CanadianChris

I agree with this here.. Gonzaga CanadianChris?? I haven't seen them play this year so that seems to be from way out in left field to me. Hey, why am I being singled out? I was the third one in this thread to pick them!! Seriously, though, they're in an absolutely perfect bracket for them. Washington is the weakest #1 to come around in a long time (I actually have them going out to Pacific in the second round), Wake Forest can't defend well enough to stop them, and Louisville, while good, has inferior talent.

Illinois over Gonzaga Syracuse over UConn Illinois over Syracuse 70-66

If I wasn't such a rabid Orange fan, I'd seriously consider it.

Syracuse vs. Duke will be a hell of a matchup in the Sweet 16...if Syracuse can get past Vermont. SHIT, how the hell did we draw Vermont??

Austin region: (1) Duke vs. (16) Delaware St. (8) Stanford vs. (9) Mississippi St. (5) Michigan St. vs. (12) Old Dominion (4) Syracuse vs. (13) Vermont (3) Oklahoma vs. (14) Niagara (6) Utah vs. (11) UTEP (7) Cincinnati vs. (10) Iowa (2) Kentucky vs. (15) E. Kentucky Syracuse a 4? And have to play Vermont? SHIT.

No, there were probably 2 or 3 teams out ahead of them.

Conference championship games on tap today: Big South: (1) Winthrop vs. (7) Charleston Southern, noon ET Atlantic Sun: (1) Gardner-Webb vs. (2) Central Florida, 2:00 ET Ohio Valley: (2) Eastern Kentucky vs. (5) Austin Peay, 4:00 ET Southern: UNC Greensboro vs. Chattanooga, 8:00 (Davidson, who went 16-0 in conference, lost in the semis of this tournament) Four teams will join Penn in the tournament today.

Syracuse region: (1) North Carolina vs. (16) Oakland/Alabama A&M (8) Minnesota vs. (9) Iowa State (5) Villanova vs. (12) New Mexico (4) Florida vs. (13) Ohio (3) Kansas vs. (14) Bucknell (6) Wisconsin vs. (11) Northern Iowa (7) Charlotte vs. (10) NC State (2) UConn vs. (15) Central Florida UConn was seeded WAY too high. Kansas needs to watch out for Bucknell. And Northern Iowa getting a bid shocked me.

Albuquerque region: (1) Washington vs. (16) Montana (8) Pacific vs. (9) Pitt (5) Georgia Tech vs. (12) George Washington (4) Louisville vs. (13) Louisiana-Lafayette (3) Gonzaga vs. (14) Winthrop (6) Texas Tech vs. (11) UCLA (7) West Virginia vs. (10) Creighton (2) Wake Forest vs. (15) Chattanooga 5 seed for GA Tech? WOW. 4 seed for Louisville? You've got to be kidding.

That's just what I thought after taking a look at it. Oklahoma State could give them a tough game, but the rest of that region is pretty soft.

Chicago region: (1) Illinois vs. (16) Fairleigh Dickinson (8) Texas vs. (9) Nevada (5) Alabama vs. (12) UW-Milwaukee (4) BC vs. (13) Penn (3) Arizona vs. (14) Utah St. (6) LSU vs. (11) UAB (7) Southern Illinois vs. (10) St. Mary's (2) Oklahoma St. vs (15) SE Louisiana

WOW, I called it...WASHINGTON gets a #1 seed. Illinois, UNC and Duke are the others.

Illinois claimed the final automatic bid, beating Wisconsin 54-43 in the Big 10 championship game.

Southeastern Louisiana picks up the last low-major automatic bid, beating Northwestern State 49-42 and taking the Southland championship.

Duke survives going the last 11 minutes without a field goal and benefits from a horseshit foul call to beat Georgia Tech 69-64 and win the ACC tournament.

Kentucky may have blown their chance at a #1 seed. Florida blew them out to win the SEC title, 70-53.

Geez, he came back out? I switched to the SEC game the minute he left. That's guts.

There is NO way why BC should be ahead of UConn. They tied for the Big East regular season title and UConn got farther in the tourney. Boston College beat them head to head. Also, BC has no really bad losses, while UConn lost to UMass.

I'd give Boston College a 4 seed before Kansas.

Alabama A&M claims one of the last two automatic bids from one-bid conferences, defeating Alabama State 72-53 to win the SWAC championship.

The game would be over an hour before the selection show anyway. It's not like the SWAC tournament a few years ago, where the only time ESPN had to show the final was after the selection show. Jackson State got screwed a couple of years in a row because they had a decent at-large profile, but would never get a spot because the committee wouldn't give them an at-large bid and they choked against Southern in the final both years.

That's not allowed to happen. Teams in the same conference are not allowed to be bracketed to meet each other until the latest possible convienence (i.e. if there are four or less teams, the final four; if there are five through eight teams, the elite eight). The only way they'd be allowed to play in the third round (Sweet Sixteen) is if nine teams from the ACC get into the tournament, which is not very likely at all. Jason I don't think it's quite that restrictive. For instance, a conference that gets four teams might have a 2 seed and a 9 seed in the same bracket. They just do their best to make it unlikely that matchups between teams from the same conference occur. It is entirely that restrictive. If a conference sends 4 or fewer teams, all of them must be in different regions. If a conference sends 5-8 teams, no more than two teams from the same conference can be in the same region, and those two teams cannot meet until the Elite Eight. It's an ironclad rule, one of the few the committee has (the other main one being that a team can't play in a site where they are the host).

They just had a big story on this during halftime of the basketball game on ESPN. Apparently, FBI informers tipped off that McGwire used steroids. Probably not the most earthshattering news ever, but there ya go. EDIT: Here is the story:

Interesting...CBS Sportsline is making a case for Washington as a #1 seed.

At this point, it looks like DePaul, Buffalo, Notre Dame and Maryland are going to be the last four teams left (I have UAB in the tournament already). Notre Dame and Maryland are the teams I'd like to see miss the cut, but I'm pretty sure at least one of them will get in.