Selection Sunday

[micgoG'town]

Thursday games are spread out nicely though.

[Jet915]

Bracketology show has X, SJU, Butler and Georgetown losing in the first round. Probably will pick Villanova to lose to NC State I'm sure.

[micgoG'town]

The official approx. starting time. Only Villanova is a set time being the first game of the session.
Thur. Butler 2:45 CBS
Xavier 4:10 TBS
Villanova 6:50 TBS
G'town 9:57 Tru TV
Fri. St. John's 9:40 CBS
Providence 9:57 Tru TV

[gosports1]

Bracketology show has X, SJU, Butler and Georgetown losing in the first round. Probably will pick Villanova to lose to NC State I'm sure.

They actually have Providence in round of 32 and so far Villanova in sweet 16

[MUPanther]

Bracketology show has X, SJU, Butler and Georgetown losing in the first round. Probably will pick Villanova to lose to NC State I'm sure.

I know Eastern Washington won at Indiana, but Georgetown losing. Come'On! It's put up or shut up time for the Big East.

[gofriars08]

If GTown loses to E Washington, JT3 should be fired on site. They are not a good basketball team. Should have been a 14+ seed.

[DudeAnon]

Nothing less than an all Big East final four will satisfy me.

[PMThor]

American Conference = LOL.

In all seriousness, feel bad for Temple.

I hope that after this season the Big East will put out feelers to UCONN and Cincy to see if there is any interest in switching leagues. The past 2 seasons have shown that the American Conference is a long term loser, while the Big East is a sustainable basketball power. UCONN and Cincy are both hoping for a Football 5 invite that might never come. Perhaps they could be persuaded to switch leagues in exchange for a no buyout clause if a Football 5 invite is one day extended to those schools. Where to put their football programs would be a big issue, but it can't hurt to ask.

No, no, no. First, X and UC in the same conference is a disaster. Plus UC is a football school, haven't you heard? Honestly, both those schools are going to get Big 12 invites soon because of football, and quite honestly they both fit there to hit the magical 12 team mark and give them a conference championship game in football. Also the Big East is hitting it out of the park right now, there is absolutely no need to expand. The Big East has 60% of the conference in the tourney, and nobody was close to missing out really. The Big East tourney is probably the best out there, the true round robin is perfect, and we have elite teams playing. Why mess with the success?

[BEhomer]

Bracketology show has X, SJU, Butler and Georgetown losing in the first round. Probably will pick Villanova to lose to NC State I'm sure.

and i bet none of these experts actually even watched eastern washington eagles play.

[Bill Marsh]

2 more tweets from Patrick Stevens:
The committee is bound to be a little different every year, because its membership changes. But major inconsistency is a disservice to all.
This committee rather clearly changed course on its criteria. I'd hope all of the teams affected by that knew in advance. Doubt they did.

1. What did they change? For the most part it is entirely the same.

2. What teams were affected? With a 68 team tournament, nobody left out has a legit gripe. This isn't like 20 yrs ago when decent teams got snubbed.

To be honest, I have no idea what the committee saw in Indiana (RPI 60) and LSU (RPI 56). Does this tournament really need a 7th team from the Big Ten and a 5th team from the relatively weaker SEC?

Consider that the committee passed on Colorado State (RPI 30) and. Temple (RPI 34) to take the 2 gems listed above.

I understand the problem with Colorado State since their SOS was 119. But why LSU with a SOS OF 97?

And I get that Temple had a couple of bad losses to teams outside the top 100. But LSU had 5 losses to teams outside the top 100 with 2 of them to teams outside the top 200!

And Indiana wasn't much better. It's one thing to be reaching down into the RPI 50's to select the final teams but 60?

Indiana had only one bad loss outside the top 100 and had 4 top 50 wins. But Colorado State also had only 1 bad loss outside the top 100 and had 3 top 50 wins. Did that 1 extra win really make up for 30 spots in the RPI rankings, which is supposed to be their guide? Indiana did have a very strong top 30 SOS, but Temple had a top 60 SOS and had a 34 RPI against that schedule.

If there's one criticism that can be made of this committee, it's that it heavily favored the power conferences. Heck, Richmond could make just as good a case for a bid as LSU and Indiana.