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Thoughts, thoughts, and more thoughts..

- Most people find this hard to believe.. but I don't really read ESPN.com's basketball coverage (or any other site's for that matter). Honestly, I rarely pay attention to what goes on over there unless a reader or a message board poster highlights something. Apparently they set up a Mock Selection Committee, which I only heard about after reading an email from a reader by the name of Travis Klein. Looks like a cute endeavor on ESPN's part.. but what's really the point of this? To highlight what we already know about the process.. that's its completely subjective, arbitrary, and biased? If that's the point, then I guess they succeeded. What's really odd about the whole thing is how it took into account some ridiculous occurrences like Memphis losing the CUSA and Evansville winning the MVC? Did they just roll a dice or throw darts? And why did only Mid-Major powers lose in their mock up (Butler, Memphis, SIU/Creighton) all fell? Hell, lets make believe Rutgers wins the Big East tournament! I guess even this "shake-up" biased towards the power-conferences.. apparently only mediocre mid-majors win their conference tournaments.. but mediocre power conferences teams (ie, Syracuse last year..) never make such runs.

"In a ten-second span Vitale hits on Doris Burke, says he’s going to see Elton John and wants to make his wife happy. I think it’s time to retire buddy.."

ESPN is promoting this week as Rivalry Week.. though outside of Texas/Texas A&M tonight, and Duke/UNC, there's nothing that really gets me that excited. What I'd like to see is an in-state Rivalry week that included teams for all 50 states (well 50 minus Alaska, but substituting the District of Columbia).

Not every state (like Vermont or Maine) can really accommodate an in-state rivalry.. so in select situations I've resorted to out-of-state rivalries. In these situations, I've always matched up a team in a neighboring state (I counted Hawaii and California as neighboring). Also in states where there are 3 major schools, I've had to resort to out-of-state games, or where there is 1 school in a specific state that is simply out of the others' league.

The fifth annual BracketBusters event, a two-day men’s college basketball extravaganza pitting potential NCAA Tournament hopefuls against each other on February 16-17, will feature 13 nationally televised games selected from an expanded pool of 102 teams.  The field is highlighted by the return of last year’s BracketBusters participants George Mason and Wichita State, a Final Four and Sweet Sixteen team, respectively, who met in last year’s event and the NCAA Tournament.  Last year’s field included a potential 100 teams (vying for 13 BracketBusters games), while the 2005 event featured 64 teams (vying for 11 BracketBusters games).