January 2007 ArchivesHere, then, are all the pairings for BracketBusters 2007. You can click on a matchup to learn more about the two teams and how they, well, match up. Albany at Boise State (TV) PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- Before we begin our supersized DP, I just want to share with you something I wrote yesterday. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (fourth edition, 2004, published by Houghton Mifflin) defines the word "champion" as "One that wins first place or first prize in a competition." I'm bogged down with BracketBusters stuff today in advance of the pairing announcement tonight (at 6 pm ET), but I'll be back tomorrow with the weekend recap, the announcement of the BB contest winners, and a special Top Five Tuesday about the Busters. See you then! CHARLOTTE -- A couple of quick housekeeping things up front: my ESPN.com chat today is at a special this-week-only time of 2 pm ET; I'm switching timeslots with Joe Lunardi. Come on by! As of Friday morning, we've had 82 entries in Bally's BracketBusters Racket, the fun game where you can win valuable mid-major prizes for picking dance partners for the 102 BracketBusters teams. If we hit 100 by the end of the day, I'll keep it open until the Saturday 11:59 PM ET deadline or whenever the bum-rush happens, whichever comes first. Remember: that deadline is Saturday 11:59 PM ET, before the matchups start leaking out on Sunday. And it's the most fun you can have for three bucks outside of Vegas. BOONE, N.C. -- As of press time, 63 of the available 100 entries in Bally's BracketBusters Racket, the only contest in the world that lets you choose all 51 BB matchups, have been snapped up (the limit is in place 'cause I'll be hand-validating the entries, but call it a "soft cap"). Remember: the deadline for entry is Saturday at 11:59 PM Eastern. Three bucks gets you in the pool, jump on in! There's no real clean segue into this, but I just want to say a few words about Kyle Greathouse, the senior point guard from Western Carolina. I was in Cullowhee on Monday night and saw the Catamounts get beat by Elon (it was Beach NIght, by the way). Greathouse was on the floor for 30 minutes -- it wasn't a worldbeating performance by any stretch: no points, four rebounds, two assists. I usually make notes in my Moleskine for future reference, and I copied from the game notes that he was SoCon player of the week a year ago. I noted things like the fact he was blessed with a truly excellent first name, how his shot looked off-kilter and odd on a 3-miss at 14:27 of the second half, how he showed decent floor generalship of the team's freshmen despite not showing up much on the statsheet. COOKEVILLE, Tenn. -- Over the past 20 days or so, the vast majority of my incoming hoops-related mail (and Friday chat questions) have had to do with the mid-major conference selections that I submitted to the Worldwide Leader the other week. It's great that they get people talking about mid-majors -- even the "you're a genius" responses from picked teams and the "you're an idiot" ones from others -- but I have to say that the mailbag trend is a little bit dismaying, distressing even. It's something that we all have to do from time to time, but I still don't get the whole expert-sports-prognosticator thing. I understand that this is important time-filling and space-filling content in a 24-hour sports world, but there's way too much of it. You've got ex-coaches and ex-players on TV telling you what's about to happen, crusty writers making their bold predictions based on years upon years of experience, even citizen journalists who have written their own qualifications throwing anonymous (and often poorly-researched) swami-isms out into the digital void. CULLOWHEE, N.C. -- Lots to get to today, just like every Monday. And if you haven't signed up to play Bally's BracketBusters Racket yet, you have a lot more to get to than I do. Roll the HTML! The Big Games! PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- No mailbag this week, because quite frankly most of the letters this week were way too personal. Look, I'm a basketball writer, when did my mortgage, my stock portfolio and my "size" suddenly become fair game? Oops, wrong mail folder. Anyway... Every year around this time, we start realizing that all our preseason research was for naught, that there are some teams we really liked in November that are really sucking, and that there are some teams that come from out of nowhere that make us stop and say "dayum." Here, then, are a few of the squads that have caught us off guard. NEW BRITAIN, Conn. -- It's a seasonably warm Thursday morning in Mid-Majorland, let's get right to it! Conference Shootaround! NEW ORLEANS -- We discussed this a little yesterday, but there's a growing drumbeat sounding across Hoops Nation; thunder in the distance, if you will. I'm talking, of course, about the potential fall from grace by the sore thumb in our midst, the eternal oddball, the one voted Most Likely To Succeed (by poll voters). And I'm talking, of course, about theUnnamed Major Program From The Northwest. UMPFN has been UMPFN for the past two years here on The Mid-Majority, and it's an acronym that has drawn considerable controversy in that time. People say that I begrudge the G School's success, that I want to punish them for being good and bringing ACC teams to the shiny new building that was built on the foundation of NCAA success in the Nineties. UMPFN's had a tough road to hoe this year, losing six games out of conference. Last night, it dropped a decision at Saint Mary`s, 80-75, its first conference loss in two years in a league it's lorded over for seven seasons. LORMAN, Miss. -- BracketBusters season starts in just under two weeks, and that's why we here at the Mid-Majority have put together this little map, so you can start scouting out the home teams (orange) and away teams (grey) and dream about matchups leading into the pairing announcement on Jan. 28. You're welcome! And, of course, happy King day from SWAC country. Let's get to the weekend wrap! NATCHITOCHES, La. -- Mid-majors are often the Scrappy-Doos of college basketball (Let me at'im! Let me at'im!), which is probably part of the reason they're so annoying to major schools. But I disavow any such implied connection -- I hated that character as much as you did. Generally, I had a lot of problems with the Scooby-Doo universe. Daphne nearly started a "dumb redhead" stereotype (any damaging remnants of which was hopefully erased by my favorite current cartoon, "Kim Possible"), and I know that she and Fred were always "offstage" while the others looked for clues, but there's no way they were doing it because c'mon, Fred was soooo frickin' gay. (The scarf? I mean, come on!) NATCHITOCHES, La. -- Let's begin today with dispatches from television's hottest mid-season replacement, "How Weird Was My Valley." Kyle, are the Sycamores really this good? This was a team that I thought would be with Illinois State at the bottom of The Valley, but they have a great RPI, and some awesome wins. NASHVILLE -- I guess it's basic human nature that we try to build fences and walls, to divide the included from the excluded, to protect what's inside from what's outside. There's nothing worse than the idea that the world doesn't make sense -- that's the fundamental building block of organized religion, hierarchical goverment, and the insurance industry. And it's also the fundamental tragedy of the term "mid-major." It's a horrible little term, really. It suggests that there's something above and below it (or to the left and the right of it... so confusing), and that it's, well, major. Or that it's in the dead-center of something really big. Or maybe mid- is the -ito of the American sports language. When pushed for a 15-second definition on the radio, I just say it's a quickie description of all the schools that are in the middle between the BCS or made-for-TV conferences, and the Division II colleges that aren't eligible for our true National Championship. It's the best I can do. JACKSON, Miss. -- Mondays from here on out will be busy times as we continue to track all the hot hot conference action, so let's all take a deep breath and let's get to it. Conference Shootaround! I REALLY HAVE NO IDEA WHERE THIS IS, Ala. -- Travelling the highways and byways (mostly byways) of SWAC country is always a strange adventure. One of the most odd things about Alabama is that everywhere you look, there are references to the three American Idol stars the state has produced. This morning, I passed by two tourism billboards featuring Ruben Studdard, Taylor Hicks, and that "rocker dude" with the Fabio hair. The cover story in the local newspaper is "How Good Is Taylor's New Album?" It's like living in a world where there are no boundaries between TV and real life. And I have no choice but to tell you, friends, about all of this, and I'm sorry. My traveling companion for this trip, a longtime friend of the site named Mike Brodsky, was called away to England on business, and England is a place with no mid-major basketball. So the front seat is empty and I have to talk to myself on these 500-mile drives. HUNTSVILLE, Ala. -- Just a reminder: make sure you get in on the action as The Mid-Majority expands its feature list in 2007 in return for warm, soft cash. We're halfway to unlocking mobile boxscores, a quarter of the way towards the team mileage maps, and we've also a chunk into the Tournament Genie! Act now, or act disinterested! And this is the final day to vote in the Basketpoll that will send me to either Lipscomb or Belmont on Jan. 9 when I visit Nashville. I'm beginning to suspect that Bisons fans are very organized. MOREHEAD, Ky. -- Let's take a quick look at happenings in Mid-Majorville on the last day of 2006 and first day of 2007. at Southern Illinois 73, Wichita State 68 (MVC) (Jan. 1) -- If you haven't noticed, the Shockers have had a real frustrating run of bad luck and sub-Shocker play recently. It started on a southwestern swing, was compounded with a bad meal eaten by P.J. Cousinard, and it followed them into league play. Even with Cousinard back to his old non-food poisoned self (20 points), WSU lost its fourth straight and second consecutive Valley game in Carbondale, despite shooting 52% (59.8% effective) and holding the Salukis close on the boards (-5) and in turnovers (even). A couple more made freebies (13-for-20) might have changed the dynamic of the contest. PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- I'm not a complainer by nature, not at all. I don't gripe about primetime television becoming a lowest-common denominator toilet, or that Kenny G did a lite-jazz cover of James Blunt's "You're Beautiful," unknowingly creating the audio skeleton-key to hell's gates in the process. I don't kvetch about how impossible it is to find 40-long suits in stores, much less pants in 32x34. And I don't even bitch about the fact that I've spawned cheap imitations. No, there really wasn't too much to complain about in 2006 in Hoops Nation&trade, with mid-major basketball exploding everywhere like little toy cannons filled with delicious candy. Programs outside the 50 or so that you always hear about are winning games against those programs, and it's happening more often. The game, our game, continues to prove its resilience against me-first selfishness and blingonomics with teams like Butler, which slays giants by finding open shooters and doing little things like making free throws and keeping turnovers low. |
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