21 games starting at 11 am where unless you are from the Ivy, American, Atlantic 10, SEC or Big 10 conferences, a victory means you will be playing in the NCAA Tournament next week!!! You can not get any better than that – win one game and you don’t have to worry about the Selection Committee. 11 automatic bids get decided today as we have non-stop basketball for about 15 hours as the America East championship kicks off at 11 am all the way until the WAC championship kicks off at midnight.

The Lunatic has a few goals for the day, some of which are more realistic than others and some are completely out of his control. None of these are in any particular order – just things that I hope to have happen.

• Finish updating the statistics page – I think I only have to fix one box score from a game in November that the ESPN site listed all the stats as 0s resulting in a 0-0 tie. Since that helps me with everything I do over the next 3 weeks from bracketology to creating cheat sheets to handicapping the games, that should be first on my list to do (and I will hopefully get done before the games start and I start getting distracted).
• Watch Purdue win today at 3:30 pm and get some revenge from their last second defeat at UCLA in the Big 10 semi-finals. And yes, I said watch – the Lunatic did watch yesterday to hopefully prove to himself he is not a jinx, and the Boilers won by 16. I can’t tell you how happy I was about that. It is easy to let things like jinxes and karma come into mind, but the truth is if you are a true fan, you are going to be there for every win and every loss.
• Spend most of the day working on my bracketology. This year, I get to have a very realistic version of the Selection Committee. I will spend tons of time in a room in front of a television with games and a computer with stats as I try to select the teams to play in the tournament. I am hoping that I can be like the committee – finish selecting the field today, and seed everyone tomorrow. This is the most unrealistic goal that I have today – while it is fully in my control, the Lunatic gets distracted when basketball is on. Who wants to play with statistics when you can watch the actual games.
• Take a break from basketball to spend some time with Charlie, who is home for Spring Break at JMU. I would add Katie to that, but considering basketball will be on the television, I am not sure that I will see very much of my daughter.
• Watch some great basketball games – this is the only goal I know can happen – I simply need to turn on the television.

I have a lot to do, so I will not list out all 21 games today. But I do need to spend some time to catch up on all the great action from yesterday, and what it means for today.

• Saint Louis came back from 21 points down in what could have been a disastrous first round exit from the Atlantic 10 tournament. Thanks to this, the Billikens have set up a semi-final against one of the teams that beat them in the regular season, Dayton. The winner will await the winner of VCU, who also needs to keep winning to keep their bubble hopes alive, and St. Joseph’s to determine the Atlantic 10 champion on Sunday.
• The American conference protected its top 2 seeds to its semi-finals today, so this will be the first time that bubble team and regular season champion South Florida plays as they go against Charlotte. On the other side, Tulsa survived 3 overtimes against North Texas yesterday to play the other 13-5 team from the conference, Wichita State.
• Last night in the Mountain West, there was a fantastic game between bubble teams San Diego State and New Mexico. With about 25 seconds left, the Lobos’ Deyton Albury made a layup to tie the game at 62. But with 2 seconds left, the Aztec’s BJ Davis countered with his own layup to send San Diego State to the Mountain West Championship game today against regular season champion Utah State.
• The SEC has introduced a true bid-stealer into the mix. Ole Miss (15-19) continued its reign of terror in Nashville as they held on to upset #15 Alabama. Oklahoma almost continued their hot streak as well, but lost by 3 to #17 Arkansas – so now they nervously have to wait and see if what they have done over a 6 game winning streak is enough to hear their name called tomorrow. On the other side of the bracket, we should have a fun game as #4 Florida and #22 Vanderbilt advanced to setup an exciting game today.
• The Big 10 didn’t introduce any bid-stealers, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t have upsets. #23 Wisconsin came back to upset #9 Illinois in overtime, setting up a battle with #3 Michigan, who survived a tight game against Ohio State. The Wolverines now have to play the one team in the Big 10 that beat them this season. And of course, UCLA held on as they were up by double digits before the #8 Michigan State Spartans started their come-back. So, while Purdue, Wisconsin and UCLA are likely in the tournament, they all pulled off upsets to play in the semi-finals today.
• There was no upsets in the Big 12, but certainly had some excitement. Of course, the news in Kansas City up to tomorrow was more floor chaos for the Big 12. They try to be innovative and all it does is seem to back-fire. Last year, they created this atrocious court with small tiny XIIs covering the floor. This year, they created a glass-LED floor that could show advertisements and data-driven graphics during timeouts. The initial feedback was the court was very slippery and causing players to have a hard time to make cuts, but the end apparently came when Texas Tech’s Christian Anderson slipped and strained his groin muscle – causing him to have to sit on the bench injured as he watched his Red Raiders lose to Iowa State. So, the Big 12 switched back to the ugly hardwood court for the semi-finals and finals. Fortunately, #7 Iowa State and #2 Arizona brought the conversation back to basketball as they played a thrilling game that ended the Wildcats’ Jaden Bradley tried to drive to the basket but great defense forced him out to the wing. With time running out, Bradley threw up a tightly-contested fade-away and somehow managed to sink it at the buzzer to beat the Cyclones. #5 Houston ran away from #14 Kansas setting up what is likely the premier game of the evening as two teams that will clearly be top 2 seeds in the tournament play in the Big 12 championship tonight. I don’t know that the Cougars have the ability to get the last #1 seed if they win – I am sure Florida and UConn will have something to say about that, but you still can’t get to watch a better game, assuming you can manage to watch the game on that horrible XII covered floor.
• The Big East didn’t see any drama as #6 UConn and #13 St. John’s – setting up a fantastic final tonight in Madison Square Garden to decide the Big East championship. There also wasn’t a lot of drama in the ACC – as the top two teams, #1 Duke and #10 Virginia advanced to tonight’s ACC championship, as we get to see in Charlotte how the Blue Devils can do without Caleb Foster and Patrick Ngongba against a top level team like the Cavaliers.

Friday was such a great day of basketball. But, Saturday will be even better. Eleven champions will be crowned today, five more will be crowned tomorrow, and at 6 pm on Sunday, the Selection Committee will inform us the field of 68 for the men’s NCAA championship!!! Enjoy the madness!!!