Soft Pretzel Logic

First is the Inquirer's Mike Jensen, who said Ohio State would win. Second is Caulton Tudor of the Raleigh News and Observer, who on his podcast said that one team would come out with "stage fright." The veteran ACC columnist was right, though he was wrong to predict that team would be Ohio State.

The team was Georgetown. The Hoyas committed nine first-half turnovers, and recorded only five assists on 9-of-20 shooting in the first 20 minutes on the way to a 67-60 defeat.

Ohio State recorded four assists and four turnovers in the first half, and ended the game with 13 assists and eight turnovers. Georgetown finished with 17 and 14. Green and DaJuan Summers had three each, while Roy Hibbert, Jonathan Wallace and Patrick Ewing, Jr., had two each. That's twelve turnovers from the Hoyas' starting five and sixth man.

It sure was huge that the Buckeyes were able to keep Jeff Green in check. Not so much the nine points as the five field goal attempts. Here's Green's final line:

And once again, the old Lawrence North High School teammates came up big for the Scarlet and Gray:

Considering how much of the first half Oden spent on the bench, that's really impressive. And it's just as important to note that the block came with 47 seconds left in the game and Georgetown desperate to cut into Ohio State's nine-point lead.

So Ohio State has definitely proven that it belongs in the national championship game, and as I write Florida is in the process of doing so as well. It'll be a rematch of the national championship football game in the building where the Gators won the SEC championships in football and men's basketball.

The college sports universe has pretty well resolved itself down to two programs. Make of that what you will. I don't like it, but then again I don't have anywhere near the money needed to do anything about it... and really, do any of us?

Having said that, a note to any readers out there who are Kentucky fans: Of those two programs I mentioned above, your basketball team isn't one of them.

Okay, here's the must-read column of the day... or at least the one I can find before the Inquirer and Daily News stories hit the web. The Washington Post's John Feinstein reports the following from the lobby of the coaches' hotel in Atlanta:

Tubby Smith, who left Kentucky to take the Minnesota job a week ago, walked by as Boeheim was speaking. Someone asked [Smith] if he might take the Kentucky job, because every other coach in the country had been mentioned at some point. "Now that," he said, "would be a good rumor to start."

Big news coming Monday, though. Maybe sooner depending on things.

In the meantime, consider this. One of the undercurrents to pretty much every college basketball season is the shouting between the Big East and ACC over which conference is better. The southern half of the East Coast (plus Boston College) ended the season with the highest conference Pomeroy ranking, while the northern half (plus South Florida) was fifth.

The head-to-head games between the conferences don't conform to the standings, though. In the regular season, the Big East went 6-5 against the ACC, with four of the five losses tallied by teams that didn't make the conference tournament.

In the postseason (NCAA Tournament and NIT combined), the Big East was 4-1. Arguably the two biggest games, Georgetown-UNC and tonight's NIT final between West Virginia and Clemson, both went in the Big East's favor.

Does it mean anything? No, and I'm counting down the ten seconds until someone emails me to make the point. But it's not like bragging ever requires a real excuse.

Two good stories about some of the deeper issues in college athletics.

Veteran Atlanta Journal-Constitution writer Tony Barnhart (who you often see on TV during SEC football games) writes about the impact of the one-year rule in college basketball and who's behind it.

SI.com's Lester Munson writes about a lawsuit currently being filed against the NCAA which claims that the NCAA's scholarship limit is arbitrarily set and is below the number actually needed. If the NCAA loses it could be out $334 million. Better make sure the chalk keeps doing well in basketball so that the rights fee goes up if the case is lost.

Joe Theismann has been offered the chance to call college games for ESPN.

And two posts on Andy Katz's blog about coaching news.

Mitchell Rosenzweig writes in:

Stan Heath shown the door by Frank Broyles. Arkansas is really not a factor these days.
Who are you hearing as the candidates?
Thats 2 SEC jobs open -- AR and KY

Still have 2 Big 10(11) openings as well
Michigan and Iowa

And 2 in the Ivy. Harvard and Princeton. I know that gets some play around here

Any buzz on any of these?

Its been quiet on this front, and all we know is that Calipari signed a nice extension at Memphis State.

And Little Ricky is content at Louisville. He must like the Big East road trips to NYC, DC, and Chicago a little more than trips to Starkville, Oxford, and other outposts in SEC-land.

Only real news I see is that Ritchie Mckay (ex New Mex) landed at Liberty. He must be liked by Falwell.

I must admit I don't hear all that much of the national coaching rumors. As for the Ivies, I don't know much there either but I can give you a few names. At Princeton, two names I've heard mentioned in the media are Northwestern assistant Mitch Henderson, Georgetown assistant Rob Burke and -- yes, it's getting around -- maybe even Bill Carmody himself. See this story.

Henderson assists Carmody, and is a former Princeton player from the mid-90's. If any Penn fans have any good stories about him (which I gather are out there), do post them. Burke assists JTIII, which certainly puts him in a good place right now.

But rule out another Hoyas assistant, Kevin Broadus, who will take the job at SUNY-Binghamton after the NCAA Tournament is done. Still, I'm not inclined to think Princeton will go "outside the family" this time.

Having said that, if you -- yes, you -- want to coach Princeton, here's the job listing. The qualifications don't seem too excessive.

As for Harvard, rumors abound that New Hampshire and Drexel coach Bill Herrion is a leading candidate. One of the sources of the rumors is this Basketball U. story, which is behind a paywall. Williams College coach Dave Paulsen is another candidate, and has been in the mix for a number of recent Ivy openings.

Harvard is an interesting job in that it's clearly a premier school in terms of name branding, even though the basketball program has never been successful. Yet unlike Princeton, which also has those qualities, Harvard doesn't have the history and culture of a certain way of doing things that Princeton has. New Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust was a professor at Penn from 1971 to 2005, so I would think she knows full well about how important college sports (and basketball specifically) can be on a campus.

On the big stage, I've yet to read anything that disproves the idea that Tom Izzo and Tom Crean are the top two candidates for Kentucky. I was certainly hoping Calipari would get the job for the sizzle of it, but good for Memphis for keeping him around (as an aside, what does it say that I've never referred to the school as Memphis State?).

As for Pitino, no reason for him to leave the Big East. Kentucky's a marquee job, but at Louisville he gets on national TV all the time and he gets to coach in New York, which you can't really do in the SEC unless you win the NIT. Which wouldn't go over well in Lexington.

I think the firing of Stan Heath is absurd, frankly. You might recall that retiring Arkansas AD Frank Broyles (read this piece from a few weeks back to get an idea of just how powerful he is) said that Heath would lose his job if he didn't make the NCAA Tournament. Well, Heath did it and lost his job anyway. No surprise that former Razorbacks coach Nolan Richardson said Broyles should take the job and see how he does with it.

I have nothing on Michigan, but there's news today that Iowa contacted Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl. Pearl said no thanks, and there's no reason for Pearl to leave Knoxville. He's clearly having a ton of fun and gets to coach at one of the rare schools that treats both basketball and football very well.

Speaking of that, go here and listen to Steve Alford talk about why he left Iowa.

This week's episode of the show is now ready for your listening pleasure.

It's a preview of the Final Four, with a look at all the chalk and all the big money teams that have made it to Atlanta. We break down the matchups and Mike gives his picks. Then we take up the John Thompson III-Fran Dunphy discussion that's been going on the blog.

It's also the last show of the season with Mike. I'll probably do one for the women's final four with Mel Greenberg on Wednesday and that will be it.

To all of you out there who've been listening, my sincere thanks. Mike and I really do care that people are downloading the show.

The 21-year-old behind the University of North Carolina's mascot mask died today of the injuries he suffered when he was hit by a SUV last week near the Meadowlands.

There are some great video features on Philly.com today about the teams in the Final Four, including highlights of the regional finals. Watch them by clicking here.

Philly.com Citizen Blogger Kris Gochenour writes:

Sweet fancy moses, I hope Dunph can do that. Oh, and Jeff Green might be the player of the year in the Big East, but it was still a walk to top all walks. Worse than the Patrick Ewing 5 step.

Penn fan Will Weiss, who might not be out of gas money anymore now that the season's over, writes:

I hope Dunphy can do it. I think he will in time. My only reservation is that the A-10 can no longer attract the five-star players that Big East schools can land, the exceptions being good recruits that turn into potential all-americans once in college (e.g. Jameer Nelson and even Christmas).

Well first, I should amend my previous remarks to add that I hope Temple fans don't expect Dunphy to get that far in three years. What Thompson has done is exceptional for just about any level. But Dunphy can recruit, and he knows all the coaches (and a lot of the kids) at the top high school programs in this area.

Carolina will always be Carolina, and some kids will want to go out to Arizona to play just because it's far from home, but I have no doubt that Dunphy will be able to get some of the top local talent to come to North Broad Street.

Related to that, I think Will sort of contradicted himself. To Nelson and Christmas add Darrin Govens, Mark Tyndale, Jawan Carter, Ahmad Nivins and Rodney Green. For starters. Across the A-10 as a whole, add Drew Lavender, Maureece Rice, Justin Cage, Stephane Lasme and Rashaun Freeman. And remember that Ohio State's Thad Matta came to Columbus from Xavier.

Players will go to A-10 schools if they want to play for the coaches there. Dunphy can make the sale to get kids to come play for him, and once he's got them he can get them to run his system on the floor. Yes, Temple's defense this season was not up to the level that we're used to from Dunphy's teams, but that had a lot to do with Temple's lack of size against the good big men in the A-10 this year.

And about that travel: Yes, it was. But if you look at where the refs are, the two at that end of the floor couldn't have seen his feet moving because he was surrounded by Vanderbilt players. It certainly wasn't five steps.

Congratulations, Jared Miller:

That would 1998, my dear Mr. Tannenwald - Kentucky, Utah, UNC, Stanford.

I suppose I'll have a large root beer at the Penn Relays...

I am in part to blame for his winning, because I forgot to exempt practicing journalists from being eligible to win. Still, nice to know that he and his employer think so highly of me.

Though I'm not sure they sell root beer at Franklin Field.

If John Thompson III can do this with Georgetown, just imagine what Fran Dunphy can do with Temple once he's had time to bring in the players he wants.

Seriously.

Can you do this without looking it up? I had to.

When was the last year the Final Four did not feature two teams from the same conference?

I think I'll even put a prize out there, since I haven't had many readers the last few days. First to reply wins a drink from the concession stands at the Penn Relays.

Technorati Profile

I know this isn't a soccer blog, and I doubt I have all that many readers who are also interested in the sport, but there's an old adage in the game that Italy is the only national team capable of making defense look beautiful. Catenaccio, translated as "door bolt," is the style of soccer the defending World Cup champions have made famous over the years.

UCLA just did it on the basketball floor against Kansas in those final minutes. Yes, the Jayhawks made some really stupid decisions with the ball, specifically their insistence on driving the lane when they needed threes in a hurry.

But still, what a great performance by the Bruins. Before the conference tournaments started, I thought UCLA was the best team in the country, and they showed their best tonight.

Can you excuse me for hoping that UCLA meets the Georgetown-UNC winner in the national championship game?

Shannon Ryan has the money quotes from Jay Wright.

"No one has asked me about it," he said. "I'm not even prepared for a quote on this. . . . I'm very happy at Villanova. I haven't even thought about it."

"Never, ever mess with happiness."

-- Dick Vitale just now on SportsCenter, relaying a saying Jimmy Valvano once told him.

Why should Jay Wright leave?

From Mitchell Rosenzweig (whose comments I quite like receiving, but... anyone else out there?)

Kentucky

Some early rumored names

Bill Gillespie TAMU
Tim Floyd USC
Mike Montgomery sitting at home collecting $$
Jay Wright Nova
John Pelphrey USA

Gillespie's name got bounced around for a while, but I can't quite see him leaving A&M. As well as he's done, there's something to be said for coaching basketball at a football school because there's less pressure on you.

I certainly can't see Floyd leaving L.A., with the media attention and the recruiting base.

Montgomery... maybe. But is he too nice to deal with the Kentucky hoops culture?

Pelphrey... maybe. Would be much more of a move up than any of the other names, but that's the first I've heard of it.

And as for Jay... here's the thing about that. I heard it too earlier. But I can't see him leaving Villanova. Not for this, and not for much of anything.

He's a Philly guy, coaching at the Big East's Philly school, getting on national TV all the time, surely making good money (but his tailor knows this already, as we all do), getting just about any players he wants in the Philly area and a good few from New York (at least those who don't go to Duke or Carolina).

He plays most of his games on campus and playing the big ones in an NBA arena. He doesn't have all that much pressure because he took his team to a No. 1 seed last year before losing to the national champions, then followed that up with another Tournament trip in what was supposed to be a rebuilding year.

Yes, Kentucky's a big deal, but I just can't see him taking it. And I'm not sure I can see Kentucky wanting a Northeast guy instead of a Midwest guy. Their fans much prefer local/regional players, from what I've seen.

Andy Katz has updated the original story with some potential names: Tom Izzo, Tom Crean, John Calipari, Mark Few and Mike Brey.

Calipari coaching Kentucky... ooh.

UPDATE: Katz has added Gillespie, Wright and Texas' Rick Barnes to his list.

I still don't think Wright goes. And for Kentucky's sake, I hope they don't hire Barnes. Two straight close calls to inferior teams in the NCAA Tournament should answer any questions as to whether Barnes is a good coach.

Thoughts on Alford? Looks like he is leaving Iowa for New Mexico. Not a good sign for Big 10 (11) basketball.

No, but... we interrupt this blog post to report an ESPN.com story that Tubby Smith is leaving Kentucky to take over at Minnesota. To quote Dick Enberg, oh my.

I... don't know what to say about that one. If I had to pick a Big Ten school he'd go to, I would have said Michian, but... wow.

Anyway, about Alford -- yes, it's a big loss for Iowa and the Big Ten, but it gets Indiana out of his hair. And he gets to coach at the Pit, which is no bad thing. Good for New Mexico, too, that they've brought in a big-name coach to put some spice back there again.

So I was thinking more about that column on Greg Oden and Kevin Durant, and I decided to create a poll about it.

I phrased the question like this:

Texas' Kevin Durant and Ohio State's Greg Oden have both expressed interest in staying in college instead of turning pro this year. What do you think?

-- They should stay if they want to, and enjoy college life.
-- They should go. They're ready for the NBA and the money's too good.

Vote in it, and if you have more to say post a comment or email me.

But print these stories out and take them with you...

First, news broke this morning that veteran Penn State women's basketball coach Rene Portland stepped down last night. The Inquirer's Mel Greenberg broke the rumors about this happening in this morning's paper.

On the men's side, there's a great story by Frank Fitzpatrick in this morning's Inquirer about the big money in this year's Sweet 16. The four No. 1 seeds' combined profit for the 2005-06 season was $27.4 million, compared to a combined $15.7 million profit for the other 12 teams.

Elsewhere in the Inquirer, Mike Jensen profiles the wacky ways of Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl. The more I watch him, the more I can't help rooting for the Volunteers, even though I have Ohio State winning tonight in my bracket.

Mike also previews the other game in San Antonio tonight, Texas A&M vs. Memphis, with an eye towards all those Aggies fans that are probably caravaning down to San Antonio as I write.

One of many local ties to this weekend's action can be found on the Sixers' bench. Assistant coach Mike Bibby recruited many of the players who will take the floor for USC tomorrow night, and Bibby reminisces with Marc Narducci.

Bob Cooney is in San Jose for the Daily News, and he sets up the Jamie Dixon-Ben Howland Pitt-UCLA and defense-offense Southern Illinois-Kansas games.

Mike Kern is in San Antonio, where he previews a regional of football schools in a football stadium and the Tennesee-Ohio State rematch.

More from both papers about Scottie Reynolds' decision to stay at Villanova.

Somewhat related to that, there's a really eloquent column by Michael Wilbon in today's Washington Post about why it's actually not a bad thing that Greg Oden and Kevin Durant want to stay in college. I know this might be shocking to some people (and I know a lot of people in Philadelphia aren't that fond of Wilbon), but is it really such a bad thing that the two players want to make the decision for themselves?

Two stories from North Broad Street: a look back on the Temple women's basketball season, and news that veteran Owls track coach Jack St. Clair died yesterday.

And a few from the Ivy League: Ibby Jaaber has been invited to the Portsmouth NBA predraft camp, former Princeton coach Joe Scott regrets setting expectations high, and a Trenton Times columnist's editor forgot to turn the caps lock key off.

So remember how way back when, I picked a NIT Final Four of Drexel, Florida State, Syracuse and Kansas State?

They're all out.

The last to go was Syracuse, just now at Clemson. The Orange were down by as many as 17 points in the second half, then mounted a big rally to cut the deficit to one point but never took the lead.

Jim Boeheim's been screaming at the refs all night, and I have to say I'm a little bit pleased Syracuse lost tonight. The Orange played their first two NIT games in the Carrier Dome, and now that they've had to go on the road, they've lost.

Coincidence? I think not.

Syracuse played its first 15 (fifteen) 15 games of this season in New York state, and thought nothing of it because it basically does so every year. Thirteen at the Carrier Dome, one in Buffalo (same difference) and one at Madison Square Garden (no embellishment necessary).

Outside of New York state, Syracuse was 4-4 this season. Two of them were at Rutgers and South Florida. One was at Marquette, which was good, and another was at Providence, which wasn't bad. But the loss tonight puts that all in perspective, I'd say.

Dana Pennett O'Neil reports this evening that Scottie Reynolds is staying at Villanova.

I have to admit that one of the things that I really don't like about the NBA, and the people that profit from it, is that it was ever really all that possible that he'd leave.

Your thoughts?

Well, we know what games we're getting tomorrow and Friday...

Thursday:

7:10 p.m.: 4. Southern Illinois vs. 1. Kansas (San Jose)
9:40 p.m.: 3. Pittsburgh vs. 2. UCLA (San Jose)

Friday, March 23:

7:27 p.m.: 6. Vanderbilt vs. 2. Georgetown (East Rutherford)
9:57 p.m: 5. USC vs. 1. North Carolina (East Rutherford)

It's a shame that we aren't getting Texas A&M-Memphis, which could well be the best game of the Sweet 16. And by getting both San Jose games we won't hear any of Verne Lundquist and Bill Raftery. But I would expect liberal doses of the two San Antonio games (the above and Ohio State-Tennessee), especially as the San Jose games tip 17 minutes earlier than the San Antonio games do and will thus end earlier.

As for Friday, no surprise that we're getting the two Meadowlands games. Those are definitely the two to watch, so no complaints.

Also, there's a poll on the sports page of Philly.com asking how many of your Sweet 16 picks are still alive. Go vote in it.

From Mitchell Rosenzweig:

A few thoughts

1) I find the SJU "adoption" of the BC football team to be quite silly. It is basically force-feeding something down the neck of the students and the alums. Trying to fit a round peg in a square hole. SJU folks should be able to root for (and against for that matter) any team that they want. A student from BelAir, Maryland may be a fan of the Terrapins. Whereas another from Scranton, PA may be a supporter of Penn State. Just silly and there is no real "synergy" there

2) Joe Scott: Any buzz as to his replacement? One rumor I saw had Duke assistant Steve Wojo as a front-runner. What are you hearing?

3) Wake Forest: Any updates on the Prosser rumor?

4) Michigan: Any updates on this job? Ernie Kent's name has been tossed around but he is somewhat busy these days. Another potential hire would be the Wright State guy. What about Lickliter? Would be an upgrade for each.

I must admit that I can't quite bring myself to care too much about the St. Joe's-BC link. I think it's interesting and a bit funny, and more power to the Hawks and their fans if it work. But I can't say I'll be covering BC football on here on a regular basis. Come football season, I suspect I'll be focusing on Temple, Villanova and Penn because those are the teams I can get to. Travel-wise, I covered some Penn football road games for the Inquirer last season, and I might do so again, but I have no idea at this point.

Then again, BC plays at Maryland November 10, and I can get to that. If a bunch of St. Joe's people go to that, it could be interesting, but it's over six months away so don't hold me to it.

Haven't heard the Wojciechowski rumor (and I don't blame you for not spelling the whole thing out, either), though his name often comes up for schools with strong academics. I suspect that Princeton will look in the family.

Northwestern's Bill Carmody, who led Princeton to a No. 8 ranking in the AP Poll in 1998 and the Ivy League's last NCAA Tournament win (over UNLV) in the same season, is the first name that has come to everyone's mind. He's done better than his predecessors in Evanston, but success there is certainly relative as the Wildcats are still the only Big Ten team never to have made the NCAA Tournament.

This story posted on the Chicago Daily Herald's website today has a statement from Northwestern denying that Carmody's leaving or even interested in the job. Then again, Carmody has 1.1 million reasons to stay, according to this story from the Post-Tribune in Gary, Indiana. I also understand from people I've talked to that Carmody is doing better now at recruiting from the public leagues in Chicago, which certainly helps. It does show just what the Big Ten can do when the coach of the bottom-feeding team makes $1.1 million a year.

Brown's Craig Robinson, a former Ivy League Player of the Year with the Tigers, is another candidate for the Princeton job, though I doubt he'll leave Providence after only one season. Rhichmond's Chris Mooney is a third 'big name' as Princeton basketball goes, but even though the Spiders have struggled they showed a bit of promise late this season and I don't think he'd leave the A-10.

This story on Basketball-U.com has all the names one could think of. It's behind a paywall but I know I have some readers out there who subscribe to the site, and if you don't but you follow the Ivy or Patriot Leagues it's worth it. This blog post by a Princeton follower is free of charge and also details the above candidates, as well as a few more.

I've heard that rumor about Ernie Kent. Anyone who didn't, read this column in the Oregonian. Kent might want the Michigan job, but I have to think Oregon is one of the better jobs out there: being in the Pac-10, living near Portland and getting to work at MacArthur Court.

As for Skip Prosser, I did a quick look at some of the North Carolina media, but I didn't see anything and I haven't read anything about it before now. I realize Wake Forest has struggled a bit lately, but I think Prosser has earned the right to go on his own terms because he has done some great things with the Demon Deacons -- and not all that long ago.

Not much going locally, so time to crack open the good old RSS reader for some interesting stories nationwide...

The University of Iowa has bought a bunch of domain names critical of their coaches, like firekirkferentz.com. Not that he's in any trouble, but it's an interesting tactic.

If you think you're superstitious, check out these tales of Thad Matta and John Thompson III.

The Kansas basketball team is more than happy to rack up frequent-flyer miles this week.

Ken Pomeroy asks if you really know Texas A&M. Maybe you do, maybe you don't.

Speaking of JTIII, the Georgetown coach bought Egg McMuffins for the Hoyas student fans camping out for East Regional tickets earlier this week.

Raleigh News and Observer columnist Caulton Tudor writes that Georgetown's potential Elite Eight opponent, North Carolina, has "the dignity of ACC men's basketball" on its shoulders in the wake of the conference's poor performance in the NCAA Tournament thus far.

But the women are doing pretty well, including Duke's win over Temple yesterday.

Clemson is giving out 1,200 free tickets to tonight's NIT game against Syracuse. But you have to be 12 or younger to get them.

In the St. Joe's student paper, dueling columns on whether the Hawks' adoption of Boston College's football team is a good thing or not.

And Princeton basketball coach Joe Scott has stepped down to take over at the University of Denver. I have a suspicion that quite a few people in Old Nassau don't mind.

I need some new headline material... but these stories don't:

Mike Jensen recaps the first two rounds, hitting a bunch of notes but echoing a chorus of questions about Ohio State center Greg Oden.

After spending a few days in the same venue as Billy Packer, Phil Sheridan stands up for the little guys.

John Smallwood says Kevin Durant and Greg Oden should leave for the NBA.

David Aldridge considers the success of Tim Floyd, Lon Krueger and John Calipari -- coaches whose college teams are all still standing after disastrous stints in the NBA.

And on the women's side, Temple faces No. 1 Duke at 5 p.m. Mel Greenberg has a preview from Raleigh.

This week's show is now available for your listening pleasure. On it, Mike and I look back at how Villanova, Penn and Drexel got bounced from the post-season, including what the Wildcats' offense will look like next year and whether the Quakers and Dragons got a fair shake from the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee.

Then we preview the Sweet 16, and take a stop at each regional venue to break down the games and pick some winners. All I'll say is that we disagree on half of them.

Also, if you've missed any past episodes, you can download them all by going here.

Sorry, but the commenter's name made it too easy not to use.

Verne and Bill's San Antonio region looks to be the most exciting of them all. And with those two making the call, the telecast is sure to be equally exciting. Shame some decent games with Georgetown and UNC will have nantz and packer announcing.

Maybe. A&M-Memphis and OSU-Tennessee will be great games, but the real heavyweights are Georgetown and Carolina. Lundquist and Raftery might be the people's champions, but Nantz and Packer are definitely the "establishment" crew.

No word yet from KYW on what games they'll feature. But we do know that the TV ratings for the first round were the highest since 1991. Notice how both the games featured in the press release took place Friday. Then again, it shouldn't surprise you that this USA Today story doesn't portray things in quite the same way as the official line.

Check out these great features on UNLV's upset win over Wisconsin and USC knocking out Texas and Kevin Durant.

CBS has released the tip times and broadcast pairings for the Sweet 16 games...

Thursday, March 22

San Jose (Dick Enberg and Jay Bilas)

7:10 p.m. 1. Kansas vs. 4. Southern Illinois
followed by 2. UCLA vs. 3. Pittsburgh

San Antonio (Verne Lundquist and Bill Raftery)

7:27 p.m. 2. Memphis vs. 3. Texas A&M
followed by 1. Ohio State vs. 5. Tennessee

Friday, March 23)

St. Louis (James Brown and Len Elmore)

7:10 p.m.: 1. Florida vs. 5. Butler
followed by 3. Oregon vs. 7. UNLV

East Rutherford (Jim Nantz and Billy Packer)

7:27 p.m.: 2. Georgetown vs. 6. Vanderbilt
followed by 1. North Carolina vs. 5. Southern California

If I had to guess... the first Thursday game is a toss-up, but no question we'll get UCLA-Pitt for the second game. Hopefully there won't be too many fouls and we'll be able to catch the end of Memphis-A&M. As for Friday, everyone will start in St. Louis, but there's no question in my mind that we'll get the Georgetown and Carolina games. And if you had any doubt as to which regional is the best of the four, the announcer pairings should put that to rest right away.

Also, if you pay attention to broadcaster hierarchies over time (which I do, though I don't necessarily recommend it for one's health or social life), you might realize that Enberg, Lundquist and Nantz always do regionals and the fourth slot is sort of open. For the last two years, it's been Gus Johnson, and now it's James Brown (both have been paired with Len Elmore, by the way). It shows you how highly Brown is regarded that he gets the gig this year.

Brown last called NCAA Tournament games in 1994, which I am pretty sure was his last year at CBS before leaving for Fox. It was also the last time something rather particular happened to the Big 5.*

(And until St. Joe's made the Elite Eight in 2004, it might have been the last time Billy Packer had to deal with the local teams, though I don't know that for sure...)

Anyway, let the countdown to this year's Sweet 16 begin. It's going to be quite something.

* - Hat tip to friend of the blog Mark Greenspan, who has or has access to more archival footage of Big 5 games than you could possibly image.

UNLV over Wisconsin, 74-68. I know some people picked the Runnin' Rebels to win this game, but not very many. Nonetheless, UNLV led by 12 at halftime and held off the Badgers in the second half.

And for the first time this tournament, we have a genuinely surprising result.

Or are there others you didn't expect?

Games televised on KYW are in bold... they are also the feature radio games on WPEN-AM 950.

12:10 p.m.: 5. Tennessee vs. 4. Virginia (Columbus)

2:15 p.m.: 9. Purdue vs. 1. Florida (New Orleans)
2:30 p.m.: 7. UNLV vs. 2. Wisconsin (Chicago)
2:40 p.m.: 5. Virginia Tech vs. 4. Southern Illinois (Columbus)
2:50 p.m.: 11. Winthrop vs. 3. Oregon (Spokane)

4:45 p.m.: 7. Nevada vs. 2. Memphis (New Orleans)
5:00 p.m.: 8. Kentucky vs. 1. Kansas (Chicago)
5:15 p.m.: 5. Southern California vs. 4. Texas

No complaints once again. The guard duel between Tennessee's Chris Lofton and Virginia's Sean Singletary will be fantastic. We'll see if Florida can keep it rolling on offense, though Winthrop-Oregon could be a better game. And Kentucky-Kansas is by far the marquee game of the last timeslot, though I think Nevada can upset Memphis and USC-Texas will make the football fans happy.

Vanderbilt-Washington State and (unbelievably) Virginia Commonwealth-Pitt in overtime simultaneously.

So much fun.

Thoughts on Michigan terminating Tom Amaker?

He really never got it going there, never made any inroads in the local recruiting markets of Detroit and Saginaw, and they still continue to struggle in-state vs MSU.

Another former Duke assistant who failed to get it done on his own...

Who is next for Ann Arbor?

I would say this about the Wolverines. Michigan basketball is pretty irrelevant at this point. A "big name" school, yes, and certainly a good job, but does anyone really care at this point?

If that's Amaker's fault, it tells you what you need to know. And I really don't know who's going to be available to take the job.

Well, Tubby Smith could be, couldn't he?

Well, there we have it. Butler to the Sweet 16.

It's funny, because so many people figured Maryland wouldn't even make it to the second round because they're so inconsistent. So it's not necessarily surprising that the Terrapins went down today.

It would have been so much sweeter if Xavier had knocked off Ohio State. Maryland is definitely an ACC school, but has long had much more of a scrap-and-grit mentality to it. Duke and Carolina get all the good basketball players. The Florida schools have historically dominated the conference in football, and Penn State gets a very large percentage of the good football players in Maryland.

Still, we have a mid-major in the Sweet 16, and for the second time in three years it's from the Horizon League (remember Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2005?). It sure would be something if the Bulldogs took out Florida too.

I know the Atlantic 10 doesn't really qualify as a mid-major conference, and that Xavier is one of the A-10's upper-class teams to boot, but I couldn't help rooting for the Musketeers to beat Ohio State.

There are a lot of teams in this country that can't get games against BCS schools because the BCS schools don't think anyone else matters. Xavier and Ohio State had only played four three times before today, and as I wrote earlier, it's well known that the Buckeyes refuse to play either of the Cincinnati schools.

Now the reason why has been exposed for the entire nation to see -- the big boys are afraid they'll lose to the team that cares more and scraps more to get the win. Yes, Ron Lewis hit some seriously clutch shots, including the heart-breaking three at the end of regulation. But it was clear for all 45 minutes that Xavier wanted it far more than Ohio State.

So the BCS big boys can keep on smiling and rolling through to their manifest destiny dates with big late-round paydays. At least for now. Maybe Butler beats Maryland. Maybe VCU beats Pittsburgh. Maybe Nevada beats Memphis.

Or maybe Winthrop beats Oregon tomorrow, or Southern Illinois beats Virginia Tech. But those are the only teams standing in the way of an all-BCS Sweet 16.

I'm sure the BCS commissioners -- especially the Big Ten's Jim Delany, whose belief in Purdue was justified when the Boilermakers beat Mustafa Shakur's Arizona yesterday -- have visions of cash registers in their heads at the moment.

I just wonder what the TV ratings will be for today and tomorrow. If they aren't so good, it might send an equally strong message.

What are your thoughts on how Jay Wright coached the game? I dont think this was his finest hour.

Down the stretch, they over-relied on the 3ball, when they could have tried to get an easy bucket off a Reynolds drive and dish.

Too much Nardi taking bad shots.

Thought Jay would have dialed up some higher percentage offensive sets at that juncture of the game.

Bill Packer -- like him or not -- nailed it when he said "they still dont have a third scorer"

I don't know. I think a lot of credit is due to Kentucky's defense, which did a great job of blocking the lane and not letting 'Nova have all that many easy passes. I also think that Reynolds had to restrain himself a bit from driving because of his foul trouble. That was the one thing Villanova really had to avoid, even more so than bad shots.

As for the drive and dish, I think that happened on the three Nardi attempted after the Morris travel. Except he missed it. Wasn't a bad shot at all, though I bet at full health there's a better chance it goes in. Given the reports yesterday morning, I thought at the start of the game that Nardi was really ready to go, but he wasn't.

I wanted to see more Shane Clark and Dante Cunningham on offense, but what I really wanted to see was more Curtis Sumpter. Reynolds is a fearless driver in the lane, but Sumpter is the one guy who can really force the question against big men, and there's usually a pretty good chance that question gets answered in his favor. Nothing wrong with trying to draw a foul inside. But better a forward do it than Reynolds or another guard, because it seems to me that a guard driving is more likely to get called for a charge than a forward going up.

Stuff to read this morning, by the way...

Recaps from Shannon Ryan and Dana Pennett O'Neil

Columns from Phil Sheridan on Scottie Reynolds and Dick Jerardi on the differences between Kentucky's and Villanova's offenses. Sometimes you just can't do anything about a big guy inside.

The Lexington Herald-Leader gives props to Randolph Morris, one columnist says the Wildcats won because they made their biggest mistake before tip-off, and another gives props to the Wildcats' strong defense. So do I.

Why the weather kept a lot of Villanova and Niagara fans out of Chicago.

In Columbus, Sam Donnellon watches Penn Charter grad Sean Singletary's big day for Virginia against Albany.

Today in Lexington, Texas A&M faces Louisville's fans, while Mike Jensen takes the temperature of the state's blue half, which watched Rick Pitino coach (and win a game) on their floor Thursday.

Louisville forward Terence Williams says the game will be "like an Ali-Frazier fight." I guess that makes A&M Frazier, given that Ali's from Louisville?

The other game today in Lexington is Xavier-Ohio State. The Musketeers fans despise the Buckeyes enough already (maybe the only thing they have in common with Cincinnati fans), and now they have to watch their former coach on the opposite bench.

And the women's tournament starts today. Mel Greenberg offers a preview.

By the way, if you notice something a little different about Philly.com today, you're right. We moved to a new content management system (i.e., everything on the back side that publishes stories and arranges them on pages) at 2 a.m. this morning.

Since my actual job is running the home page, I've been working real hard these last few weeks on building page layouts and making sure the transition is as seamless as possible. It's also why I'm still in Philadelphia instead of Lexington or Chicago, but hopefully next year I'll be able to travel. The home page stuff and site buildout is much more my actual job than this blog is.

If you didn't notice anything until I told you, that's the best news I could get.

He has been through so much over the last five years, and even though he's been with Villanova for that long I find it hard to believe that he won't be there when the Wildcats take the floor next season.

Regardless of what you think of Villanova, you have admit that Curtis Sumpter was a damn good college basketball player. Hopefully a pro team will think of him just as highly, even if his game isn't all about athleticism and selfishness.

I wrote yesterday about how happy the Selection Committee must be with the lack of first-round upsets.

Well, one of the most significant measures of the committee's work was just realized with Southern California's 77-60 win over Arkansas. For the first time since 2000 and only the second time since the field grew to 64 teams in 1985, no 12-seeds beat 5-seeds.

I've gone on and on already about how bad a job I think the committee did in seeding teams this year. You and I both knew Long Beach State wouldn't beat Tennessee, and that Virginia Tech and USC were definitely better than Illinois and Arkansas. The Illini almost pulled it off but blew a big lead late, and Arkansas proved why it shouldn't have been in the field in the first place.

I thought Old Dominion would get a Butler team that hadn't been playing well coming in, but the Bulldogs got back to their good form and hit their shots when it mattered.

So that's it for the first round. Lots of big names advancing, but was it really all that fun? I don't think so, and I say that independent of Penn and Villanova's losses. There were some good games today, especially Creighton-Nevada, but it's not a hard case to argue that the only really resonant moment so far has been Eric Maynor's shot to beat Duke.

Winthrop-Notre Dame and Creighton-Nevada were decent, and made my afternoon at the office more lively than it would have otherwise been on a slow news day. Maybe if I had seen the end of Miami (Ohio) vs. Oregon, which the Ducks won by two points, I'd think differently, but I was on my way home from work when the game ended.

I mean, I'll be as happy as anyone if North Carolina plays Georgetown and UCLA plays Kansas and Florida plays Wisconsin. But the real buzz in NCAA Tournaments, the stuff that gets people who otherwise wouldn't care to talk about it around the water cooler the next morning, is caused by the upsets and the victorious players who celebrate them.

It just doesn't feel that way this year.

Appropriate that Curtis Sumpter scored the last points of Villanova's season, but shooting 32 percent from the field in the NCAA Tournament will knock you out every time. I didn't think it would be that bad for Villanova tonight, but the Wildcats have struggled with this all season and it bit them in the rear one final time tonight.

Then he fouls Jodie Meeks, a 93 percent free throw shooter. Both are good, and it's 64-56.

A miss on a driving layup by Reynolds and a jump ball. Possession to Villanova with 58.9 seconds left. Hard to believe Reynolds has scored 23.

Sheridan fouls out with 51 seconds left, and this looks to be the end of it.

Kentucky takes four and a half seconds to throw the long pass, and Randolph Morris jumps.

Nardi misses a wide open three, and Sumpter barely avoids fouling out. 61-56 with 1:28 left.

With all due respect to Billy Packer, Ramel Bradley's feet were still moving when Reynolds hit him. Not by much, but they were.

And now Packer praises the officials after bashing them all night. Geez.

Kentucky has a 28-22 edge in rebounding and a 59-50 lead with 3:08 to play.

Not coincidental.

What a huge three by Nardi as the shot clock expired. Billy Packer called it lucky, but one of the oldest adages in sports is that you make your own luck.

Then Randolph Morris got called for his fourth foul. Scottie Reynolds hit the first free throw, missed the second, and at the other end 'Nova forced Kentucky into a timeout.

Sumpter with a three, and it's 49-42, and hope is not yet lost.

And that was not a foul on Sheridan.

Big jumper by Jodie Meeks to give Kentucky a six-point lead, 42-36. At the other end, Reynolds drives hard to the basket and Bobby Perry tries to draw the charge, but didn't quite stop before Reynolds got there.

First free throw no good. Second is good.

I agree with Nantz and Packer that Villanova is a scorer sort, but I'm not entirely sure the scorer is Nardi. The distributor, maybe, and certainly someone to be guarded, which helps Reynolds get open. But Shane Clark and Dante Cunningham are the ones who seem to me to be really missing tonight.

11:14 left in the game, and it's a 14-2 Kentucky run to make it 44-37 at the commercial break.

Scottie Reynolds knows his stuff, making a shot out of an awkward reception outside the arc. Two of the three are good, and Villanova has the first six points of the half to lead 34-30.

Here's tomorrow's schedule. Games airing on KYW are in bold, while games scheduled to air on WPEN-AM 950 (the local affiliate for the national CBS Radio/Westwood One broadcast of the tournament) are in italics.

1:10 p.m.: 1. Xavier vs. 9. Ohio State

3:20 p.m.: 4. Maryland vs. 5. Butler
3:40 p.m.: 3. Texas A&M vs. 6 Louisville

5:40 p.m.: 3. Washington State vs. 6. Vanderbilt
5:45 p.m.: 2. Georgetown vs. 7. Boston College
5:50 p.m.: 3. Pittsburgh vs. 11. Virginia Commonwealth

8:10 p.m.: 2. UCLA vs. 7. Indiana
8:15 p.m.: 1. North Carolina vs. 9. Michigan State

No complaints from me. I've never been that fond of just the one game in the early slot, but that's mainly because I get so used to having four games going at once that one game feels strange. 20 minutes of Maryland-Butler should be enjoyable.

A small part of me would rather see see Georgetown-BC, but Pitt-VCU will be a great game. I believe that Philadelphia is a secondary market for Pitt games (the same way it is for Steelers games), which is why it's on here. And of course, all the out-of-market games are streamed online anyway.

Drummond is in to put some size on the floor against Randolph Morris, and he's done a pretty good job.

Except he just picked up his third foul, and boy was it questionable. I would have called a travel instead, if not a charge.

30-28 Kentucky at halftime. The game is still very much there for Villanova's taking.

Sumpter with a nice turnaround jumper in the lane to end the scoreless run.

"The game is not that difficult to play if you think out there," Billy Packer said.

That's why they pay him the big money.

Six and a half minutes without a Villanova field goal.

We have seen this before, but Jim Nantz and Billy Packer have not.

Foul on Shane Clark with 7:54 on the clock gives us another stretch of commercials.

A lot of blue in the United Center stands tonight, and it sure looks (and sounds) like it's a lighter shade than the Main Line's variety.

Kentucky's Ramel Bradley hits a three to tie it at 18. As CBS fades to a commercial, we see Jay screaming at Will Sheridan.

Not good... but Kentucky's one made three so far seems more like the exception than the rule which is good.

Nardi decides to pull a Reynolds (which we used to call a Nardi anyway) and unload a three from halfway to Ohio, which he makes.

14-9 'Nova with 13:32 on the clock.

Kentucky starts four guards by accident. Guard Dwight Perry's name was accidentally put on the list instead of his cousin, Bobby, a forward who usually starts . So right after the tip lands in Curtis Sumpter's hands, Dwight fouls him to stop the clock so Tubby Smith can get Bobby in.

"The next thing he does is fire the assistant coach" because of the mistake, Billy Packer said of Smith. Weird start, to say the least.

Jay Wright in what looks like a two-piece black suit, which surprises me a bit because I'm so used to seeing more. A very crisp outfit with a white shirt and silver tie to go with it, but I can't tell the exact number of pieces because the CBS bio graphic is covering half his body.

Reynolds nails a 3 at 18:20 to put 'Nova up 3-2.

Sumpter with a three at 17:26, 6-2 and the game plan's going well so far.

Good questions from commenter Mitch Rosenzweig:

What are your thoughts on the coverage so far? Think its been too heavy on the look-ins? That one of my beefs. I would rather stay with one game.

Who do you think is the best CBS annoucing duo? Who do you not like? Why?

I have always liked Ian Eagle and Jim Spanarkel...they have a good balance.

Gus Johnson is terrific too

I like the look-ins. The reason why the first two days of the tournament are my two favorite days of the entire sports calendar is that there's so much going on at once. I certainly use the online video streaming, but I also get a sort of adrenaline rush when there are two games at once coming down to the wire. Wisconsin-Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Creighton-Nevada provided that sort of moment. You just never knew what was going to come next.

As for the announcers, I have long been a fan of Verne Lundquist and Bill Raftery. I tend to like understated play-by-play men more than overactive ones (although I do like Brent Musburger and Mike Tirico), and Lundquist is very good at picking when to raise his voice and when to not.

Raftery is my favorite analyst because he's just so funny. He has great one-liners and an even better sense of timing when delivering them.

I like Gus Johnson more than I used to, but sometimes he still goes a little too far over the top for me (which Musburger doesn't do quite as much as he used to). My least favorite tandem, though, is Jim Nantz and Billy Packer. Nantz is fantastic at golf and as a studio host, but he comes across to me as awkward when he raises his voice to exclaim something.

As for Packer, I don't dispute his credentials, or his status as the top network color voice in the sport. In terms of analyzing the action on the court, I think he's fantastic. But it shouldn't surprise at all that I really don't like how much he gloats over the big-time programs, especially in his native ACC.

He calls ACC games for the conference's regional network, and if you ever get a chance to listen to those (they're on ESPN Full Court and often broadcast over-the-air if you're in that part of the country), you can just tell how little non-BCS conferences matter to him. There are 31 conferences in Division I, not six, and whether he likes it or not the other 25 have a right to get on the floor with the big guys this time of year.

There are so many things to like about Niagara, even if they have almost no shot against Kansas tonight. Phil Sheridan and Dick Jerardi explain why.

Wisconsin and Nevada both escape. The Badgers come all the way back to beat Texas A&M-Corpus Christi by 13, and Nevada overcomes Creighton in a 77-71 overtime thriller.

This is more like it.

Back later, with Texas-New Mexico State slated as the 7 p.m. KYW game. Too bad, because I wanted to see Kansas-Niagara, with the implications it has for Villanova and the heavy Philly accent among the Purple Eagles.

But that's what the online video is for.

The 2-seed Badgers trailed 15-seed Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, 24-7, with 5:29 left in the first half before cutting the deficit to 27-19 at halftime. No doubt that Chester's finest, Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan, is not pleased.

Though that is one heck of a sportcoat.

A first "the Law won" reference of the day, courtesy of the Lexington Herald-Leader.

That same newspaper calls tonight's Villanova-Kentucky game "icing on the cake" for the SEC Wildcats, and a columnist tries to stop fueling the Tubby Smith fire... though I'm not sure he succeeds.

While the Hatfields are away in Chicago, the McCoys have taken over Rupp Arena.

And a Facebook group advocating that Princeton coach Joe Scott be fired has 87 members. I just did a quick search and found 37 Facebook groups advocating the same for Tubby Smith.

And there's a lot of it... but then again, there are a lot of commercial breaks.

Start with Inquirer and Daily News recaps of the Penn-Texas A&M game, along with columns by Sam Donnellon and Mike Jensen.

After the jump, what other papers are saying about the local teams.http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/15/sports/ncaabasketball/15aggiescnd.html?ex=1331611200&en=11e62beedbcaa51b&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

In Chicago, Villanova is getting ready for tonight's big game against Kentucky. Jay Wright says Mike Nardi is "close to 100 percent," but Shane Clark's knees are in quite a bit of pain. Curtis Sumpter, however, is at full health and has the full attention of the Wildcats' younger players.

Meanwhile, Phil Sheridan and Dick Jerardi attend the trial-by-populism of Kentucky coach Tubby Smith. Jerardi also notes all the Philly connections in the Chicago sub-regional.

In Winston-Salem, John Smallwood reports on Michigan State's win over Marquette and Boston College's win over Texas Tech.

Back in Lexington, Mike Kern reports on Louisville's emphatic win over Stanford.

In New York, Marc Narducci pays a visit to CBS' NCAA Tournament studios to see how the men and women behind the scenes decide what games we see, and talks to Jim Nantz and Billy Packer about calling four games in one day.

And here at home, a columnist in the Villanova student paper laments the lack of Cinderellas.

So you probably saw Ohio State center Greg Oden's 19-point, 10-rebound show against Central Connecticut State yesterday. Check out this video feature on him that's on Philly.com this morning.

So the day comes to an end, and we have a grand total of one upset. Yes, it was a big one: Virginia Commonwealth over Duke. It was great to see a CAA team finally knock off an ACC team, and of course it was all the more special because it was Duke specifically -- the ACC team with more cachet and resonance among the marketers and consumers of college basketball than any other program. And no, I don't count 9-seeds beating 8-seeds as upsets.

It almost doesn't make sense to tell oneself that Duke lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, but lo and behold, it happened. Yet on the whole, I found this day disappointing. I referred to this earlier, but now I feel like going into a bit more depth about it.

I wonder if this is actually the way it is supposed to be. Teams get seeded for the purpose of creating some definition of who's good and who isn't. The higher seeds are what they are because they are, at least in theory, the better teams. If that wasn't the case, we wouldn't use the word "upset" in the first place when a higher seed goes down.

And it's not all that uncommon to say that a lower seed beating a higher seed isn't actually an upset, usually because teams were poorly seeded. Take Butler-Old Dominion for example: no one would have called it an upset if the Monarchs had won today. But they didn't. Davidson, Penn, George Washington, Oral Roberts, Belmont, Weber State.

We call it "chalk" when the top seeds win, but at this hour, I can't help thinking about just how amazing it is that all four No. 1 seeds have never all made it to the Final Four. They're supposed to, and yet over all these years that teams have been seeded, it hasn't happened. Maybe now we're finally seeing the selection committee's aims become reality. Is that the point to some degree? Maybe it is.

It should be pretty clear by now that I enjoy mid-major and high-major basketball in equal measure, and occasionally in an unequal measure that favors the little guy. There are two overarching joys of the NCAA Tournament: the crowning of a true national champion and the chance given to smaller teams to play on the same floor as the big boys for 40 minutes on national television.

And even though David is supposed to beat Goliath, upsets have become so regular in the NCAA Tournament athat it feels strange to sit here tonight and recap a day on which there was only one slingshot to be found anywhere in the country.

"You have just seen the biggest upset in today's first round of the NCAA Tournament," CBS play-by-play man Kevin Harlan exclaimed at the final buzzer of the VCU-Duke game.

The emphasis really wasn't necessary for something that earned that title by default.

Just my opinion, but anyone who can do this seems pretty healthy to me...

Yes, I was shocked when Penn started the second half on a 21-6 run to take a 39-37 lead. But then Texas A&M made the kind of statement on offense that neither this Penn team nor any other I've ever seen could stop: two thunderous put-back slam dunks by Joseph Jones that gave A&M the lead for good, 41-39 with 10:31 remaining.

After that, it was the Aggies' defense and the best player on the floor, Acie Law IV. It started when Kevin Egee had to heave up a desperation shot as the shot clock expired with 8:50 left. It continued when Doninique Kirk nailed a brilliant driving layup with 4:52. Mark Zoller airballed a three at the other end, then Kirk put A&M up double digits on a kickout three with 4:08 left.

The coup de grace came with 3:07 to play, when Law crossed over Justin Reilly, banked in a driving layup of his own with three on the shot clock and restored the 10-point lead.

Law finished with a game-high 20. Penn's Mark Zoller had a respectable 19, of which 16 came in the second half. Ibrahim Jaaber scored 16, with 10 coming after halftime.

As has been the case in every game so far today, the better team won. I'm sure this makes Big Ten commissioner and Lord of the Selection Committee Jim Delany incredibly happy, but so far this NCAA Tournament has been really rather boring.

Then again, when the two most powerful people in the committee room are Delany and a guy who hires coaches to run the Princeton offense, this is surely the way it's supposed to be.

For a while in the first half, Penn stood toe-to-toe with Texas A&M and might actually have been the better team on the floor.

The Aggies committed three turnovers in the first 5:14, all of which came as a result of passes that were too strong or simply off the mark. Penn held A&M without a field goal for a stretch of nearly six minutes over the middle of the period, and when Dallas native Justin Reilly's long two-point jumper made the score 11-9 with 8:44 left in the half, Penn fans might have been forgiven for being a little bit optimistic.

But every time Penn's offense made a move, Aggies coach Billy Gillespie's defense countered and made sure the Quakers never came close to the lead. During the opening stretch in which Penn missed its first seven field goal attempts, Gillespie made his players focus on the guards and Mark Zoller while allowing Steve Danley and/or Brennan Votel to move almost at well on the perimeter. Danley had two moments in which he had the ball at the top of the arc without anyone near him, but Gillespie bet Danley wouldn't shoot and was proven right.

Then, with 14:40 left on the clock, Votel decided to have a crack at the basket and nailed a three. Gillespie responded by pushing his players farther out and making it even harder for Penn to do anything but pass the ball around high screens. Ibrahim Jaaber, Kevin Egee and Justin Reilly made some difficult baskets inside, but Acie Law IV responded to Reilly's first points with the first three of his seven straight for A&M.

Gillespie's defense became even tighter after that. Penn only made two field goals in the final five minutes from eight attempts and a shot clock violation in the final five minutes of the half. A&M started to assert itself on the boards as well as the half went on, including one possessions with 2:26 left where they pulled down three straight offensive rebounds leading to a Josh Carter three that made it 29-16.

Penn had its chances, and was helped by Antanas Kavaliauskas picking up two early fouls, but once A&M asserted itself there was never any question as to who the better team was.

As the second half begins, I don't see that changing.

Plenty of good stuff to read today.

Let's start with Penn-Texas A&M. In the Inquirer, Kevin Tatum reports that Quakers coach Glen Miller is "striving" for "a mistake-free game, or something close to it."

In the Daily News, Mike Kern profiles Steve Danley, who can take it as a compliment that he does better work off the court than he does on it. As in, considering running for the Pennsylvania legislature, interning at the White House and nearly winning a Rhodes Scholarship. Yes, he goes to an Ivy League school, but might as well take advantage of it.

Elsewhere in the Inquirer, Mike Jensen profiles sensational Aggies guard Acie Law IV, who would be "this season's Jameer Nelson" if not for Texas rival Kevin Durant.

Ibrahim Jaaber gets the New York Times treatment.

The Penn student paper reports that Glen Miller is "optimistic" about Danley's health; the forward has been suffering from pretty bad back pain lately.

The Lexington Herald-Leader says Penn plays "an un-Ivy-like transition game."

Friend of the blog and ESPN.com columnist Joe Lunardi predicts a 91-78 win for A&M. He also has Villanova beating Kentucky, 63-60, then losing to Kansas, 73-62.

After getting the Quakers in its home town last season, the Dallas Morning News' Rachel Cohen reports on the transition from Fran Dunphy to Glen Miller. She also writes that A&M "seem[s] more comfortable playing from behind than ahead" at times.

As a bit of an aside, there could be a scandal brewing in College Station over why so many athletes end up in the agricultural school instead of "appealing majors." I just looked through the bios of the 20 players on A&M's roster, and of the 11 who have declared majors, seven are agriculture-related.

The Houston Chronicle profiles Law, finds Penn stuck in traffic in the lane, and also reports on the A&M majors question.

The Chronicle also runs a really nice profile of Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, which plays its first ever NCAA Tournament game tomorrow against Wisconisn.

As for Villanova, assistant coaches Dwayne McClain Brett Gunning and Patrick Chambers offer their insight to the Daily News on how to beat Kentucky, while the Inquirer's Shannon Ryan profiles SEC Wildcats big man Randolph Morris and reports that Mike Nardi was kept out of practice yesterday.

The Inquirer's Frank Fitzpatrick cracks open the history books to look at the last time Villanova faced Kentucky in the postseason. That game in 1949 came just after the seeds of a major point-shaving scandal in the NIT were planted, with Kentucky doing quite a bit of the gardening.

Back to the present, and there are other games on Kentucky's home floor today besides Penn-A&M. Top seed Ohio State will be right in the middle of the prime time spotlight with its game against Central Connecticut State. Daily News columnist Sam Donnellon profiles Buckeyes guard Mike Conley, Jr., who hit the game-winning bucket in the Big Ten Tournament final and was the tournament's leading scorer but still doesn't get the kind of attention Greg Oden does.

As in, a banner headline in the Lexington Herald-Leader declaring Oden to be a "Perfect specimen," and a list of all the other great big men to have ever played in Rupp Arena.

Rick Pitino's in the house at Rupp, Mike Kern reports in the Daily News, and should get quite a reaction -- one way or the other -- from the fans today.

Daily News columnist John Smallwood is in Winston-Salem, and he profiles Belmont senior Boomer Herndon's fight against cancer that preceded this afternoon's far less important game against Georgetown. As you'll see, Smallwood has a bit of a personal investment in this particular story.

Smallwood also passes along the quotes of the day from Hoyas coach John Thompson III and Texas Tech's Bobby Knight.

In Buffalo, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski visited Christian Laettner's high school, and to no one's surprise, it's reported on in Kentucky.

That (thankfully) is all.

After the jump, individuals of note and, yes, some analysis from me.

We now know what games KYW will be broadcasting over the air, which is what I was waiting for to do a post listing all the first-round tip-off times. KYW's games are marked in italics:

Thursday

12:20 p.m.: 13. Davidson vs. 4. Maryland (Buffalo)
12:25 p.m.: 10. Texas Tech vs. 7. Boston College (Winston-Salem)
12:30 p.m.: 11. Louisville vs. 6. Stanford (Lexington)

2:40 p.m.: 14. Oral Roberts vs. 3. Washington State (Sacramento)
2:40 p.m.: 12. Old Dominion vs. 5. Butler (Buffalo)
2:45 p.m.: 15. Belmont vs. 2. Georgetown (Winston-Salem)
3:10 p.m: 14. Penn vs. 3. Texas A&M (Lexington)

5:00 p.m.: 11. George Washington vs. 6. Vanderbilt (Sacramento)

7:10 p.m.: 11. Virginia Commonwealth vs. 6. Duke (Buffalo)
7:10 p.m.: 16. Central Connecticut State vs. 1. Ohio State (Lexington)
7:20 p.m.: 9. Michigan State vs. 8. Marquette (Winston-Salem)
7:25 p.m.: 15. Weber State vs. 2. UCLA (Sacramento)

9:30 p.m.: 14. Wright State vs. 3. Pittsburgh (Buffalo)
9:30 p.m.: 9. Xavier vs. 8. Brigham Young (Lexington)
9:40 p.m.: 16. Eastern Kentucky vs. 1. North Carolina (Winston-Salem)
9:45 p.m.: 10. Gonzaga vs. 7. Indiana (Sacramento)

Friday

12:15 p.m.: 13. Albany vs. 4. Virginia (Columbus)
12:25 p.m.: 10. Georgia Tech vs. 7. UNLV (Chicago)
12:30 p.m.: 15. North Texas vs. 2. Memphis (New Orleans)

2:35 p.m.: 12. Long Beach State vs. 5. Tennessee (Columbus)
2:35 p.m.: 11. Winthrop vs. 6. Notre Dame (Spokane)
2:45 p.m.: 15. Texas A&M-Corpus Christi vs. 2. Wisconsin (Chicago)
2:50 p.m.: 10. Creighton vs. 7. Nevada (New Orleans)

4:55 p.m.: 14. Miami (Ohio) vs. 3. Oregon (Spokane)

7:10 p.m.: 16. Niagara vs. 1. Kansas (Chicago)
7:10 p.m.: 12. Illinois vs. 5. Virginia Tech (Columbus)
7:20 p.m.: 9. Purdue vs. 8. Arizona (New Orleans)
7:25 p.m.: 13. New Mexico State vs. 4. Texas (Winston Salem)

Note: KYW's website lists this time slot as "TBA." I have no inside info, but my guess is Niagara-Kansas.

9:30 p.m.: 9. Villanova vs. 8. Kentucky (Chicago)
9:30 p.m.: 13. Holy Cross vs. 4. Southern Illinois
9:40 p.m.: 16. Jackson State vs. 1. Florida
9:45 p.m.: 12. Arkansas vs. 5. Southern California

The only selection I don't like is UNLV-Georgia Tech over Albany-Virginia, but that happened because CSTV has the rights to broadcast Albany-Virginia (and GW-Vandy) to the entire country except for the home markets of the teams playing. At least it will be streamed online.

I have to say, though, if I had no interest in the Philadelphia teams, I wouldn't want to see Penn-A&M. A lot of people are pegging Oral Roberts-Washington State as an upset, Butler-Old Dominion is a better game, and Belmont-Georgetown has Georgetown in it.

I was asked a few questions in the comments that I'd like to answer here. First, as to why I picked Drexel to win the NIT. I did so for the same reason why I have Old Dominion in my Sweet 16 and Virginia Commonwealth coming just short of the same stage: I think CAA teams are that good. I also thought N.C. State would have a much tougher time dealing with the DAC's size and atmosphere than they did.

As to why I cite articles from the Penn student newspaper in Newsstand, there are a few reasons. First, I have a pretty good number of Penn readers. The poll I ran last week proved this. Second, the Penn student paper publishes good stories and also does some rather odd things sometimes that I enjoy poking fun at.

And finally, the commenter asked why I don't link to stories from the Villanova student paper more frequently. The reason is simple enough: it doesn't publish all that often. The most recent issue of the paper came out February 22. I have linked to it before and I will continue to do so.

If you have any questions you want answered, feel free to post a comment or send me an email.

N.C. State beat Drexel, thanks in large part to the Dragons' poor foul shooting late but despite an electrified crowd at the DAC.

Jay Wright admitted that Mike Nardi "struggled" at practice yesterday, and Nardi had to cut it short as a result. Nonetheless, Wright paid tribute to his senior class for leading the way to the Tournament this year. Villanova's top freshman, Scottie Reynolds, originally hails from Chicago and is going home for the Kentucky game.

Phil Sheridan steps up and corrects his own math, amending yesterday's column to note that he meant to propose adding three teams to the Tournament field so that there can be three play-in games.

He also furthers the point by making an argument that I wholeheartedly agree with, which is that the play-in teams should be at-large contenders going for a 12-seed instead of having the little teams that won automatic bids knock each other out before the big dance begins.

Niagara, with two Philly players and a Philly coach, beat Florida A&M in this year's play-in game to earn the right to play Kansas.

The Raleigh News and Observer's N.C. State beat writer notes that the Wolfpack didn't wilt in the DAC heat, while reporting on the arena that's nearly 1/10th the size of the one that hosted this year's ACC Tournament.

The Lexington Herald-Leader profiles Kentucky freshman Orestes Meeks and tells the Wildcats fans out there 40 things they didn't know about Villanova (emphasis on "they"). A writer for the website does a long piece on -- gasp -- Rick Pitino coming back to Rupp to coach.

Elsewhere in Lexington, the Penn student paper runs a travelogue which makes an American history reference that isn't quite as obscure as the one selection committee chair Gary Walters made on Sunday.

For your listening pleasure:

N.C. State: Ben McCauley (who does most of the talking), Engin Atsür, Brandon Costner and coach Sidney Lowe

Drexel: Bashir Mason, Chaz Crawford, Frank Elegar and coach Bruiser Flint

Also, something about comments. I'm getting a decent number of spam comments at the moment, so I made a minor change to the system. If you are not authenticated through TypeKey, your comment won't show up immediately, but when I log in to the publishing platform I'll approve it (and believe me, I'm in the system quite frequently so your comment should show up quickly).

But if you are authenticated through TypeKey, your comment will show up right away. So do yourself a favor and register because it will make all our lives that much easier. Thanks.

If you're a fan of mid-major basketball, it cannot get any better than this. A team from what is perhaps the ultimate power conference, the ACC, coming in to this 2,500-seat gym on the second floor of a multi-purpose arena to play a post-season knockout game. The game sold out hours ago, and while I'm actually rather surprised at the large number of Wolfpack fans here, the place is raucous and it has been so for some time now. Read on for the commentary after the jump, starting at the bottom of the post...

A friend asked me how I think Drexel will do in the NIT. My answer: I think the Dragons are going to win it.

Yes, you read that right. I predict that Drexel will send the ultimate statement to the NCAA Tournament selection committee about how bad it was to leave the Dragons out by winning the NIT. And not only that -- I have them beating the other team that had a legit case to be in, Syracuse, in the final.

Yes, that would make it twice this season that Drexel has beaten Syracuse. But of all the games Drexel will play, that's the only result I'm not sure about.

Here's what I have:

NIT North Bracket

1. Mississippi St. beats 8. Mississippi Valley St.
5. Providence beats 4. Bradley
2. Florida State beats 7. Toledo
3. Michigan beats 6. Utah State

Providence beats Mississippi State
Florida State beats Michigan

Florida State beats Providence

NIT East Bracket

1. West Virginia beats 8. Delaware State (with all due respect to the Hornets fans out there)
4. Massachusetts beats 5. Alabama
2. Oklahoma State beats Marist
3. Drexel beats N.C. State

UMass beats West Virginia
Drexel beats Ok. State -- They've won at Syracuse, Creighton and the Pavilion. They can win in Stillwater too.

Drexel beats UMass -- man, what a game that would be for Bruiser.

NIT South Bracket

1. Clemson beats 8. East Tennessee State
5. Appalachian State vs. 4. Ole Miss
2. Syracuse beats 7. South Alabama
3. Missouri State beats 6. San Diego State

Clemson beats App State
Syracuse beats Missouri State

Syracuse beats Clemson -- the Orange feel similarly aggreived at being excluded from the Big Dance.

NIT West Bracket

1. Air Force beats 8. Austin Peay
4. Georgia beats 5. Fresno State
2. Kansas State beats 7. Vermont
3. DePaul beats 6. Hofstra -- but not by much

Air Force beats Georgia
Kansas State beats DePaul

Kansas State beats Air Force

At the Garden

Drexel beats Florida State
Syracuse beats Kansas State

Drexel beats Syracuse

And there you have it.

(Though, in response to a question a friend asks tonight, if I am totally wrong -- which is a very good possibility, believe me -- I will come on here and admit it.)

You bet I'll be watching the women's NCAA Tournament as well as the men's edition. Here are the 64 teams that will battle to lift the national championship trophy in Cleveland next month:

UPDATE: Here's the bracket.

Dallas Region

Games to be played March 18 in Pittsburgh, Pa.

No. 1 North Carolina (30-3) vs. No. 16 Prairie View (18-13)
No. 8 California (23-8) vs. No. 9 Notre Dame (19-11)

Games to be played March 17 in Los Angeles, Calif.

No. 5 George Washington (26-3) vs. No. 12 Boise State (24-8)
No. 4 Texas A&M (24-6) vs. No. 13 Texas-Arlington (24-8)

Games to be played March 17 in Minneapolis, Minn.

No. 6 Iowa State (25-8) vs. No. 11 Washington (18-12)
No. 3 Georgia (25-6) vs. No. 14 Belmont (25-6)

Games to be played March 17 in Minneapolis, Minn.

No. 7 Georgia Tech (20-11) vs. No. 10 DePaul (19-12)
No. 2 Purdue (28-5) vs. No. 15 Oral Roberts (22-10)

Dayton Region

Games to be played March 18 in Pittsburgh, Pa.

No. 1 Tennessee (28-3) vs. No. 16 Drake (14-18)
No. 8 Pittsburgh (23-8) vs. No. 9 James Madison (27-5)

Games to be played March 17 in Palo Alto, Calif.

No. 5 Middle Tennessee St. (29-3) vs. No. 12 Gonzaga (24-9)
No. 4 Ohio State (29-3) vs. No. 13 Marist (27-5)

Games to be played March 17 in Austin, Texas

No. 6 Marquette (25-6) vs. No. 11 Louisiana-Lafayette (25-8)
No. 3 Oklahoma (26-4) vs. No. 14 Southeast Missouri St. (24-7)

Games to be played March 18 in Hartford, Conn.

No. 7 Mississippi (21-10) vs. No. 10 Texas Christian (21-10)
No. 2 Maryland (27-5) vs. No. 15 Harvard (15-12)

Fresno Region

Games to be played March 18 in Hartford, Conn.

No. 1 Connecticut (29-3) vs. No. 16 Maryland-Baltimore County (16-16)
No. 8 New Mexico (24-8) vs. No. 9 Wisconsin-Green Bay (28-3)

Games to be played March 18 in Raleigh, N.C.

No. 5 Baylor (25-7) vs. No. 12 Tennessee-Chattanooga (25-7)
No. 4 North Carolina State (23-9) vs. No. 13 Robert Morris (24-7)

Games to be played March 17 in Austin, Texas

No. 6 Xavier (26-7) vs. No. 11 West Virginia (20-10)
No. 3 Louisiana State (26-7) vs. No. 14 UNC-Asheville (21-11)

Games to be played March 17 in Palo Alto, Calif.

No. 7 Old Dominion (24-8) vs. No. 10 Florida State (22-9)
No. 2 Stanford (28-4) vs. No. 15 Idaho State (17-13)

Greensboro Region

Games to be played March 18 in Raleigh, N.C.

No. 1 Duke (30-1) vs. No. 16 Holy Cross (15-17)
No. 8 Temple (24-7) vs. No. 9 Nebraska (22-9)

Games to be played March 18 in East Lansing, Mich.

No. 5 Michigan State (23-8) vs. No. 12 Delaware (26-5)
No. 4 Rutgers (22-8) vs. No. 13 East Carolina (19-13)

Games to be played March 17 in Los Angeles, Calif.

No. 6 Louisville (26-7) vs. No. 11 Brigham Young (23-9)
No. 3 Arizona State (28-4) vs. No. 14 UC-Riverside (21-10)

Games to be played March 18 in East Lansing, Mich.

No. 7 Bowling Green (29-3) VS. No. 10 Oklahoma State (20-10)
No. 2 Vanderbilt (27-5) vs. No. 15 Delaware State (20-12)

This week's College HoopsCast is ready, and it's a very special edition of the show. I spent this morning at the annual Coaches vs. Cancer Tourney Tipoff Breakfast, where all of the City Six men's coaches and a slew of big names in the local sports media gave their opinions on this year's NCAA Tournament.

The good people at Coaches vs. Cancer of Philadelphia let me record the entire panel discussion, and it's presented almost in its entirety on the podcast. I edited out just a few minutes at the start, where some awards and grant checks were presented, and a few at the end where there was a prize raffle.

Please understand this, though. I mentioned this morning that it's worth spending your money to buy today's Inquirer and Daily News. But the place where your money should really go is Coaches vs. Cancer effort. Seriously. Is there a better cause that we can all get behind, no matter what school you support, than finding a cure for cancer?

I didn't think so.

So please, if you have some money to spare, go to the Coaches vs. Cancer of Philadelphia home page, and give a donation. After raising $700,000 last year, the program's goal this year is an even million dollars.

I don't always like shilling for stuff, but if there's one thing it's worth doing for, this is it.

A commenter asked why I have three No. 1 seeds in my Final Four. My answer is that I think they're that good. I will certainly concede that Kansas and Carolina are iffy. But if I have to stick my neck out there, I say Kansas is good enough to beat UCLA, even in San Jose; and I think North Carolina is good enough at both ends of the floor to beat Georgetown, even in a halfcourt-offense game.

I don't know what time my next post will be today, so I ask you a favor.

Please go out and buy an Inquirer and a Daily News today. It will cost you one dollar and ten cents. That is less than the cost of a trip on the commuter trains or the subway or the bus; less than the cost of a cup of coffee and a donut at Dunkin' Donuts; and way under half the cost of anything you could possibly get at Starbucks (believe me, I know firsthand).

Both papers are chock full of NCAA Tournament coverage today, and I am sure you will want to read it all. So again: Please go buy both newspapers today.

I promise it's the right thing to do.

Here it is.

By clicking here. I'll post mine in a bit.

That bracket is interactive, by the way -- you can just click on the lines and type the team names in.

The NIT bids have just come out.

Drexel gets the 3 seed in the East region, taking on No. 6 N.C. State. The game will tip off at 8 p.m. on Tuesday and will be televised on ESPNU. I'd love to know where it will take place.

UMass gets a 4 seed against 5-seed Alabama. That game will be at 9:30 p.m. Tuesday and will be televised by ESPN.

Delaware State is an 8-seed against 1-seed West Virginia. They'll play Tuesday but the time has not been announced yet.

Syracuse is a 2-seed in the South and will play South Alabama on Wednesday at 7 on ESPN (big surprise there).

And Hofstra out of the CAA gets a 6-seed against 3-seed DePaul. That game will also be Wednesday, but without TV, so no tipoff time is known yet.

So no St. Joe's, Fordham or Rhode Island. Having watched the Rams all week at the A-10 Tournament, I find it rather amazing that they didn't make it. I can understand Fordham and St. Joe's, but I think the light blue Rams got a bit jobbed.

The latest Inquirer sports poll asks whether Drexel got jobbed.

Go vote in it.

Gary Walters, the chair of the selection committee, was on ESPN just now trying to defend the selection of Arkansas. He's using a lot of four- and five-syllable words, and when that happens I start to wonder.

Dick Vitale just called Arkansas "mediocre at best."

Walters just used the phrase "Jefferson and Jacksonian democracy" in trying to explain choosing 34 at-large teams.

I don't even know what that means.

Walters justified the selection of Old Dominion because of its record both in and out of conference, which is fair.

But he also called it "the height of arrogance" to say "that we also did everything 100 percent right all the time."

"I'm not suggesting that not selecting Drexel is not the right decision," he continued. "I am saying that it is a contender for people around the table who might come up with different results."

Uh. I think the job of the committee is to get it right across the entire field.

Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim was then on the phone with ESPN, and said he was "in shock" when he found out that his team did not get in despite beating Villanova, Marquette and Georgetown. I certainly think the Orange's refusal to leave New York state before conference play is a bad thing, but I also think Syracuse did what was necessary to make the tournament this year.

Walters basically replied that Boeheim is speaking in his own interest, but he saidso in far more words than that. Too many words, I think.

Villanova will beat Kentucky, then lose to Kansas. Even though I regularly pick the Jayhawks to make the Final Four and they never do, I think they'll beat Southern Illinois in the Sweet 16 and UCLA in the Elite Eight to make the Final Four. Elsewhere in the West, Virginia Commonwealth will easily beat Duke, and will barely lose to Pittsburgh.

Penn will get destroyed by Texas A&M, leaving my most recent commenter pleased because I won't talk about Penn anymore after that. The Aggies will then beat Louisville in the second round, Nevada in the Sweet 16 and Ohio State in the Elite Eight to make it another year where all four No. 1 seeds don't make the Final Four. Elsewhere in the South, Sean Singletary's Virginia will have no trouble with Albany and will squeak by Tennesee before falling to the Buckeyes, who will beat Xavier in the second round.

Florida will cruise to Atlanta, beating Arizona, Old Dominion and Wisconsin along the way. Winthrop will beat Notre Dame and Davidson will give Maryland a scare.

Finally, in the east, North Carolina will beat Marquette, Texas and Georgetown to make the Final Four. Maureece Rice's George Washington Colonials will beat Vanderbilt but lose to Washington State. The Hoyas will beat Boston College and Washington State to make the Elite Eight.

I think we are looking at the Kansas-Carolina matchup that has been looming ever since Roy Williams left Lawrence for Chapel Hill. This could finally by the year. Kansas-Florida will be one hell of a game, but I give the Jayhawks the edge because they've beaten the Gators once already. The Georgia Dome crowd will be much more in the Gators' favor than the Vegas crowd was earlier this season, though.

ESPN's Andy Katz was on TV just now, telling people what selection committee chair Gary Walters was saying in a conference call.

"The wart on their resume was going 1-5 against the top seeds in the CAA," Katz said. Not sure whether he was directly quoting Walters or not.

Katz also relayed that Walters said that the final spot in the field came down to Arkansas and N.C. State.

"They made the decision on Arkansas before that game was final," Katz said, and if N.C. State had won, the Wolfpack would have taken that

Rece Davis, the ESPN host, wondered if the committee should have waited until after the Arkansas-Florida game finished to make that decision.

Uh, yeah. Because of all the teams in that field, Arkansas is the least deserving by a mile. And when a bunch of commentators who spend all their time focusing on BCS schools say Drexel got shafted, there's probably some merit to it.

Courtesy of the Daily News, here are some quick breakdowns of the Penn-Texas A&M and Villanova-Kentucky matchups.

Seth Davis correctly rips the selection committee for leaving Drexel out.

I remember now that at the beginning of the day, selection committee chair Gary Walters told Greg Gumbel that the committee already knew all 65 teams in the field.

I thought at the time there was something wrong with that, and now it's clear why.

In Lexington

1. Ohio State vs. 16. Central Connecticut State -- Penn assistant Chris Sparks used to be an assistant there, so that got some reaction here.
8. BYU vs. 9. Xavier

In Columbus

5. Tennessee vs. 12. Long Beach State -- Drexel's out.
4. Virginia vs. 13. Albany -- That is stunning to me. I can't believe Albany was put higher than Penn, but Sean Singletary should be in the second round.

In New Orleans

2. Memphis vs. 15. North Texas
7. Nevada vs. 10. Creighton

In Lexington

3. Texas A&M vs. 14. Penn. That is about the worst matchup Penn could have received. The Aggies should be a dark horse contender to win the national championship, with Acie Law running the offense and one of the truly outstanding defenses in the country.

6. Louisville vs. 11. Stanford. Not sure the Cardinal deserved it either.

In Winston-Salem

1. North Carolina vs. 16. Eastern Kentucky
8. Marquette vs. 9. Michigan State

In Spokane

5. Southern Cal vs. 12. Arkansas -- that should do it for Drexel, sadly. Not sure Arkansas deserved to get in.
4. Texas vs. 13 New Mexico State -- the Penn fans forgot that because the Quakers played the Longhorns in last year's Tournament, they can't this year.

In Winston-Salem

2. Georgetown vs. 15 Belmont
7. Boston College vs. 10. Texas Tech

In Sacramento

3. Washington State vs. 14. Oral Roberts
6. Vanderbilt vs. 11. George Washington, with star guard Maureece Rice of Strawberry Mansion.

The last time three City Six teams made it to the NCAA Tournament was 1999, when Temple, Villanova and Penn all went.

It's looking highly unlikely right now that this streak will end this year.

In Chicago

1. Kansas vs. 16 The play-in game: Florida A&M vs. Niagara
8. Kentucky vs. 9. VILLANOVA!!!!!!!!! Oh man. That's going to be a real defensive game... and Kansas will be a very tough 2nd-round game

In Columbus

5. Virginia Tech vs. 12 Illinois
4. Southern Illinois vs. 13 Holy Cross -- the Penn fans let out a huge groan, thinking that was their spot.

In Sacramento

2. UCLA vs. 15. Weber State
7. Indiana vs. 10 Gonzaga -- Hmmm. That's an evenly-matched one.

In Buffalo

3. Pittsburgh vs. 14 Wright State -- Big cheers from the Penn faithful, who were desperate to avoid that matchup.
6. Duke vs. 11. Virginia Commonwealth -- It's looking more and more like Drexel's out.

In New Orleans:

1. Florida vs. No. 16 Jackson State
8. Arizona vs. 9 Purdue

In Buffalo:

5. Butler (wow) vs. 12. Old Dominion -- that could be a disaster for Drexel.
4. Maryland vs. 13 Davidson -- the Penn fans here really, really wanted that slot. I think it could be an upset given how badly Maryland got knocked out of the ACC Tournament by Miami.

In Chicago:

2. Wisconsin vs. 15 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi
7. UNLV vs. 10 Georgia Tech-- so much for that matchup a lot of Penn fans thought they'd get with UNLV as the 4.

In Spokane:

3. Oregon vs. 14. Miami, Ohio -- big applause from the Penn fans, who were scared of that game.
6. Notre Dame vs. Winthrop -- Everyone thinks Winthrop is odds-on to pull a first-round upset, and I'm still just a little skeptical of Notre Dame.

Florida should be going to New Orleans. If Villanova is an 8 or 9, it would be quite something to see a rematch of the game that knocked Villanova out last year.

And I'm sure Wildcats fans would love a trip to the Big Easy.

Florida gets the overall top seed in the Midwest, which ends in St. Louis.

North Carolina is the top seed in the East, which ends at the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, N.J.

The South's top seed is Ohio State, with that region ending in San Antonio.

Now the suspense...

The fourth number one is ---- Kansas! Not UCLA. Which makes sense, but I thought that Kansas would get the South regional.

So the way it works is that Florida would play Kansas and Carolina would play Ohio State in the Final Four.

Greg Gumbel announced the name of Gary Walters, the Princeton athletic director who chaired this year's Selection Committee, and he was booed by the crowd here.

Greetings from a jam-packed World Café Live in University City, where the Penn basketball team awaits its fate in this year's NCAA Tournament. Out on the Main Line, Villanova is buzzing just as loudly with anticipation, and a few blocks north of here Drexel waits to see if it will escape the bubble and make it to this year's Big Dance.

Over the course of the next hour, all will be revealed. So stay tuned.

Hi everyone, and welcome to Soft Pretzel Logic's live coverage of Selection Sunday. I'm on my way to the World Cafe Live in just a few minutes, and once I get there, I'll be blogging the entire selection show.

You can follow along yourself at home with the blank NCAA Tournament Bracket that ran in this morning's Inquirer. Fill it out as the show goes on, or print out a bunch and try to dream up some mock brackets à la our good friend Joe Lunardi.

Will Drexel survive the bubble and give Philly three Tournament teams for the first time since 1999? Will Penn get shipped across the country? Will Villanova avoid the dreaded 8-9 game?

We'll all find out together starting at 6 p.m. Until then, enjoy the rest of the day's games, including what looks like a barn-burner between Kansas and Texas in the Big 12.

Drew Lavender, Xavier
Will Daniels, Rhode Island
Kahiem Seawright, Rhode Island
Carl Elliot, George Washington
Maureece Rice, George Washington

Rice is the Most Outstanding Player. So I got three of five. Oh well.

That's it from here at Boardwalk Hall. It's been a real privilege to be here and blog this thing live, and I hope you've enjoyed it.

Talk to you again tomorrow evening, when I'll be blogging the Selection Show as it happens. I'll be at World Cafe Live with Penn, as a reward for their winning the poll.

(And because, when I had to plan this out, they were the one team who was absolutely guaranteed to be in the field... and the place has wireless, too, which helps.)

Tim McCormick of ESPN is trying to interview Carl Elliot, as both are being swarmed by the GW fans. The public address announcer has now asked the fans to clear the court three times so that the trophy can be awarded, but that ain't happening.

Now the security people are forcing the fans off. Because they can.

Carl Elliot hits two free throws to make it 77-69. Mbang gets wide open on the right and airballs a three, and falls on his backside to boot.

And Mbang just missed a putback slam off the front rim.

Carl Hobbs calls a timeout with four seconds left to clear the bench. Maureece Rice throws his jersey in the air to celebrate. He's going dancing for the third straight year and he knows it.

So do the GW fans, who storm the court and make sure they assemble in front of the ESPN cameras. And not just students, either. A couple parent-and-kid couples, and quite a few young alumni-looking types.

The GW students have all moved down to the lower deck and are getting ready to storm the court. But Jimmy Baron just hit a three to make it 75-69 with 37 seconds left and at least keep things interesting.

Parfait Bitee fouls Travis King to stop the clock. He shoots one-and-one. First good. Second not. Baron jacks up a three and it hits the front rim. Cothran fouls Hollis. 71-64 with 59 seconds left.

I just handed in my all-Tournament ballot. It was the first time I've ever done anything like that. Here's who I have

Maureece Rice, George Washington
Brian Roberts, Dayton (barely over Carl Elliot of GW, but he was such a big part of the Flyers' offense in both games that I think he deserves it)
Justin Doellman, Xavier
Kahiem Seawright, Rhode Island
Will Daniels, Rhode Island

Most Oustanding Player: Maureece Rice, George Washington
Will Daniels

Rhode Island plays 30 seconds of great defense, but Carl Elliot drove halfway to the basket and dished it underneath to Akingbade for a bank layup off the glass. 68-62.

Karl Hobbs calls time after Keith Cothran hits a 12-foot jumper from the right side to make it 66-62.

After GW rebounded its own miss, Will Daniels got a steal and took it to the house. He now has 27.

Keith Cothran just got called for a very questionable block.

Media timeout with 3:37 left and the Colonials up 66-60.

Carl Elliot airballs a shot from the right baseline with two on the shot clock, Maureece Rice gets up to put it back with one left and it hits the rim. As the clock resets, Dokun Akingbade tips it in. 62-56 GW.

Will Daniels has scored Rhode Island's last five points, and it's 58-54 Rhode Island until Travis King answers at the other end to make it 60-54.

Daniels has 25.

Open from the right side and he hits it to give GW a 54-46 lead with 12:10 left. Big shot, and now the Colonials fans are really alive.

Then Travis King hits a three to make it 57-46. But Jimmy Baron answers with a three at the other end and it's 57-49.

This thing ain't over yet.

A layup from the right side. He has seven and GW leads 51-44.

Gone for reaching across the face of Seawright as the two contested a loose ball.

A Rhode Island fan in the front row of the stands to my right slams on the hockey boards in celebration, scaring at least half the media in earshot.

Damian Hollis just got called for his fourth foul, which is big. Regis Koundjia, who also has four fouls, replaces him.

Daniels misses a three that was watched almost silently by an expectant crowd.

At the other end, Koundjia hits a three from the left to make it 49-42 GW.

We've hit a media timeout, which gives me the opportunity to note that Penn's Steve Danley is now blogging for the New York Times.

I am definitely going to have to find out how he got that gig.

We might be about to find out, because he just hit another three, this one from the right side to make it 46-42 with 16:00 left.

A three to open the scoring for the half and make it 44-39 with two minutes gone.

I mentioned a while back that I'm sitting next to the writers from the Rhode Island student paper.

That publication has by far the greatest name of any newspaper in the country: The Good Five Cent Cigar. Though the writers admitted they weren't quite sure of the history of their newspaper's title, the conventional wisdom seems to be that it came from Thomas Riley Marshall, who was Woodrow Wilson's Vice President.

In 1917, Marshall grew bored in some debate or another and uttered the phrase: "What this country needs is a really good five-cent cigar."

The Rhode Island paper is not that old; in fact, it was only formed in the 1970s. There was another student publication at the time, and the writers here told me that "we put it out of business within three or four years."

With a name like that, it's no wonder.

44-36 George Washington. If the second half is anywhere near this good, we're in for a heck of a lot of fun in the final 20 minutes.

Stat of the game by the length of the Boardwalk is 15 Rhode Island turnovers compared to only three for GW. The Rams shot 11-for-27 from the field and 4-for-10 from 3, while GW shot 19-for-44 from the field and 2-for-8 from three. Rhode Island had the edge on the glass, 22-19, including seven offensive rebounds to GW's nine defensive rebounds. But the Colonials' 10 offensive rebounds to Rhody's 15 defensive boards isn't too shabby, ether.

The Colonials recorded nine assists, while the Rams recorded only five. On defense, six steals and two blocks for GW; one steal and two blocks for Rhode Island.

A midcourt jumper, and now he has five points.

Akingbade works free again underneath and makes a nice layup. 38-31 GW, and Jim Baron is not pleased.

Baron and Hobbs have to be near the top of the Most Active In Game rankings among the A-10 coaches.

Rice still can't get a bucket, as Mbang skies to block his driving layup.

Media timeout with 3:38 to go after some roughhousing under the Rhode Island basket. The refs are talking it over, which is never a good thing.

They are off to the scorer's table to report their decision... and now they step away and go back to talking to each other. What is this, a Supreme Court decision?

It might be, as we now have five people in the discussion -- three refs and two head coaches. Four more to go. I'll volunteer, anyone else want to join?

Finally, they break it up. "Do you know what the hell they called?" a writer from the Rhode Island student paper next to me asks.

I have no idea. But apparently the public address announcer does:

"The result of the play is a foul on No. 23 Regis Koundjia. There is also a technical foul on number 23, Regis Koundja. He has three personal fouls and there are seven team fouls on George Washington."

Okay then.

Mbang hits the two shooting FTs. Now Jimmy Baron comes to the line for the technical free throws, makes the first and misses the second. But he gets the ball back to inbound it at midcourt. 40-34 GW.

By Dokun Akingbade, after a good passing sequence around the outside by GW. Akingbade let out a big yell as he threw it down, and so did the Colonials fans.

Daniels just got whistled for his second foul. 36-31 GW with 4:40 left in the half.

Travis steals a pass and Elliot takes it the other way, gets around the defender and hits an off-balance running layup off the backboard. 32-31 GW, but Daniels of URI has the hot hand with 12 points.

Yes, I used this post title once already.

Ray Parrillo is here covering the game for the Inquirer, and his pregame prediction was that there would be a lot of fouls. He was right -- there have been nine so far, three since the last media timeout and two in the last ten seconds.

Will Daniels at the line now, and he makes both from a shooting foul to give Rhode Island a 29-26 lead.

Pretty open from the left side. 25-22 Rhode Island, and Daniels is the high scorer with eight.

Rice misses again, this one a baseline jumper.

But Hollis swats him. Gets the arm, though, and is whistled for it. Cothran makes both to tie it at 22.

Damian Hollis with a layup to make it 22-20. Diggs hits the deck real hard and stays down.

He's back up and walking off under his own power, holding a piece of gauze over his nose. It was a loud fall, so good to see he's not hurt too badly. Apparently he took an elbow from Mbang.

The best name in the tournament, Joe Mbang, hits a wide open 3 from left of center to tie it at 18. Whistle. Keith Cothran called for a foul off the ball. GW can't score at the other end. Cothran then hits a baseline jumper to give URI a 20-18 lead with 11:17 to play.

Rice, meanwhile, has gone cold. He's missed his last three shots.

Rob Diggs with a layup for the Colonials to tie it.

Media timeout at 10:53. 20-all.

First media timeout comes at 15:43, and it's still 14-11. Great atmosphere and a fast-paced game thus far. This is much, much better than yesterday.

Rhode Island cuts GW's lead from 12-4 to 14-11. Karl Hobbs is not pleased.

Rhode Island's top player missed a pullup jumper from the right a few seconds back, and a free throw just now before making the the second from the stripe to get off the schneid.

And now a layup to give him three points and put this post to bed.

Maureece Rice opens the scoring with a three from the left corner.

At the other end, Jimmy Baron answers with a three of his own from just left of the top of the arc.

And Damian Hollis answers with another three from the left side at the other end. 6-3 GW with under 90 seconds gone.

Here we go, folks.

Just under a minute to go until tip of the Atlantic 10 Tournament championship game between 3-seed George Washington and 4-seed Rhode Island. There's a pretty big crowd, which I would say is 60-40 in GW's favor. The Colonials fans are spread out across both sides of the floor and behind the baskets, while the Rhode Island fans are in a curve from behind the Rams' bench to behind the Horseshoe End basket.

I'm not sure there are more GW fans here than there were last night, but there are WAY more Rhode Island fans here than there have been yet.

At the moment, I count 20 yellow foam hats, but I suspect a few are being hidden on chairs at the moment.

The house is actually loud for once, which is good.

Oh, and about the comments. Like it or not, the A-10 is getting two bids, and it's not a mid-major until Kyle Whelliston says it is. Which he might one of these years, but he hasn't yet.

Whoa. All of a sudden, there's a huge Rhode Island student section. It's all those fans behind the basket, chanting "Rhody! Rhody! Rhody!" This is going to be fun.

The last count before tip is 24 hats. I'm not counting anymore, if you don't mind.

George Washington coach Karl Hobbs clears his bench. Maureece Rice finishes with 22 points.

I'm not going to bother writing an extra post with the final score.

But before then, apparent fan favorite Johnny Lee hit a great off-balance driving layup with 46 seconds left, got the and-one and made the free throw to give GW a 60-37 lead.

And just to make us wait even longer for the game to end, Dominic Green shot a 3 with 26 seconds to go that got stuck between the rim and backboard.

Now it's finally over. GW wins 60-40. On to the final, where the Colonials will face Rhode Island tomorrow at 6 p.m. here at Boardwalk Hall. Talk to you then.

49-29 George Washington with 3:55 to go. The public address announcer reads an ad for an energy drink, and a video ad for the drink is shown on the jumbotron.

I don't normally drink that kind of stuff, but in a game like this it might actually be useful.

5:24 to play and GW's up 46-29. Maureece Rice still has 20. The GW fans behind me are trying to get some chants started, but they're going nowhere.

20 points for Maureece Rice and 20 points for Saint Louis.

41 overall for George Washington.

Luke Meyer hits a layup, then Rice gets fouled.... and misses the front end of a one-and-one! So it's now 22-20 Saint Louis.

GW has now doubled up Saint Louis, 32-16. Maureece Rice has as many points as the Billikens do.

Oh, Luke Meyer hit a layup. Finally.

Then Rice gets a steal and takes it the other way for a layup. 34-18, and Rice has tied Saint Louis yet again. Timeout Saint Louis.

There's now 12:30 to go and the score is as above.

30-16 GW. 14 for Rice. Still not much to get excited about.

GW works it around the perimeter, then Carl Elliot makes a superb cut inside, and beats the clock with a layup high off the glass. 25-16 Colonials at the half.

Stats: Neither team shot terribly well. GW was 11-for-30 from the field and 2-for-10 from 3, but Saint Louis was really awful -- 4-for-17 from the field and 0-2 from 3. The Billikens had a big edge on the glass, 21-14, but then again the Colonials had a lot more shots. The stat that really stands out, though, is Saint Louis' 13 turnovers. That will take down the number of shots in a hurry.

Maureece Rice crosses over, takes a step back and nails a jumper from just inside the fre throw line. 20-10 GW, and Rice has 12.

18-10 GW with 7:17 to go in the half.

Maureece Rice has 10 of the Colonials' points.

A bunch of GW fans wearing the big yellow hats just got here. And they're carrying more for people. So now we have 23 hats by my count.

Now 24. They're multiplying. Even if by a small percentage.

The Billiken himself (herself?) is her, I think for the first time. To be safe, I'll use the gender-neutral "it." Anyway, "it" is a humanoid form with a large white foam head, really big cheeks, a toothless smile and pointy ears that are blue with a white border.

Ah, found a picture. This is a Billiken.

The Xavier players just walked behind the Horseshoe End basket and got a nice round of applause from their fans.

And Maureece Rice hit a 3 with 12:40 on the clock to give GW an 11-8 lead.

Six points apiece.

Some numbers from Rhode Island-Xavier...

The Musketeers shot 7-for-28 from 3 in the game: 3-for-13 in the first half and 4-for-15 in the second half.

Rhode Island had the edge in rebounding, 40-34. Xavier got 15 offensive boards, the Rams 12.

Drew Lavender led all scorers with 18 points on 7-of-19 shooting. The Musketeers took 66 shots overall.

The final book's running scoreline does not list missed field goal attempts, but Xavier only made four field goals over the final eight minutes of the game, all layups. Rhode Island held the Musketeers scoreless from 8:08 remaining to 4:42 remaining.

I think I can count the number of Saint Louis fans in the house on one hadn't at the moment. Okay, maybe two. Not as many GW fans as I thought would show up given that it's a Friday.

So far, only four of those oversized foam hats. This is what they look like, by the way.

There's a group of eight GW fans behind me, seven who look of student age and one who looks older. One of the people of student age has one of those stuffed animal horse heads on a stick, but I don't know what it's for.

Saint Louis

F 32 Luke Meyer
F 15 Ian Voyoukas
G 25 Tommie Lidell
G 21 Kevin Lisch
G 00 Dwayne Polk

George Washington

F 42 Dokun Akingbade
F 21 Regis Kouindja
G 22 Damian Hollis
G 33 Maureece "Mo" (in the words of the GW fans) Rice
G 25 Carl Elliot

The hat count sneaks up to five just before tipoff.

Rice opens the scoring with a floater in the lane at 19:19. Lisch answers with a three 19 second s later.

He said the A-10 should get two teams in the NCAA Tournament, and now it's going to happen. Xavier should get an at-large, but one of Rhode Island, George Washington and Saint Louis will also be in the field.

The final score is 79-71.

Joe Mbang fires another half-the-length-of-the-court pass, this one to Lamonte Ulmer, who misses the first layup but gets his own rebound, puts it in and gets fouled.

77-68 with 18.8 left and Justin Cage at the line. I don't have exact numbers, but Xavier has missed a heck of a lot of shots late here.

He went over the back on Kahiem Seawright.

Seawright to the line for two. The first is good. The second is too, off the front and back rim in that order. 72-64.

Lavender drives and misses, the putback is no good, and Cage gets the third chance in. Timeout Xavier, down 72-66 with 1:02 left.

The Musketeers are out of timeouts. The Xavier band plays the "Blues Brothers" theme, not for the first time tonight.

On the inbounds, Baron throws the long ball to Bitee, who's well ahead of Lavender and makes the layup. Xavier can't score at the other end, Burrell fouls Seawright, and the fans sense that it's getting to be over. 74-66 Rhody before the free throws.

Seawright misses the first and makes the second. 75-66 with 49.5 left.

Jimmy Baron drives to the basket puts up a ridiculously off-balance floater, it hits the rim, goes up, Baron tips it back in with maybe one finger. Xavier misses at the other end.

70-64 URI with 1:36 remaining.

Baron is very much the "offense" side of Rhode Island's offense-defense substituting.

Picked up going over the back on Lamonte Ulmer as the Ram grabbed a rebound. The front end of the one-and-one is good, and the back end is too.

66-61 Rhode Island. Hmm.

Drew Lavender drives to the basket and hits the layup off the glass. And one on Darrell Harris (as opposed to Darnell Harris of La Salle). Darrell is a lot taller.

Will Daniels drives to the basket and Doellman blocks him with authority. Xavier moves it up the floor and B.J. Raymond nails a 3 from the right side to give the Musketeers a 61-58 lead.

Then Daniels goes down in a heap as the ensuing play goes by. He's holding his knee, which is never a good sign. He's standing now, trying to make it off under his own power, and he is. The strides are getting easier as he crosses the court, which is a great sign.

Grr.

Rhode Island was winning close for a while, but Xavier just took the lead on a breakwaway slam by Justin Doellman with 9:40 to play. Rhode Island then tied it on a layup by Keith Cothran at the other end.

56-all with 9:01 to play.

They somewhat regularly chant "Let's go, Muskies!" Every time I hear it, I think of this. I might be the only person on the planet who does so, but makes a title game between the Muskies and George Washington all the more compelling.

A putback by Justin Cage with 1:30 or so left. 34-33 Musketeers, and their fans make some noise.

The score stays there the rest of the half, as Xavier can't get a shot off at the buzzer.

Apparently I don't have it all that bad.

Rhode Island up 31-30 with 3:02 left in the half.

Rhode Island's Keith Cothran fouled Derrick Brown going up. The refs called it intentional. It was certainly hard.

It felt strange for a moment seeing an intentional foul called in a Xavier game.

Midway through the half and Rhode Island's up, 19-13.

Just got an email from another one of the Philly.com staff that I'm on the front of philly.com. Yikes.

Kahiem Seawright to the basket. Justin Doellman fouls him. The basket counts. Joe DeMayo blows his whistle and throws a forearm jab that would have made the boxers who used to come in here proud.

Mbang with a three to give Rhode Island the lead, 16-13 with 11:44 remaining after a miss by Xavier at the other end.

11:33 left. Jimmy Baron nails a 3 from the right side. 19-13 Rhode Island, and Sean Miller has seen enough to call time even though there's a media timeout coming.

Joe Mbang at the line for Rhode Island. A guy in the Xavier band, whose entire head is painted white save for a blue X on his forehead and blue paint under the eyes, holds up a not-quite-life-sized cutout of Justin Doellman to try to distract the shooter.

Mbang hits both free throws. So much for that.

There are four of them, right behind the guy who's blogging for CSTV. He's going back and forth with them, and it's rather funny.

(The CSTV blog is really good, by the way. It has writers at all the major conference tournaments writing simultaneously. I happen to know that the guy covering the ACC Tournament is a Philly native. Not that you should stop reading this one, but maybe you can have the two open in separate windows at the same time.)

The Xavier student section has gotten a lot bigger, maybe 50 now. Brandon Cole just hit two free throws for the game's first points -- answered by a long Daniels 2-point jumper. The Musketeers students make an "X" with their hands during free throws instead of holding them straight up, but you probably knew that already if you follow the A-10.

The adult fans behind me were doing the thing the Syracuse and Connecticut fans (among others) do where they stand and clap rhythmically until their team hits a field goal. Problem is, it wasn't really all that rhythmic. It was more like everyone clapping slower than normal but at their own pace.

Believe it or not, I'm still here.

(And, to be honest, I can't quite believe it myself.)

Anyway, we're just a few minutes from tip time between 4-seed Rhode Island and top-seed Xavier. The crowd is very spread out, but reasonably big by the standards set over the last few days. It's very, very pro-Xavier. There's a decent Musketeers student section up above the linescore board at the Horseshoe End, maybe 30 of them.

Oh, they just moved down. To the same corner where the St. Joe's students were last night, between the Musketeers' bench and the basket.

I don't see any Rhody student section (there, I finally said it) as such. But I can already tell who the most annoying fan of the night will be. Of course the guy is right behind me, and his, uh, drink has barely been touched thus far.

Rhode Island starts Bitee Parfait (Jr.) and Jimmy Baron (the head coach's son) in the backcourt, Will Daniels and Kahiem Seawright in the front, and Darrell Harris at center.

Xavier starts former Oklahoma Sooner Drew Lavender and Stanley Burrell in the back, and a frontcourt trio of Justin Cage, Justin Doellman and Brandon Cole. They're all listed as forwards, with Doellman contesting the opening tip.

JoeDeMayo, Gene Steratore and Ray Perone are the refs.

The poll is done, and Penn's your winner.

Penn 55
Villanova 42
St. Joe's 19
Drexel 10
Temple 9
La Salle 3

My sincere thanks to the 138 of you who voted. I'll probably do this again in a few months, and hopefully more people will vote in that one.

From Dayton-Xavier, the top-seeded Musketeers spread the ball around well in their convincing win, but forward Justin Doellman had a big game on the boards as well:

From Fordham-Rhode Island, freshman guard Brandon Butler had a game-high 22 points, including an impressive 6-for-6 outing from three-point range. URI forward and all-conference first-teamer Will Daniels gets the edge, though, for getting it done at both ends of the floor:

From Saint Louis-Massachusetts, it has to be Billikens star Tommie Liddell for doing pretty much everything possible except dishing out assists:

And finally, from St. Joe's-GW, props to the all-time leading scorer in Philadelphia high school history, game-high scorer Maureece Rice:

One other thing before I call it a night. In the overtime period against Saint Louis, UMass shot 2-for-10 from the field. Both made shots were from beyond the arc. The Minutemen took five shots from that distance in all. UMass missed their first five shots in overtime and three of their last four. Yes, that adds up to all but one of the shots they took, but you get the point.

Just not a good night at all on offense for the Hawks. St. Joe's finished the game having shot a paltry 24.4 percent from the field -- 5-for-22 in the first half and 6-for-23 in the second half. The final tally from beyond the arc was 3 made shots on 21 attempts. Making one of six attempts in the first half is one thing, but the Hawks were 2-for-15 in the second half, which is pretty unbelievable for a team that's 35th in the country in 3-point field goal percentage.

George Washington coach Karl Hobbs said he thought there was some fatigue from last night's game, but Phil Martelli ascribed it to a lack of skill. I'm sure that guy who was screaming behind me is still annoyed (to be polite), but when you go eight deep in a game and four of them are freshmen, they can both happen at the same time.

If these two teams meet in Atlantic City next year, there's every reason to think St. Joe's will win easily. But it just wasn't to be on a night when Ahmad Nivins' game-high 18 points came on 2-of-3 shooting from the field. He was 14-of-18 from the line, so at least he was able to get the contact even if he wasn't getting shots, but still.

Pat Calathes was 3-for-9 from the field. Rob Ferguson was 1-for-9 and didn't score until fewer than two minutes were left in the game. It's not all that hard to figure out, and give the Colonials credit for making sure the Hawks' big men didn't get good looks.

Finally, the announced crowd tonight was 5,488, and this was the first time it really looked the part.

Finally, Boardwalk Hall is really alive. Let's get this thing rolling.

The post reads from top to bottom, instead of from bottom to top as I've done in the past. So if you're following live, you might want to click the "Permalink" button and just refresh that page.

Saint Joseph's

F 52 Rob Ferguson
F 34 Ahmad Nivins
G 23 Garrett Williamson
G 13 Darrin Govens
G 12 (as such) Pat Calathes

George Washington

F 42 Dokun Akinbaye
F 23 Regis Koundjia
G 33 Maureece Rice (who gets by far the biggest cheer from the GW fans -- the Philly native's family is surely here)
G 22 Damian Hollis
G 23 Carl Elliot

This is by far the biggest crowd we've seen yet. On the whole, it's very pro-Hawks, but the Colonials' fans are loud too.

A St. Joe's student section of 40 or so is behind the Hawks' bench, while a bigger GW student section -- I'd say 50, going up more rows but across fewer seats -- is behind the Colonials' bench. I count five of the oversized yellow foam tricorner hats that have become a fashion staple in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of D.C. in recent years.

19:28 1st: Akingbade swats Garrett Williamson's drive to the basket.

18:33 1st: Rice opens the scoring with a drive to the basket. The refs

17:28 1st: Akingbade hits a jumper, it's 6-0 GW and Phil Martelli calls timeout.

16:48 1st: A jumper by Carl Elliot makes it 8-0. The teams are getting up and down the floor a lot, which is exactly what St. Joe's doesn't want.

16:27 1st: Ahmad Nivins hits two free throws to get St. Joe's on the board.

16:08 1st: Rob Ferguson gets whistled for his first foul of the night.

15:49 1st: D.J. Rivera hits a long 2. Elliot replies with a 3 and it's 13-4 GW.

15:20 1st: Media timeout. The St. Joe's student section has moved from behind the bench to the corner at that same end of the floor. There are quite a few more of them than there were earlier. And I now count six foam tricorners in the stands, not all of which are being worn by GW students. The Colonials' fans have definitely brought it tonight.

Sorry for dropping this all on you at once, but the wireless internet went haywire for a bit just after tip.

14:07 1st: About tempo. GW is 166th at 66.9 possessions per 40 minutes, which might not seem all that great. St. Joe's, however, is 296th at 62.8 possessions per 40 minutes, which is a fairly big difference.

12:16 1st: Eight of those hats. 15-6 GW.

10:50 1st: Govens hits a 3 to make it 17-9. At the oter end, Elliot (I think -- it happened really fast, as GW would want) drove to the hole and Nivins blocked his shot into the glass, bringing the St. Joe's fans to their feet.

10:04 1st: St. Joe's has cut the deficit to 17-11. GW Karl Hobbs is none too pleased, and calls time.

8:27 1st: Govens knocks it away from Elliot, grabs the ball off the floor and takes it for a layup. 17-15 GW.

7:02 1st: The GW students have been forced up to the upper deck, I presume by arena security. Man, I hate it when that happens. There's plenty of seats to allow them down.

5:46 1st: Rob Ferguson had a chance to tie the game, but missed the second of two free throws. 19-18 GW.

5:17 1st: Carl Elliot drives to the basket, and from pretty much under the backboard throws it up off the glass and in. He was fouled on the way (hence the awkward shot), and he makes the free throw. 22-18 GW.

4:51 1st: Injury timeout. It's Koundjia, who's holding his arm while walking off under his own power. Applause all around. And for those of you who care about this sort of thing, the man who blew the whistle is Joe DeMayo.

3:46 1st: Rice coolly sinks a 3 from the top of the key. 25-18 GW.

3:35 1st: Media timeout. One of the non-students with the big tri-corner hats was just on the jumbotron. There are six GW students behind the basket at the Horseshoe end, one of whom has an enormous inflatable kangaroo on his shoulders. Sweet.

3:09 1st: Rice hits another 3, this one from the left side, and it's 28-20. Rice has a game-high 10.

2:39 1st: Rice throws an alley-oop for Diggs, who can't get up for the jam, but after coming back down he gets a layup in. 30-20 GW, and Phil Martelli calls time.

1:48 1st: Koundjia is back in and gets a nice ovation from the GW fans. The Colonials force St. Joe's to call time instead of giving up a five-second violation on the inbounds play.

0:25.6 1st: With two on the shot clock, Koundjia inbounds the ball to Carl Elliot, and D.J. Rivera fouls Elliot as soon as he catches the ball. Geez.

The Colonials do not hold for last shot. St. Joe's takes a while to get up the floor, and Carter has to launch what ends up being an airball. It's halftime, and an impressive GW leads 33-21.

Stats: Yikes. St. Joe's shot 22.7 percent from the field in the first half (5-22) and 1-of-6 from 3. Ahmad Nivins was held to only one basket on two attempts from the field. But his 6-of-8 from the line has him as the Hawks' leading scorer with eight points. St. Joe's has 10 turnovers to a measly three assissts.

GW shot 48.1 percent from the field (13-27) and 3-of-7 from 3. Rob Diggs is the leading scorer with 11 points on 4-of-7 shooting; all the makes were inside the arc. GW has eight turnovers to ten assists.

33 possessions in the half for St. Joe's, 32.375 for GW. So we're looking at a tempo that is definitely closer to the Colonials' than the Hawks'.

19:36 2nd: Pat Calathes opens the half with a 3. Good sign. 33-24 GW.

18:56 2nd: Calathes drives to the basket for a layup, 33-26. Much better from Calathes, and St. Joe's, to start the half.

18:16 2nd: Joe DeMayo rather emphatically whistles Koundjia for a charge. St. Joe's fails to score on the ensuing possessions. 34-28 GW.

16:15 2nd: Govens hits a 3 from the left side to make it 34-31 and wake the St. Joe's students up.

15:48 2nd:The ball goes out of bounds to St. Joe's, and we have a media timeout. The wireless internet has gone spotty again

15:32 2nd:Ferguson misses a 3 from the left that would have tied it.

14:06 2nd: A lack of a travel by GW and a foul on D.J. Rivera have the St. Joe's fans upset at DeMayo. But he whistles the Colonials for a travel a few seconds later. Pretty much all the Hawks fans are referring to DeMayo by name, and he certainly does ref a lot of their games.

11:46 2nd: After a prolonged scrum for a loose ball, Damian Hollis gets whistled for a foul and we have a media timeout. Which lets me bring up something I've wanted to mention all night: GW's mascot. Because he's one of two George Washington mascots in D.C.

Here's the only picture of him I could find on Google Images. And here's the other George, a version somewhere between seven and 10 feet tall who runs down the first base line at Washington Nationals games à la the Sausage Races in Milwaukee. To give you a better iidea of how big he is, check out this picture.

I think the Colonials' version is rather underwhelming. But the team's offense is not -- it just went up 41-31 with 10:15 left in the game. It does not look good for the Hawks.

10:01 2nd: A St. Joe's fan behind me yells, "Come on, guys, you aren't freshmen anymore!" Well, they are, and I think they might be showing a bit of fatigue at the moment, because GW is running them hard.

9:30 2nd: Diggs banks in a driving layup and it's 43-31. St. Joe's throws the ball out of bounds.

1:22 2nd: After Williamson steals it and Hollis blocks his drive without a whistle, Elliot gets it on the break and is away for a layup. 52-43 and it's pretty well over now.
8:37 2nd: Williamson drives to the basket for a layup and gets the and-one on Koundjia. The free throw is good and it's 43-34. At the other end steal, a drive by Rivera, Hollis blocks it but Akingbade fouls Rivera going up. First free throw good. Second off the front iron. But it ends up with St. Joe's as Elliot can't push the rebound to a teammate.

8:03 2nd: Nivins forces his way for a layup. Off the inbounds, a travel on GW. 43-37. Hold the phone.

7:26 2nd: Media timeout after Rivera committs what a guy behind me loudly describes as "a weak-[synonym rear end] loose ball foul." There are two empty plastic cups atop the hockey board in front of him, and I will just leave it at that if you don't mind. Here's a stat for which I have to credit this guy, because he told me: Rob Ferguson has yet to score. That's big.

The fan I mentioned earlier is now yelling "We love Bill Conlin!" at the Daily News reporters in front of me. As many readers as the paper can get, I'll take.

6:21 2nd: Ferguson might not have any points, but he now has three fouls. Elliot makes one of two FTs, and GW gets the rebound up 46-37.

3:46 2nd: Rivera grabs a loose ball, and on the break plays a pass behind his back to Nivins who can't hit the half-layup-half-dunk, though he's fouled going up. It's been that kind of night for St. Joe's. Nivins made both free throws, so it's 48-41.

3:14 2nd: Govins plays a bounce pass to Rivera on the right wing and it goes out of bounds.

2:16 2nd: After GW does a really good job of stopping St. Joe's from getting a good look, Rivera finally gets one from three -- and it goes in and out. Calathes fouls Akingbade on the rebound. The first free throw is good, and the second is as well. 50-41 GW.

1:58 2nd: Ferguson finally scores. After missing a 3 from the right corner, he got his own rebound and put it in off the glass. 50-43 GW. Is it a sign of anything that Ferguson's on the board? I'm not sure the Hawks can overcome a 7-point deficit at this point. The hole last night wasn't this big.

0:45.5 2nd: Nivins misses the first of two free throws and makes the second. He had to have both, really. 54-46 GW as Ferguson fouls Travis King. It's Ferguson's fourth. King makes both. 56-46.

0:30.2 2nd: Elliot is whistled late for fouling Govens while shooting a three. Neither side's fans are pleased, and Martelli's just about laughing at it. Govens misses the first, makes the second and makes the third. Karl Hobbs calls timeout for some reason.

0:17.8 2nd: The guy behind the basket with the Kangaroo and his friends are chanting "Ferguson... Ferguson..." It's 57-48 GW.

0:11.6 2nd: The GW students in the upper level chant "We killed the Hawk!" The reply is obvious.

FINAL SCORE: 58-48. So that's it for St. Joe's this season, and that's it for the Philly representation in this year's A-10 Tournament. It will be Xavier-Rhode Island in the early semifinal at 6:30 tomorrow and Saint Louis vs. George Washington in the late game at 9.

Wow. 1:54 to play in the extra session, and Saint Louis has a 71-65 lead. UMass doesn't look like it'll do a thing about that, having jacked up two airballs on the way to a goose egg from the field thus far.

With 1:22 left, Kevin Lisch makes the second free throw after missing the first and it's 72-65.

1:11 OT: As I switch into full commentary mode, Gary Forbes hits a 3 from the top of the arc to make it 72-66. UMass presses, but St. Louis breaks it and Tommie Liddell drives for a layup... which he misses... but Saint Louis gets the rebound.

0:48 OT: Brandon Thomas fouls Liddell. He makes the first, and misses the second off the front rim.

0:35 OT: Wow. Life drives to the basket and misses a layup, A-10 Player of the Year Stephane Lasme misses the putback, and Thomas misses that putback. The ball goes out of bounds off a Saint Louis player and UMass gets it back.

0:32 OT: Life curls off a screen, gets open and nails a 3 to make it 73-71.

0:18.1 OT: Liddell goes over and back!

0:06.3 OT: Lowe is stripped by Liddell and lands on top of him and is called for the foul. Liddell hits the first and misses the 2nd! It's 74-71.

At the buzzer: Forbes brings it all the way down the floor, gets off a 3 and it hits the front of the rim!

Game over, and with it goes any kind of shot UMass had at the NCAA Tournament. But at least we've now had our first upset of this year's A-10 Tournament -- and if St. Joe's wins tonight, you have to give them a much better shot against the Billikens than they would have had against the Minutemen.

Back in a bit for the Hawks' showdown with George Washington.

With 4.7 seconds to go, Saint Louis and UMass are tied at 65-65. UMass tried to run the shot clock down, and Minuteman guard/trash-talker-to-Temple James Life drove to the basket and got a layup attempt off before the horn, but it bounced off the glass without hitting the rim and the Billikens get the ball.

Now we have our second timeout of this stoppage of play as both coaches try to draw something up that the other side won't figure out.

On the inbounds pass Kevin Lisch took the ball all the way down to the arc and got himself a decent look, but the ball hit the front of the rim. So we go to overtime for the first time in this year's tournament.

I got to sit down with ESPN.com bracketologist and St. Joe's color analyst Joe Lunardi for a few minutes over dinner before the Saint Louis-UMass game. We talked about Villanova and Penn's potential seeds in the NCAA Tournament, Drexel's chances of making the field of 65, and this year's A-10 Tournament.

His latest field is here. Drexel is a 12 playing Virginia in Columbus; Villanova is a 9 playing Vanderbilt in Sacramento; and Penn is a 14 playing Memphis, also in Columbus.

You can listen to the interview by clicking here and downloading the file. My thanks to Joe for sparing a few minutes once again.

Punchline to the song the UMass band plays as the final minute before the start of the second half ticks down:

"Whaddaya mean it's last call?"

That speaks well of the winter social scene in Amherst, I'd say...

I've been so busy these last few days that I haven't had time to look at the poll. Enough of that, especially because it closes tomorrow.

Penn 55
Villanova 38
St. Joe's 18
Drexel 9
Temple 9
La Salle 3

Again, this thing ends tomorrow. So please vote.

Not that big a crowd for the first game of the evening doubleheader, but it's definitely a pro-Minutemen bunch. There might even be fewer Billikens fans here tonight than there were yesterday, or at least they're more spread out. There's a UMass student section of about ten or so, and for the first time all tournament it's behind the Horseshoe End basket.

Also, major props to the UMass band for a great rendition of CBS' college basketball theme music.

And major lack of props to me for being too busy earlier to write more about Fordham-Rhode Island. It was by far the best game of the tournament yet, as the light blue Rams clawed back from an 11-point halftime deficit for a 73-69 win. Fordham took a 66-63 lead on a Marcus Stout 3 with 5:53 remaining, but URI kept scratching and took the lead for good on a tough driving layup by Jimmy Baron with 11 seconds to go in the game.

Fordham held for last shot and Brenton Butler tried to dribble his way open, but he traveled with 0.9 seconds left and Keith Conran sank two game-clinching free throws at the other end.

Some things I meant to post yesterday and earlier today...

Duquesne's coach reflects on an extraordinary season

One of the stories in the A-10 that hasn't gotten nearly enough play locally or nationally is how Duquesne recovered from having five players shot at the beginning of the season.

Dukes coach Ron Everhart was asked about this after his team lost to St. Louis last night, and I figure the best thing to do is just reprint verbatim what he said:

"I think that in a lot of ways, there's a lot of reflecting to do from a coaching perspective. I think, one, I couldn't be any more proud or honored to be the coach of Duquesne University. The type of support that we have there with our athletic director and our president, with the people on campus reached out to support these kids in some tough times, it was just phenomenal.

And I think, two, I'll always look back on this year as one where I'm very, very proud of the effort that our kids gave throughout. The way they handled adversity, the way they handled success, the way they handled failure -- I thought [it] was very mature, very resilient. I think in that way, along with the fact that all of the kids who got shot got up and walked out of that hospital, [it] probably has been, for me, one of the most rewarding years of my life."

No need to analyze words when spoken that well.

---------

St. Louis' win at Duquesne's tempo

So I wrote a whole long thing about the tempo of St. Louis-Duquesne last night and never got around to posting any quotes about it.

"What we did in practice in preparation for Duquesne's pressure was to just play against six guys all the time," Billikens coach Brad Soderberg said. "And yet, when we played them, if I could do it over again I'd have us practice against seven."

"I'm glad we survived that game," he concluded.

---------

Headcount

The attendance for the evening session yesterday was 5,068. The attendance for the afternoon session today was 4,762. The latter number seemed a bit more accurate.

Halftime and Rhode Island has a 44-35 lead. With about two minutes to go before tip, a group of five St. Joe's students in the front row of the Horseshoe End basket started doing the long chant the Hawks student section does before tip. Then two other St. Joe's fans a few rows up at midcourt on my side of the floor joined them.

I think I've used up the two sets of Rams line, but given the lack of any Hawks on the floor, what the heck was that chant for?

During a media timeout a moment ago, the jumbotron camera caught a guy just sitting there talking on his cell phone.

I have no idea if the guy's famous, but nice to point him out for not paying attention to the game.

Rhode Island takes the floor to a fight song that sounds more than a little like that of another team that wears a light shade of blue, North Carolina. Fordham's band plays the Mickey Mouse theme, with a bass guitarist prominently featured.

The Fordham student section just got here, all 12 or so of them, including Lucha Libre Mask Man from yesterday. A lot more maroon Rams fans than there were for the Richmoand game.

Rhode Island's student section is five people in the front row behind the light blue Rams' bench. Give them credit. But what looks like the URI dance team is banished to the upper level, right above the scoreboard at the Horseshoe End of the court. They've all got shiny white pom-poms and are dressed in white shirts, and are chanting and moving their arms in unison. The cheerleaders are courtside, so it's not that, but... oh, they're moving! They're being escorted down by a security guard. We'll see where they go.

UPDATE: The dance team has moved in with the student section behind the URI bench. There are also 10 or so more students than there were at tipoff.

Villanova made a run at the end, but came up five points short and got knocked out of the Big East Tournament by Georgetown, 62-57. After a three by Jonathan Wallace pushed Georgetown's lead to 13 with 5:51 remaining, 'Nova held the Hoyas without a field goal until a Roy Hibbert slam with six seconds remaining. That included four straight missed Georgetown threes. 'Nova didn't make any threes either in its rally, but didn't take any either -- all the points came from inside the arc or at the line.

As for the other line, that's why Georgetown didn't let Villanova get any closer. The Hoyas made seven of their last 10 free throw attempts.

Villanova's in the tournament, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. But they do seem consigned to that dreaded 8-9 game now.

With 1:21 to go and the Musketeers up 72-51, Xavier coach Sean Miller has cleared his bench. The XU student section is chanting "Wright State's dancing," which they are (at almost the exact same level as Penn, which is worth thinking about), but I'm not quite sure how that gets under Dayton's skin.

A Dayton reporter next to me answers that question in a hurry: Wright State is located in Dayton. Yep, that'll do it.

Then again, Cincinnati finished last in the Big East...

Xavier runs out the clock and 72-51 is your final. Fordham-Rhode Island next, and I must say that I don't see any Fordham maroon or Rhode Island light blue anywhere in the stands.

I was going to say "Rams" instead of the school names on second reference, but I realized mid-sentence that both schools have that nickname.

Villanova's down to Georgetown 35-17 at the half. The Hoyas scored the first 14 points of the game, and it was 26-2 with 9:30 left. It was 32-7 with 6:23 left and 35-10 with 4:56 left, at which point the Wildcats closed the half with an 8-2 run.

'Nova is 6-22 from the field and 1-5 from 3, Georgetown is 16-29 from the field and 4-12 from 3. Roy Hibbert leads all scorers with eight on a perfect fo-fo-fo from the field. Reggie Redding leads the Wildcats with six.

Mike Nardi isn't playing because of the strained calf and sprained ankle that limited him to only five minutes last night. That might have just a little bit to do with his team's problems...

Here in Atlantic City, Xavier's up 33-27 at the break in what has been a very entertaining, back-and-forth game. Dayton's Brian Roberts is the leading scorer with 15.

The day begins with No. 8 Dayton playing top seed Xavier, a definite rivalry game between two schools located about an hour apart. There are far more Xavier fans in the house, including a student section of 20 or so that threw up a huge pile of shredded newspaper when Stanley Burrell hit a 3 for the Musketeers' first points. The Dayton fans (and there are a good number of them, too) were louder before the game, but not so much anymore. Then again, that might be because there's a large Xavier contingent sitting right behind me.

I'll be back throughout the day with other stuff. Until then, some stories from yesterday.

From St. Joe's-Temple: Ray Parrillo with a recap, Mike Jensen with the Temple side of things, Mike Kern with a recap and Rich Hofmann with a column on Phil Martelli. Plus audio I recorded of the Temple and St. Joe's postgame press conferences.

From Villanova-DePaul: Dana Pennett O'Neil's recap, John Smallwood's column on surviving and advancing, Shannon Ryan's recap and sidebar, and Bob Ford's column on the fact that only four Villanova players took shots in the game.

Mike Kern and Kevin Tatum on Penn's Ibrahim Jaaber winning Ivy League Player of the Year.

Steve King on Lincoln University's trip to the Division II NCAA Tournament.

And Mel Greenberg on the start of the CAA women's tournament.

Alright, so here we are with 2:00 or so to go before tip, and this place is still really empty. As in, there are a few full rows behind the horseshoe end of the court, and just about no one in the 10 or so rows of seats that sit between the end of the court and the giant painting that serves as the concert stage wall. and is the signature piece of art here at Boardwalk Hall.

This is my first time here, and I find the place pretty impressive, even if it's not necessarily meant for basketball. It's been beautifully restored inside, and I really like the colored lights along the sides of the arched ceiling.

There are somewhere between 20 and 30 Temple students in the upper level across the floor from and at the same end as the Owls' bench, and a section of probably 40 to 50 St. Joe's students behind the Hawks' bench. The PA guy for the tournament is the guy who does Temple games at the Liacouras Center, but rest assured he's totally objective (no, he really is).

As more atmosphere-like things happen, I'll bring them to you over the course of the game.

But here's something important on the floor: Darren Govins is starting for St. Joe's. He's joined by Pat Calathes, Rob Ferguson, Ahmad Nivins and Garrett Williamson. Temple starts Dion Dacons, Dionte Christmas, Dustin Salisbery, Mark Tyndale and Sergio Olmos to jump at center.

13:31 1st: Ooh. Ryan Brooks just hit a 3 from the left side to give Temple a 12-7 lead, and that prompted Phil Martelli to call timeout. There are a decent number of Temple fans here overall... not as many as St. Joe's brought, but given that the place is so empty, it's all relative, I guess.

8:43 1st: For lack of any atmosphere, some game info. Brooks just hit another 3, this from the left corner, to give Temple a 21-14 lead. He's the game's high scorer with 10 points; Rob Ferguson has seven points, or half the Hawks' total.

2:51 1st: I'm a bit surprised there haven't been any rollouts from the St. Joe's fans, given that I recognize at least one of the fans in their student section (the first pictured) as being among the higher-ups.

1:53 1st: Darrin Govens ties it at 27-all with a three from just to the left of the top of the arc.

1:20 1st: Dion Dacons answers by getting open for a backdoor-ish layup to make it 29-27. I saw the George Washington players sitting behind the Stage End basket (for lack of a better way to put it) earlier, but they're gone now. The Colonials get the winner of this game and neither team has shown all that much.

Halftime: Dustin Salisbery wakes the crowd up by nailing a 3 at the buzzer from about halfway between the midcourt and 3-point lines. Temple leads 32-28. Back in a bit.

Stats: Temple shot 13-of-29 from the field (44.8 percent) and 5-of-10 from 3. 18 rebounds, five on offense. Seven assists, six turnovers, two blocks and three steals.

St. Joe's shot 11-of-26 from the field (42.3 percent) and 4-of-10 from 3. 15 rebounds, three on offense. Eight assists, four turnovers, one block and two steals.

Brooks is the game's high scorer with 10; Ferguson still leads St. Joe's with seven. St. Joe's bench, consisting of Jawan Carter and D.J. Rivera, didn't score. Brooks scored all 10 of Temple's bench points, with Chris Clark the only other player off the Owls' bench.

17:22 2nd: Calathes just tied the game at 32-32 woth two free throws, but Mark Tyndale answered with a three from the right corner. The St. Joe's students are banging on the hockey boards to make some noise, which is the closest thing to creative noise creation I've seen tonight.

16:19 2nd: Another Brooks 3 makes it 38-32. Carter answers with a three of his own to make it 38-35. Brooks is a perfect 3-for-3 from beyond the arc so far.

12:20 2nd: Tyndale drives to the basket, gets fouled going up by Pat Calathes, and the ball bounces off the back iron, around, and into the basket. Phil Martelli is complaining rather loudly about something... that Pat Calathes had a piece of loose tape covering an injury, maybe. So Calathes had to come out and Garrett Williamson is in. Tyndale made the free throw and it's 47-39 Temple.

11:28 2nd: After a three by Salisbery, Calathes gets hit with a charge. There's a media timeout, and it's 50-41 Temple.

10:19 2nd: Brooks misses a 3 at last, from the left side. At the other end, Carter hits a driving layup to make it 50-45, and here we go.

9:36 2nd: Carter goes all the way to the basket uncontested for a layup. Ten seconds later, Fran Dunphy calls timeout. The St. Joe's students briefly chant Carter's name, but I'm sort of stretching here.

9:10 2nd: Brooks drives to the basket and gets it up over the outstretched hand of Nivins and off the glass for a layup to make it 52-47.

7:51 2nd: St. Joe's has a basket ruled out by the officials, who whistle Ahmad Nivins for touching the ball while it was in the cylinder. The Hawks fans roar their disapproval... and it happened right in front of me... and I think they're right.

7:00 2nd: A quick look at the coaches reveals Phil Martelli pacing with his arms behind his back, and Fran Dunphy standing still in front of his assistants with his arms crossed. Martelli looks quite unemotional, if I can use that as a word. Dunphy does not.

6:22 2nd: Nivins takes a pass from beyond the halfcourt line and, while going up, redirects the thing in for a layup. Quite a move. It's 54-51 Temple and Martelli calls time.

3:32 2nd: The ball goes all over the place, but Dacons saves it, and Salisbury sends it inside to Tyndale who gets the layup over Ferguson. 56-51 Temple, and Martelli calls time.

3:00 2nd: Carter nails a 3 from the top of the arc. 56-54. At the other end, Tyndale drives to the basket and gets fouled by Ferguson but the layup does not fall after a suspenseful roll. Media timeout. And yes, I've pretty well given up on the atmosphere theme. After the timeout, Tyndale misses the first free throw, but makes the second and it's 57-54.

2:27 2nd: Nivins puts back his own miss to make it 57-56.

1:50 2nd: Williamson misses a layup, and while going up to put it back Tyndale fouls him from behind. Williamson makes the first and misses the second (!) and we're tied at 57-all.

1:38 2nd: D.J. Rivera is whistled for his third foul, and a woman in the stands yells, "That's okay, baby!" I guess that's his mother or some other relative. Mark Tyndale makes one of two free throws (missing the second as well!) and it's 58-57 Temple.

1:05 2nd: Temple forces the shot clock down to three seconds, and Carter drives to the basket and gets fouled by Christmas. It's his fourth, and Carter -- how about this? -- makes both free throws to make it 59-58 St. Joe's.

0:22.5 2nd: After Tyndale airballs an off-balance 3, Pat Calathes gets fouled at the other end. He makes the first, then Fran Dunphy calls time. The Temple band plays one of the Sith Lord theme songs from Star Wars: Episode I.

0:11.4: Brooks misses a 3, then fouls Calathes after the rebound. Some St. Joe's fans behind me start chanting "Back to Broad Street!" Calathes makes both, it's 63-58, and I'm pretty sure that will do it.

0:06.3 2nd: Mark Tyndale drives for a layup that St. Joe's wisely doesn't contest. then fouls Carter on the inbounds pass. Carter misses the first free throw... and makes the second. 64-60.

0:03 2nd: Tyndale gets an uncontested slam. Govens is fouled on the inbounds and makes the first and the second. That'll do it. Final score is 66-62.

So it's St. Joe's vs. GW tomorrow at 9 p.m. I'll be here for that game and all the other ones tomorrow, so if you see me, do say hello.

As an aside, just as I started to write this, Penn SID Mike Mahoney showed up and sat just behind me and a few seats over.

Pomeroy: 99 (94)
RPI: 84 (89)
Sagarin: 108 (116)

Record: 22-8 (13-1 conf.)

(As anpther aside, RPI is calculated using only Division I teams, so the win over Florida Gulf Coast doesn't count.)

-- Offensive efficiency: 52
-- Defensive efficiency: 84
-- Tempo: 113 (68.1 possessions per 40 minutes)

-- Effective FG %: 32
-- 3-point FG %: 92
-- 2-point FG %: 16
-- Ratio of threes to all field goal attempts: 252 (Worth paying attention to not because it's so low, but because Penn's dominance inside came mainly against smaller and less athletic Ivy League teams.)
-- Ratio of assists to field goals made: 21
-- Turnover % forced: 57
-- Free throw % given up: 277
-- Steal % forced: 22
-- Ratio of threes to all field goal attempts given up: 99

Mark Zoller

-- Effective FG %: 44

Steve Danley

-- Free throw rate: 15

Ibrahim Jaaber

-- Percentage of possible minutes played: 12
-- Steal %: 20

Jaaber, by the way, won Ivy League Player of the Year for the second year in a row today. He's the fifth player in league history to win the award in consecutive seasons, and the third from Penn -- the other two, not surprisingly, are Jerome Allen and Ugonna Onyekwe. It's also the third straight year a Penn player has won the award, with Tim Begley capturing it in 2005.

Midway through this season, Duquesne coach Ron Everhart threw caution to the wind and decided to have his team start pushing the tempo like crazy for all 40 minutes.

As a result, the Dukes entered tonight's game with the 16th-fastest tempo in the country, 73.1 possessions per minute. St. Louis, on the other hand, is 266th at 64.0 possessions per minute. So I figured that I'd try to keep an eye on the tempo tonight to see who wins this battle, and whether it has an impact on the result of the game.

I'll do the calculations at each media timeout. Now of course I didn't think of doing this until after the game started, so I'm starting at the sub-8:00 timeout of the first half.

6:31 1st, 26-24 Duquesne: Duquene 26.85 possessions, St. Louis 25.245 possessions.

3:52 1st, 34-28 Duquesne: Duquesne 30.85 possessions, St. Louis 29.375 possessions.

If you take this out a little, St. Louis averages 6.4 possessions per 4 minutes and Duquesne averages 7.31. So with four such chunks gone, St. Louis' average is 25.6 and and Duquesne's is 29.24. Therefore, Duquesne is winning easily, because the tempo is above both teams' average.

Halftime, 43-37 Duquesne: After a buzzer-beating three by Reggie Jackson (amen to that), Duquesne has 38.75 possessions to St. Louis' 36.75. The Dukes average 36.55 possessions per half while the Billikens average 32.0, so the Dukes are still clearly winning the tempo battle.

14:09 2nd, 53-52 Duquesne: This comparison is weakened because the timeout didn't come until nearly two minutes after the 16:00 mark, but Duquesne has 47.125 possessions and St. Louis has 45.275. The averages with 24 minutes played are 43.86 for Duquesne and 38.4 for St. Louis. The game is definitely at Duquesne's pace, but might not be above it anymore.

11:32 2nd, 59-54 St. Louis: Duquesne has 51.075 possessions and St. Louis has 49.275. The averages with 28 minutes played are 51.17 for Duquesne and 44.8 for St. Louis. So while the Billikens have surged into the lead, they've done it at the Dukes' pace, even if the tempo now is just a fraction below Duquesne's average.

5:00 2nd, 73-71 St. Louis: I missed one because the sub-8:00 media timeout came rather late in the block of time and I got caught in a conversation. Oops.

3:47 2nd, 75-71 St. Louis: Duquesne has 64.5 possessions and St. Louis has 60.7. hrough 36 minutes played, Duquesne averages 65.79 possessions and St. Louis averages 57.6. This discrepancy comes from the big differences in field goal attempts and offensive rebounds, which shows why the possessions formula (FGA + 0.475 * FTA - OR + TO) is nothing more than a formula. Still, St. Louis is definitely winning at Duquesne's tempo.

1:00 2nd, 78-76 St. Louis: Interlude to note that this place is quite empty at the moment. Yeah, there are 40 minutes remaining before the Temple-St. Joe's tip, but it's still not a good sign.

0:06.5 2nd, 78-77 St. Louis: Man, Duquesne's Scott just had a chance to tie the game at 78-all, but blew the second of two free throws. St. Louis' Ian Vouyoukas will now go to the free throw line for a one-and-one, and I have a suspicion he'll do something that will stop the game from going to overtime.

As in, miss the first shot! Aaron Jackson had the ball stripped by Kevin Lisch, then Jackson got it back and threw the ball towards the basket as the horn sounded. It would have counted, but it hit the back iron, and St. Louis wins, 78-77.

The final possession count was 71.925 for Duquesne and 66.6 for St. Louis. Wow, is that a big discrepancy, accounted for mainly by the 18-shot difference in field goal attempts. I would think, though, that the offensive rebounding differential (17 for Duquesne, 7 for St. Louis) would negate that, but apparently not.

Anyway, the final numbers are below Duquesne's average, but still higher than St. Louis' average. So you get the point, if you didn't already.

I didn't get to see as much of it as I would have liked to, but Villanova didn't have too much trouble beating DePaul, 75-67, in the first round of the Big East Tournament this afternoon at Madison Sqauare Garden.

The Wildcats led the whole way, scoring the game's first eight points over 3:06. Reggie Redding pushed the margin to 11 with a three 2:55 into the second half (that enough numbers for you?), and though the Blue Demons got within three points with 7:31 to play, they wouldn't come any closer. The key stat is Nova's 14-of-16 stretch from the foul line over the final two minutes, befitting the Wildcats' status as the best free-throw shooting team in the nation.

And the Line of the Game goes to -- who else -- Scottie Reynolds:

Now for St. Louis-Duquesne, which is just moments away from tipping off.

Two games are in the books. In the opener, 8-seed Dayton rallied from a seven-point halftime deficit to easily take out 9-seed UNC-Charlotte, 81-63. Line of the Game honors go to Flyers guard Brian Roberts:

In the second game, 5-seed Fordham barely held off a game 12-seed Richmond to escape with a 63-61 win. In a game with seven ties and 13 lead changes, the Rams got the last advantage on a layup-and-one by Marcus Stout with 30 seconds remaining.

At the other end of the floor, Fordham jammed Richmond into calling a timeout with eight seconds to play, then Kevin Anderson got a piece of a shot that landed in Rams forward Sebastian Greene's hands. Greene was fouled with 0.4 seconds to play, made the first free throw and purposely missed the second to end the game.

Line of the game, though, goes to one of the guys on the losing end. Richmond's Dan Geriot had a career high in scoring, scored half his team's total points in the first half, and set the high mark for individual scoring for Richmond this season with this effort:

Fordham won the game despite shooting 1-of-10 from three-point range. Marcus Stout was the main player responsible for that, as he made exactly none of seven attempts from beyond the arc.

But the Rams shot 52.2 percent for the game because they converted 23 of 36 2-point attempts. Bryan Dunston was the Rams' leading scored with 21 points on 8-of-11 shooting, all from inside the arc (and most from inside the paint, too) and he did not go to the line at all. Stout was 7-of-8 from 2-point range and 3-of-4 at the free throw line.

The announced crowd for the afternoon session was 4,406 fans. Props to the 10 or so Fordham students who stood together -- including one in a Lucha Libre wrestler's mask -- as well as the loud Dayton band. Richmond, for whatever reason, did not bring a band (to round things out, Charlotte did).

There were already a good few St. Joe's and Temple shirts scattered among the crowd when the second game ended, so it looks like there could be a big crowd tonight.

Sorry I didn't post any today. But I have a great way to make it up to you: I'm off to Atlantic City to liveblog the A-10 Tournament. I'll try to bring you some stories and perspectives that you might not see in the Inquirer and Daily News over the next few days. Of course, there will be stories to write about the fans, and I'm expecting a bit turnout tomorrow night for the St. Joe's-Temple game. But there are 12 teams in this thing, so there will be plenty of other things to write about as well.

I'll also keep an eye on Villanova's exploits in the Big East Tournament (thank you ESPN.com for streaming all those games live!), and tomorrow I'll bring you the season-ending edition of Penn's Crunchy Numbers.

Here are the latest poll numbers. With a whopping 21 overall votes added today -- including two for La Salle, at last! -- things are starting to get interesting.

Penn 49
Villanova 29
St. Joe's 11
Drexel 7
Temple 6
La Salle 2
None of the above 1*

There might be a race starting here between Penn and Villanova. The Wildcats have mounted a really big run over the last two days. Can they catch up, or will the Quakers hold on to their lead?

(I've heard that second question asked many times in the past...)

Stay tuned.

* - The voter who I thought had voted for Princeton asked that his vote be changed to None of the Above. This being Philadelphia, I was happy to oblige. But I give None of the Above about as good a chance as I give Milton Street of becoming mayor, which is to say...

Okay, so it's relative, but Villanova is making a run in the poll.

Penn 44
Villanova 18
St. Joe's 7
Temple 6
Drexel 6
Princeton 1
La Salle 0

I still hold out hope that someone will vote for La Salle.

Amid all the other work I've been doing the last few weeks, Mike and I had just enough time to put together this week's show.

This week,we look back at Drexel's loss in the CAA Tournament and debate whether Penn's Mark Zoller or Ibrahim Jaaber should win Ivy League player of the year -- or whether they both should. Then they look ahead to the local teams playing in the Atlantic 10 and Big East tournaments, and discuss some of the other major conference tournaments taking place this week.

Oh, and please go vote in the poll if you haven't yet. La Salle still doesn't have any votes, and I really would feel weird if Penn wins this thing by a big margin.

With 68 votes tallied thus far:

Penn 44
Villanova 9
St. Joe's 5
Drexel 5
Temple 4
Princeton 1
La Salle 0

Sigh.

I'm just going to get these done all at once, so bear with me because this post is pretty long and I'm not going to use the jump.

Temple

-- Pomeroy: 127 (108) (I suspect the loss to Dayton hurt quite a bit in this one)
-- RPI: 162 (156)
-- Sagarin: 142 (135)

-- Record: 12-17 (6-10 conf.)

-- Offensive efficiency: 58
-- Defensive efficiency: 271
-- Tempo: 71 (69.8 possessions per 40 minutes)

-- Effective FG %: 56
-- Turnover % given up: 28
-- Offensive rebounding %: 298
-- 3-point FG %: 97
-- 2-point FG %: 57
-- Steal % given up: 8
-- Ratio of threes to all field goal attempts: 65
-- Offensive rebounding % given up: 271 (that doesn't help)
-- Free throw % given up: 331
-- Ratio of assists to field goals made given up: 256

Dion Dacons

-- Offensive rating: 71
-- Effective FG %: 51

Saint Joseph's

-- Pomeroy: 87 (84)
-- RPI: 92 (83)
-- Sagarin: 106 (104)

-- Record: 17-13 (9-7 conf.)

-- Offensive efficiency: 60
-- Defensive efficiency: 178
-- Tempo: 296 (62.8 possessions per 40 minutes)

-- Effective FG %: 77
-- Offensive rebounding %: 46
-- Free throw rate: 62
-- 3-point FG %: 37
-- Free throw %: 90
-- Steal % given up: 315
-- Ratio of threes to all field goal attempts: 280
-- Turnover % forced: 252
-- 3-point FG % given up: 70
-- Block % forced: 57
-- Steal % forced: 68
-- Ratio of threes to all FG attempts given up: 89

Ahmad Nivins

-- Free throw rate: 23

D.J. Rivera

-- Steal percentage: 91

Villanova

-- Pomeroy: 127 (20)
-- RPI: 162 (19)
-- Sagarin: 22 (29)

-- Record: 21-9 (9-7 conf.)

-- Offensive efficiency: 62
-- Defensive efficiency: 56
-- Tempo: 168 (66.8 possessions per 40 minutes)

-- Offensive rebounding %: 8
-- Free throw rate: 23
-- Free throw %: 1
-- Block % given up: 326
-- Ratio of threes to all FG attempts: 56
-- Effective FG % given up: 98
-- Turnover % forced: 43
-- Offensive rebounding % given up: 85
-- Free throw rate given up: 262
-- 2-point FG%: 33
-- Block % forced: 72
-- Steal % forced: 31
-- Ratio of threes to all FG attempts given up: 314

Curtis Sumpter

-- Percentage of team's shots taken while on the floor: 97

Dante Cunningham

-- Assist rate: 63

La Salle is done for the season, so here are their numbers to close things out:

-- Pomeroy: 208 (198)
-- RPI: 267 (273)
-- Sagarin: 243 (246)

-- Record: 10-20 (3-13)

-- Offensive efficiency: 124
-- Defensive efficiency: 303 (yikes)
-- Tempo: 110 (68.2 possessions per 40 minutes)

-- Turnover percentage given up: 266
-- Offensive rebounding percentage: 12
-- Steal percentage given up: 301
-- Ratio of threes to all field goals attempted: 299
-- Effective FG % given up: 253
-- Turnover percentage forced: 310
-- 2-point FG % given up: 265
-- Free throw percentage given up: 336
-- Block percentage forced: 303

Kimmani Barrett

-- Offensive rating: 75

And... that's all. Not the world's most pleasant reading, it has to be said, but literally half the roster is freshmen. So the old "wait 'til next year" line has some merit this time.

Still, I hope someone votes for the Explorers in the poll.

The latest poll tally, and bonus points if you know what sport the post title refers to (not that you, or I, really have any good reason to)...

Penn 36
Villanova 7
Drexel 5
St. Joe's 4
Temple 3
Princeton 1
La Salle 0

Come on, people, help me out here. I'm worried Penn is actually going to win this thing.

And again... if you haven't voted yet, the poll is here. If you prefer another team, post a comment and I'll include it in the tally.

With Drexel's regular season complete, here are the Dragons' numbers as of this morning. Last week's numbers are in parentheses:

-- Pomeroy: 83 (85)
-- RPI: 45 (49)
-- Sagarin: 72 (79)

-- Record: 22-7 (13-5 conf.)

-- Offensive efficency: 173
-- Defensive efficiency: 23
-- Tempo: 251 (64.8 possessions per 40 minutes)

-- Free throw rate: 25
-- Effective FG % given up: 21
-- Offensive rebounding % given up: 55
-- 3-point FG % given up: 93
-- 2-point FG % given up: 14
-- Block % forced: 27
-- Steal % forced: 36
-- Ratio of threes to all field goals given up: 28
-- Ratio of assists to field goals made: 61

Chaz Crawford

-- Offensive rebounding %: 15
-- Defensive rebounding %: 34
-- Free throw rate: 81
-- Block percentage: 17

Frank Elegar

-- Percentage of team's shots taken while on the floor: 87
-- Free throw rate: 87

Bashir Mason

-- Steal percentage: 40

Now, the question is, can they do it today against Northeastern and tomorrow against (presumably) VCU? Stay tuned.

Thus far, 27 people have voted in the poll. Which is actually more than I expected.

The score is:

Penn 13
Villanova 5
Drexel 4
St. Joe's 3
Temple 2
Princeton 1 (left in a comment)
La Salle 0

Uh. I hope I have some La Salle fan-readers out there, because that rather stinks to have the zero next to your name.

Anyway, I happen to know that Penn's spring break started today, so the ... shall we say ... 13 members of the Penn band who I've been told voted in the poll will have some work to do if the Quakers are to maintain their lead.

If you haven't voted yet, do your not-quite-civic duty and click here to have your say. And if you wouldn't vote for either, post a comment and I'll count it in the tally.

UPDATE: If for some reason that link doesn't take you straight to the poll, click on "Inquirer Sports Polls" and it's the top one.

I'm not saying the game was over early, because it wasn't quite, but Penn had a 20-point lead with only 7:36 gone by on the clock. The Bulldogs (whose band deserves credit for making the trip from New Haven) didn't hit double figures until 10:12 remaining in the first half, by which time Penn had 31 points on the board.

Yale cut a 20-point halftime deficit to 14 after 1:20 of play in the second half, but Penn launched a 13-2 run over the next 4:40 to take a 25-point lead and leave no doubt whatsoever. The lead got as high as 31 and was at 27 when a media timeout came with 5:11 left in the game and the Penn band struck up Rock and Roll Part II, as most of the bands traditionally do when the game's out of reach. That doesn't normally come with so much time remaining, but tonight there wasn't much question.

Line of the day goes not to Ibrahim Jaaber, who had the honor of sitting atop the Palestra's east basket after the nets came down, but to fellow senior Mark Zoller for leaving no category unfilled in his box score line:

Zoller's 14 defensive rebounds were just short of half the team's total of 32. Penn's defense was also quite impressive, holding Yale to 35.3 percent from the field and 3-of-12 from three-point range. The Quakers pulled down 13 offensive boards to Yale's 15 on defense, and out-rebounded the Bulldogs as a whole by a whopping 45-22.

And it's a good thing that Penn got this over with early, because Quakers fans might have to take a while to save up enough money to get out to Spokane.

I promise I will try hard to force myself to get the Drexel Crunchy Numbers up tomorrow morning. It really needs to be done before the Northeastern game tips, and I might as well hold myself to my word by putting it up on here.

The photo of Ibrahim Jaaber inheriting the seat once held by Jerome Allen and (Penn's) Michael Jordan, among many others, was taken by Ron Cortes of the Inquirer.

Drexel was in the field yesterday, but Georgia Tech's win over North Carolina bumped the Dragons out and put the Yellow Jackets in their place. Drexel's now the first team out of the field, and I have a nasty feeling they're going to stay right on that line unless they get to the CAA final. A broken record, yes, but at least the Dragons control their own destiny and you can't ask for much more than that at this time of year.

Villanova's still an 8-seed, but this time faces Texas Tech and has to do so in Sacramento as part of the San Jose regional. Winner gets UCLA, which has a stronger and stronger case for being the top overall seed as other big teams lose.

Penn's still a 13 and still has to go to Spokane, but this time gets Nevada. Winner gets BC or Davidson, and it's also in the San Jose regional. So in theory, there's a possible Penn-'Nova game in the Sweet 16. But that's really stretching it, and that in and of itself might be an understatement.

Before I head back to the mines for the day (I promise this will all make sense soon), I want to try a little experiment.

I'm trying to find out just how many people read this thing every day, and more importantly, who's reading it. So I created a poll to find out what your favorite City Six team is. You can vote in it by clicking here.

Even though this is Philadelphia, I don't want an excess of ballot-box stuffing. You can only vote once, or at least once per computer, or at least if the system works right that's what will happen. You can, however, tell all your friends to go vote in the poll, and I don't care if you bribe them or whatever.

It will be open for one week, so I'll report the results next Friday.

UPDATE: If you really feel inclined to vote for another team, leave it in the comments and I'll include it in the final tally.

Things to read today:

Mike Jensen's quite funny interview with Bruiser Flint.

John Giannini's reflections on a below-expectations season at La Salle.

Mel Greenberg's preview of the A-10 women's tournament, which will be contested beginning today out in Cincinnati.

A(nother, but at least this one's in the Inquirer) profile of Brown basketball coach Craig Robinson, whose brother-in-law and pickup basketball partner is Illinois Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. It's written by Frank Fitzpatrick and it's very well done. Though I'm convinced Robinson is now much more known for that relationship than for his day job, even if his day job got him the stage to stand on in the first place.

Kevin Tatum's preview of tonight's Penn-Yale game at the Palestra, which you should go to even if you don't care about Penn, because if the Quakers win you'll be able to say you were there in person when the first automatic bid to this year's NCAA Tournament was clinched.

Bill Fleischman's preview of Drexel's foray into the CAA Tournament.

Mark Zoller's reflections on four years at Penn as he heads into the final home games of his Quakers career.

Ed Barkowitz's preview of a bunch of mid-major conference tournaments that either start today or have already tipped off.

And accompanying spotlight on Marist's Jared Jordan, who's being scouted by the NBA.

Interesting story in the St. Joe's student paper today: the school has officially adopted the Boston College football team as a sort of brother institution so that students on Hawk Hill can have a football team to root for, including the ability to go to BC home games.

Now, I figure this has something to do with a common dislike of Notre Dame. Or maybe Villanova, even though BC isn't in the Big East anymore. But still, it strikes me as a little odd. And check out the comments on the story, which range from apathy to outright dislike of that august (though not Augustinian) institution of higher learning in Chestnut Hill, Mass.

You know, the one whose basketball players either have their apartments quite dramatically broken into or get kicked off the team for indiscipline. Yes, that's basketball, but still, that stuff has given the school a reputation that its other really good teams (the football team included) haven't been able to help shake.

Nonetheless, BC is in fact Jesuit, like St. Joe's. And like Georgetown, Holy Cross, and Fordham, all of which have football, though it's I-AA football and of those three only Holy Cross is really any good.

I can't help thinking something's sort of odd about this partnership, though. Maybe more odd than the last partnership St. Joe's formed to adopt a football team -- Auburn in the late 1980s. That partnership included giving St. Joe's students free tickets to the homecoming game, according to the article I linked to above. But the deal fell apart when Auburn was accused of paying a player.

"It's easier to adopt a team than to create one," St. Joe's Student Vice President for Student Affairs Dan Harris says in that story. "The University has so many financial commitments at the present time that creating a football team would be prohibitively costly."

That's for sure. But it still feels a bit weird, at least to me.

I'd certainly like to know what you think, especially if you're at St. Joe's. Leave a comment or send me an email. Try to be nice, though?

A long night on the local hoops scene. Villanova got a much-needed win at Connecticut to assure itself of at least a .500 finish in the conference. It will be beaten to death over the course of tomorrow's news cycle, but Scottie Reynolds deserves all the praise he's going to get for a record-setting night:

That's a new freshman record at Villanova, and the most points ever scored by an opposing player at Gampel Pavilion. Oh, and it's more than half of the Wildcats' points total on the night, which would be 78 to UConn's 74.

The news was not so good for La Salle, which is to say it wasn't good at all. The Explorers were eliminated from contention for that last A-10 Tournament spot with a bruising 102-63 loss at UMass. It shouldn't surprise anyone to hear that Minuteman Stephane Lasme had a big night, but a triple-double is always worth highlighting. Especially when one-third of that comes from blocked shots:

The biggest stat of the game, though, was rebounds: UMass pulled down 50 of them to La Salle's 24. The Minutemen had 14 offensive rebounds and the Explorers had 15 defensive rebounds.

Uh, yeah.

And I'll give you one national Line of the Day. It has a Philly-area connection because Maryland coach Gary Williams is a South Jersey native, and has every bit of that fight and passion and emotion in him that you'd expect from someone whose accent is as thick as what you hear at the Italian Market.

Williams has a 6-5 freshman guard from Venezuela, Greivis Vasquez, who's a livewire unlike perhaps any other freshman at that position in the game this season. Vasquez is full of energy and just flies around all over the place with the ball, and sometimes without it, and from what I've heard he's just as energetic off the court as he is on it.

The Terrapins beat Duke at Cameron tonight, the third time in the last five years they've done so. Here's what Vasquez did to the Blue Devils:

I've been telling people all season not to sleep on Villanova come March, which lo and behold has arrived while I type this post. It's been quite a few years since Maryland played with this kind of consistency (and they did lose at home to Miami this season), but I'm starting to think that the Terrapins could do some damage in this year's Tournament.