinals could have Mich vs Ohio State, who just played a thriller last Saturday and could do so again, Iowa-Purdue, which is a great even matchup that Iowa needs to win the tournament and Purdue needs to secure their spot, Wisconsin-Mich State, who have played two thrillers in the past 3 weeks, and IU-Illinois, which has this sudden even better rivalry going and Illinois probably needs it to get into the tournament. Because of how the bracket is going to have matchups, the Big 10 tournament is going to be unbelievable, and I don't think the top seeds have that much of an advantage over everyone else. Lowest seed in Big 10 = Penn State Lowest seed in Big East = UConn It's not the fault of the Big 10's tourney that the Big East tourney doesn't let everyone participate-that takes away part of the allure when everyone is not there. If you want to do a fair comparison, you should lop off 25% of the Big 10 tourney field as well (3 participants), and say that the comparison is Lowest seed in Big 10-Michigan Lowest seed in Big East-UConn my point is that the Big East has 12 teams with winning records participating in their tourney. Even if you prorated the Big 10 that wouldn't be true

happy to hear Jay Bilas is on the Big East Tourney broadcast team. I really like him. Too bad sloppy, undisciplined DePaul has returned today

What defines a good conference tourney? Interesting matchups? Great Games? Bubble madness? Elimination games (loser misses the NCAA?)? There's so much that goes into a conference tournament that it's hard to say what is the best without the criteria to judge it by. low/middle seeds that have a chance to win. No clear cut favorite. Teams jockeying for NCAA tourney seeding (if not getting in period). Etc. Ah, well I'm biased, but I like the Big 10 tourney this year if that's the case. Any of the top 7 teams could win and I wouldn't be surprised (and possibly 8 if Michigan gets hot). The quarterfinals could have Mich vs Ohio State, who just played a thriller last Saturday and could do so again, Iowa-Purdue, which is a great even matchup that Iowa needs to win the tournament and Purdue needs to secure their spot, Wisconsin-Mich State, who have played two thrillers in the past 3 weeks, and IU-Illinois, which has this sudden even better rivalry going and Illinois probably needs it to get into the tournament. Because of how the bracket is going to have matchups, the Big 10 tournament is going to be unbelievable, and I don't think the top seeds have that much of an advantage over everyone else. Lowest seed in Big 10 = Penn State Lowest seed in Big East = UConn

What defines a good conference tourney? Interesting matchups? Great Games? Bubble madness? Elimination games (loser misses the NCAA?)? There's so much that goes into a conference tournament that it's hard to say what is the best without the criteria to judge it by. low/middle seeds that have a chance to win. No clear cut favorite. Teams jockeying for NCAA tourney seeding (if not getting in period). Etc.

54 minutes until the DePaul/Villanova game..... Might the Big East tourney be the best in the country this year? I say yes

We win two games and it doesn't matter. We win only 1 and we sweat. We don't win any and we better decline the NIT bid. Lunardi didn't have as a bubble big ten team on Sportscenter the other day. He had us as an in. Time will tell. decline the NIT bid? what's the point of that? This season has been a nightmare, Weber needs the head start to recruit the '08 guys. I would just as well get it over with. Plus the NIT should be unacceptable for our program considering where we were the past 5-10 years. acceptable or not, I think it's crap to deny your kids (especially the seniors) more opportunities to play, especially if you get a home game or two.

We win two games and it doesn't matter. We win only 1 and we sweat. We don't win any and we better decline the NIT bid. Lunardi didn't have as a bubble big ten team on Sportscenter the other day. He had us as an in. Time will tell. decline the NIT bid? what's the point of that?

pretty much every baseball columnist I've read has little to no hope that Prior will give the Cubs anything this year.