With Milwaukee’s relatively easy victory last night over the Los Angeles Clippers, the Bucks are now at 41 wins, clinching a season no worse than .500.  The fact that there are still nine games left to increase that win total to a possible, albeit unlikely, 50 win season proves how incredible this season has already been.
In the preseason picks even the most diehard of fans could not predict anything over .500 without being laughed at.  All of the optimists surmised, if this, this, and this happen, the Bucks could have a shot at the 8th seed and maybe have a .500 season.  [...]

And I do not care.  Individual awards are great for baseball or contract incentives.  In Football and Basketball they mean very little to fans who care about their team winning.  The pointlessness of the Rookie of the Year award could not have better evidence than this season.  Two weeks into the year the award was Brandon Jennings to lose, especially after his 55 point explosion, but as the year has went on Jennings scoring numbers have dropped while the wins have piled up for his team.
Jennings is the starting point guard for a team that will likely finish in the top [...]

The second weekend of the tournament starts tonight with Syracuse-Butler and West Virginia-Washington in the early games then Kentucky-Cornell and Kansas State-Xavier in the late games.  For the purposes of my bracket I hope Syracuse, Xavier, Kentucky and West Virginia move on but more than anything I hope the games are competitive.  I am not so sure my hopes will come true.
Syracuse-Butler
Line:  Syracuse -6.5 138
I do not think this will be a game.  I like what Butler does;  they play team basketball, play hard, play together, play defense, but it may not matter.  Syracuse has too much inside even without [...]

If your bracket is not completely busted hopefully you can enjoy day two of the tourney.  Day one almost wore me out by the end of the night with the San Diego St missed three pointer, a failed upset pick of mine, then Wake Forest knocked out Texas.  That was the theme yesterday, there always seemed to be at least two highly intriguing games going on at once, and the tourney opened with quite possibly the best trio of games ever to open. 
Old Dominion edged Notre Dame by a point, BYU outlasted Florida in double overtime, and Villanova along with [...]

When the brackets were announced Sunday night you likely went out to ESPN or Yahoo and started filling out your Bracket.  By 8am Monday at the latest you had completed or nearly completed the entire bracket.  From the time your bracket was finished until Wednesday you undoubtedly have adjusted, readjusted, flipped and flopped, found new upsets, blew up pods/regions, here is my advice:  LEAVE IT ALONE!
There is so much analysis out there, even on the ESPN pick analyzer it gives negative feedback if you pick Old Dominion over Notre Dame, but it also gives you negative feedback if you pick [...]

The Badgers received a 4 seed in the East.   There are positives and negatives about where they were placed but overall I am happy with the seeding and placement.  They get 1b of the 1a Kansas, 1b Kentucky pair of tourney K favorites, but they did get the K they can frustrate and take down to the wire.
4 Seed
It was nice to see that the loss to Illinois in the Big 10 tourney did not cause a drop.  It is frustrating to think what could have been had the Badgers won that game, and even the Ohio State game.  Would [...]

Yesterday was a great day of College Basketball.  The Big East, Big 12, and Mountain West had several great games.
Big East
First off, the Big East needs to re-format this tournament.  Having the double bye has proven to be a hindrance more than bonus as the teams receiving the double bye are 2-6 in the two years of existence.  This year the 1-4 seeds won only one game, and that was on a buzzer beater by West Virginia.  Contrast that lack of success with the Big 12 where you saw all 4 top seeds advance and I think there is something [...]

Marquette and Villanova play the second quarterfinal today in the Big East tourney. 
Line:  Villanova -5, O/U 141.5
Villanova won the regular season matchup 78-76 at Marquette, but that was Jan 2, which feels like a season ago at this point.
Efficiency Ratings:
Villanova offense 8   defense 56  tempo 13
Marquette offense 23  defense 39  tempo 304
Villanova is better on offense, Marquette is better on defense.  The big difference is the tempo for the teams.  Marquette plays at a much slower pace than Villanova meaning this game could very well come down to who dictates the pace.  Villanova will continually try to push it, Marquette will try [...]

This is a great day for the conference tourneys.  When the teams care the conference tourneys can be just as good as a the majority of the NCAA tourney due to the rivalries and the fact that it is big boys against big boys.  Sometimes the NCAA has too many upsets, which are exciting in the moment, but they take away higher profile matchups.  These matchups cannot be avoiding in conference tourneys.
Syracuse-Georgetown
Line: Syracuse -6.5   O/U 139
Syracuse won both regular season matchups, 75-71 and 73-56.
This is a treat to get such a great matchup this early in a conference tournament.  Syracuse is [...]

Until we get the actual brackets on Sunday night it is entertaining to look at the daily updates to ESPN’s Bracketology.  This has been an up and down year with no clear cut season long favorite outside of Kansas.  That means that the final four will not be comprised of the very best four teams but the four teams that were in the right bracket with the right matchups.
I will break down which sleepers “should” have the best chance of making a run along with which favorites will and will not join them.
Joe Lunardi usually comes extremely close to predicting [...]