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Cena's Writer selects: Brandon McCarthy As for me, I'm going to need a minute.

The "luck" part that won't be repeated was Ohio State turning it over 20x to Tennessee's 8. It was a function of having three freshmen on the floor early in the year that hadn't learned the system properly and were making bad decisions with the ball, as well as Oden having trouble handling the ball with one hand. Oden's going to get 24 and 15 every time against a team with no real post presence. I don't care if UT's post players have improved, they're still small. You can't improve height, can you?

I'm not convinced that OSU is such a good matchup for Tennessee. The Vols have very little size on the interior and have no way to contain Oden. The first time they played, Oden was one-armed, and he still had 24 points and 15 rebounds. At 100%, he could do much more. The only way that I could see the Vols advancing is to just get ridiculously hot from the 3-point line and try to turn the game into a track meet, but I think OSU wins that game at least 3 times out of 4. In fact with how much OSU's improved over the course of the season (remember Oden's not the only freshman starter, Cook and Conley are fresh out of HS as well), not only do I think they'll get by Tennessee and Louisville to reach the Final Four, I also have them beating Georgetown and Florida to become national champions.

My Final Four is: Georgia, West Virginia, Clemson, and Bradley with Bradley beating Georgia in the title game. As for the NCAA tournament? I'm not quite sure yet.

Yeah, it's funny to see the talking heads act all outraged about Syracuse and Drexel not getting in when neither one really belonged in the field in the first place. If anyone has reason to complain, it would be Missouri State or Clemson.

Well, you should be happy cabbageboy. Louisville got the easiest draw imaginable. First they get their first two games in Lexington, the second one against a young and possible easily shaken TAMU squad. Then, they get an overrated Memphis or Nevada in the Sweet 16. I'd probably put them in the Elite 8, just based on their draw.

That Midwest bracket is stacked. Winthrop, Georgia Tech, Arizona, and Notre Dame are all severely underseeded. Add in that Wisconsin's the best of the 2 seeds and a lot of projections had UNLV as a 4, and getting out of there's going to be brutal.

Yeah, they got the four 1 seeds right, but I'm really surprised to see Florida get the #1 overall seed over Ohio State. The Buckeyes have far and away the best resume this year.

Hey, independents are my thing. And we don't support the former ones. GT as a 6? You fucking homer. I'd really like to see Winthrop get a 7, at the very least. It's the committee's chance to show they actually do work in seeding teams. Not being a homer. I just put a ton of stock in the Sagarin ratings and they have Georgia Tech at #19. I originally had the Jackets as a 7 seed, but after looking over Indiana closer, I felt like I really needed to drop them, and GT's overall resume was slightly better than that of Tennessee or Virginia.

All right, here's my final bracket of who I think should get what spots based on merit: 1: Ohio State, Florida, North Carolina, Kansas 2: Wisconsin, UCLA, Georgetown, Memphis 3: Texas A&M, S. Illinois, Oregon, Pittsburgh 4: Texas, Notre Dame, Washington State, Maryland 5: Duke, Butler, Arizona, Nevada 6: Michigan State, UNLV, Winthrop, Georgia Tech 7: Tennessee, Indiana, Virginia, Kentucky 8: Louisville, USC, Boston College, Villanova 9: BYU, Marquette, Virginia Tech, Illinois 10: Creighton, Missouri State, Clemson, Stanford 11: Florida State, Purdue, Vanderiblt, VCU 12: Xavier, Gonzaga, Davidson, Wright State Last four out: Syracuse, Old Dominion, Drexel, Texas Tech After lots of detailed analysis, ODU and Drexel were much closer than I originally thought, but still didn't quite make the final cut. Air Force was also just barely a snub.

They don't have much in the way of big road wins, but they won pretty much every game they were supposed to win. Their only home losses were to Maryland, Ohio State, and Wisconsin. Even their road losses aren't that bad as the worst two they have are to Iowa and Michigan. When you start looking at 9 and 10 seeds, just winning all the games that you're "supposed to" win is a huge accomplishment. Drexel by contrast has 6 bad losses (to teams outside the Top 100 on the road or outside the Top 50 at home) and Old Dominion has 3. Honestly, just about all the bubble teams have at least 3 or 4 bad losses, and the Illini don't have a single one. Add in a win against a Top 25 team at a netural site (Indiana), and Illinois's got one more win that you'd expect a good team to have given their schedule. Most of the other teams that you can say that about (more surprisingly good wins than bad losses) are in the 6 to 7 seed line. I don't think Illinois should be that high, but I do think that a 9 seed or so is fair.

You wanna use RPI and SOS? Fine. Illinois Record: 23-11 RPI: 31 SOS: 31 Kansas State Record: 22-11 RPI: 56 SOS: 99 No matter what measure you use, Kansas State clearly played a much worse schedule than Illinois did both in conference and out of conference, and the only edge they have is a slightly more impressive win in their conference tournament (Texas A&M vs. Indiana). For all the bitching about the selection committee, they tend to have a fairly good idea about the teams they're working with and get more right than they get wrong. I can't imagine that they can take two teams with nearly identical records and give the berth to the team who played the vastly weaker schedule.

BTW, to quickly address the previous list, no way should K-State be in over Illinois. The Wildcats have 5 of their losses outside the Top 50, compared to only 2 for Illinois, and overall, the Illini just have a better record with a more difficult schedule. Also, the computer rankings I use (Sagarin, KenPom, & Colton) have Illinois 3, 22, and 12 spots higher than KSU respectively.

Nah, I've been pretty occupied fighting that battle on 2+2; I don't know if I have the energy any more. I must have made 20 posts lately showing how much better Illinois is than Drexel and how the former team should be a lock and the latter shouldn't be in the tournament. Here, I'll just sit quietly and hope that Georgia Tech gets any seed but an 8 or a 9, so that they don't have to fight their way through a 1 seed just to get to the Sweet 16.

So, wait let me get this straight. You mean the favorites are more likely to win than the underdogs? Wow, thanks a million cabbageboy. You sure opened our eyes. I'm going to take this newfound knowledge and put all my money into sports bets.

Wow, I really hope that doesn't cost Georgia Tech their tournament berth. Honestly, even though Wake Forest isn't exactly an upper-tier team, it would have been really hard for anyone in the country to beat them the way they played tonight. They shot 34-53 from the field including 16-23 from beyond the arc. That's just insane. They did get some open looks, but they hit a lot of contested shots too, and just played an all-around amazing offensive game.

Almost got suckered into taking one of my least favorite players of all time here, but decided against it. Going with Juan Rincon instead.

Having the first pick is never a big deal in a serpentine draft. The primary reasons I did well last year are that I made one really good trade (got Soriano and Lidle for Lowell and Pettite) and that I drafted pitching well in the later rounds (picked up both Aaron Harang and Bronson Arroyo after Round 10).

Old Dominion's ranked 68th in the Sagarin ratings behind teams such well-performing teams this year as LSU and Wichita State. KenPom has them at 67 and the Colton Index has them at 62. Given that the last at-larges are always 12 seeds, there are about 46 berths open and ODU's not even close to the caliber of a team that should get one, RPI in the 30s or no.

Its long, and the first few minutes are kinda pointless, but this slideshow pretty much proves how worthless the RPI is as a tool to rank teams. I challenge anyone to watch this video and still seriously contend that someone like ODU should get into the tourney on the basis of their RPI number. http://www.coltonindex.com/index.html

I'm sure that if Clemson got to play their end-of-season games against the likes of Towson and William and Mary, they'd have no trouble winning them. Put Clemson against ODU on a neutral floor tomorrow, and I guarantee you that Clemson would be favored by at least 3 points. Remember, it wasn't even a month and a half ago that ODU lost to 7-22 James Madison, a loss that's only about 1000x worse than Clemson's worst loss (at Wake Forest).

Of all those freshmen that Louisville's playing, only one (Sosa) is actually starting. I'm not buying the "they're young" argument. The fact is that Louisville still only has two good wins all year. Facing South Florida, St. Johns, and UConn in the last five games is as much of a factor in Louisville's winning streak as any actual improvement. 2-6 vs. the Top 50 does not a Top 25 team make. I'm not saying Louisville's terrible and shouldn't be in the tournament or anything, I'm just saying they look like a 7 seed. With you saying you're "hoping" for a 6 seed, I don't really see what the conflict is. As for SOS, the RPI's very unreliable in that regard as they look at raw data instead of weighting the top side appropriately. (i.e. beating a 23-3 team and a 3-23 team is treated the same as beating two 13-13 teams.) For this reason, I use the Sagarin numbers on SOS. If you want a team that's actually young and improving over the course of the year, look at Georgia Tech. Crittenton and Young are not only starting as freshmen, but they're the team's leading scorers as well. Also, Zach Peacock gets more minutes off the bench as a freshman than any of Louisville's frosh bench guys. Georgia Tech went 5-2 in the month of February with their only losses coming at Duke (#10 Sagarin) and at Maryland (#12 Sagarin) and picking up wins over Florida State, Maryland, and Clemson. They deserve to be in the NCAAs just as much as the Cardinals do, but for some reason, they're getting no credit at all. I did hear today that WarrenNolan.com has more credible projections than Lunardi though, and he has Georgia Tech at least getting an #11 seed. As for Clemson, yes they're 2-9 over their last 11, but their losses aren't that bad. Here are their results since the streak started: 01/13 at #25 Maryland L 92-87 01/17 #4 UNC L 77-55 01/20 BC W 74-54 01/25 at #10 Duke L 68-66 01/28 Virginia L 64-63 02/03 at Ga Tech L 80-62 02/07 Florida St W 71-58 02/14 at W Forest L 67-65 02/18 Maryland L 82-66 02/22 #17 Duke L 71-66 02/24 at BC L 59-54 Everyone on that list is in the Top 50 except for Wake Forest. That's an incredibly tough stretch of schedule. Yeah, they dropped a couple home games they should have won (against UVA and Maryland), but it's not like they really played bad. They actually compare pretty favorably against a team like Syracuse who's only played 6 games all year as tough as 10 of the games in this 11 game stretch, and still has an overall record that's only one game better. Add in the wins over bubble teams ODU, App St., Georgia, Florida State, and Georgia Tech and I think they should still sneak into the field of 65. Also noted is that Clemson is ranked #29 by Sagarin and #25 by KenPom. The highest rated teams I left out of my bracket are Creighton (#37 Sagarin) and Xavier (#31 KenPom). Clemson would be the best team left out by either 8 or 6 ranks depending on which rankings you trust more. Finally, Leena, not only did Clemson beat Old Dominion in their own gym but their SOS is also worlds better at #25 vs. #150. Georgia (the 14th toughest game on Clemson's schedule) would be the 5th toughest game on ODU's schedule. With Old Dominion only having two less losses than Clemson, I don't see how they could even be considered to take Clemson's spot in the NCAAs. FWIW, ODU is ranked #61 by Sagarin and #64 by KenPom.

He wasn't obviously. He was all ready to help them until President Palmer pulled him aside and told him that he still valued his opinion. Now he's just trying to be stoic for god knows what reason, maybe to keep from admitting to himself that he aided the plot.

Just for the hell of it, I decided to fill out the rest of my bracket by assuming that the Top 25 represents the 1-6 seed lines and that Air Force is a 7. I put more effort into comparing individual profiles this time, especially as we got near the bubble. Here's what I came up with Other 7 seeds: Oregon, Virginia, Louisville 8 seeds: Georgia Tech, Winthrop, Stanford, Tennessee 9 seeds: UNLV, Texas, BYU, Villanova 10 seeds: Marquette, Vanderbilt, Missouri State, Illinois 11 seeds: West Virginia, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, Clemson 12 seeds: Davidson, VCU, Florida State, Georgia Last four out: Purdue, San Diego State, Alabama, Creighton

As for U of L, (now #36 in the Sagarin ratings), they lost to that same Kentucky team that "just sucks and should not be ranked" by 12 points at home. They also lost to Arizona at home by 7 who you also couldn't understand how I had ranked. Those were the only two challenging games that Louisville had on their non-conference slate, but yet they still managed to pick up four non-conference losses by choking against UMass (again at home) and Dayton. As such, their conference record isn't a magic bullet and doesn't automatically qualify them to get a good ranking or seed. The fact is that Louisville's picked up 8 losses on the year with a much, much less difficult overall schedule (#63) than Kentucky (#2) who also has eight losses. The only possible reason I can see to put Louisville ahead of Kentucky is the recency factor, but I think that's overblown and when a team plays well is as much the result of luck as anything. Indiana's pretty similar to Louisville in that they have two bad losses (at Iowa and at Michigan) although their losses aren't quite as bad as Louisville's. Also, Indiana's outplayed Louisville against good competition as they are 5-7 vs. the Top 50 whereas Louisville's 2-6. Yes, Louisville had one really good win at Pittsburgh and they've played very well the last five games. Looking at their resume over the course of the entire season though, it's hard to put them as anything but a mid-level tournament team, along the lines of a Virginia or Stanford. If the season ended today, I'd give Louisville a 7 seed, so they'd be somewhere in the 26-28 range and are indeed very close to being ranked, but I can't see putting them ahead of Kentucky, Indiana, or Arizona at this point.