Lunardi just likes to hear himself talk this time of the year. His last Bracketology posted on Espn.com has the last four in as Purdue, Illinois, Drexel, and Old Dominion. The last four out are Air Force, Florida State, Kansas State and West Virginia and next four out are Missouri State, Stanford, Appalacian State and Mississippi State. What in the world could Kansas State and Stanford have done for themselves since this morning that moved them up to the last four in? Either he was full of you know what this morning or is now. He just moves teams around so his reports seem interesting. Not that it really matters, Illinois has one and done written all over them this year. But they are more deserving than Kansas State and Stanford. Yep, well said on everything. Kansas State and Stanford have no right in being ahead of Illinois for a spot tomorrow. Lunardi is becoming an egotistical, arrogant meathead these last couple of years. And I'll agree that Illinois has one and done all over them. BUT, that does not mean they should be snubbed over a couple of other undeserving teams. I don't know about Kansas State but Stanford most definitely deserves to be in over Illinois without question. Yeah, Stanford's RPI of 65 and Strength of Schedule of 36 is WAY better than Illinois RPI of 31 and Strength of Schedule of 31. I am sure an argument could be made either way, but "most definitely" and "without question" is a bit overstated. 10-8 in the Pac 10 is better than 9-7 in the Big 10. In conference, Stanford beat UCLA, USC, WSU, Oregon. Illinois' best win is Indiana twice. Stanford played more games against the Top 100 in the RPI and went 9-12, while Illinois went 7-10 though the extra games and wins were against teams between 51-100 in the RPI (both went 4-8 against Top 50). Stanford played in a better conference and beat better teams and before you play the record game, I'm sure Illinois record would have been a bit different had they played Wisconsin and OSU twice in the regular season rather than just once. And Illinois got both those two teams at home. I'm sure Stanford would have preferred to not have to travel to play UCLA and WSU also. Technically, the at home thing was a problem for Illinois. The rule in the Big 10 this year was-the 3-8 teams could only beat the 9-11 teams on the road, and only Ohio State and Wisconsin could beat everybody on the road. If Illinois had only played Ohio State and Wisconsin on the road instead of at home, that meant they would have played Purdue at home instead of on the road (the other game would have been Penn State, who they would have won on the road or at home). They likely would have beat Purdue at home, and so if they had played Ohio State and Wisconsin only on the road instead of only at home their conference record would be 10-6 instead of 9-7. They did get a break that they only played OSU and Wisconsin both only once in the first place though-the home thing was just not an advantage for them. That was what I was trying to get at. I was implying that had they played Wisconsin and OSU twice in place of another team, they likely would have had at least one more loss, if not two.