Which Conferences are Doing the Best in March Madness So Far?/My Dream Final Four

The original 65 teams from Selection Sunday have now been shaved down to just the Sweet 16. Which conferences have the most representatives and which ones are doing the most with what they have?

From the, um, mighty Big 6 "BCS" conferences:
Big Ten - 3 of their 5 NCAA teams are in the Sweet 16 (#5 seed Mich St., #2 seed Ohio St. & #4 seed Purdue), and people laughed when I said the Big Ten would look like the best overall conference in the tourney, though I was expecting Purdue to be out by now and Wisconsin to still be alive.
SEC - 2 of 4 (#6 Tennessee & #1 Kentucky)
Big 12 - 2 of 7 (#2 Kansas St & #3 Baylor)
Big East - 2 of 8 (#1 Syracuse & #2 West Virginia)...Anyone remember one week ago when the Big East was supposedly the most powerful conference of all? Those were the days!
Pac 10 - 1 of 2 (#11 Washington) - they were supposedly by far the worst conference, but look better than the "strong" ones since they advanced 50% of their entries and they had a much worse starting point for their two teams than the other big guys.
ACC - 1 of 6 (#1 Duke) - I bet my ACC-loving buddy Jeff Kelberg would not have imagined that the ACC would have the same number of Sweet 16 teams as the Valley, Horizon, Pac-10, A10, Ivy & WCC...

So the ACC has the worst percentage advancing to the 2nd weekend, but considering the Big East was touted as the best conference by far, they definitely look the worst!

Now for the "little" guys:
Missouri Valley - 1 of 1 (#9 Northern Iowa)
Horizon League - 1 of 1 (#5 Butler)
Ivy League - 1 of 1 (#12 Cornell - the "Cinderella" that looks more like a good team with a bad seed!)
West Coast Conference - 1 of 2 (#10 St. Mary's - never thought over the last 10+ years that if only 1 WCC team was in the Sweet 16, it wouldn't be Gonzaga!)
Atlantic 10 - 1 of 3 (#6 Xavier)

11 different conferences are represented in the Sweet 16, which I'm guessing has to be a record, but I can't say for sure. If it is though, I imagine we'll hear about a few times on ESPN & CBS in the next 5 days or so. Only other conferences with more than 1 bid that didn't have anyone advance are the Mountain West (0 for 4), Conference USA (0 for 2) and the WAC (0 for 2).

Three #1 seeds are still alive, as well as three #2s, but only one #3 seed and one #4 seed remain. If you are a fan of the underdog (as I am) you have to love this year!

Shockingly, my brackets are actually still in good shape, since I had Kansas, Villanova, Georgetown, New Mexico, Pittsburgh, Wisconsin, Maryland & Vandy losing between Round One and the Sweet 16 (except Kansas which I had losing in the Elite 8). So if I'm following my brackets, I'd want a Final Four of Ohio St., Kansas St., Kentucky and Baylor, with the Buckeyes beating the Kentucky version of the Wildcats for the championship.

However, since this is the tournament where anything can happen, this is my dream for the next two weekends:
Sweet 16 -
Northern Iowa def. Michigan St. (I like Tom Izzo, but I have to pick the cute little school that is just a few hours away)
Ohio St. def Tenn (gotta pick the Big Ten if neither one is a "mid-major" school)
Butler def. Syracuse (The Bulldogs #5 seed is the best seed of any the remaining small conference schools)
Xavier def. Kansas St. (Might as well support the Jesuit schools since my sister teaches at LMU & I love the Zags)
Cornell def. Kentucky (Perhaps the worst seeding of a tournament team in 10+ years)
Washington def. West Virginia (Both big conferences, but I'll take an #11 over a #2)
Purdue def. Duke (Considering many people, including myself, had the Boilermakers losing in the first round to Siena without Robbie Hummel, they are pretty much an underdog story; plus I hate Duke)
St. Mary's def. Baylor (even though many other Zags fans can't cheer for their big conference rival, I will, while wearing my St. Mary's sweatshirt which I only purchase a couple years ago because I was looking everywhere for the soft, comfy adidas 3-stripes on the arm hoody sweatshirts, and they had one, with colors that match all my Twins, Gonzaga & Loyola Marymount clothing!)

Elite 8 -
Northern Iowa def. Ohio St.
Butler def. Xavier (who wouldn't want to see Butler in the Final Four at home in Indianapolis? It could be a real life Hoosiers story!)
Cornell def. Washington
St. Mary's def. Purdue

Final 4 -
Northern Iowa def. Butler (I just said I wanted Butler in the Final Four; didn't say they needed to win it. Gotta cheer for the 2 Tartan High School Kids, Asst. Coach Ben Johnson formerly of the Gophers & DeLaSalle high school & North Dakota native Ben Jacobson, who could be a good choice for the Gophers if the unfortunate Tubby rumors come true).
St. Mary's def. Cornell (Cornell's Ryan Wittman is a Minnesota kid, but I pull for St. Mary's normally outside of West Coast Conference games, plus that's another excuse to wear the aforementioned sweatshirt)

Championship Game -
St. Mary's def. Northern Iowa (as Omar Samhan suddenly becomes a lottery draft pick in the NBA after not even being on most team's list of players to watch...and then Coach Randy Bennett likely leaves for the Oregon spot once Mark Few and Tubby Smith turn it down, causing the Aussies on the team to go back Down Under and St. Mary's fades into oblivion the year after their National Championship, kinda like that school in Chapel Hill, North Carolina)

Not exactly realistic, but it would just be my dream picks from who is left, and who could have imagined everything that's happened so far? Either way, I think there will be another fun weekend of basketball starting Thursday night! Now I hopefully I have a few days to relieve my Tivo Stress...

Mass Failure of College Basketball Coaches Previously and Erroneously Thought to be Good

Many college hoops fans & members of the media, especially those living in the Twin Cities, had high expectations for the Minnesota Golden Gopher Men’s Basketball Team. After all, they made the NCAA tournament last year with essentially the same line-up, and they’re led by National Championship winning Coach Tubby Smith. The fact that they are 5-7 in conference (14-10 overall) means those Tourney hopes are essentially out the window, barring 5 or 6 wins in the final 6 games (vs. Wisconsin, vs. Indiana, vs. Purdue, at Illinois, at Michigan, vs. Iowa) or a victory in the Big Ten Tournament which comes with an automatic bid. Stranger things have happened, but clearly this season has been a disappointment, and there’s no one to blame other than the coach, right? After all, good coaches are able to rally the troops even when the top two recruits never play a game and the best defensive player on the team/starting point guard is out for the 2nd half of the conference season due to grades, right? A coach with 1 National Championship, 3 Elite Eights and 5 Sweet Sixteens, who had a string of 14 straight NCAA tournament appearances with three different teams (Tulsa, Georgia & Kentucky) broken in his first year at Minnesota, clearly isn’t as good as his career record if he can’t get this team back to March Madness. If this is the case, as so many local writers & fans have said, there are a lot of bad coaches out there this season that used to masquerade as legends & leaders of the game!

UCLA is 11-13 this year, with a 6-6 record in the very “down” Pac-10 conference. They lost to Cal State Fullerton, to Dan Monson’s Long Beach St and were absolutely annihilated by Portland, who later lost by 30+ points to Idaho. Ben Howland used to be a good coach, back when UCLA went to 3 straight Final Fours in 2006-2008; or those two Sweet Sixteen trips for Pittsburgh, which landed him the Bruins job. Heck, he can’t win this year even though they only made Nikola Dragovic sit out a couple games when he was charged with felony assault. His trial has been pushed to March 15, and unlike the Gophers’ Trevor Mbakwe, Dragovic doesn’t have any witnesses saying he wasn’t even in the state where the assault occurred. UCLA clearly knew they were down on talent this year, due to multiple early entries into the NBA the past few seasons (Kevin Love, Jrue Holiday & Russell Westbrook, just to name a few) so little things like a felony assault didn’t bother them, but still they can’t seem to win. I guess Ben Howland just isn’t a good coach anymore.

Remember a few years ago, when the Florida Gators celebrated the first back-to-back men’s college basketball championships in nearly 15 years? Billy Donovan was a hot coach then, being offered the Orlando Magic NBA head coaching spot, accepting it, and then changing his mind & returning to Florida. His team is 17-8 this year, which sounds good, but is a bit deceiving. Their win over Michigan St is nice, but the loss to South Alabama and no other significant non-conference wins has them on the outside looking in for March Madness. Nick Calathes clearly left college a year or two early, and prior to that, it apparently hurts to lose all 5 starters from your National Championship team. If they fail to make a late run, this will be two years in a row in the NIT. I guess in Billy the Kid’s old age (he is at close to the nursing home entry level at the age of 44) he has forgotten how to coach, because we’ve heard around here that these things must be overcome by enthusiasm and leadership of the head coach. 3 Final Fours (2 championships & 1 runner-up) and a Sweet Sixteen just aren’t worth what they used to be…)

Jim Calhoun’s normally strong UConn team has really struggled this season. Their overall record is 15-11, but they are only 5-8 in the Big East conference, which won’t get them into the big dance. Connecticut has losses against strong teams like Duke, Kentucky, Georgetown & Syracuse, but has also struggled against weaker teams such as Michigan, Providence, and a suddenly down Louisville (come to think of it, Rick Pitino is another coach I could feature for this blog). Their only wins this season against likely tournament teams are vs. Texas, who has been free-falling for weeks, Villanova and…William & Mary. Pretty bad if William & Mary is one of your teams’ 3 marquee wins! But this one is really hard to figure; the Huskies troubles started with Jim Calhoun on the bench, but even when he took an extended medical leave, they weren’t able to bounce back from the clearly weak coaching they had been getting from the man with 2 National Championships, 1 other Final Four, 5 Elite Eights & 4 Sweet Sixteens (with a grand total of 21 NCAA tournament appearances as a head coach). It must be really bad leadership to continue to affect a team even when he wasn’t there anymore!

It seems like only yesterday that everyone thought Roy Williams knew how to coach basketball, like, perhaps, last April, when he was celebrating a National Championship victory for North Carolina. Now, he is talking about his therapist visits to discuss his feelings about this season being a catastrophe, as the Tar Heels hold a 3-8 record in ACC games, and have conference losses this season to Clemson, Georgia Tech, Wake Forest, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Maryland & Duke including a stretch of 7 losses in 8 games. They also were witness to the College of Charleston fans rushing the court after an “upset” over UNC. At least Charleston is leading the Southern Conference now that Stephen Curry left Davidson to take his game to a higher level, so perhaps that isn’t a bad loss…but a team that started the season ranked #4 in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll, isn’t supposed to be miles away from even being on the bubble. Never mind the players they lost after last year’s championship; Roy Williams simply is not able to motivate this team to victory, as he has stated that the methods that worked with previous teams, just aren’t getting through to this team. Those methods clearly must be inadequate, as they only got him 2 National Championships & 5 other Final Four appearances between North Carolina & Kansas, plus 2 Elite Eights and 4 Sweet Sixteens.


If you haven’t yet caught the sarcasm dripping from these words, then I clearly am not doing any better with my writing than those 5 are with coaching, and I don’t even have any championships on my non-existent writing record. Perhaps, rather than jumping on the “Tubby is a bad coach this year” bandwagon, some other reasons for the disappointing (yet perhaps not underachieving) season should be considered, such as the missing recruits/players, struggles making shots in close games, an inability to get steals or make crisp & accurate passes without Al Nolen on the floor, a less impressive performance by the Top 10 team they beat a few games after Minnesota played them and numerous others that I may explore in future days if my brain cooperates.

Of course a coach has an impact on how a team is performing, and they have to take some responsibility even if they are doing everything “right” and it isn’t working, but to act as if Tubby has lost his touch, and start discussing if he can win & recruit here in the future, is almost as absurd as the Vikings naming Les Steckel as a head coach in the 80’s or Mike Lynn trading 321 draft picks for an aging Hershel Walker. Perhaps we have forgotten this team was 9-22 in 2006-07, that the ’07-08 NIT appearance was considered a “victory” for the program and that the ’08-09 team was never actually expected to be an NCAA tournament team until that big upset of Louisville.

I suspect this would be a much different season if Trevor Mbakwe & the 5 star top ranked recruit in the Big Ten, Royce White had ever stepped foot on the floor, even if Al Nolen still didn’t do his homework. But I guess that’s a scenario that is only happening in a parallel universe along with Brett Favre running for 4 yards and Ryan Longwell kicking a FG to go to the Super Bowl.