Win a bracket contest and first prize is "write a 1000 word essay that bumps actual Cards news off the front page during tournament week."  What's second prize, a guest spot on the Kige Ramsey Show?

I skew a little old and wonky to go 1000 words in this venue, but how about some highbrow trash talk about why I have some edge in brackets of basketballing:

Brackets are a combination of numbers, basketball knowledge, and proper motivation.

Numbers: I chose the name "statprof" to post on a sports website.  I won't win every time, but let's just say you're in my house.

Basketball knowledge: Hoops are in my blood. Here's my grandmother, captain of the UofL women's basketball team in the 20s (true):

Motivation: Once you own one of the prizes people hand out for winning brackets, you want to own them all.

Earlier in the season, before the Mississippi game, I noted that we were, until then, 0-2 against Mississippi all time.  We erased it.  Last year, we erased the most egregious all-time win record, 0-3 against Oklahoma.

Tomorrow we knock another off the list:

0-2 Northwestern
0-2 Vincennes
0-1 Columbia
0-1 Gonzaga
0-1 Pepperdine
0-1 St. Bonaventure
0-1 Siena
0-1 St. Francis (NY)
0-1 Illinois Wesleyan
0-1 Mississippi College
0-1 Washington & Lee
0-1 Oterbein
0-1 Sue Bennett

BTW, the loss to Sue Bennett is no embarrassment. That girl can flat out shoot the rock.

UK was asked, but said no.

http://www.kentucky.com/276/story/360456.html

Did they have another commercial scheduled with Norfolk State five days later?

Barnhart is such a preschooler.

(The kids may not remember when Memphis State really was a spit-on-cheerleader rival, but that was 30 years ago.)

Pomeroy puts us at 26% to win the BE tournament.  Also, the BE is the only conference where no team has more than a 30% chance of winning.

http://basketballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=226

Big East

                     Qtrs Semis Final Champ
1  Georgetown         100  77.7  49.1  27.3
2  Louisville         100  75.5  45.2  26.2
6  Marquette         90.4  55.8  28.7  15.4
4  UConn              100  55.2  24.3  10.5
3  Notre Dame         100  42.8  17.1   7.2
5  West Virginia     81.6  41.3  18.4   8.1
7  Pitt              81.2  23.0   8.6   3.1
9  Syracuse          60.9  15.3   5.7   1.7
8  Villanova         39.1   6.9   1.9   0.4
12 Providence        18.4   3.4   0.6   0.09
10 Cincinnati        18.8   1.6   0.2   0.02
11 Seton Hall         9.6   1.4   0.2   0.02

Format: All games at Madison Square Garden, March 12-15.
Most likely championship matchup: Georgetown vs. Louisville (22%)

Point #38 in the Forde Minutes this week:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=3264849&sportCat=ncb

"Spies tell The Minutes that a Big East coach who shall remain nameless (38) recently got into a halftime argument with one of his assistants in a hallway outside the locker room. According to a source, it escalated to the point where punches were thrown."

Guesses?

Like Mike and "if things ended today", I can't help myself. So, updated best guess from Pomeroy predictions.

It's so tight for the 1-4 spots that inevitable surprises, like the one that happened and the one that almost happened yesterday, will make this very wrong in some way.  Of course, 5-12 are so good, the seeding probably doesn't much matter.

8. Cincinnati (10-8)
   
9. Syracuse (9-9)

5. Marquette (13-5)
   
12. Providence (5-11)

7. Pitt (11-7)
   
10. Seton Hall (8-10)

6. West Virginia (12-6)
   
11. Villanova (6-12)

Out: DePaul, St. John's, South Florida, Rutgers