- After months of games, the most anticipated tournament in sports, the NCAA Basketball tournament, is set up and ready to go. Louisville earned the #1 overall seed after a fantastic season that culminated in a Big East tournament championship and coach Rick Pitino has the hitting on all cylinders. The other #1 seeds are Gonzaga, Kansas and Indiana.
- Gonzaga got the final #1 seed over Miami, whose reputation for being more of a football school than a basketball school might have hurt them. No ACC school has ever won the regular season and tournament championships (as Miami did) and not earn a #1 seed. Georgetown, Duke and Ohio State were the other #2 seeds.
- There were no notable snubs of teams left out of the field and the NCAA added 11 at-large teams from small conferences, tied with last year's mark for the most in a decade. The "last 4 in" were all from small conferences.
- Last year's champion Kentucky Wildcats did not make the field and will likely play in the NIT.
More NCAA Talk
- This year's final four (which will be in 3 weeks) will be in Atlanta's Georgia Dome which has hosted the event twice in the past 15 years (with Florida winning in '07 and Maryland in '02).
- It is estimated that almost $134M in wages will be lost in the first two days (Thursday/Friday) of the tournament from people watching the tournament. It is a well known fact that overall productivity drops each year around this time due to people watching their alma mater or favorite team.
- Some potential interesting first weekend matchups - Oklahoma State v. Oregon 3/21 at 4:40. Oregon, the Pac 12 champion will play a very good OK State team.VCU v. Michigan (potential second round matchup) - perennial Cinderella team VCU would take on former #1 overall team Michigan, in a matchup of two guard heavy teams. Kansas v UNC (potential second round matchup) - if both Kansas and North Carolina win in the first round UNC coach Roy Williams will face his former team Kansas, in Kansas City.
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