Don't know that there's much to say, aside from laughing my head off during the Men's selection show when Greg Gumbel read one region and the director used the wrong graphics, or when I looked at ESPN's cheesy simulcast, and realized that they were getting the sites mixed up.

Billy Packer can kiss my ass too! :)

I laughed, too, cutecouple. After all the build-up for the selection show, all the bells and whistles they were obviously so proud of -- whoops!

I have to add that I think I might pick Martelli in the Packer-Martelli bracket. I dunno; I know Packer is a scrapper and a fighter, but those Philly guys...

Glad to hear, yesterday on the radio, that Len Elmore will be doing some work for CBS throughout the tourney: good pipes, good insight, and a general calming presence that I appreciate. Now, as long as I can get regular fixes of Jay Bilas as well, I'll be a happy brackethead.

Billy Packer is a jerk. St. Joes deserves a number 1 seed as much as Stanford does. I don't understand how one loss in a conference tournement should negate a perfect season. Stanford would have had three losses this season if not for some 4th quarter heroics. Saint Joes beat most of their competion by a wide margin.

St. Joe's barely beat Rhode Island and Old Dominion, so they didn't exactly cruise to a perfect regular season.

I don't have a problem with them being a 1 seed, and you'll get no argument from me on the Billy-Packer-is-a-jerk thing, but he's paid to have an opinion and express it. And Martelli oughta be enough of a professional (hell, enough of an adult) to not get bent out of shape about it.

Is it just a given that everyone hates Vitale and wishes he would shut the fuck up? Living in the UK I get to see very, very little of him and it's way, way too much.

Hell, over here I get gobs of him, and I think he's a troll.

As for the bracket griping, I as a Wisconsin resident who saw the Badgers (and the entire Big Ten, for that matter) get shafted with a 5 for Illinois and a 6 for the people who had just beaten them 30 minutes before the selection show (when they both should have been top-4's), absolutely LOVE how the only griping is how Pittsburgh-- who is in the Wisconsin pod-- was the one who got screwed the most, with a 3 seed and having to play Wisconsin in Milwaukee. I actually think Pitt's 3 seed is correct. And there's very little talk of my OTHER gripes (for example, the idiot Selection Committee failing to even care about the Big 10 and Big 12 championship games). But I digress.

As for the actual Selection Show, the regional mix-up, loved it. Laughed my ass off, which was bad because I was trying to write down the teams so I could fill out my bracket. I needed shots of the 8 teams who were displayed at that point, who had the suspense taken completely away. I think it was Virginia Commonwealth that they eventually cut to, and they had clearly already done their cheering and just clapped for the camera.

After that, went over to the Bracketology special on ESPN. I realized that night how Andy Katz and Dick Vitale and everybody became experts: They play it safe and take the chalk. Every matchup. They only even attempted to reach on Manhattan over Florida and Western Michigan over Vanderbilt. And Manhattan only because they needed a 12 over a 5. Here I sat with an Air Force-Princeton second round game and I'm hearing these dipshits play it safe on 7-10 games. Then I found America as a whole brackets even chalkier than the experts, and flips a coin when it gets down to the Final 4 and same-seed games. I from today forward will no longer listen to the experts on picking games as any more than polite suggestions.

Richyyy, ITA on Vitale. One of the main reasons I can't stand to watch Duke/UNC games is listening to Vitale go on a 2-hour continuous orgasm. Thank God the NCAA tourney is on See-BS so I don't have to hear him.

Also, according to a theory proposed by Mike Wilbon on PTI, the reason they change the names of the regions to the cities instead of East/West/whatever, is that they may sell corporate naming rights to the regions. Wilbon proposed that they would change them to the "Cialis", "Enzyte", "Levitra" and "Viagra" regions. I'm hoping he's wrong on that, but we've already got the FedEx Orange Bowl, the Tositos Fiesta Bowl and the Nokia Sugar Bowl. But it's still a crime against humanity for the athletes who bring this corporate $$ to see a penny from it.

I have two contrasting opinions on Dick Vitale:

1) I hate him in the broadcast booth. "He's a PTP'er!!!! A Diaper Dandy!!!"
2) He's one of the things that's right about college basketball. It's all about fun. Dick Vitale is college basketball's biggest advocate and one of its biggest assets. The colege kids love him.

I like Wilbon's region names predictions. You just know one of those companies is going to be a bowl game sponsor in a couple of years.

In my opionion, the NCAA Selection Committee sees the conference tournaments correctly. They're nothing more than money grabs. They treat a good showing in the conference tournament like extra credit - you might move up a seeding slot or two if you're a middle of the pack team and you perform very well but teams that have had great regular seasons don't get penalized if they have one crappy game in their tournament.

This whole idea that the Selection Committee doesn't care about them may be true, but then that introduces a serious flaw into the concept. Use the Big Ten as the example. Illinois wins Big Ten regular season, but Wisconsin beats Michigan St twice in regular season and in tournament. Wisconsin splits with Illinois (somewhat close in IL, but destroyed IL in Madison) and handily beats them in Big Ten Championship. Reason IL is 4 and WI is 6 is because they didn't see the game.

Ok, smartasses, are you saying you DIDN'T watch the game simply because there were 2 teams you knew were going in (and had pre-determined who was seeded where) or COULDN'T watch the game because of the time? If it's the former, that's absurd because that game clearly (although in my somewhat biased opinion) showed that WI is a better team than IL. If it's the former, they are absolutely full of shit. What would have happened if Northwestern and Michigan had been in the Championship game and NW won? Then what the FUCK do you do? Hmm?

As far as Pitt's complaint, the thing that pissed me off about Jay Bilas and others bringing this up is Bilas went on to say, not two sentences later, "this reminds me of when Syracuse got to play in Albany last year for the first two rounds." Ok, so you know what? This happens every year. What do they suggest? Send WI to Spokane just so Pitt doesn't have to play us at home? Christ, you know what? If they're so damn good to get a 3, tell 'em to bring it. They should be able to beat a 6 anywhere, right? Except, not--because no way WI is a 6.

It's a whole lot better than BCS, though!

Tornado25, I can see that your Badger opinion is clearly biased, but I do understand your anger with the selection committee. It's happened to all of our college teams at some point in the past years. But that's what the selection committee does - they seed teams based on their perceived strength and how well they think they will do in the tournament.

While Wisconsin did beat Illinois quite handily in the Big 10 tournament, Illinois showed that over the course of a conference season, they are clearly the better team suited for the tourney. They have quality road wins - an extremely important factor in determining the strength of a team. They have explosive offensive potential and they have the size inside to deal with just about anybody. I don't feel Illinois was deserving of a 5 - I think they definitely deserved a 4. But there's no use griping about it - everyone else in the country can make an argument for why their team should be seeded higher.

As far as Wisconsin playing in Milwaukee and Syracuse last year in Albany, yes, it does happen. But is it fair? Of course not. Why should Pitt have to prove they deserve the #3 seed by having to beat Wisconsin in essentially their home court? Shouldn't it be the other way around? If this home advantage type scheduling is going to benefit a team, I think that it should be the team with the higher seed that has the advantage. After all, don't they deserve it after playing well in the regular season to earn the higher seed?

On a more tv-related note, I am SO happy that CBS has decided to forego the 10-second delay. What were they worried about? That some Stanford engineering fan will be wearing an expletive laden t-shirt? That all of the Florida cheerleaders will suddenly simultaneously lift their tops? That a 7-footer will show everyone that the rumor about big feet is true? I've always liked Janet Jackson, but the crap that she's caused in the entire tv entertainment industry is ridiculous. Although I'm sure it wasn't her intention with Boobgate, Janet Jackson and stupid Justin have made a permanent imprint in tv history. Live tv will never be the same.

A ten-second delay on basketball would have been absolutely absurd. When I heard about it I had visions of some guy on the phone to his buddy at the arena from a bar, shouting out to everyone what's going to happen in the final seconds of a game just before it happened. Just stupid.

Slightly OT I know, but can anyone tell me what the general feeling among the 'experts' (I use the term loosely) is on whether Luol Deng will enter the NBA draft or stay at Duke at least another year? I love the guy (seeing as he's English-ish), but from what I've seen I think he'd definitely benefit from another year in school.

Did CBS change the theme music for the tournament? It sounded different in the selection show. I hope they didn't because the current one is timeless.

I have Gonzaga, Pitt, Duke, and Stanford in the Final 4 with Pitt beating Duke for the title.

LakersSuck: I wish you were in my husband's office pool!

You're absolutely right. Wisconsin does not have a lot of BIG wins on the road, but they did go .500 on the road and from anyone I've talked to, in any sport--if you go .500 on the road and take care of business at home, you're golden.


To keep this reasonably on topic, my big beef was with the Selection Shows handling of this: "Pitt got screwed, blah blah blah, it's the greatest travesty of all time." Ok, fine. But then, to go on and talk about Syracuse last year, it sort of weakens the point. Pitt didn't get screwed--it happens every year. My point about the 3 proving their worth is just that: In the face of disadvantage, a team can prove they are better by proving it. My boss had a good point on this: If Pitt loses, they will complain it was because it was in Milwaukee. If Wisconsin loses, they will complain because we were seeded too low and shouldn't have met a 3 in the 2nd round. Pitt winning soundly on Sunday would prove they are legit (and should have gotten a higher seed everyone says they should have gotten). If not, they probably aren't go enough to go far anyway.

Milwaukee, you as a market suck. I'm watching Alabama-Southern Illinois, an 8-9 game, sweating it out because it really eats you up when close seeds meet and you have a bracket going (damn Crimson Tide), but all of a sudden Bryant Gumbel breaks in saying that they're taking me to Liberty-St. Joseph's, a 1-16, and I'm sitting here going "NOOOO!" Because besides an 8-9 being infinitely more entertaining, Southern Illinois is the closest of the 4 involved schools to my home.

Then I remembered that I live within both the Milwaukee and Madison markets, and saw that Madison had enough brains to stay with the Salukis. So that turned out okay, except for Southern Illinois losing and me screaming my lungs hoarse. But still, if you're Milwaukee, and you have 2 games to pick from-- the closest schools in each game being from Illinois and Pennsylvania-- I'd pick the Illinois game. I don't get it.

Do the radio broadcasts also have a 5 second delay? The television and radio broadcasts were in synch and I was wondering if CBS actually did the delay.

There's also Oklahoma State, which committee members all but admitted would have been considered for a #1 if they had waited for the Big XII title game before seeding them.

While the college game is fun, do we really need the announcers telling us how great it is every 5 seconds? I don't mind a little waxing eloquent once in a while, but they should borrow a page from the NFL and let the product speak for itself. Enthusiasm is good in an announcer, but Vitale in particular just goes too far. (And if he loves Mike Krzyzewski so much, why doesn't he just go marry him or something?)

ESPN Radio's Game Night had the men's committee chair on the other day and he flat out admitted it, which I thought was refreshing. Especially since his interview followed the women's committee chair who danced around the bullshit that is UConn getting home cooking all the way to the Final Four. "Oh... they just happened to be the No. 2, No. 2. It's too bad for the 1 seed, but it really had nothing to do with selling tickets. Nope nothing at all." Bullshit.

I thought that in some markets, stations were taking polls on which games viewers would most like to see. At least, that's how it happened in Chicago last year.

Lakers Suck, I've got the same F4, but with OkState instead of Pitt & the Zags winning it all.

Quote from Prairie Fire:



I'm sure that, if both men weren't married, and if they allowed gay marriage in NC, V would at least propose, but I'm not sure K would accept. As things are, we just have to settle for V's incessant stalking, fawning, and televised continuous orgasms over all things Dookie, errr, Duke-y.

Question: what would make for better TV: Martelli/Packer in a steel cage or Krzyzewski/Vitale in a motel room?

I am looking for comments from anyone in the WISH Indianapolis viewing area. What do you think about the multicasting on digital?

My F4 is OK State, Duke, UConn, and Kentucky with UConn beating Kentucky 72-65.

Damn Nevada... They're the only pick I got wrong.

I got screwed over by Manhattan and was also supporting the Salukis. Apart from that, my bracket is healthy enough.



Just...ew.

I am slightly more out there and have Pitt, UConn, Cincinatti and Georgia Tech in my final 4, with Pitt beating UConn for the lot.

I'm also calling Pitt in the final! Although I have them against Stanford, and losing in the end. My other F4 slots go to UK and Miss. State. I filled out my brackets on St. Patrick's day under the influence of Guiness, so I had Arizona beating Duke. Aiee. Luckily the only thing bet was a massage, so I'm not too worried.

My bracket is in disrepair. Oh well, my bracket always goes to hell the first two days, and then I can forget about it, and just love the basketball for what it is.

CBS is drving me nuts, though. They never cut to a close game until there is like :30 left. Argh!!! Like last night, when they almost cut away from the Dayton-DePaul game while there were 6 seconds left, to go to the UNC game. (and while I'm a Tar Heel fan, at that point, even I wanted to watch the game going into OT). And today, the Utah-BC game was tight, and we were watching Ga. Tech beat Northern Iowa by 11. It's infuriating. And half of the time they cut away to show other games, they're on a timeout, and we never get to see anything.

You can tell the announcers are just exhausted by the end of the night game, especially those played on the east coast. With a minute left in the Washington-UAB game, Matt Goukas was getting the score wrong and said that Washington lost to "Seattle" in the PAC-10 conference tournament.

My brackets are in the shitter but I usually pick the cinderella Sweet 16 team right. Watch out for Pacific. UOP has won 18 straight and looked strong against Providence tonight.

I hate Dick Vitale with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns.

I want to know what kind of map they were looking at that the winners of the games in Denver today go to the SOUTHEAST regional in Atlanta next week?
I used to hate Dick Vitale, but he has been a great friend to a friend of mine who has had a rough year this past year, so now I have to like him.
So I guess --The friend of my friend is my friend. I am REALLY loyal to my friends.

ROLL TIDE!! See ya, Stanford.

I loved it when the announcer called Kennedy Winston "Winston Kennedy."

I hate Billy Packer with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns and a billion angry nuns.

You think YOUR brackets are shot, you oughta see mine. Had Gonzaga winning it all-- I now want Nevada to die horribly. A few hours later, had Stanford losing to said Gonzaga in the finals... damn you, Crimson Tide. My final round has completely vanished and I'm not even out of Day 3 yet.

Topic? Love how they cut away from games in the final minutes to go to games in the first few minutes of the second half. Like how they cut off my Nevada/Gonzaga coverage in the final few minutes to give me Manhattan/Wake Forest. You suck, local affiliates.

AMEN. That's why I turn down the volume and listen to the radio broadcast.

In all fairness to CBS, the Zags were going down in flames by that point. It was painful to watch. And much as I wanted to pull it out to save my bracket, I just couldn't bear to watch anymore. I'm glad they switched us over to end the misery. Gonzaga showed that maybe it's correct to believe that they will never be a major powerhouse contender.

I've only had Directv for about a year. Is it possible somehow to get local channels of other regions? I'm not sure what package you would need to get for that. Because I'd really love to be able to watch the games I want and not the stupid ones that CBS considers to be my region.

Stanfurd R DED!!! I don't care about my bracket anymore, it's all about the HATE and schadenfreude. Bob Ryan and I agree, too many white guys on that team, LOL.

Seriously, the only bad thing about the 'Furd's loss is that, combined with Arizona, Washington, and Gonzaga going down, it "justifies" the East Coast bias. or more specifically, Dick Vitale's Duke fetish. I'm rooting for UOP now.

They don't have 'Regions' anymore. A couple of years ago, they stopped sending teams to the designated site for their region and went to a system where each four-team 'pod' went pretty much to whichever site was closest to the highest-seeded team. I guess they figured people wouldn't show up to the games unless there was a local team, which is kinda stupid but...hey, it's the NCAA. I think it was a response to 2001, when three D.C.-area teams (Maryland, Georgetown and George Mason) were sent out to Boise for their opening-round games. In any event, this year they just went ahead and did away with the entire concept of regions.

Topic? It's time for Dick Enberg to hang it up. Actually, it's way past time for Dick Enberg to hang it up.

Well, really what they did was rename the regions. They still try and match teams up to regional sites, but it's slightly harder with pods in there.

Oh, and in addition to Gonzaga and Stanford in my Final 4? Also has Mississippi St. My bracket is even deader.

Let's Go St. Joe! I wonder what Billy "Fudge" Packer has to say now that so many "more deserving" #1 & #2 seeds are going to be home watching the rest of the tournament on tv.

It looks like Packer will be doing the St. Joe/Wake Forrest game. How the hell does this game get a 10pm EST start time?
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/sports/sp...nia/8246261.htm

nothing to see

I'm happy to report that I still have 3 final four teams still in my bracket, including my championship game combatants Oak State and UConn (along w/ Duke). Kentucky's my only FF team knocked out. Yeah, I know I went with the chalk, but those 1 and 2 seeds seemed head-and-shoulders above everybody else, at least in my eyes. Picking between Pitt and Oak State was hellish, though. Whoever wins that game's coming out of that region.

St. Joe's got about the best draw they could possibly have had, not facing any particularly big teams or teams with a stud wing player (Emmett's more of a shooting guard - yeah, he can slash, but he's only a generous 6'5") until possibly the Elite Eight. Their guard play will keep them in any game, but getting pounded on the boards game after game eventually catches up with you in the tourney, when the game slows down and you get fewer possessions.

I don't know anybody on the face of the planet who likes Billy Fudge. Seriously. He's the most unapologetically hard-headed, borderline-senile man on televised sports. I can't stand him.

Seriously, where were the slow-mo shots of the scrubs on an underdog team all jumping up off the bench after a big play? Don't tell me the kids never did that - show it to us, CBS! It's an NCAA tourney tradition!

And I just have to add, my buddy Jeff said, after our roughly 780th viewing of that goddamn Cialis commercial Friday night: "Four-hour erections, though rare ... are AWESOME." God bless him...

I don't care who wins as long as it isn't dook. Hate dook and everything related to dook more than I hate Billy Packer and that says a lot.
Syracuse has that one player who made me cry 'cause of the story CBS told about him and about senior day and him not having parents there (I don't know why, maybe they are dead I don't know) and so the whole team walked out there with him and he got a standing ovation. And I cried.

Can I just say that it took me a lot of fucks, a couple of days and a few very deep breaths to be able to face this forum again.

Goddamnit!!!!!!!! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fucking Stanford. I'm so upset. Not only did I scream "Fuck!!!" at the top of my lungs for a good two hours, non stop. I actually just closed myself up in my darkened room for the weekend and didn't read any papers or websites that might mention the defeat. My housemates and relatives were scared because they know how bad this is. Niners vs. Cowboys bad. Niners vs. Green Bay bad. Fuck. Then End.

And considering that I had a Kentucky/ Stanford Final I'm completely Fucked. I guess this is what I get for going 11-0 in the NFL playoffs. How fucked up is it that I made no money on that? Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity.

Fuck.

Good luck Stanford Women (6th seed, EST 11 pm). I actually went to your games, whatever that matters.

Fuck.

And for all the complaining about the Stanford Men being seeded the 3rd number 1 seed, can I complain about the Stanford Women's seed for a moment? Ranked 10th in the ESPN/USAToday Coaches Poll and ranked 6th in the Midwest What The Fuck?

Fuck.

So, why are so many of the top-seeded women's games in hostile courts? Thank goodness BC defied the advantage. Go Eagles.

There were so many "fucks" in Pokey Camp's post that I thought I was reading the screen play for HBO's new Deadwood show. :)

I don't think anybody here in Philadelphia expects St. Joe to win it all or even make the Final Four. It's just a really nice Cinderella story for a bunch of nice kids, a nice school and a cool coach. I just hope that when/if they lose it's not like the annhilation that Magic Johnson & Michigan State slapped on my Penn Quakers in the 1981(?) Final Four. I think the score of that game was something like 372 - 58. At halftime.

It was '79, cheesesteak. And I'm 95% sure Magic and Kelser and MSU were up 50-17 at halftime...

That's pretty funny because as I was reading it, I was thinking "I didn't know Nate Fisher was a basketball fan". Close enough?



VeronicaNC, that's Jeremy McNeil. His Mom died last year and when we (see my nickname) won, he didn't really participate in the celebration on-court, said he was thinking about his Mom. He's from San Antonio and the rest of his family couldn't afford the trip to 'Cuse for Senior Day. It would be incredibly cool to send him home to San Anton' for the Final Four...



cheesesteak, that's cbs's controversy-filled national game dontchaknow. It must go out live to the West Coast when people are home. Besides, the NY market must have UConn early. It's all about ratings. Now the question is, will WCBS in NY switch to the St. Joe's/Wake game or stay with Syracuse/Alabama and save me from running to the computer and the radio feed like I had to 20 times on Saturday?

Eeep! That is bad.

Just to be contrarian, I will say it loud and proud. I like Billy Packer. Sometimes he is a crotchety old man, he thinks that any contact is a foul, but he knows the game and he explains it well. (at least to me)

Billy Packer has always struck me as an unabashed shill for the ACC. He never bothered me though, until he dissed St. Joe's and that had 98% to do with hometown pride and 2% dislike of Packer. It should be a good game tonight. Hopefully the Martelli/Packer brouhaha will take up .00001% of the coverage. I didn't go to St. Joe's University but I did go to high school at St. Joe's Prep so I've got some Hawk in me.

To paraphrase a certain Lionel Hutz, Attorney at Law, that's exactly it, except change "sometimes" to "always," "man" to "bastard," and "explains it well" to "never admits he's wrong."

And yes, he's a total shill for the ACC and, to a lesser extent, the Big East. If you're from the Big Ten or Big Twelve, you might as well not even exist. I'm fairly certain he doesn't even know the Pac-10 exists. I absolutely loathe the man, and have for years. Every year I turn on the Final Four, hoping CBS has come to their senses and removed the Nantz/Packer team and replaced them with a McDonough/Raftery/Bilas package. Then I hear Packer's voice, my eye starts twitching, and I involuntarily start rubbing my temples...