Leading the way right now are Brock Welch and Travis Bonnett who picked all 16 games yesterday. Congrats to them for the time being.

After how smoothly things went yesterday with 15 of the 16 games played going to the top seeded teams, one would have to assume that today will be total chaos. That’s just the way the tournament works people, one day you’re bragging to your friends about only missing a single game on the first day and the next day, you’re staring at your bracket dumbfounded as your three of your elite eight picks evaporate in a flurry of upsets.

Good luck today and may God be with your brackets.

Duke deserved to lose tonight but didn’t. Belmont needed to close coming down the stretch to put away the second seeded Blue Devils but couldn’t. The Bears should go back to Nashville with their heads up because the team that eeked out a victory tonight against them in Washington won’t be far behind.

In the next round, Duke will play Sean Miller’s Xavier Musketeers, one of the best defensive teams in the tournament which will be a problem for the Blue Devils because, as you may have noticed tonight, they have a decided lack of a consistent offensive when the three ball isn’t falling.

Duke’s not a good team and was, in no way, deserving of their seed. They won’t be with us long.

I thought as we begin the tourney, I’d look ahead a little bit and give my Final Four picks. I feel certain that when the Facebook Bottom Line Bracket Challenge ends I will not be opining about my own wisdom but rather someone else’s as my bracket is likely to hit any number of roadside bombs along the way to April 5. I’m unflappable, however, in my confidence in my Final Four picks.

East Regional: North Carolina

Midwest Regional: Kansas

South Regional: Texas

West Regional: UCLA

http://apps.facebook.com/cbssports/groups/group/104883

Tip #1 - Forget about the site. I’ve heard people talk a thousand times about where the regional is played and at the end of the day, it matters very little. The arenas where tournament games are played doesn’t closely resemble anything that could be considered a homecourt advantage so tread carefully before picking #10 South Alabama over #7 Butler just because the game is being played in Birmingham, a five hour drive up I-65 from Mobile.

Tip #2 - Forget about Cinderella. The number one biggest mistake that people make when filling out brackets is trying to pick the upset. It’s a fool’s errand. This season will be more difficult than most when it comes to picking games because of the parody that has plagued most of the team’s in college basketball all season long. I usually try to limit myself to two or three first-round upsets every bracket because 9 times out of 10 the upsets you pick and the upsets that the talking heads call for never come to fruition. You’d rather be surprised when Austin Peay upends Texas than busting your bracket when the Longhorns win the South Regional.

Tip #3 - Avoid conversations with friends and family about your bracket. Don’t let your best friend talk you into that “can’t miss” Cornell upset. Picking a good bracket is like taking the SATs, it’s always best to trust your first instincts. Until tip-off Thursday afternoon, avoid conversations about your bracket like the plague unless it’s with a clueless co-worker or your girlfriend who’s picking her bracket based on mascots, team colors and cool names.

BRACKET ETIQUETTE - One sheet to rule them all. Making a bracket’s about making tough decisions and ones you don’t feel particularly confident in. No one’s going to be impressed that you picked UMBC over Georgetown on your 16th sheet.

Thank god for excessively long Destin City Council meeting.

Had it not been for a lengthy council meeting last night that had me working until just about 11:00 p.m., I never would have caught the lion’s share of last night’s UCLA/Stanford game at Pauley Pavillion.

What I saw reinforced my opinion about UCLA; they are a talented team but not especially deep and not especially focused. They deserved to lose last night’s game but didn’t. More surprising to me was how good Stanford is.

Led by the best front court duo in America in twins Brook and Robin Lopez, the Cardinals are a good free throw shooting team, play pretty solid defense (though not great in transition as last night showed) and they aren’t turnover prone. Those are the qualities that help a team make a run deep into the NCAA Tournament.

Stanford is a team that could easily be a number one seed, particularly if they beat UCLA in the Pac-10 Tournament. Though, to win games in March, The Cardinal will have to put opponents away. Their inability to keep UCLA at an arm’s length cost them the game last  night and a share of the Pac-10 regular season title.

“Brendan O’Reilly is the sports director at WBNG-TV (Johnson City, N.Y.). His station covers Cornell, which just won the Ivy League men’s basketball title, earning a spot in the NCAA Tournament.

ESPN wanted video of Cornell’s big win. They wanted it badly. And they went to O’Reilly.”

Appparently, O’Reilly was none too pleased about the way The Worldwide Leader handled themselves when trying to get the footage and wrote a letter to the network on this blog.

Some of the highlights included:

“Thanks so much for calling my cellphone repeatedly on Saturday.
Not sure how you got that number, but it sure was super to chat. Say hi to Neil Everett for me. He’s awesome.”

“Yes, we are happy to share the video from Cornell clinching their Ivy League title. Hope you don’t mind if we go ahead and worry about our show first though. I know everyone loves the Sportscenter, with the zany commercials and all, but we’re going to go ahead and edit our stuff first.
We’re selfish that way.”

“Second, after I send you the video roughly 15 minutes after we get the tape back from Ithaca, feel free to call again and ask me to resend it because “the video quality isn’t the best.” No sweat. It’s not like I mentioned we’re a staff of 2 putting together a 30 minute show.”

“I’ll keep your number for when I want a different angle on all the stuff you send to WBNG.”

“Third, when you run our video on all your shows, please find a font size roughly one pixel in height to show that it was shot by WBNG. We want people that have 60 inch monitors to have to squint to read it. That’s the goal.”

First of all, let me compliment O’Reilly on how epic0 it was for him to call The Worldwide Leader out like this. I think ESPN is of the opinion that everyone who works in sports, indirectly works for them, you know the whole Worldwide Leader thing.

I have an idea for ESPN. Instead of badgering someone that works for a station that isn’t even an ABC affiliate, the Worldwide Leader should work on upping their journalistic integrity.  Too many times, their reporters have taken credit for the work done by print journalists or other news media outlets. In our business taking credit for something someone else has done is called plagiarism and it’s a career-ender.

Reputable news sources issue corrections, retractions or clarifications. ESPN does not. When their talking heads posed as journalists go on the air and report incorrect information, their audience is never apologized to for receiving bad information. Instead, the Worldwide Leader and its catchphrase-slinging talking heads act as if Kirk Herbstreit never reported that Les Miles was taking the job at Michigan or that Andy Katz never reported that Kelvin Sampson would likely be suspended by Indiana. For the record, Miles called a press conference to officially — and firmly — deny Herbstreit’s report and hours after Katz’s stellar reporting and fact-checking work, Sampson took a buyout and resigned as Indiana head basketball coach.

Well done, guys. That Peabody’s on the way.

“Indiana University athletic director Rick Greenspan is expected to announce his decision Friday regarding the fate of embattled basketball coach Kelvin Sampson.

It was unclear whether Greenspan told the basketball players who gathered at his Assembly Hall office late Thursday whether they will have a new coach for Saturday’s game at Northwestern. The players walked past reporters without commenting.”

Hutchens reported that the players emerged from Greenspan’s office at 7:43 p.m.

You have to assume at this point that Greenspan’s recommendation will be to either terminate or indefinitely suspend Sampson, otherwise a conversation with the players wouldn’t necessarily be prudent.

“All fans attending the game are encouraged to wear red and black to show their support for the Northern Illinois University community. Many universities, schools, groups and individuals reached out to the Hokie Nation after the tragedy of April 16^th. Our university was comforted by the outpouring of support from the nation and the world. This is a chance for all members of the Virginia Tech family to show solidarity and concern for all of those members in the NIU family.”

The NCAA released allegations yesterday saying that head basketball coach Kelvin Sampson misled (see: lied) to Indiana University and NCAA investigators regarding improper contact with recruits. In a letter sent by the NCAA to Indiana University, it is alleged that Sampson knowingly and willingly violated telephone recruiting restrictions (set in place because of violations made during his tenure at Oklahoma) and then lied about it. Not good.

That allegation is among five “major violations” that Sampson has been accused of by the NCAA. When I see the words major violation, I’m thinking vacating wins and I’m thinking postseason ban, both of which mean that Kelvin Sampson’s tenure as Indiana University head basketball coach is over.

Sampson, Indiana Athletic Director Rick Greenspan, and other university officials will appear before the Division I Committee on Infractions in June and have until May to issue a written response to the allegations.

So where does Indiana go from here? Self-imposed sanctions, unless it’s a postseason ban in 2009, aren’t likely to be enough and as an Indiana alum and an IU fan I am embarrassed. Sampson needs to go and he needs to go right this second. If Rick Greenspan isn’t sitting down at his desk right now to negotiate the terms of Sampson’s firing or resignation then he deserves to be fired too. Enough is Enough.

I think Bob Knight is an egomaniac and I am certainly the furthest thing from a Bob Knight fan that any Indiana University alumnus could be but at the very least, he ran a clean program that managed to win three national championships. Make no mistake, Indiana basketball fans (and boosters) want to win but they want to win the right way, the fair way, the clean way.

Before anyone says anything, the return of Bob Knight as Indiana head basketball coach would be a horrible, horrible idea and a gigantic leap backwards for the program. Knight couldn’t win at Texas Tech because he couldn’t recruit and I’d venture to say that Eric Gordon, Derrick Rose, Kevin Love or Michael Beasley aren’t going to come to IU and get screamed at for a year or two before heading to the NBA and it’s that quality of player that Indiana needs to compete against Michigan State, Illinois, Wisconsin and a Purdue team that, under Matt Painter, appear to be headed back to Big Ten contention. They are the league’s top team at present.

Rick Greenspan hired Coach Hep, a move that saved the IU football program from permanent obscurity and has led a capital funds campaign for brand spanking new athletic facilities at IU and if he’s interested in keeping his job, he needs to make sure that Kelvin Sampson doesn’t keep his for very much longer.