So, I have so much to blog about. So much to rant about. We will see how far I get before I remember that I have to handicap 8 Sweet 16 games and make my second chance picks.

But before I get into the things I left out last week while I was ranting about North Carolina and West Virginia, let me start with something that annoyed me today. The main article on ESPN for college basketball was titled “Reranking the remaining 16 teams”

I opened the article almost knowing that I was going to be angry from it. I have seen a few of these through the day, and knowing how the ESPN article pushed my buttons, I decided not to let any of the others draw me in.

I get that the media has four days to fill before the games start up on Thursday. But this is such a lazy article. Either you give a ridiculous ranking thaakes you sound stupid and that you don’t know anything about basketball, or you basically give the rankings the way they already are, with a couple of changes that were obviously your original disagreements with the selection committee. Just say that you disagree with committee.

Charlie was telling me on another one of these that the author put Purdue as 15th, and Arkansas as 14th. That is my point – so because Arkansas beats St. John’s, they move from 37th on the selection curve pass the team that was 14th (OK – I don’t know what the Selection Committee was thinking when the 6th place team in the Big 10 was 14th – but that still doesn’t mean that the team going 8-10 and tied for 10th in the SEC passes them.

So, lets see what the geniuses from ESPN came up.

• 1) Duke (2) – All the polls had the Blue Devils as 1st – only the Selection Committee had Auburn there. So, this is simply stating what everyone already believes.
• 2) Florida (4) – Lets remember that the polls had the Gators as the top SEC team.
• 3) Houston (3) – The Cougars stay where they are
• 4) Auburn (1) – The Tigers fall down to where they sit in the polls. As far as the bracket would be concerned, it is irrelevant – all of the #1 seeds are still #1 seeds
• 5) Tennessee (5) – No movement
• 6) Alabama (6) – No movement
• 7) Michigan State (7) – No movement – All the 2 seeds are still 2 seeds
• 8) Kentucky (11) – One of the 3 seeds had to move up – and they have to make some changes. Of course, is it a surprise that ESPN would jump the 3 seed from the conference they have more of a TV contract with.
• 9) Texas Tech (9) – 3 seed is still a 3 seed. Shocker.
• 10) BYU (21) – The Cougars did look great against Wisconsin
• 11) Michigan (17) – A chance to remind everyone that the 2nd place team in the Big 10 that then went and won the conference tournament was probably not seeded correctly.
• 12) Maryland (15) – This could have been a chance to make a switch between them and Arizona – since beating Colorado State by 1 is certainly not as impressive as beating Oregon by 4. But they choose to keep the order.
• 13) Arizona (16) – No real movement – the only 4 seed who stayed at a 4 seed, so they could move Michigan and BYU up.
• 14) Ole Miss (24) – The Rebels 13 point victory over Iowa State was impressive, so I understand the desire to move them up. So, they go from the 2nd worse team to make it to the 3rd worse team to make it.
• 15) Purdue (14) – This has to be because the Selection Committee lost their mind when they ranked my Boilers 14th. I don’t know how you ding them for winning by double digits against High Point and McNeese State in games that were never close. Sure – they had probably the easiest path to the Sweet 16, but it is not their fault Clemson lost.
• 16) Arkansas (37) – at least ESPN didn’t go crazy and put the 8-10 SEC team past all the other teams that made it. They are the only double digit seed left.

So, to summarize, all the 1 seeds are still 1 seeds, all the 2 seeds (and a 3 seed to replace St. John’s) are still 2 seeds, the remaining 3 seed, the two Big 10 seeds that should have been ranked ahead of Purdue to begin with move to 3 seeds – and then one of the Big 12 teams since they are having a great tournament, and then everyone else is a 4 seed.

As I said, a pointless article. You either sound like an idiot by saying Arkansas should move from a 10 seed to a 3 seed just to be provocative. Or you basically leave the order alone and state the committee did it right the first time – which is basically what ESPN did.

At the end of the day, there is nothing that the top 7 teams did last weekend to make us believe that they are not still the top 7 teams. We could make some arguments on some of the other teams (I really was impressed with BYU and Kentucky – guess so was ESPN). 13 of the top 17 teams won – not sure why that should make me believe that their order has changed.