Bracketology

There are only a couple of angles left for the finals of the conference tournaments. The biggest, in my mind, are that the last two games of the day involve teams that will not get into the NCAA if they do not win. Both the Big 10 and SEC will tip at 3:30. If Georgia or Illinois can pull off upsets against Arkansas or Wisconsin, respectively, a bubble team gets knocked out and the tournament committee will be scrambling. This has to be the worst case scenario for those guys. If one of these teams does steal a bid, look for them to end up with a weird seed or region. The committee will not have time to redo everything based on the results of those games, so they'll probably replace the the teams that would have been the last ones in with Georgia and/or Illinois, give them the same seed, send them to the same region and pod. They won't have time to do anything else, unless they prepare two contingency brackets ahead of time.

Not a lot of other intrigue left. My guess is that the winner of the Big 12 Texas/Kansas clash is going to get a #1 seed and the loser a #2. UNC is playing Clemson at noon in the ACC final. A win will make it the number one overall seed. Even if it loses, UNC is still a number one, but Memphis or UCLA could sneak into the very top spot.

Bracketology on ESPN has Illinois State, Arizona State, Ohio State and New Mexico as the last four teams out. Villanova, Oregon, Arizona and Virginia Tech are the last four in. This assumes, I believe, that Illinois or Georgia don't pull upsets today. All the pundits seem to have Kentucky in. But their opinion isn't the one that matters. I don't think UK has much room to complain if it doesn't get in.

ESPN is criticizing the refs for not calling the charge on the throw in at the end of the UK game. I still don't think you can expect to get that call.