Feeling those post-Stupid Bowl Blues? Fear not Sports fan, It's time to start seriously thinking about your March Madness Bracket.
UConn is number one (for now) and could be the best team in the land. Jeff Adiran is a power forward throwback to the days of Larry Johnson and Karl Malone while Center Hasheem Thrabeet could be the best big man in the land. Add to that the strong backcourt duo of A.J. Price and Jerome Dyson, the coaching of Jim Calhoun and a deep, deep bench and you have a team that's poised to make a deep, deep run into the tournament.
Oklahoma is number two and boasts one of the Country's best players in Black Griffin. Oklahoma's bench is 10 deep, which provides Coach Jeff Capel plenty of flexibility to run the offensive and defensive principles that he learned while playing at Duke under the tutalege of Coach K.
Handicapping top seeds at this point of the game is liar's poker, but right now I'm pretty comfortable stating that these two teams have at least a 50/50 chance of securing a coveted number one seed from the selection committee.
Looking at things from a conference standpoint, The Big East Conference looks to have seven seats locked up with West Virginia being a possible eighth team 'on the bubble'. The Mountaineers are going to need a quality win or two on the road to make the dance IMO however. The ACC has the potential to place a stunning NINE teams in the tournament. I think they'll cap out at eight, but they are certainly the best conference in the land right now. Due to top-end potential however the Big East (with Marquette, UConn and Pitt) is a strong second. A distant third is the Pac-10 and Big XII which are pretty equal in my mind. Each should garner somewhere in the 4-6 bid range.
Locally the picture is a little less rosy.
Houston (12-7, .5335 RPI[110th]) is currently stuck in the middle of a three game losing streak that was highlighted by two must-win losses against Arizona and Memphis respectively. The Cougars had a large halftime lead against the Wildcats which quickly evaporated after the (now infamous) stomping incident. Current projections have the Cougars finishing at 19-10 which will probably guarantee them yet another invitation to either the NIT or some other tournament (as was the case last year). There are growls in Cougar land that Tom Penders has taken this team as far as he can and that AD Dave Maggard might want to consider a change.
Rice (7-14, .04751 RPI [205th]) - As grim as things are for the Cougars they're looking worse for Rice. Short-term that is. With a new coach, a new building and tons of optimism for the athletic department the Owls are hoping to use this year as a learning experience and move forward in a new direction. It's still a shame that former Coach Willis Wilson wasn't allowed to enjoy the fruits of his years of laboring under adverse conditions however.
What this means for Houston is that (this year) the tournament is going to be primarily viewed via television. No Houston site is on the list as a tournament venue in 2009. Expect productivity to slow to a crawl as frazzled bracketers refresh their web-browsers religiously to see is that 5-12 upset they picked will put them over the top.
It's the best playoff system in sports, and it's a little over a month away.
