That should be a first. Not sure how it could work, but I'm interested in seeing if it's possible.

This implies there's a third team playing in the game. What happens to them?

...aaaaaaand now my comment makes NO sense.

*sigh* I give up.

Fleet, your prayers to the fark gods were answered, and yet you aren't happy. I would suggest getting better gods, or praying for better stuff.

Fleet: ...aaaaaaand now my comment makes NO sense.

*sigh* I give up.

its ok, Duke still sucks!

Is anybody else uninterested in the tourney this year? I have done my brackets for years and for some reason I could give two sh**s this year.

oh, and yes, Duke Sucks

aumis02: Is anybody else uninterested in the tourney this year? I have done my brackets for years and for some reason I could give two sh**s this year.

Viewership has been down for the last few years. It's the same 8 teams every year anyway.

Coppin State is the next George Mason!

George Mason is this year's George Mason.

Mt. St. Mary's is the inferior St. Mary's in this tournament.

Go Gaels!

HMS_Blinkin: George Mason!

wasn't he a defense attorney?

cup of tea: HMS_Blinkin: George Mason!

wasn't he a defense attorney?

No, he was the head of CTU who bought it when the nuke went off in Season 2.

Who but George Mason?

This reminds me of a tennis tournament I played in somewhere that was an hour and a half drive one way, and I played someone from my hometown in a match at 9 AM. Should've just played at home and then whoever won could drive all the way over there.

/lost

Say what you will about the play in game. Sure the winner gets to be creamed by some awesome #1 seed, but they will also have a better tourney record than half of the other teams who showed up!

Two teams that close to each other traveling 500 miles to play a basketball game is going to leave a good sized carbon footprint.

FTA: The winner will face No. 1 seed North Carolina in Raleigh, N.C., on Friday, and even though a No. 16 seed has never knocked off a No. 1 seed, the law of averages states that it has to happen someday.

It actually almost happened two years ago with Albany almost beating Connecticut. Unfortunately, for Albany, almost only counts in horseshoes.

/Duke sucks.

I still wonder why every year they hold a lot of the tournament games here in Dayton.

UD is rarely in the NCAA tournament, but every other year or so we do 1st round games. The whole city goes crazy for a weekend.

Mount St. Mary? alright, whats she look like?

SUCKS........ GO !!

cup of tea: HMS_Blinkin: George Mason!

wasn't he a defense attorney?

I thought he was Minnesota's former football coach.

I think I may have worded that weirdly and used extra commas, but that's why I'm not an English major.

/Of course, Duke still sucks.

jasonl6010: Two teams that close to each other traveling 500 miles to play a basketball game is going to leave a good sized carbon footprint.

Not as good a size as the one Al Gore will leave single handedly in his Tennessee mansion today.

/fight trolls with trolls

jasonl6010: Two teams that close to each other traveling 500 miles to play a basketball game is going to leave a good sized carbon footprint.

Take a bath, hippie!

/I keed
//If a 7 seed with only three loses can be a Cinderella then Butler is it

Dynascape: I still wonder why every year they hold a lot of the tournament games here in Dayton.

UD is rarely in the NCAA tournament, but every other year or so we do 1st round games. The whole city goes crazy for a weekend.

You answered your own question.

I still remember going to the Texas Southern / UNC-Asheville game back in like 2002 or 2003. That was fun.

It is absolutely disgusting that two conference champions have to face off in the play-in game.

Make it the last two at-large recipients. Then they can't biatch.

jshecket: Dynascape: I still wonder why every year they hold a lot of the tournament games here in Dayton.

UD is rarely in the NCAA tournament, but every other year or so we do 1st round games. The whole city goes crazy for a weekend.

You answered your own question.

I still remember going to the Texas Southern / UNC-Asheville game back in like 2002 or 2003. That was fun.

Yeah.. the UD fans I know are absolutely batshiat crazy about basketball. If you look into the crowd during a game there are A LOT of the over-50 group in the stands.

Screw it. I go to Wright State. We dont do anything right.

madcow66: Mount St. Mary? alright, whats she look like?

You don't get to see her till you're Coppin a feel.

The bright side: both teams don't have to stay in Dayton very long.

I went to CSU when it was CSC and my cousin played for Mt. St Mary's so I'm getting a blah blah blah

The play-in game is a joke anyway. They should get rid of it completely.

Go Blue Devils!! GTHC!

Villanove FTW!

/never too early to be drunk

aumis02: Is anybody else uninterested in the tourney this year? I have done my brackets for years and for some reason I could give two sh**s this year.

Not me. I'm a huge college basketball fan in general, and for once there's a whole LIST of match ups that ought to be really fun to watch. Unfortunately, Carolina doesn't get to play in any of them unless things go well straight on through.

First round games to watch, if you love "pure" basketball:

Butler vs South Alabama - Both teams play intense "textbook" basketball. They could literally end up with scores in the 90s with single digit turnovers and fouls.

Davidson vs Gonzaga - Davidson is a giant slayer, and gets to prove it with a VERY lucky tournament draw. Georgetown hosting in DC forced Georgetown's pod to Raleigh, making Davidson a 10 seed with home court advantage in a state that's watched Davidson play (and lose, unfortunately for them) against top competition several times this year. We know them, and we'll be cheering them on.

Stanford vs Cornell - Non-traditional power houses having very good seasons.

Purdue vs Baylor - Battle of the schools waving the "Underrated" flag. Both good, both with something to prove.

Belmont vs Duke - Oh please Belmont. Oh please oh please oh please oh please.

First round games if you like high octane "NBA" style basketball:

Clemson vs Villanova - This one will test Clemson's grit after a very powerful run through the ACC tournament, ending with a tough loss to Carolina.

USC vs KSU - Can't beat it for single star greatness. Just a matter of who has the NBA quality night.

Miami vs St Mary's - Someone is going home very, very upset after this one.


Second round is more interesting, with these potential match ups:

Indiana vs UNC, AKA Eric Gordon vs Marcus Ginyard: Hottest hand in the Hoosier state vs possibly the best defender in the country. Gordon's job is to score buckets, Ginyard is a fire extinguisher.

Davidson vs Georgetown: Hibbert is excellent, but unreliable, and completely worthless if Davidson buries them from the outside and stifles the interior passing lane, which they are completely capable of doing.

Wisconsin vs (USC vs KSU): Wisconsin has been talking a lot, and they've had a lot to talk about. However, the winner of the USC/KSU game is going to come out strong with a high octane warm up and should be ready to go badger hunting.

Butler vs Tenn: Butler plays clean, handles the ball well, and shoots a very high percentage. In short, everything Bruce Pearl has taught his guys about capitalizing on other teams mistakes is straight out of the window.

Texas vs Miami: Miami are the hard nose blue collar thugs of the ACC, but they are dang good. Texas is just dang good all around. Should be a powder keg. I predict ONE of these teams catching fire, and the other team getting skunked off the court.

Clemson vs Vanderbilt: If Clemson takes out 'Nova, they'll believe they should win it all, and Vandy is going to have a heck of a time proving them wrong.

UCLA vs BYU: I'm pretty sure UCLA will crush them, but BYU is going to put some real bruises (literally) on them that will show up when they play UConn the next week.

CommiePuddin: It is absolutely disgusting that two conference champions have to face off in the play-in game.

Make it the last two at-large recipients. Then they can't biatch.

I agree 100%. One of my main problems with this "play in game" is that you're basically taking two small schools and kicking them in the nuts. You see how crazy the kids go to make it to "The Dance", then you ship 'em off to Dayton for one game to see who REALLY gets to go to the tournament. Why not take those last two at-large teams (usually around a 12 or 13 seed) and have them play the play-in game, with the winner moving on to the nearest sub-regional or whatever you want to call it? I'd rather see Villanova play UMass for the right to go into the tournament as a 13 seed in the East instead of putting two small schools who had dreams of playing on the big stage on Thursday night who get the play-in shaft.

Well they'll miss out on the LEED points for the extra travel. Maybe they can make up some points by only eating recycled material (poop).

Go Winthrop!!! ...cool to see some peeps from the Rock :)

/Tourney bound 8 outta last 10 years = Dynasty!
//also go Heels!!!

Otto_von_Prawn: The play-in game is a joke anyway. They should get rid of it completely.

No, there should be a play in game for each bracket, with all slots reserved for non-conference champions. Winner of the play in game should get the 11 slot.

You win your conference, you should be all the way in.

Think about it, 6 more slots means we wouldn't have to listen to:

Arizona State
Virginia Tech
Illinois
Syracuse
Southern Illinois
Uh...... Alabama St maybe? Utah St? Southern Cal? Florida? It's hard to even definitively say who'd be that sixth team.

I think six more teams would definitely do it, without overly raping the NIT.

What's up with small Maryland schools all over the brackets this year, with UMD crying in the NIT?

I mean, seriously... UMBC, Mount St. Mary's and Coppin State?

TAAAAAAARRRRRRRR!

They play in Dayton for the right to go to Raleigh, NC, and play UNC about 16 miles from UNC's campus?

What a bargain.

Seriously, why wasn't this game scheduled for some place in Maryland or in Raleigh?

CommiePuddin: It is absolutely disgusting that two conference champions have to face off in the play-in game.

Make it the last two at-large recipients. Then they can't biatch.

This year's brackets were easy to pick because the committee was BCS-friendly. Get rid of the Mid-Majors after the first week and just let Da Big Skools play.

If it was me, I'd just have all-Conference champions as high seeds and have the at-larges earn a Wild Card to get to the Dance.

Dynascape: I still wonder why every year they hold a lot of the tournament games here in Dayton.

UD is rarely in the NCAA tournament, but every other year or so we do 1st round games. The whole city goes crazy for a weekend.

Dynascape: I still wonder why every year they hold a lot of the tournament games here in Dayton.

UD is rarely in the NCAA tournament, but every other year or so we do 1st round games. The whole city goes crazy for a weekend.

As mentioned before, 12000+ people will turn out to watch two teams they've never seen before. Not to mention that the University and the Arena staff are able to host games very effectively - and can facilitate the very short notice given to the play-in game teams.

WOOOOO GO MOUNT ST MARYS WOOOOO

/went there for four years
//remembers bits and pieces of one of them
///thinks it involves bits and pieces being projectile vomited after cannonballing everclear

NIT winner should get a bye to the Sweet 16 after they re-seed the teams and the lowest two seeds after the first weekend have to play a game the next Tuesday to see if they get into the Sweet 16.

A bad idea, yes, but the exact kind of thinking process that went into the genius idea of a play-in game.

did anybody pick indiana over nc??? i think indiana can upset unc...

HEEEEELLLLLS!!!!!

these two would lose to at least half of the teams that were 1 or 2 conference wins from an NCAA bid. in other words, them being in the tourney is BS.

ugh... Coppin St. started off their season 4 and 19. I don't care that they won their conference tournament. I would rather see any team from a major conference than these jokers.

Dynascape: Screw it. I go to Wright State. We dont do anything right.



Well, then they should change the name of the school to....



/ Nah, that's too low-hanging, even for me

Abe Vigoda's Ghost: Zarkin Frood: (Duke) SUCKS........ GO !!(Winthrop)

I'm about 5 minutes from Winthrop. We're pretty damn proud of these guys.

I believe we may have had this conversation before.. that's my alma mater! Craig Bradshaw is my Kiwi Kobe :-)