SouthSideRyan

What's the process (besides the obvious of selecting the teams)? It sounds interesting. Sorry, missed this earlier. We do it over 3 or 4 days from Thursday-Sunday. We start with everyone submitting every team they think has an argument to be an at large team. I don't believe there's a limit on # of teams you can submit, but obviously you keep it within reason as it's unlikely anyone truly feels 70 teams have at large arguments. After all those are submitted all teams that reach a certain %, (I know in the past we had it at 7 out of 9 ballots, but it depends on the # of people participating) are put in as locks. From there, all teams that received at least one vote, but less than the percentage are put into the bubble pool. You can make your case for any team you wish in the thread, and then by Friday night you rank all the bubble teams from 1 on down. After that a composite ranking figures out who the at large teams are at that point. If the chalk holds up in the final conference tourneys, teams that were just out would then be moved in as necessary. Finally once all the at larges are taken care of, there is a final 1-65 ranking of all the teams we've put in the tourney, the rankings are combined, and we come up with our own field of 65. In the 2 years we've done it we haven't had to deal with any Sunday spoilers putting a non at large into the tourney, so hopefully that holds out(on a personal level too) otherwise things can get confusing. It sounds kind of daunting now that I re-read that, but really to participate doesn't take that much effort, and is fairly easy to zoom through if you've followed the season all year, which seems like you have. The tough stuff falls on the person who runs it compiling all the numbers which is why I'm shamelessly begging Bukie to run it again.

And speaking of locking up NIT bids, OK St. loses at Nebraska.

For those who care about the NIT, E Tennessee St., Austin Peay, South Alabama, and Marist have all grabbed NIT bids for winning the regular season conference title but failing to win the tourney.

I'll mention it here just to drum up some interest, but it's about that time to start thinking about the mock selection committee we've done the last couple years. Hopefully bukie will run it again, cause I'm incompetent.

VCU is carried on the back of guard Eric Maynor to the victory. The conference tourneys have been good to the bubble teams thus far.(Appalachian St. losing to a non-Davidson team, VCU winning, Winthrop winning, Creighton winning. Bubbles I guess root for Gonzaga, but I just don't think they deserve to be an at large.

And he follows with an absurd leaner in the key.

Player from VCU just stole the ball twice, hit 2 layups and a free throw in like 8 seconds to tie it back up when Mason looked like they were gonna wrap it up. Go VCU

Well, it'd be fun to get in the tourney off of a 2nd win against IU, but man did I want that Iowa game. I also don't like having to beat PSU for a 3rd time. Not that I think they'd necessarily deserve it(I go back and forth), but has a Big 6 team ever been left out with 22 wins?

Zambrano's deal would likely be heavily backloaded. And that seems like an overestimation on Prior's contract in '08.

I traded Johnson for Chad Cordero at the end of last season, so yeah.

SD St. has no chance at an at large after the way they gagged against Utah. Air Force should be in trouble, but after the way they were inexplicably let in last year, I don't see a way they'd be left out this year with a much better resume. UNLV and BYU both look to be locks as well though I think BYU deserves some real scrutiny as to whether they're at large worthy.

I wouldn't try and argue that the Big 10 is having a great year, but it seems to odd to argue it's down. I'd say the same thing about the Big XII. The Big East I would argue is down with no real upper echelon team and not great depth when you consider it's a 16 team league. The SEC is down with 2 legit teams, and 2 that are barely removed from the bubble. Pac 10 and ACC are having great years. Re: The Valley, I'd argue it's about as good as last year, the problem is the 2nd tier teams fell off and the bottom teams got much better. The bottom 4 of the Valley has 15 top 100 wins this season compared to 8 of last year. Last year you had the top 6 Valley teams at RPI 39 or better and then you had the bottom 4 at 163 and under. The problem they're facing is all perception, that when a potential at large team is losing to an 8th place finisher it looks really bad, but really the difference between 8th and 5th this year isn't that great. It's a consistently decent conference and leads to no gimmes on the conference schedule. And now i've gone and searched those top 6 teams and my quick math shows 48 top 100 wins last year and 46 top 100 wins which is just about guaranteed to go up with the conference tourney, so maybe I'm just full of it. I just don't think the talent level is the same this year specifically from the 3-6 spots. I think SIU is better than any team from last year, but I just don't know if that's enough to consider them better.

Whoever the generic guy with Hubert Davis on College Gamenight just said the Big 10 by all accounts is having a down year. When was the last year that the Big 10 wasn't "down by all accounts"?? You have 2 teams in the running for #1 seeds(1 probably locked up), and looking like 5-6 teams overall in the tourney and it's considered down?

Yeah, Wilmont bailed them out big time. They would have to really screw up to lose the #3 seed in the Big 10 Tourney though. Finish up at home against PSU on Saturday. There's no way IU loses to PSU at home, it's locked up. After that there's a reasonable chance of 4 different teams (Illinois, MSU, Iowa, UM) finishing in 4th. It's also possible(though very unlikely involving an IU loss to PSU, MSU over Wisky, and UM over OSU) for there to be a 6 way tie for 3rd through 8th place with every team at 9-7. The Big 10 Tourney is gonna be huge for at large bids. The way I see it shaking out. OSU: 15-1 Wisky: 13-3 IU: 10-6 UI: 10-6 Purdue: 9-7 MSU: 8-8 Michigan: 8-8 Iowa: 8-8 Minnesota: 3-13 Penn St. 2-12 Northwestern: 2-12

IU woulda been in some tourney trouble with a loss there. Pity Northwestern plays like it looks, and disgraceful that the game sounded like an IU home game half the time. Thanks for the loss Iowa, I wanted to play a pissed off Haluska where a win means little because it's against a team that lost to PSU.

I'm with Banedon, 2 1/2 men is just an awful show, I don't understand the love for it. And Gilmore Girls(Tuesday) is one of 3 shows I make sure to watch(Office, Scrubs) so let's add that for the other people comfortable enough to admit they love it.

I saw some of the sample questions of the Wonderlic on foxsports.com. You would seriously have to be a complete idiot to not get at least a 90% on the Wonderlic. That idiot Mike North read some on his show last year when the Vince Young wonderlic rumors were swirling. North knew none of them because he has an IQ of 45.

Syracuse did a lot for their bubble chances with that win.

development be damned. if oden is a top 3 pick, he'd be insane not to go pro. Just because he could be a top 3 pick doesn't mean he's ready to play in the NBA. They are two completely different things. You are forgetting one big factor: $$$ You obviously didn't read or didn't understand what I wrote. Just because he is projected to go high in the draft and could make a ton of money doesn't mean he is ready to play in the NBA. In baskeball, all you hear about in regards to the draft is "potential" and "upside". You don't hear that anywere close to as much in football (since somebody brought up Matt Leinart). You rarely hear about teams drafting "projects" in the NFL but you hear that many times every single draft in the NBA. I don't think Oden is ready offensively for the NBA. Defensively, he's an animal. I really think staying at OSU for another year will benefit him in the long run. He's going to get good coaching regardless of whether he stays or goes pro. I really don't understand your point. If he's going to get the good coaching regardless of where he is, then why not get paid millions to get the good coaching, rather than only hundreds of thousands.(Yeah it was easy and lame, but somebody was going to follow up with it anyways)

Belmont's actually a legit possibility :)

I am holding out hope that Gordon finds a way around the age rule. Is he Dominican by chance?

I really hope Oden goes pro, and it wouldn't be so bad if Conley joined him.

He just can't fathom that a non-tournament bound team could ever beat his alma mater at Cameron Indoor Stadium. You all need to leave Jay Bilas alone. He said this morning that "Iowa makes a much better case than most people realize" and we have to win out and win a game in the Big Ten Tournament. For that he gets a reprieve from me. Seriously though he's good. He's the Kirk Herbstreit of college basketball. Instead of favoring the Big Ten in football, he favors the ACC in basketball. But like Kirk, he's fair and gives credit when deserved. Agreed, Bilas rocks. I find him quite fair, and he was great on color commentary of the greatest comeback in college basketball history.

Didn't Lofton hate Sosa in Chicago?

Hooray for schadenfreude!! And did I tell you the SEC West sucked or did I tell you the SEC West sucked? Losing at home to Auburn??? Losing to South Carolina? The 2 West teams that won today are the 2 that had no at large chance. Alabama, the only real chance for the West to get an at large will go under consideration with no better than 5-5 in their last 10. The SEC deserves no more than 4 teams. Michigan pulling off the upset over MSU would be a very nice hidden #s boost for Illinois, as that would have to push UM into the top 50, and give UI nothing but top 50 losses along with just 6 other teams.(OSU, Pitt, Wisky, Arizona, Georgetown, and Winthrop) Have I become too obsessed with this stuff?