Northern Colorado

The final region is the West, which is where Connecticut began their run to the national title. While some of the departures in this region will steal the majority of the ink there are a number of teams who should feel good about their prospects in 2011-12. Below is a quick breakdown of each of the 16 teams.

(1) Duke: lost to Arizona in the Sweet 16

Recently CHN writer Jon Teitel spent some time with two important pieces to the puzzle for the Big Sky champion Northern Colorado Bears, head coach B.J. Hill and guard Devon Beitzel. Beitzel was named Big Sky Player of the Year and also was MVP of the conference tournament, with the Bears beating Montana 65-50 in the title game. Northern Colorado will make their first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance this week.

JT: Your scoring went up during each of your four years at Northern Colorado. How have you been able to improve from year to year?

While the regular season battle between Rutgers and St. John's was a tight affair that wasn't decided until the final seconds, it paled in comparison to what happened at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday afternoon. Rutgers came out on the short end of the stick in numerous situations late in the game with regards to the officiating. From Mike Coburn not getting a foul call despite having to deal with contact on a shot attempt to Jonathan Mitchell having a player go over his back on a missed free throw the breaks all seemed to go to the Red Storm.

More conference tournaments enter the fray on Wednesday with the Big 12 and Pac-10 being two of the seven conference tournaments that open. The Big 12 will be of particular interest as two teams playing today can ill-afford a first round loss. Baylor and Colorado are both in need of more wins; how many more is unknown but a loss to either Iowa State or Oklahoma could do irreparable harm to their at-large hopes. The task is simple for the Buffaloes: Alec Burks, Cory Higgins and Levin Knutson need to be on offensively while on the defensive end they have to slow down Diante Garrett.

Tuesday night's national title game rematch was billed as the headliner of the ACC/Big Ten Challenge, with the experienced Spartans heading to Chapel Hill with revenge on their minds. But as Mick Jagger noted, "you can't always get what you want", and the young Tar Heels grabbed control of the game early with their offensive execution. Larry Drew II, who has played good basketball recently, ran the offense with speed and consistency in the first stanza and Dexter Strickland ended the half with a three-pointer as time expired.

Eastern Washington

Idaho State

Montana

Montana State

Northern Arizona

Northern Colorado

Portland State

Sacramento State

Weber State