Anyway, a more appropriate title for this column might be “Why Our Bracket is the Best”, but that would be a little bit self-serving, even for us.

As always, things are subject to change as the rest of the season and conference tourneys play out, but let’s take a look at the tourney teams from the Big Ten, in the most popular bracket out there (Joe Lunardi from ESPN) and the soon-to-be-not-quite-as-unpopular-as-it-is-now bracket over at RPIBracket.com.

No mud slinging here – I love Lunardi and the service he provides.  In fact, the only problem I have with Joe, and all bracketologists for that matter, is that they are judged by how well they predict the actions of the selection committee, a body that is under express orders to generate as much revenue for the NCAA and its member schools as possible. 

So, let’s just take a look at one of the major conferences in Lunardi’s bracket and my bracket, just to see what makes the selection committee (and therefore all bracketologists) tick.  First, the overall stats for the conference as a whole.

I am not sure if there is anything telling there or not, except for the fact that Lunardi has one too many teams in the tournament.  Forget that the team I am about to describe is from a BCS conference for one second, and tell me – does the team described below look like it should be treated as one of the 34 most deserving and at-large-bid–worthy teams in the country?

Record:  18-12

RPI: 73

SOS: 47

Wins Against RPI Top 50: 4

Losses Against RPI Top 51-100: 2

Losses Against RPI Top 101-200: 3

Obviously, the answer is a resounding NO.  Does anyone out there really think that a team with 3 losses against teams that are not in the Top 100 RPI deserves an at-large bid?  Well, I have news for you, my friends – there are going to be at least 2 or 3 teams that meet that criteria in the field of 65 this year, and every single one of them is going to be from a BCS conference.

So, what should we tackle next?  I guess we can start with the team we just discussed briefly above – Illinois.  An absolutely atrocious resume to be getting an at-large bid, and Lunardi has them as a 10 seed.  I am not saying he is wrong, I am just saying that the data does not support the worthiness of Illinois to participate this year.

Not sure how this will play out, but let’s take a look at the 4 teams we share in common.  I think we will find that the only thing that should REALLY matter, the STATS, are on the side of our bracket.  But, the STATS do not line the pockets of the NCAA – the only things that do that are TV revenue and conference bias and east coast bias and juicy matchups and fans travelling to see their teams and spending all kinds of cash – something that the fans of BCS conference teams do very well.  So, without further ado, here we go.

Purdue.  I am shocked by this one, but our bracket actually matches Lunardi here…although I suspect it is because the stats have not caught up with the Boilermakers yet.  If they lose the season finale and do not make enough noise in the Big Ten tourney, I think their drop will be much more precipitous in our bracket than the ones designed around bracketology, or parroting the selection committee, or making money above all else – however you want to look at it.

Ohio State.  First of all, let’s start by saying that it is absolutely hilarious that Ohio State is ranked in the top 10 in both polls.  They have 3 losses against teams with an RPI over 50, one of those against a team with an RPI over 100.  Top 10 teams in the country should not ever lose to a team with an RPI over 100, whether Evan Turner is hurt or not.  We have them right where they belong in our bracket, as a 6 seed, not a 3 seed like they are in everyone else’s bracket.  Then again, we do not subscribe to the moronic practice of running an amateur basketball tournament based on making the largest amount of money possible. 

Suffice it to say, we have 100% confidence that as soon as Ohio State plays a team in the bracket with a seed number lower than 6, Thad Matta will be sitting on his yearly long plane ride…right where he belongs.  Speaking of things about this team that are hilarious – Thad Matta makes $2.5 million per year and his contract does not expire until 2016.  Really, we looked it up.  Besides, the dude looks like this. While we are making fun of A.D.s that give all this money to coaches who almost ALWAYS get bounced out of the tournament by a team inferior to their team, did you know that Rick Barnes also makes over $2 million per year?  It’s true.

Michigan State.  This is the most egregious error by Lunardi and presumably the selection committee.  But the real travesty is that Tom Izzo will make the selection committee look like they know what the hell they are talking about…which they do not.  MSU will end up with a 4 seed, just like they have right now, and they will win their pod and then take the #1 seed in their bracket right to the wire before dropping out of the tournament.  That is all fine and dandy, except for the fact that Michigan State has 3 losses against teams with an RPI > 50, and their own RPI is only 26. 

Based on our algorithm, we have them as a 9 seed.  That would have them (assuming a first-round win) playing the #1 seed in their region 1 game earlier than if they were to receive a 4 seed.  I hope the university enjoys the gift from the selection committee of providing them with whatever revenue they can take from that extra game.

Wisconsin.  Go figure that the team with the second-best RPI in the conference, and the best SOS in the conference, is the team with the fourth-worst seed in the mainstream brackets.  I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that the three teams with better seeds have vastly more revenue generating potential for the NCAA.  Well, over at RPIBracket.com, where we let the data do the talking, Wisconsin is indeed the Big Ten team with the second-best seed.  Kind of funny how that works out, huh?

Anyway, that’s just a very quick and dirty breakdown of what our current bracket looks like for the Big Ten and how it differs from the mainstream brackets and how it will differ from what the selection committee does this year.  But we absolutely refuse to waver from our promise that we will continue to reward teams with higher seeds in our bracket based strictly on the data and nothing else.

Please feel free to check out our site.  Not only do we have our current bracket out there at any given time, we also have some more information about our process and how it works.  Some of the reading is a little tough, as there is a technical geeky section, but it is pretty easy to see that our bracket, though inaccurate from the standpoint of being able to predict what will happen with the selection committee, is almost certainly a much better approach.

Besides, why would you want to pattern your analysis after a group of people whose sole mission is to squeeze every dime they can out of an amateur basketball tournament?

Without further ado, here are the random thoughts:

Jim Calhoun is in BIG Trouble.  For those of you that have not followed Jim Calhoun’s coaching career as closely as I have – or more appropriately, as closely as I have been forced to do by being born and raised in Connecticut – I will try to give you a good translation using my Jim Calhoun decoder ring.  First things first – Calhoun is a diva…a whiny bitch diva.  Teenager actresses that use personal shoppers think Calhoun is a diva.

Jim Calhoun is also of the opinion that he has never done anything wrong in his entire life, despite the fact that his teams have often been bounced from the NCAA tournament by inferior competition.  Sure, he’s no Rick Barnes in that regard, but who is?  More on Rick “Long Flight” Barnes later.

So, let me break out my Calhoun decoder ring.  When Calhoun, who has never publicly admitted any wrongdoing whatsoever, says that “mistakes may have been made”, he is saying something more along the lines of “I hope we win it all this year, so I can just retire and leave this turd sandwich for my successor.”  I have heard multiple experts intimate that the probable punishment will be a minimum of a one-year post-season ban as well as the loss of multiple scholarships for multiple years.

The thing that gets me most excited about this is how smug Calhoun is – like the NCAA would never come after him.  He couldn’t handle someone asking him a question about his salary without acting like a 4-year-old; how do you think he will handle the press conference immediately following the official announcement of the NCAA sanctions against UConn basketball?

Geno Auriemma is Still an A-Hole.  How in the world is it that the least likable person in men’s college basketball and the least likable person in women’s college basketball coach at the same school?  One thing is for sure – these two guys deserve each other.  I promise this will be the last reference to women’s basketball in this post.  I don’t normally quote guys that I consider annoying hacks, but Colin Cowherd actually summed it up best:  “I like women.  I like basketball.  I don’t like women’s basketball.”

Kentucky Got Their Man.  Many people with a much larger readership (despite most of them having far less skill) than myself have already covered this through and through, and I really have nothing to add.  Suffice it to say that Kentucky needed to hire a guy from a very short list, and Coach Cal is on that list.  Much like Indiana a year ago, Kentucky did the absolute best they could do under the circumstances.  I think Kentucky will be restored to prominence before Indiana, but I would not make any bets as to the first of the two to win a championship, because…

Calipari No Longer Has an Excuse.  Here is the kind of analysis you have come to expect from us here at MackOnSports – a little off the beaten path, easy to dismiss at first, but the more you think about it, the more you know we are probably right.  Coach Cal has kind of gotten a free pass for losing to lesser teams in the past because people think he is somehow overachieving just by getting close, since he is at a traditionally second-tier program, like UMass or Memphis.  It was absolutely inexcusable for John Calipari to get outcoached by Mike Anderson this year, and even more inexcusable that my 4-year-old son could have outcoached John Calipari in last year’s tourney final.  It’s true – I just asked him to say “foul everyone” and he said it just fine.  At first, I was very confused why Coach Cal was not utterly vilified in both instances, and then it dawned on me…it was because he was at Memphis.  The standard thinking was that it was an amazing feat every year when he was able to get the recruits he was able to get and roll through Conference-USA and make a splash by going deep in the tournament – after all, he was at Memphis.

Well, that train has officially left the station.  Coach Cal wanted to be front and center, in the spotlight, with everyone in the tent watching him…and he got what he wanted.  I just hope he realizes that this high-wire act does not come with a net.  I think, through his past performance, he has earned himself something longer than a 2-year window for success like his predecessor, but I also think that he absolutely needs to win a national championship within the contract he just signed or history will prove that this is not the incredible hire that everyone thinks it is now.  I don’t think there is any chance that it will be a bad hire by any stretch of the imagination, but some pretty special things need to happen for the hiring of Coach Cal to live up to the hype.

Of course, if he runs into some problems with understanding the NCAA’s rulebook, as he did at UMass (for which he also, inexplicably, gets a free pass), then it goes down as one of the worst hires of all time…especially since everyone knows that the UConn mess is just the tip of the iceberg regarding the NCAA getting tough on schools that deal with agents. 

SIDEBAR:  The fact that an agent, or anyone who is currently working for an agent, or has ever worked for an agent, is allowed to have any contact with an athlete before his college career is over and he has declared for the draft is an abomination.  The fact that these scumbags have so infiltrated the system that coaches, rather than call the NCAA as soon as they see an agent, are working hand-in-hand with them…that is just plain disgusting.  The fact that UConn is apparently growing their own agents as well as players is something even worse. 

I am in the middle of pulling together some facts for a separate blog post on this.  Here’s a little something to whet your appetite: a direct quote from Seth Davis on the Steve Czaban show earlier this week “Agents are to college basketball what steroids are to Major League Baseball.”

I think there is going to be one more big-name coach and big-name program that gets caught in this thresher, and they will get hammered even worse than what happens to Calhoun and UConn.  I am afraid that it is going to be someone that thinks because of his stature and current employer, he is above the law. 

Roy Williams Tarnished His Legacy in My Book.  Everyone is praising North Carolina and Roy Williams for finally starting to play up to their potential and fire on all cylinders in the tournament.  As a dyed-in-the-wool Tar Heels fan, I can only take the opposite approach.  In my opinion, Roy Williams has chosen greatness over immortality this year.  The fact that he lost games to Boston College, Wake Forest, Maryland and Florida State is absolute inexcusable.  This year’s North Carolina team not only had the opportunity to go down in history as the greatest North Carolina team ever, they could have, if they had a coach that was not notorious for orchestrating a couple of inexcusable losses to inferior competition every single year of his career, made a legitimate run at a perfect record and basketball immortality.

Plus, it seems like the times when the Heels most need him to be coaching, he is not…and when they most need him to keep his hands to himself, he is messing with stuff.  The fact that he was incapable last year of stopping the bleeding in the first half against Kansas with superior athletes at every position tells me all I need to know about Roy Williams.

Texas Should be Looking for a New Coach.  Speaking of losing to inferior competition, Texas Coach Rick Barnes has inspired me to come up with the First Annual MackOnSports March Madness Awards at the end of this tournament…just so I can give the Rick Barnes Award to the coach that turned in the worst coaching performance to lose to an inferior team and go home early.  And because Texas ended up as a 7 seed, someone other than Rick Barnes is going to win the inaugural award, which is just a shame.

Before the Texas-Duke game even started, I was almost willing to give Rick Barnes a pass for the stone cold lead pipe loss that was about to happen.  Then, I actually watched the game.  Let me first say that I absolutely hate the words “eye test” and everything that they represent…but I was amazed while watching that game how athletically superior Texas looked to Duke.  As in, it looked like a college team playing a high school team.  Every player seemed at least a few inches taller and 15-20 pounds heavier.

As I started to think about it more and more, it was no great surprise to me, because that’s kind of how Rick Barnes seems to work.  His teams always have great athletes, and they always go just as far as their athleticism will take them.  As soon as they get to a game that involves proper execution, minimizing mistakes and coaching, they are doomed every time.  The main problem is that based on the level of competition in the tournament each year, Texas is going to be looking at a run to the Sweet Sixteen at least 2 out of every 3 years, and for a traditional football school, that is probably going to be just fine, and Rick Barnes is going to keep making a lot of money to not coach.

I am still a very bitter Kevin Durant fan.  Rick Barnes had 2 of the 10 best players in the entire tournament (Durant and D.J. Augustine) and he could not make the Sweet Sixteen.  Furthermore, his offense can best be described as a bunch of great athletes running around when they should probably be standing still and standing still when they probably should be running around.  But, he is not alone…

Where Have All the Good Coaches Gone?  Is there anyone else that has noticed that the Rick Barnes offense seems to be the norm rather than the exception?  The closest thing I have seen to a well-planned and executed play is an occasional high screen and a few plays at the end of a half or the end of a game.  Other than that, there a bunch of dudes trying to take someone off the dribble, and if that doesn’t work, they pass it to someone else that tries to do the same thing.  If they are able to get by their man, they get a short shot, or dump the ball to where the defensive help came from.  And what the hell is going on with every team launching 20 three-pointers a game?

Sure, some of this is tongue-in-cheek, and it is not quite as bad as I am making it out to be, but there is a lot more improvisation and a lot less coaching going on than there used to be.  I think this will probably end up being its own post in a couple of weeks when I am missing college hoops and looking back on the season.

They Are Who We Thought They Were.  Some of these are going to be repeated in my March Madness Awards next week, but they bear mentioning here as well.  And by “we” I mean myself, in the capacity of the co-founder of this blog and as the twisted mind behind RPIBracket.com. 

• Arizona.  A team that, through their performance over 4 months, did not even earn a spot in our bracket, at the first sign of adversity, despite having 3 future NBA players in the starting rotation, curled up in the fetal position, sucked their thumb and crapped their pants.
• Michigan State.  They were a number one seed in our objective bracket, based on the data about their performance over the entire season, and they are in the Final Four.  What a surprise…to everyone except me.
• Louisville.  It is not Louisville’s fault that their schedule was one of the easier ones in the Big East…and it was not their fault that UConn and Pitt washed out of the Big East tournament early, but not playing enough of those tough games certainly ended up hurting them, that’s for sure.  To a lesser extent, I could say the same thing about Louisville that I said about Arizona above…which is kind of funny, since Louisville is the team that embarrassed Arizona so badly.  To be fair, Louisville just kind of got flustered and committed a bunch of mental mistakes and turnovers, whereas Arizona full-on took a gigantic stink dump in their collective drawers.  Of course, all of this was loosely predicted by our bracket, which had MSU as a 1 seed, Louisville as a 2 seed, and Arizona in the N.I.T.
• Blake Griffin.  This might be the NBA draft lottery with the most riding on it since the 1985 Patrick Ewing lottery.  Not since that draft has there been such a precipitous drop between the #1 player in the draft and everyone else.  I am hoping for Blake Griffin’s sake that a team with a statistically small chance of winning actually wins the #1 overall pick and he gets to go to a team with a fighting chance.  The saddest part of all for me is that Blake Griffin wants to win every bit as badly as Tyler Hansbrough wants to win, but Blake is probably going to be stuck with the Kings, Clippers, Grizzlies, Wizards, Thunder or T-Wolves…while Hansbrough might last until the mid-late first round and end up with a contender.  Actually, could you imagine if Minnesota wins the lottery?  This would be their stable of young front-line players: Kevin Love, Al Jefferson, Rodney Carney, Shelden Williams and Blake Griffin.
• Siena.  We had them as a 6 seed in our bracket, and we had Ohio State as an 8 seed, so the data showed that Siena should have a decent chance to beat the Buckeyes.  Plus, it did not hurt Siena’s case that Thad Matta is the coach at Ohio State.  How the heck can he concentrate on coaching when he is trying to find his next job?  It was also not a surprise to us that Siena gave Louisville their toughest test aside from Michigan State.
• North Carolina.  It seems that the Tar Heels finally started to hit their stride with a healthy Ty Lawson and what seems like about 7 other dudes that can stick a dagger in the other team’s heart on any given night or any given play.  And is it even fair that they can rotate Hansbrough, Deon Thompson, Ed Davis, and Tyler Zeller down low?  It’s a shame that they were one coach away from making a run at immortality this year.