I was going to write a viewing guide for today when I realized it would simply be too long. Everyone can go to ESPN or CBS or FOX and look up the television schedule for the day, and if I was to talk about what games I want to see, I would need to create a post that simply copies that entire schedule.

The power conferences have all begun their tournaments either yesterday or today. If I counted correctly, 18 games today involve teams that were listed in my bracketology page as bubble teams that are not locks for the tournament. These teams are not going to punch their ticket to the dance today, but they could certainly create a bad lasting impression if they lose.

The truth is fans feel that the tournaments are more important than they probably are. The honest answer is all the tournaments do is give every team a path to the NCAA Championship – so to be fair, they still mean a lot. But if you don’t claim you automatic bid, the fans put more weight on the games than the committee.

We think that if a bubble team loses early, they are eliminating themselves while if a bubble team gets to the semi-finals, they have earned their bid – of which neither are completely true.

Lets take Stanford’s heartbreaking loss to Pitt yesterday on a crazy tip-in at the buzzer. It is easy to say because they ended poorly that they are going to not make it. But the committee does a good job of viewing every game as a single game. Stanford still has victories over Q1 teams like UNC, Louisville, SMU, Virginia Tech and St. Louis (which is a lot more than fellow bubble teams). All it does is it gives them a bad Q3 loss. But it is the same as if they had lost to Pitt in January. The committee doesn’t care that they lost in March. They might care that they have 4 Q3 losses (Pitt, Notre Dame, UNLV and Seattle) that might be more than other bubble teams. Stanford is the classic bubble team – an inconsistent team that can beat UNC or Louisville one day and lose to Seattle the next.

We can also take a hypothetical win streak. Lets say the Big East top part of the bracket blows up and Butler or Providence upsets St. John’s and super bubble team Seton Hall takes advantage and beats Creighton and Butler to make the Big East championship before getting crushed by UConn. Fans want to believe that Seton Hall has done enough to earn their spot because they made it to the final. But here is the problem – Seton Hall’s biggest blemish on their resume is that they have only one Q1 victory (NC State). Beating Creighton and Butler will give them a couple more Q2/3 wins against teams bubble teams are supposed to beat. And then the one Q1 opportunity for them still crushed them in the final. They got all the way to the final but since the committee just looks at it as another game, they didn’t really improve their resume. Now if they made the final by beating St. John’s the tournament helped by giving them an additional win against a fellow tournament team.

In some of the conferences, there are more opportunities. In the Big 12 today, Arizona State gets Iowa State today with Texas Tech awaiting the winner. That would mean 2 major wins to show the committee you belong – of course, that also means you have to beat Iowa State and Texas Tech on back-to-back days.

Anyways, if you want to watch fun meaningful basketball games today, you can turn on ESPN for either the ACC or Big 12 tournaments, Peacock and the Big 10 network for the Big 10 games or the SEC Network for the SEC tournament. Every game has some intrigue whether it be a situation like Auburn drawing against a Mississippi State team that would give them a bad loss or a SMU vs Louisville that could be a win that helps both teams.

I will certainly give you the times of the three games where a win means you are in the tournament and a loss means you are out.

• 5 pm on ESPN2 is the Southland final between 1 seed Stephen F Austin (28-4) and 2 seed McNeese (27-5). So you have this year’s regular season champ against the defending 2-time champion. To be the best, you have to beat the best!!! If it is anything like last night’s triple overtime semi-final, it will be the game of the day.
• 7 pm on CBS Sports Network is the Patriot final between 2 seed Lehigh (17-16) and 4 seed Boston University (17-16)
• 11:30 pm on ESPN2 is the Big Sky final between 4 seed Montana (18-15) and 7 seed Idaho (20-14) as these two teams were responsible for eliminating all of the top 3 seeds in the Big Sky.

If I had to pick the best games from each of the times in the power conferences, I would probably pick the following. (Note – this isn’t necessarily the most critical game. That will clearly be the teams the closest to the actual bubble cut line. For example, Auburn vs Mississippi State would be the most influential if Auburn loses. But since I don’t think this is the game that Auburn gets tripped up on, there are other games I think will be closer (although to be honest, I could just be happy watching the bubble games from the ACC)

• 12:30 pm – I would pick the 12:30 pm game between LSU and Kentucky in the SEC. I think the SEC is more competitive than people realize and I am interested to see how the Wildcats play against a team with nothing to lose since LSU has too many losses to be an at-large team.
• 2:30 pm – this is one of the best time spots – you can’t go wrong with any of the 4 games. But I will pick SMU vs Louisville in the ACC – I think both these teams could be playing next week so this could be the calibur of your classic 7/10 battle.
• 6:30 pm – I am biased here. I want to see Indiana vs Northwestern in the Big 10. First, it is the team that Purdue will play tomorrow. Second is that Indiana clearly needs a win right now and Northwestern is talented enough to upset anyone (as they almost did to my Boilers last week).
• 9:30 pm – I will spread out the love and choose TCU vs Oklahoma State in the Big 12. TCU should be in and Oklahoma State is likely too far down the NET rankings to make it without some major scalps in the Big 12 tournament. But TCU won both games in this series by 3 points (with the second one in overtime), so it should be a great battle.

Enjoy the games today. And if you’re a fan of a bubble team that loses today, don’t lose hope. The committee just treats this as one game and not a season-defining moment. I am sure that the media will build up the hype as every game is a must win game, and I might even make comments on my bracketology that this game was the final straw. But the only people that matter are the 12 members of the selection committee and they will be inviting 37 teams that lost during their conference tournaments. Hopefully, your bubble team will be one of those 37 teams.

It was a good administrative evening for the Lunatic. Part of that is thanks to the Southland Conference semi-finals.

I had just finished watching Santa Clara run out of steam as #12 Gonzaga went on a run to take the lead and win the WCC conference championship. It is kind of fitting that Gonzaga won one more time before heading to the Pac 12, but it was a tough loss for Santa Clara who played a fantastic game and now has to simply wait and see if what they did was enough to get picked by the Selection Committee.

I quickly checked the scoreboards to see if I could catch the end of the MAAC championship, but it had ended. Siena had completed the upset of regular season champion Merrimack by 10 points to claim their ticket to the dance.

But I was working on my Bracketology and wanted something to listen to in the background, so I flipped over to the Southland semi-final between McNeese St nd UT-Rio Grande Valley, which was tied. And then the game went to overtime. And then the game went to double overtime. And then the game went to triple overtime. I could probably write several paragraphs as what was intended to be something to keep me awake in the background had now captured my full attention.

In the last minute of triple overtime, McNeese St got the ball into the lane to Larry Johnson, who made a layup to put the Cowboys up by two points with 28 seconds to play. And then, UTRGV decided that it was going to try to either end the game or send it to a fourth overtime by running one last play. The seconds ticked down before they started to try to run a play where they hit a player at the top of the key coming off a screen. But Larry Johnson jumped the passing lane, stole the ball and drove down the court for a slam dunk to end the marathon and send McNeese State to the Southland final.

The game didn’t end until 12:30 pm EST. I had really only planned on staying up 10-15 minutes past the WCC conference game. But in that extra hour, I got to watch what probably was the most fun game of the day while typing up my first attempt at establishing a bubble on my bracketology page.

Thanks to CoPilot, I also got some suggestions on how to pull the basketball box scores on the ESPN site, and so I also finished pulling all the scores. I have no clue if they will match the audit I do with the NCAA official records. I am not sure how I am going to summarize the data. But I have it pulled, which is typically the long part.

So, got to watch a great basketball game, continued to get the blog pages up, and gave myself a chance at getting the data for building all my models that fail when I change my mind and pick Purdue to win.

It was a good night. But as I type this before going to work, I am super tired. The sleep deprivation has begun. And I am getting old – I don’t know that I can be sleep-deprived this early in March.

Anyways, if you want to see the initial formation of what teams are locks and what teams are on the Lunatic’s bubble, click the Bracketology link on the top of the page. Please realize this is not where I think the teams will end up. It was simply an attempt to make sure I had a full list of the teams with a chance to make the tournament as well as an initial starting point of where the teams will fall based on history (for example, teams in the top 25 of the polls and the top 25 of the NET typically hear their name called on Sunday – so they are locks).

It might not be the star teams like Michigan, Duke or Arizona, but the last 30 minutes have produced some incredible drama that has distracted me from my bracketology and box scores.

We will go based on the chronological order of the results. First, we head Lake Charles, Louisiana and the first semi-final of the Southland Conference Tournament. And regular season champs Stephen F Austin are on the ropes in a tie game as Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. And with 15 seconds left in the game, the Lumberjacks’ Keon Thompson steals the ball and drives all the way down the court for a game-winning lay-up.

The Lunatic then headed to Indianapolis, IN (on his television) for the end of the Horizon Championship. Detroit Mercy has a double digit lead with less than 10 minutes to play when the regular season champs from Wright State started coming back. With a tie game and about two minutes left, the Raiders’ Logan Woods hit two three-pointers to lead the champs to a 6 point lead. But the Titans would fight back to a 2 point game with 9 seconds, when Wright State missed both free throws, Detroit charged down the field and Orlando Lovejoy drove to the basket to try to tie the game only to be denied at the rim with a great block by Kellen Pickett.

On a side note before continuing, I have to give tons of credit to Mark Montgomery, the coach of Detroit Mercy. He took over the program two years ago after the Titans went 1-31, and in just two seasons, he had them with a winning record, a tie for third in the conference, and in the conference championship title game. What an incredible turnaround.

But the excitement isn’t over in March. Next, we head to Washington, D.C. and the Coastal Conference championship game where Hofstra and Monmouth are playing a tight game. With a little over 1 minute to play, Monmouth’s Justin Ray hit a three-pointer to cut the Hofstra lead to 1 point. But the Pride’s German Plotnikov had the answer on the next possession with a three-pointer of his own to lead Hofstra to an eventual 75-69 victory.

Then, we headed over to Charlotte where the ACC first round is wrapping up. With the game tied and under 30 seconds, Wake Forest’s Mekhi Mason gets the ball in the corner and makes a nice move to get an open chance at a three-pointer, but his shot misses the mark. With time running out, Virginia Tech’s Ben Hammond misses a shot to try to win it, Jailen Bedford beats everyone to the board and tries to tip it in at the buzzer, but the tip-in also rolls off the rim to send us to overtime.

Starting off the overtime, ex-Purdue player Myles Colvin hit a floating jump shot and a three-pointer to quickly give the Demon Deacons a 5 point lead. The Hokies’ Tobi Lawal got the ball in the lane for a dunk to cut the lead to 1 with about a minute to play, but Sebastian Akins would drive into the lane to take a jumper, and he would hit the basket and get fouled to extend the lead back to 4. Wake Forest would hit their free throws down the stretch, and create a huge blow to Virginia Tech’s bubble chances to make the tournament.

As I finish typing this blog, hoping that my current attempt to pull box scores have finished, I head to Las Vegas and the West Coast Conference championship to notice that Santa Clara has a 33-29 lead over #12 Gonzaga as the Broncos try to get themselves off the bubble and earn their conference’s automatic bid. And then I notice that over in Atlantic City, Siena has scored the first 6 points of the second half to jump out to a 9 point lead over MAAC regular season champion Merrimack.

How can I get my bracketology and analysis done when there is so much great basketball to actually watch!!!! I don’t care – the Lunatic is so happy! It is his favorite time of year – March Madness is incredible!!!

The Lunatic has been desperately trying to figure out how to pull box scores from other locations as well as come up with a nice looking bracketology page. I have a nervous feeling that I am going to enter the tournament already exhausted. That should be good for everyone in Stomping the Lunatic! Anyways, I was curious about how the games were going and ran across this fascinating story.

Utah Valley plans to leave the WAC for the Big West at the end of the school year. The Wolverines also happen to be the regular season champions of the conference in their final season.

But maybe most importantly, the university is caught up in a legal dispute with the conference over the $1 million fee for leaving according to the conference’s contracts. They originally planned to mot allow the school to play in any of the conference championship games but a judge in Utah provided the school a temporary injunction to allow them to play.

Apparently, part of that order directed the university to place the $1 million in escrow with the court, which the school has not yet done. So, on Tuesday, the league’s board of directors demanded that if the escrow account is not paid by 7 pm EST today, they would not be allowed to play because “it would be a member not in good standing.”

I have no clue to legal standing of any of this – since I am simply going off a couple of articles that all came out a few hours ago. But it certainly has major consequences if a regular season champion is suddenly removed from their tournament in a one-bid conference.

Will be interesting to see what happens over the next 24 hours before the opening game between Abilene Christian and Tarleton State (since I would assume that if they remove Utah Valley, there would no longer be a need for the play-in game).

The ACC, Big 12 and Big 10 join the mix as their first rounds kick-off. That will include some teams that are technically on the bubble. But first, congratulations are in order for our conference tournament champions.

• Troy defended their regular season championship as they beat a Georgia Southern team who was playing their 6th game in 6 days. Troy jumped out early and didn’t look back on their way to a 77-61 victory in the Sun Belt.
• Furman upset regular season champ East Tennessee State with a 76-61 victory to claim the Southern Conference automatic bid.

And for those of you excited for one last matchup between Gonzaga and St. Mary’s before Gonzaga leaves for the Pac 10 next year, bubble team Santa Clara crashed the party with their 76-71 upset over St. Mary’s. This sets up the biggest game of the day at 9 pm on ESPN. Santa Clara might have already done enough to give the WCC 3 teams in the tournament, but if they can upset Gonzaga in Las Vegas tonight, they will take the decision out of the committee’s hands.

Other than the West Coast Conference championship, we have 4 other tournaments having their final tonight – although one of them doesn’t matter. The NEC will have regular season champion LIU playing transitioning Mercyhurst at 7 pm on ESPN2 – where since Mercyhurst isn’t eligible, LIU is playing tonight for pride knowing their tournament bid is secure. The other three are not so lucky – they need to win tonight to dance.

• Coastal – 3rd seed Hofstra (23-10) plays 4th seed Monmouth (19-14) at 7 pm on CBS Sports Network
• Horizon – 1st seed Wright State (22-11) plays 3rd seed Detroit Mercy (17-14) at 7 pm on ESPN
• MAAC – 1st seed Merrimack (23-10) plays 3rd Siena (22-11)

The Southland semi-finals are also somewhat interesting tonight if you are looking for a team who will likely be a 12-14 seed but might be able to pull an upset in the tournament. NET 86 regular season champion Stephen F Austin (27-4) plays Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on ESPNU at 7 pm followed by NET 62 McNeese St (26-5) plays UT-Rio Grande at 9:30 pm on ESPN+. I don’t think either of them can get an at-large bid, but it should be a great final tomorrow if the two favorites advance.

If you count the bubble as teams in the top 80 of the NET with at least 1 Quad 1 win, the Big 12 (on ESPN+) and the ACC (ACC Network) is where you want to watch.

• 12:30 pm Big 12 – 48 Baylor (16-15) vs 67 Arizona State (16-15). No team has got an at-large bid with 16 losses, so not sure how realistic either teams chances are – but they certainly can’t lose today.
• 2 pm ACC – 59 Stanford (20-11) vs Pitt (12-19). Stanford does have 5 Quad 1 wins but they might still be on the wrong side of the bubble so they can’t afford a loss to Pitt.
• 3 pm Big 12 – 46 Cincinnati (17-14) vs Utah (10-21). The Bearcats had been on a tear lately including victories against Kansas and BYU until their momentum got stopped in their finale against TCU. They need to get a win here.
• 4:30 pm ACC – 39 SMU (19-12) vs Syracuse (15-16). SMU looked like they were locked into the tournament until they finished the season on a 4 game losing streak. Losing to Syracuse will lead to a very long wait for the Mustangs.
• 7 pm ACC – 53 Virginia Tech (19-12) vs 64 Wake Forest (16-15). Both teams are in that horrible place of having lots of chances at Quad 1 wins and only could win 1-2 of them. The Hokies are in a slightly better spot but neither can afford a loss here.
• 7 pm Big 12 – 24 BYU (21-10) vs Kansas State (12-19) – the Cougars are probably playing for seed here, but they certainly don’t want to lose this early in the conference tournament.
• 9:30 pm Big 12 – 71 Colorado (17-14) vs 79 Oklahoma State (18-13). Both teams are on the outside looking in, but the Big 12 tournament will give lots of chances to impress the committee, so if they can advance to get a chance against TCU and Kansas, they could possibly make a run for the tournament.

Enjoy the games!!!

So, the Lunatic normally spends most of his blog talking about the men’s basketball tournament. But I do try to convince my readers to take some time and watch some of the women’s tournament as well. There is some amazing basketball played by the women.

So, I was very pleased on Sunday when I noticed that afternoon, James Madison had won their semi-final game against Sun Belt regular season champion Georgia Southern 81-53 and would be playing Troy for the Sun Belt tournament championship today.

Unfortunately, with the game today at 2 pm, I couldn’t watch the game (after all, I do have a real job). Then again, considering that I have been watching my Boilermakers crash and burn, maybe the fact that I couldn’t watch the game was fortunate.

But according to the box score information on ESPN, the Dukes took a 4 point lead at halftime, Coming out of halftime, JMU scored the first 5 points of the half and never looked back. Peyton McDaniel scored 28 points, Ashanti Barnes added 19 points, and the Dukes’ stifling defense held Troy to 30% from the field and only 8% from the three-point line.

So, the James Madison women’s basketball team will be dancing when the NCAA women’s championship starts next week!!!!! JMU finished the season at 26-8 and they currently are ranked 46th in the NCAA NET rankings. They are finishing the season hot, as they have won their last 12 games. While I don’t follow the women’s game closely enough to do a true bracketology, I suspect that they will find themselves as one of the classically dangerous 12 or 13 seeds.

Roll Dukes!!!!! The Dukes are Hot!!!! Congratulations to the ladies on their tremendous season, winning the Sun Belt Tournament Championship and getting the opportunity to play in the NCAA Championship next week!!!!

Monday is the day that I call the calm before the storm. The power conference tournaments don’t start until Tuesday or Wednesday, and so there are only a few games being played tonight. That certainly doesn’t mean there is nothing at stake – every game happening is a mid-major conference tournament game and so if you lose, your dreams to dance in the tournament are done.

Since I am a little behind, lets first congratulate the teams that have punched their ticket to the dance.

• Long Island University – NEC (although they do play Tuesday night against transitioning Mercyhurst for their conference tournament title).
• Tennessee State – OVC (the regular season co-champ crushed the other co-champ Morehead St 93-67)
• Northern Iowa – MVC (the first 6 seed to win Arch Madness according to the CBS broadcast – they beat UIC 84-69)
• High Point – Big South (the regular season champion beat the runner-up Winthrop 91-76 to reach an incredible 30-4 record)
• Queens – Atlantic Sun (the 3 seed held off an exciting rally by regular season co-champion Central Arkansas to win in overtime 98-93)
• North Dakota State – Summit (the regular season champion defended their spot against in-state rival North Dakota with a 70-62 victory)

For tonight’s viewing guide, there are two more automatic bids getting decided at 7 pm.

• Sun Belt (7 pm ESPN2) – regular season champion Troy (21-11, 12-6) faces off against 10 seed Georgia Southern (21-15, 8-10), who have survived 5 games in 5 days in the brutal gauntlet tournament.
• Southern (7 pm ESPN) – regular season champion East Tennessee State (23-10, 13-5) will try to beat 6 seed Furman (21-12, 10-8) for a third time (they battled to overtime at ETSU before winning by 9 on the road at Furman)

The best games of the night might be the semi-finals of the West Coast Conference, and these will impact the bubble the greatest.

• 12th ranked Gonzaga will play 4th seed Oregon State at 9 pm – if you are a fan of a bubble team, you need Gonzaga to win this game and prevent the Beavers from stealing a bid tomorrow.
• 21st ranked St. Mary’s will play 3rd seed Santa Clara – this game has huge bubble implications. St. Mary’s is probably safe based on their poll ranking – mainly thanks to their upset of Gonzaga at home to claim a share of the WCC regular season title. Santa Clara is getting some attention as one of the last teams in – but their only Quad 1 win is their 8 pt home victory against St. Mary’s in January. Getting to the West Coast Final might be enough for either team to feel safer going into Selection Sunday, while whoever loses will have a long week ahead of watching how the other bubble teams and potential bid stealers perform.

It is a shame – I don’t know that the Lunatic can make it to 2 am EST to watch the big game of the evening. But if you can, it looks like it should be a good one.

Enjoy the games!!!

Long Island University became the first team to get an invitation to the dance – and they didn’t even win their conference tournament.

The LIU Sharks beat Wagner 64-56 to get to the NEC championship game. But in the other semi-final, Mercyhurst beat Stonehill 56-51. But Mercyhurst is still in their 4 year transition period from Division II to Division I. So whether the NEC regular season champions can beat Mercyhurst on Tuesday, LIU will still claim the NEC automatic bid.

Later this evening, we have our first actual conference championship final and it feels the way it should happen. The Ohio Valley Conference had co-champions for their regular season as both Tennessee State and Morehead State went 15-5. So, there seems like there is some cosmic justice that the Tennessee State Tigers and Morehead State Eagles have won their way to the title game in Evansville so that they can break the tie on the court.

The Madness is here!!!!

The Miami (OH) Redhawks has a chance at history tonight. According to an article that I read on ncaa.com, 20 teams during the NCAA Tournament era have gone undefeated during the regular season. Tonight at 9 pm, Miami (OH) has a chance to become the 21st, but they will have to survive a road game at the 15-15 Ohio Bobcats.

Earlier this week, the talking heads started to debate if the Redhawks lose in the MAC conference tournament. And since today, the first #1 seed lost in their conference tournament as Belmont got beat by Drake in the Missouri Valley quarterfinals, the reality that an upset can happen feels more realistic than before.

But the debate went wild last weekend when ex-Auburn coach Bruce Pearl made this statement on the Big East telecast. “Here’s the deal. Are we going to select the 68 most deserving teams? Or are we going to select the 68 best teams?” he said. “If we’re selecting the 68 best teams, then Miami (Ohio) is going to have to win their tournament to qualify as a champion, because as an at-large, they are not one of the best teams in the country, and that’s going to be a difficult choice for the committee.” Based on some defense from the Miami OH athletic director later in the week, it sounded like Pearl also made the degrading comment that the Redhawks would have finished last if they were in the Big East.

Pearl then doubled-down on Monday when trying to make a statement that 15-14 Auburn belongs in the field and that they are in the last four in territory if they simply beat LSU on Tuesday, March 3 and then win their first round game of the SEC tournament. Of course, he specifically left out the need to beat rival Alabama on Saturday.

“They’ve got five Quad 1 wins. They’ve got the best win in college basketball on the road at Florida. As far as that margin, it’s either the best or one of the best. So they got a little bit more work to do,” he said.

Pearl added “there’s no love of my son. I mean, there’s no nepotism involved here.”

So, lets break down a few statements here as well as call out some facts.

No offense to the Gators – who might actually win the National Championship in a few weeks and are clearly the best team in the SEC. But I would argue that Wisconsin’s road victory or Duke’s neutral court victory over Michigan, or the Texas Tech neutral court victory over Duke or the Red Raiders road victory at Arizona would count as a better win. Might even go with the Tar Heels home victory over the Blue Devils if you add the tension of the rivalry between the two schools.

And lets not take away games from those top teams simply because they are always winning. Michigan has gone on the road to Michigan State, Purdue and Illinois and left those incredibly difficult places to play with double digit victories. And if we are saying Auburn is a tournament team, then the Wolverine’s 30 point neutral court victory over the Tigers must look incredible.

Auburn’s victory over the Gators is certainly a great victory – but there are 5 other teams who have beaten Florida, while there are only 2 teams who beat the other top 3 teams – I can’t call one of those 6 games the best of the season.

Also, while I don’t want to go back and look, I am pretty sure based on my previous bracketologies, there has been no team in history that has lost 16 games and received an at-large bid to the tournament. If the Tigers lose to Alabama this weekend and then lose in the SEC tournament to need an at-large bid, they will have 16 losses. History does not suggest they will make it.

Considering that Pearl used to coach at Auburn, and that his son still coaches at Auburn, if there is “no nepotism” or love for his son in his statements, then he is not qualified to be talking about college basketball if he is going to say that a team with more losses than any other tournament team in history belongs in over a 32-1 team – even if that team is from the MAC. Bruce Pearl won a lot of basketball games as a coach, and so he knows basketball – and so it is horribly disappointing to hear him make such biased and careless statements.

It really, really bothers me that Pearl suggested that the Red Hawks would finish last in the Big East. Lets just assume that the NET rankings are truly predictive. Miami is 53rd, which is one spot behind Seton Hall at 52nd. The Pirates are 10-9 and 4th in the Big East. Creighton, Providence, Butler, Georgetown, Xavier, Marquette and DePaul all have NET rankings in the 80s and 90s – implying that there are 7 teams that the Redhawks would be favored to beat (especially at home) if they were in the Big East. They probably wouldn’t still be undefeated. Even the conference leaders, Connecticut and St. John’s, have lost twice in the conference. But it is truly unfair to say that Miami would finish in last place in the Big East. In fact, if they played the way they currently are, they likely would be ranked and we wouldn’t be having a debate about if they belong in the tournament.

You will hear stupid statements like the following. Miami OH only beat a team like Mercyhurst by 5 points – a poor Big 10 team like Northwestern beat Mercyhurst by 23. Those types of arguments will leave out the fact that the Redhawks also beat Central Michigan by 39 points – a team that lost by only 14 point on the road at Marquette. The transitive theory might seem fun to rank teams, but they break down when you realize that there are thousands of games in the season and everyone has an off-night. The transitive theory tells us that since the Wisconsin Badgers went on the road and beat #2 Michigan by 3 points, then clearly Villanova and TCU (teams that beat Wisconsin by double digits) would have destroyed the Wolverines if they were given a chance.

At some point, we have to do a comparison point when we look at teams that played in different conferences and might only have 1-2 teams that both have played. So, I understand wanting the transitive theory to count. But at some point, winning games has to matter – and while I understand it is against weaker competition, no team in college basketball this season other than the Redhawks will have 30 regular season wins.

I would rather see a regular season champion like Miami OH get a second chance over a middle of the road power conference team. Ohio State and Indiana both have played 12 games against Quad 1 teams and have only managed to win 2 of them. So, simply because Ohio State or Indiana beat #15th ranked Purdue but in 10 other games against likely tournament teams, they lost, I should assume that those teams have a better chance to win a tournament game than a mid-major team that went 30-0. Based on the regular season, the Buckeyes and the Hoosiers have a 16% chance of winning against a NCAA tournament team. Miami OH is a true unknown based on the regular season, but based on the fact that they went 30-0, I have to believe that they still have a better chance to win a tournament game than 16%. So, if I think Ohio State or Indiana is a tournament team that will be on the correct side of the bubble, I feel like I can find a place for the Redhawks.

I do admit that I noticed something that worried me about Miami’s at large hopes. They have no games against Quad 1 teams, and their only Quad 2 game is their 3 point home victory against Akron. The selection committee has not been kind to mid-major teams with a NET ranking in the 40s or 50s that have no Quad 1 wins. No one is making an argument that 25-6 Belmont (who is currently 54th in the NET) should be in with 0 Quad 1 wins so what is different about Miami (who is 53rd in the NET).

But at the end of the day, there is still a difference. Belmont lost 6 games. If Miami wins tonight and loses in the MAC tournament, they will have lost only once.

It makes me sad because I don’t normally agree with a lot that Stephen A Smith says (although to be fair, I think sometimes that is because he is so demonstrative and feels like he tries to be controversial to get ratings). So, I am not sure that I don’t agree with him, or if he is simply taking the contrarian side to get clicks. So it makes it even crazier that in this case, he might be the side of reason. He said this. “There is no reason on God’s green Earth that a team goes 30-0 in the regular season, only the 4th team in the last 35 years to do so, can’t make a field of 1 of 68 – that’s insane.” He then said basically if you go 30-0 and can’t make the NCAA Tournament, then the regular season means nothing – you just can’t do that.

Every team has a bad night. And the Miami Redhawks have managed to find a way to still win when they have a bad night. And the closer and closer they have gotten to an undefeated regular season, the more the pressure in the room rises. And somehow, they continue to find ways to win.

Do I have to re-think my stance if the Redhawks lose tonight (right now, they have a 6 point half-time lead)? Maybe. While I would have them in, I am not sure the committee would be as agreeable to let the Redhawks in with 2 losses. But if they hold on to get to 31-0, and then somehow get upset in the MAC championship, it would be ridiculous that the committee leave them out.

Yesterday was a sad day for me. Charlie and I were super excited for the James Madison game. The Sun Belt Conference Tournament looked like it would be a free-for-all where anyone could be. And the Dukes were on a streak – as they had won 7 of their last 8 games.

I was all ready to write my “The Dukes Are Hot” article to support them. But then as I have watched painfully a few times this season with my Boilermakers, the JMU shots stopped falling. The game was tied at 43 with about 16 minutes to play. And then a horrible stretch of 2 minutes happened where Tylik Weeks, Isaac Taveras and Tegra Izay from Southern Miss led a 9-0 run and never looked back on the way to an 86-80 victory to knock out the Dukes from the Sun Belt tournament.

Then, in the second game, one of the 6 teams tied for 2nd place, Arkansas State lost by 3 points to a Georgia Southern team that they had beaten by 17 points on the road in January. To put into perspective the type of upset this was, ESPN did a guide by Jeff Borzello, Myron Medcalf and Joe Lunardi to predict who will win all 31 conference tournaments. All three of them predicted Arkansas State to win the entire tournament – certainly not expecting them to lose in their first game.

It is a constant reminder that in March, it doesn’t matter who the favorite is. Vegas had JMU as a 2.5 point favorite and Arkansas State as a 7.5 point favorite. But the games are not played in a Vegas sportsbook or in an ESPN article, they are played on the court. And if you go cold for 2 minutes, your March can be over.

I feel bad for the Dukes – I was hoping that they were going to make a Cinderella run. But as I mentioned before, the Sun Belt is brutal. March is brutal. And when the month of madness is done, only one team will still be happy and 360 schools will see their dreams for a national championship at some point end.