Matt Holthe's Fleeting Thoughts

In less than a month, NCAA presidents will discuss and vote on whether to expand the NCAA tournament from the current 65 teams to 96 teams. That would amount to 32 "opening round" games to bring the field down to 64 teams. The 32 "opening round" winners would play 32 teams who received buys. What do I think of this? I personally hate the idea. One reason is purely from being a fan. The 64 team bracket is filled out by just about everyone - people who don't follow college basketball all year fill one out. If it's 96 teams, I think the participation will go down quite a bit. The next reason is because of logistics. I take the first Thursday and Friday of the tournament off to watch those 32 games. Now there will be 32 opening round games followed by 32 first round games - when are those going to be played? I can't take 4 days off to watch all the games. Do I watch the opening round games and skip the next round, or vice versa? Do I pretty well skip them al...

For grins, Tim and I picked every line and every total for the first and second round of the NCAA tournament. This meant 32 picks Thursday (16 lines, 16 totals), 32 Friday, 16 Saturday, and 16 Sunday. That's 96 overall predictions. Tim wasn't able to get in all the picks for Thursday, though. Here's how we did: Tim - Line predictions (25-12-1, 67%): Thursday - 4-2 Friday - 12-3-1 Saturday - 5-3 Sunday - 4-4 Tim - Total predictions (17-15, 53%): Thursday - none Friday - 9-7 Saturday - 4-4 Sunday - 4-4 Tim - Overall 42-27-1, 61% Matt - Line predictions (29-17-2, 63%): Thursday - 7-8-1 Friday - 12-3-1 Saturday - 5-3 Sunday - 5-3 Matt - Total predictions (25-23, 52%): Thursday - 6-10 Friday - 8-8 Saturday - 6-2 Sunday - 5-3 Matt - Overall 54-40-2, 57%

Things were a bit back to normal today, although there was one overtime game and one buzzer-beater. But the 2 #1 seeds playing today both won, as did both #2 seeds. #3 seed Pittsburgh lost to #6 Xavier in a mild upset and #12 Cornell beat #4 Wisconsin in the biggest upset of the day. Favorites were 4-3 (there was one "pick 'em" game) and overs were 5-3. In the sweet 16, we have these match-ups: #2 Ohio St vs #6 Tennessee and #5 Michigan St vs #9 Northern Iowa in St Louis #1 Syracuse vs #5 Butler and #2 Kansas St vs #6 Xavier in Salt Lake City #1 Kentucky vs #12 Cornell and #2 West Virginia vs #11 Washington in Syracuse #1 Duke vs #4 Purdue and #3 Baylor vs #10 St Mary's (CA) in Houston That means there are 3 Big Ten teams, 2 SEC teams, 2 Big East teams, 2 Big 12 teams, and 1 each from the Missouri Valley, Horizon, Atlantic 10, Ivy League, Pac 10, ACC, and West Coast Conference in the sweet 16.

Wow - what a start to the second round of the NCAA tournament. A #1 seed (THE #1 seed - top overall seed Kansas) loses and a #2 seed loses. From 1985 through 2009 (after the field expanded to 64/65 teams), #1 seeds were 100-0 in the first round and 88-12 in the second round. So this is the 13th #1 seed to drop before the end of the first weekend. #2 seeds were 96-4 in the first round and 64-32 in the second round. It's much more common for a #2 seed to drop by the end of the first weekend, but still pretty rare. Half of the sweet 16 field is set and the teams have these seeds: #1, #2, #3, #5, #6, #9, #10, and #11. 3 teams that (by seed) weren't supposed to even win 1 game have won 2. There are also 3 teams from non-BCS schools in the sweet 16 - Butler (a #5 seed), Northern Iowa (#9 seed, the team that beat Kansas), and St Mary's CA (#10 seed, the team that beat #2 seed Villanova). Favorites were 5-3 yesterday, and overs were also 5-3. My bracket is now pretty beat - I had K...

Today's action wasn't quite as good as yesterday's, but it was still good. We had #12 Cornell beating #5 Temple, two #10 seeds (Missouri and Georgia Tech) beating #7 seeds (Clemson and Oklahoma St), but not as many close games. There were no overtime games and only 3 games decided by 5 points or less. Favorites were 9-6-1, and Overs were 6-10, so betting the unders would have been a good choice. I again did well in the bracket - 13-3, which makes for 27-5 for the first round. Nobody in the nation (either ESPN or CBS Sports) got the entire first round correct.

What a first day of the NCAA basketball tournament! It got off to a bang - in the first four games, there was an overtime game, a double-overtime game, and two one-point games in regulation. In total, there were 3 games that went into at least one overtime and 6 other games decided by 5 points or less. We had a #2 seed needing overtime to beat a #15 seed, a #14 seed beating a #3 seed, a #13 seed beating a #4 seed, and two #11 seeds beating #6 seeds. The "little guys" fared really well - BYU beat Florida, Murray St beat Vanderbilt, Old Dominion beat Notre Dame, and Ohio beating Georgetown. That's not to mention games between non-BCS conferences, like Northern Iowa beating UNLV, Butler beating UTEP, St Mary's beating Richmond, and New Mexico beating Montana. So that's 8 teams from outside the BCS conferences that won yesterday, and 8 from BCS schools that won. My bracket went well - I picked the first 10 games right and ended up 14-2 for the day. Probably my best si...

Next week I'll be taking my first airplane trip since December 15. WOW! That's by far the longest I've gone in several years. I've had a few trips in there, but they were driving trips. (Since I moved back to Illinois, several cities make more sense to drive to than fly to). And next week's trip isn't even a business trip - it's a trip to Las Vegas for the middle weekend of the NCAA basketball tournament.

The automatic bids have some pretty hefty records this year. Here's what we have so far: Atlantic Sun: East Tenn State - #5 seed - 20-14 Big Sky: Montana - #4 seed - 22-9 Big South: Winthrop - #3 seed - 19-13 Colonial: Old Dominion - #1 seed - 26-8 Horizon: Butler - #1 seed - 28-4 Ivy: Cornell - no tourney - 27-4 MAAC: Siena - #1 seed - 27-6 Missouri Valley: Northern Iowa - #1 seed - 28-4 Northeast: Robert Morris - #2 seed - 23-11 Ohio Valley: Murray State - #1 seed - 30-4 Southern: Wofford - #1 (south) seed - 26-8 Summit: Oakland - #1 seed - 26-8 Sun Belt: North Texas - #2 seed - 24-8 WCC: St Mary's CA - #2 seed - 26-5 I wonder how high some of these teams will be seeded? Better yet, I wonder how low some at-large teams will be seeded? Guess we'll find out Sunday!

The bubble teams for this year's NCAA tournament are rejoicing so far. Most tournaments have been going true to form. Here's the ones that have completed: In the A-Sun conference (a 1-bid league), #5 East Tenn St beat #6 Mercer. Big South (1-bid), #3 Winthrop beat #1 Coastal Carolina CAA (potential bid-stealing league), #1 Old Dominion beat #3 William and Mary Horizon (potential bid-stealer), #1 Butler beat #2 Wright St MAAC (potential bid-stealer), #1 Siena beat #2 Fairfield Missouri Valley (potential bid-stealer), #1 Northern Iowa beat #2 Wichita St Ohio Valley (potential bid-stealer), #1 Murray St beat #2 Morehead St Southern (1-bid), #1S Wofford beat #1N Appalachian St Summit (1-bid), #1 Oakland beat #2 IUPUI Sun Belt (1-bid), #2 North Texas beat #1 Troy WCC (potential bid-stealer), #2 St Mary's CA beat #1 Gonzaga Out of these tournaments, Butler and Northern Iowa were going to get in even if they lost - those spots are now open on the bubble. Siena, Old Dominion, and M...

The Big Ten conference has made no secret about the fact that they want a 12th school in the conference. It gives them a chance to have a championship game in football (read: $$$). Who makes sense? I know there are academic standards and I don't know who falls into that category, so I'll only look at things from a geographic and athletic standpoint. Northern Illinois makes sense geographically, but I don't know if the school is big enough to work into the Big Ten. Pittsburgh seems to make the most sense to me. Penn St has always been at the outer edges in terms of geography. They're pretty good in football and basketball, so they would assist the conference from that standpoint. They have a huge rivalry with West Virginia, so I don't know if they want to split that up. Missouri has been tossed around as a possibility. I can't see the Mizzou/Kansas rivalry being broken up -> that's one of the biggest around considering both football and basketball together...

A few conferences have completed their tournaments, and the Ivy league still has 1 regular season game to go (although the conference winner/NCAA representative Cornell has been determined). But the "big boys" (BCS conferences, if you will) have their tournaments starting this week. This year, the entire NCAA basketball field seems weaker than in most years. A bit watered down. I think that means that a lot more "upsets" will happen in the NCAA tournament than in the past few years. Here's my predictions about the conference tournament winners: ACC - The tourney's in Greensboro, so you almost have to go with Duke. Maryland just beat Duke last week, though. But I still have to go with Duke - they are playing for a #1 seed in the NCAA tournament. Big East - This is a great conference, but it is wide open. The teams who get 2 byes - Syracuse, Pittsburgh, West Virginia, and Villanova - have the best chance of winning. But I can see Louisville or Georgetown pulli...