the tindog coffeehouse

Alright, boys and girls. It’s time once again to dust off your NCAA Tournament brackets and pretend to know who will win every single one of the next 67 college basketball games. Odds that you’ll get them all right? About 1 in, well, a lot.

But here’s what I came up with. As always, I highly recommend not taking any of my advice, as I’m almost certainly wrong about 90% of these games. Consider yourself warned.

Continue reading…

Sports columnist Ray Melick predicts that if the NCAA goes through with its plans to expand its men’s basketball tournament from 65 teams to 96, that within a couple of years, it’ll expand again to 128:

My guess is the only reason NCAA officials limited their current thinking to adding just 31 teams was to fit every­thing into the current CBS broadcast window. No sense walking away from $2 billion in today’s economy until you’re absolutely sure some­one is going to give you more. …

If ESPN bought the rights to the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, and decided it could afford to go head-to-head with The Masters — par­ticularly since the final week­end’s games would avoid going up against Sunday’s fi­nal round — instead of adding one more day of tournament basketball, it could add an en­tire weekend’s worth of pro­gramming and commercials.

Continue reading…

Kansas, you’re dead to me.

After picking you to win the National Championship, what did you do? You went out and lost to Northern Iowa, a school that I’m pretty sure is fictional since no one has ever heard of it.

Also gone is No. 2 Villanova, who lost to tenth-seeded St. Mary’s. That’s also pretty embarrassing, but at least no one expected Nova to win the South region. Besides, with two small Catholic schools playing each other, it’s just clear that God liked St. Mary’s better. (Although the word on the street is that the Pope had Nova by 10.)

I’m still sticking with K-State to make it to the Final Four, and my other 2 picks, Kentucky and Duke, are still safe. As for the Midwest, it’s definitely living up to its nickname, “The Group of Death”. I would say at this point that Ohio State looks like it has the best shot at winning the region, but you never know. At this rate, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Issaquah School of Interior Design won the whole thing!

Previously:
March Madness: First-round results
March Madness 2010: My picks

It’s only the end of first round of the NCAA tournament, and my bracket is already pretty bruised. Out of the 32 first-round games, I missed 9, giving me a percentage of 72%. Ouch.

Biggest upset: Murray State’s win over Vanderbilt, who I’d picked to make it to the Final Four. Seriously, did anyone in America pick No. 13 Murray State to pick off No. 4 Vandy? No, of course not! Not even the mother of the Murray State coach. Other big upsets: No. 14 Ohio over No. 3 Georgetown, No. 12 Cornell over No. 5 Temple, and No. 11 Old Dominion over No. 6 Notre Dame.

Upsets I actually got right: No. 11 Washington beating No. 6 Marquette and No. 9 Northern Iowa beating No. 8 UNLV.

Continue reading…

Last year, I posted my picks to win the NCAA men’s tournament while admittedly not knowing enough about the teams to make even a reasonable guess. And of course, I completely blew it. (Thank you, Pitt.)

But I’m trying again this year, a little more educated and a lot more hopeful. OK, so I really don’t know how hopeful I am, but who knows, maybe I’ll get lucky.

Breaking it down by region:

Midwest. aka “The Group of Death.” The Midwest is tricky because there are a lot of wildcards, teams that are probably seeded too high (Ohio State), and others that are probably too low (Tennessee). I think the Buckeyes will make it past Oklahoma State, but the Vols will knock them off to make it to the Elite Eight. No. 1 Kansas should survive, though, and win the region.

Continue reading…

While college football fans may be begging for a playoff system, they should probably be careful what they ask for. At least if the NCAA basketball tournament is any indication. If the NCAA and coaches get their way, the current 65-team March Madness tournament could expand to as many as 96 teams, adding up to a mind-boggling 31 extra games to the schedule. (And you thought filling out your bracket was tough before!)

BCS proponents argue that in basketball, the already-bloated playoff system makes the regular season irrelevant, and if that’s true, then a 96-team playoff would make it even more so. That alone should be reason enough not to fatten the tournament any more than it is.  But Andrea Adelson of the Orlando Sentinel points out another reason, one that would drastically affect college football as well:

Continue reading…