ESPN Men's Basketball

Stephen A. Smith, Skip Bayless debate if Jim Boeheim should remain coach at Syracuse in wake of scandal.

West Virginia University didn’t hand out a Halloween treat to the Big East when it filed a lawsuit against the conference in a Morgantown, W.Va., court.

Full of legal claims like “breach of contract” and “breach of fiduciary duty,” the lawsuit seeks to allow West Virginia to escape to the Big 12 without having to serve a 27-month mandatory waiting period required by the Big East’s bylaws. I’ve explained previously why the Big East might enforce this provision.

Here’s what West Virginia claims:

1. That the bylaws are void because of any one of the following reasons:

• There has been a “material breach” of contract. WVU alleges that the Big East and its commissioner breached their fiduciary duties to the university by failing to keep the Big East a viable football conference.
• WVU’s performance under the contract has become “impossible or unreasonably burdensome” because the university contends it has always valued the strength of the Big East as a significant football conference.
• The principal purpose of WVU entering into an agreement with the Big East has become “substantially frustrated.” This means that although WVU could still perform under the contract, its purpose in entering into the contract has been destroyed.

2. That a new conference agreement was made between WVU and the Big East when the Big East accepted a $2.5 million payout from West Virginia when it told the conference it was leaving.

3. That the 27-month exit provision is an “unreasonable restraint on trade,” meaning WVU believes the provision isn’t necessary to protect the Big East’s interests.

Here are the counter-arguments the Big East could be expected to make:

With regard to the material breach claim, one factor courts will examine is whether WVU is deprived of the benefit it expected to receive from its Big East contract. To this end, WVU states in its lawsuit that the material breach is due to the commissioner’s “failure to maintain a ratio of football-to-non-football universities of eight-to-eight and maintaining and enhancing the level of competition in the Big East football conference.”

However, the Big East can be expected to argue that during the 27 months WVU will remain a member of the conference there will be eight football members, as other defectors Pitt and Syracuse will also be held in the conference through the 2013 season as part of the 27-month requirement. In addition, the BCS has confirmed that the Big East will remain an BCS football conference through the 2013 season.

WVU’s claim that performance under the bylaws has become “impossible or unreasonably burdensome” relies in part on the assertion that the Big East is “no longer a viable and competitive football conference.” Again, the Big East will likely argue that there will be no change during the seasons WVU will continue to compete as a conference member, and the conference will operate the same in 2012 and 2013 as it did in 2010 and 2011. The same argument will likely be used to oppose WVU’s claim that its purpose in entering into an agreement with the Big East has been “substantially frustrated.”

Another argument by WVU is that even if the bylaws are valid, a new agreement was struck with the Big East for immediate withdrawal upon payment of $2.5 million. WVU claims the Big East accepted the new agreement by accepting the payment. However, the Big East requires such a payment be made when a school notifies the conference of its plans to exit, with another $2.5 million to be paid by the time a school exits. Without additional evidence from WVU on the new agreement it claims was reached, it appears the Big East could argue WVU was only remitting payment as required.

West Virginia’s final argument is that the 27-month withdrawal period is an unreasonable restraint of trade, one that is unnecessary in order to protect the Big East’s interests. Here, attorneys likely will point out that the Big East has already waived its right to enforce the 27-month notice period because it allowed TCU out of its commitment; essentially, the conference can’t hold one school to the 27-month period and not another. Big East Associate Commissioner John Paquette said Tuesday afternoon that the Big East had a separate agreement with TCU that stated if it left before competing, it would not be subject to the 27-month provision.

Paquette said Monday evening that he could not reveal whether WVU voted in favor of the 27-month withdrawal period in the bylaws when it was added. But he did point out: “David Hardesty, the former WVU president, helped write the current withdrawal policies.” Expect the Big East to bring this up in its response to the lawsuit.

The case is important, because it will likely decide the Big East fates of Pitt and Syracuse, which are bound to stay through the 2013 season before heading to the ACC. Although each of those schools could file suit in their respective states, Washington, D.C. law (where the WVU suit will be heard) would govern, according to the Big East bylaws. So any decision in WVU’s case would create precedent for any case filed by Pitt or Syracuse.

Additionally, any decision rendered by a court in this case could impact future conference realignment involving any other conference. Although the decision wouldn’t have to be followed by courts in other jurisdictions, it could be persuasive. No doubt WVU is gambling on the Big East settling the case before a decision is rendered which could impact conference realignment for years to come.

This morning I spoke with Bowl Championship Series Director Bill Hancock, who provided some clarification about the BCS’s automatic-qualification standards and formulas for conferences.

The issue came up Tuesday as a result of the Big 12 telling West Virginia it could be accepted into that conference pending formal approval, giving the Big East conference yet another team defection. The Big East intimated it would likely hold West Virginia, Pitt and Syracuse to a conference restriction that would keep the schools as Big East members for 27 months. I pointed to a major reason why that might be the case: the millions of dollars that could be lost by the Big East if it somehow were to slip out of automatic-qualifier BCS status.

And while that’s true, the annual qualification standards cited as one of the reasons currently applies only to non-BCS conferences attempting to achieve BCS status. The Big East is guaranteed to remain a BCS conference through the 2013 season, but like the other BCS conferences, that’s only a guarantee through 2013.

Whether the Big East -- or any other conference -- retains BCS status from 2014-17 depends heavily on an evaluation of member schools’ performances during the 2010 to 2013 regular seasons. That’s the reason why retaining Pitt, Syracuse and West Virginia matters to the Big East.

Another factor in whether the Big East retains BCS status: The Big East doesn’t have a contract with a specific BCS bowl a la the Big 10 with the Rose Bowl, which puts it in a precarious position when compared with the other BCS conferences.

When asked if the Big East could lose its BCS status if it does not have a contract with a bowl in 2014, Hancock said: “Any of the conferences could, if the marketplace requests it.” He defined “marketplace” as the bowl games’ boards and television partners. (ESPN has the exclusive television, radio, digital, international and marketing rights for the Fiesta, Orange and Sugar Bowls through 2014 and the BCS title game through 2013.)

Hancock said whether the Big East could end up entering a contact with a BCS bowl is dependent on “Negotiations among all conferences for any new BCS bowl. This would be part of conversations coming up.”

This post has been corrected. Updated post:

My colleague, Joe Schad, is reporting that the Big 12 has told West Virginia it will be accepted into the conference pending formal approval, which could happen very soon.

While Texas A&M and TCU, which recently announced conference moves, will join their new conferences for the 2012 season, Schad notes the Big East could try to keep WVU, along with Pitt and Syracuse, in the conference for up to 27 months, per conference guidelines.

Why would the Big East play hardball with its defectors? Because more than $20 million per year is at stake given the Big East's automatic-BCS-qualifying status.

For the 2011-12 school year, BCS conferences will receive $22.3 million for their qualifying team and can earn another $6.1 million if another member receives an at-large berth. A non-automatic-qualifying conference team selected for a BCS game receives $26.4 million but must divide that revenue with the other four non-automatic-qualifying conferences.

If the Big East were to lose Pitt, Syracuse and West Virginia at the end of this school year, it could jeopardize the Big East’s future BCS status. Here’s how it works:

Current BCS conferences were determined based on data from the 2004-07 football seasons. Data from the 2008-11 seasons will be reviewed following this season to determine if a seventh conference makes the cut to be an automatic-qualifier for the 2012 and 2013 BCS bowl seasons. BCS guidelines also provide for the following formulas to be used if the BCS format remains the same or similar following the 2013 season. At that point, results from the 2010-13 seasons would be used to determine which conferences without bowl contracts will be AQs for the 2014-2017 seasons. The Big East is the only of the current BCS conferences without a bowl contract.

This is where the situation could get dicey for the Big East under the next review.

Three sets of data are considered in the review: First, the average ranking of the highest-ranked team in the BCS standings over the four-year period; second, the average rank of all the conference’s teams based on rankings from each of the six BCS computers over the four-year period; and third, something called a conference’s Adjusted Top 25 Performance -- a calculation based on a conference’s number of teams in the Top 25 of BCS standings over the four-year period as a percentage of the top conference in this calculation, which would have been rated 100 percent.

The threshold for qualification requires a conference to be in the top six in the first two sets of data and in the top 50 percent in the third set of data. However, a waiver can be obtained from the BCS’ Presidential Oversight Committee if a conference is in the top six of the first two sets of data and top 33 percent of the third set, or top five of one of the first two sets and top seven in the other, along with top 33 percent of the third set.

When asked how conference realignment might affect these reviews, Maxey Parrish of the BCS said: “Since it's impossible to determine how a team would have played had they been a member of another conference, the rankings count for the conference schools [which] were members of [the conference] at that time. For example, TCU is not factored into the Big 12's status as an AQ until the 2012 season.”

The Big East's 27-month waiting period for members exiting ensures the conference will have suitable time to find a replacement and that current members will be included in automatic-qualifying calculations following the 2013 season, which is when new BCS agreements would have to be put into place following the expiration of current ones.

An Oct. 25 blog post about the Big East and its BCS conference status contained incorrect information provided by the BCS about how conferences achieve and hold BCS status. Current BCS conferences do not have to undergo an annual review to retain status – that applies only to non-BCS conferences that are seeking BCS status. Updated story

Thursday's expansion news -- that the NCAA tournament would be expanding to 68, and not 96, teams -- was greeted ecstatically by pretty much everyone. Jim Boeheim? He's just OK with it.

Boeheim has been a longtime proponent of expansion. For some reason, Boeheim seems to be believe that there are many more good teams than the 65 already allowed into the event, and he was one of the many coaches leading the charge to get the tournament expanded to 96. From a distance, Boeheim's belief seems genuine, but that doesn't make it any less wrong.

Here's what Boeheim had to say yesterday:

"As a coach I'd like to see more people get in but 68 is a good step and the easiest way, to have the least amount of turmoil," Boeheim said. "It's better than nothing. There's really no way to do a little bit bigger expansion. You can't expand by eight, 10. There's no way to figure that out.

"This is the easiest way and hopefully down the road there will be a bigger expansion."

No, Jim! No! Not hopefully! Hopefully the tournament doesn't expand! Please stop saying things like this, OK? You're going to screw this up for everybody.

Unlike some coaches, it's hard to say Boeheim's belief stems from his desire to make his own job easier. After all, Syracuse makes the tournament almost every year, and it's not as though Boeheim would be at any risk of losing his job if he strung a few NIT seasons together. He's safe.

Many of his colleagues, however, seem to believe that a 96-team tournament would make their lives considerably less stressful. It's time to dispel this. Sure, making the tournament would be easier, and the pressure over getting into the tournament would be lessened. But fans aren't dumb. If you're the 96th team in, you still had an NIT quality season, no matter what the name of the tournament is. Your team wasn't good. It's not hard to decipher. And if you do happen to miss the tournament, the bar is so low that outrage becomes intensified. If you can't make a 65-team tournament, oh well. If you can't make a 96-team tournament? Talk about pressure.

So coaches, please, please, please stop thinking that a 96-team tournament is better, either for the NCAA in general or for members of your profession specifically. No one else wants this. Based even on pure self-interest, you guys shouldn't want it either.

In many ways, today is the real start of March Madness, though you could just as easily say that about last week, when the conference tournaments really began. But since we have, count 'em, eight conference championships on the line tonight, and since this week marks the beginning of all the power conference tournaments, today rather feels like the start of what will be four consecutive awesome weeks of win-or-go-home hoops. Let's go to the tape:

• Ken Pomeroy breaks down this week's most voluminous, and usually most exciting, conference tournament (who's up for another six-overtime thriller, because I am): the Big East. Can Syracuse rebound from its loss to the Cardinals? It might not matter, as Louisville is safely in the opposite side of the bracket. Meanwhile, West Virginia will look to upset the established order, and Villanova will try to overcome its defensive issues -- which actually didn't show up in its overtime loss to the Mountaineers Saturday -- and re-boost its once lofty projected tournament seed in the process.
• ESPN Insider's LaRue Cook breaks down the historic chances of mid-major at-large bids, finding that conference tournament wins can be both a blessing and a curse for mid-majors on the bubble: "A handful of mid-major teams will receive consideration for at-large bids after strong work during the regular season, particularly given the under-performance of some of their major-conference brethren down the stretch. For those mids -- Saint Mary's, Old Dominion, Wichita State and Siena among them -- a conference crown isn't a must. Instead, our data shows that a single conference tournament win may do the trick. One win doesn't seem substantial, but last season four mid-majors received at-large bids and all of them had one conference tournament win on their resume. In fact, 33 mid-majors have earned an at-large bid in the past five NCAA tournaments, and just seven have not had at least one win in their conference tournament."
• The New York Times' Thayer Evans has a quick rundown of what's at stake in all of the major conference tournaments. In short, a lot.
• As expected, The Mid Majority is all over the mid-major conference tourney beat.
• CAA Hoops tries to summarize the insanity in Saturday's quarterfinals round of the CAA tournament and finds words insufficient to do the tournament justice.
• Searching For Billy Edelin has a handy little Microsoft Paint-drawn visual bubble aid. Who doesn't love Microsoft Paint? Back before the Internet was awesome, Microsoft Paint, Candystand mini-golf and Solitaire were the best ways to waste time in your high school's computer classes.
• With the regular season finished, John Gasaway drops his final Tuesday Truths of the season. Maryland is still under-seeded according to their efficiency margin despite last week's big win over Duke, Notre Dame has added defense to its conference-leading offensive efficiency, Wisconsin is first -- yes, first -- in the Big Ten, and the order of the top four teams in the Mountain West might surprise you.
• Casual Hoya hands out a few post-Oscar awards for its win over Lance Stephenson and Cincinnati on Sunday, which was, according to Hoya, "just the kind of medicine" Georgetown needed before the start of postseason play.
• The Michigan State fans at The Only Colors relish a season-ending win over Michigan. Taking one look at the Spartans' offensive rebounding against the Wolverines is all you need to know; if Michigan State keeps that sort of obsessive second-chancing (not at all a verb, but let's go with it) going in the Big Ten tournament, it could separate itself from Wisconsin, Ohio State and Purdue just in time for the NCAAs.
• IU coach Tom Crean fired assistant Roshown McLeod, who will not coach in the Big Ten tournament. IU is 1-0 this season without McLeod on the bench; the Hoosiers won their first game post-firing, a nearly blown home win over Northwestern Saturday. So maybe that bodes well for the Big Ten tournament? OK, probably not.
• Kentucky fans might not like this column from CBS' Gregg Doyel, which parrots John Calipari's own consistent criticisms of the Cats: "Calipari looks tired. He sounds drained. And he looks and sounds this way on a Sunday afternoon when his team has just beaten Florida 74-66 to win the SEC regular-season title by two full games. He looks and sounds this way because he knows the heavy lifting is still to come, and because he has a team that is talented enough to lift as much weight as any team in college basketball -- but a team that is young enough, and dumb enough, to drop the weight on its own foot."
• Basketball fans of the semi-nerdy persuasion were no doubt aware of MIT's Sloan sports conference, a collection of some of the best basketball-related statistical and business minds in the world. The conference is of primary interest to NBA fans, sure, but there is plenty of interesting stuff that spans into college hoops, too. Kevin Pelton has a recap, and our blog brothers at True Hoop were all over the gathering from start to finish.

As always, follow me on Twitter to send me links and tips.

Louisville's Freedom Hall is hosting its final regular season Louisville game today; the Cardinals tip off at 2 p.m. ET against No. 1 Syracuse. Afterward, Freedom Hall won't be demolished, but its basketball career -- 54 years, a handful of Final Fours, and a pair of national titles in the making -- will be largely over.

Naturally, this retirement has spawned a host of remembrances local and national, far and wide. Card Chronicle has spent much of the past week discussing what the stadium means to its fans. The Louisville Courier-Journal dedicated a bunch of its pages -- which, this being March, could have otherwise been used to deliver vital Kentucky Derby projections -- to its rather emotional farewell. Pat Forde and Jay Bilas wrote two touching tributes to the arena.

Perhaps the best of all these, though, comes from SB Nation's Jon Bois -- the most talented sports writer you've never heard of; seriously, read him -- in his tribute today. Bois, a Louisville resident, manages to reconcile the sheer boredom with which he views the stadium itself with the purity of the emotion fans felt when that building came alive. A sample:

Freedom Hall, the building, is geographically isolated and bereft of character - two qualities that are uncommon in a college basketball arena. From the outside, it looks like an airplane hangar. It isn't on campus; rather, it was slapped together in a massive concrete desert south of downtown. The desert, which stretches for miles, is home to an expo center, a Six Flags that just went out of business, an airport, and a seldom-used mixed-use stadium. I'm saying that whenever I go there, I experience the urge to take a bunch of high-contrast black-and-white photos, caption them with lower-case pithy descriptors, and post them on my blog (which is probably named "s e e i n g t h e w o r l d" or something equally banal).

Remember fifth period in high school, when you wanted to grab a seat next to the wall so you could lean against it and try to fall asleep? Freedom Hall is made entirely of that wall. It is cold cinder blocks, painted hastily with a glossy finish. [...] Of all the sports venues in the United States, Freedom Hall is surely the easiest to draw in MS Paint. My God, this building is boring. I do not know who designed it but I will bet you ten dollars that his favorite dish was oatmeal.

Bois then pivots to the shared memories in the building, which, he implies, is what gives it the power you've heard about in so many different tributes these last few days. This is an obvious point, but it's worth remembering, especially in an age when we treat a billion-dollar testament to ego of one man in Arlington, Tex., like a national monument: The building itself doesn't matter. The architecture isn't the point. The power of any structure -- whether a bar, or your home, or your high school -- comes from the collective experiences of the people who frequent it, the shared memories you form when you're there. Sports are amazing precisely for this reason -- because those shared memories aren't limited to your family or friends. They're shared among thousands of people you don't know, who you will never meet. But you share them anyway.

That's why Freedom Hall is important. That's why it's powerful. That's why, after Louisville runs out on that court for one last time today, the thousands of rabid basketball fans congregated there will cheer with tears in their throats. That's the important stuff.

Here's my latest attempt at video blogging, a hopefully shorter and less blabby version. Thanks to everyone who sent questions on Twitter, especially @MizzouHoops, @torymaynard, @WillBrinson and @RyanCorazza. And thanks to you for watching, for not making fun of my large cranium, and for leaving the feedback you are totally going to leave in the comments section right now. To have questions answered in future Twitter mailbags, hit me up here.

• We generalized non-Kansas fans still get about three more weeks -- barring upset, of course -- of enjoying Sherron Collins' tough Jayhawk leadership, but last night was Collins' last game at Allen Fieldhouse, so Kansas fans must begin to come to terms with losing the four-year stalwart. As balm for this grief, KUSports.com built a Collins retrospective with photos from throughout the guard's career. If I was a Kansas fan, this would have roughly the same effect on me as the first 10 minutes of "Up," which you should totally not watch unless you want to ball like a baby.
• Oh, and while we're on the heartfelt portion of today's links, don't miss Andy Katz's fantastic feature on the relationship between Coach K, a father who lost his 7-year-old son to a brain tumor, and the symbols each carry with them every day. (For more Katz, see today's Daily Word on Utah State's familiar position.)
• Mike Miller breaks down the final No. 1 seed. It will be interesting to see if, and how, conference tournaments affect what looks like a pretty large group of applicable teams.
• John Gasaway nominates his player of the year. Yes, it's Evan Turner. But Gasaway raises an excellent point, one that probably doesn't get enough attention: If you're looking for the best second-place candidate, John Wall might not be it. The answer instead lies on Wall's team in the form of rebounding freakshow DeMarcus Cousins. Read, learn, etc.
• FanHouse columnist Greg Couch caught up with Indiana and Purdue in West Lafayette, Ind., and found plenty of suffering on both sides of the blowout.
• Rocky Top Talk is doing the whole senior-retrospective thing too; today's player is Wayne Chism.
• ChicagoNow.com -- which totally needs an exclamation point at the end of its name, like Yahoo!; ChicagoNow! -- serves up a little coach carousel rumor-mill grist with some speculation on ESPN analyst Steve Lavin's chances of taking the vacant DePaul job. Lavin would be a nice pull for the Demons, but it's hard to imagine the analyst leaving a job he routinely praises for the likes of DePaul's flagging program. And really, what better job is there than TV college hoops analyst?
• Speaking of coach carousel rumor-mill grist, the Va. Tech fans at Gobbler Country are fretting over the possibility, however slight, that head coach Seth Greenberg could one day try to take on a rebuilding project at St. John's.
• Tonight is Louisville's last home game at historic Freedom Hall. Pat Forde covered the retirement of the Hall in this week's Minutes. Likewise, Cardinals fans -- most of whom have lived their whole lives with Freedom Hall as their sporting center -- are taking stock.
• The Mid-Majority is predictably amped about conference tournament season, when most of the teams below the Red Line play their most important and consistently surprising basketball.
• For a typically comprehensive recap of those conference tournaments, SB Nation's Chris Dobbertean has you covered.
• Sports Illustrated's George Schroeder is the latest writer to proclaim Ernie Kent's Oregon career over: "Matthew Knight Arena -- a $200 million palace named for Nike boss Phil Knight's deceased son -- rises a couple of blocks from Oregon's venerable McArthur Court. It's scheduled for completion in time for conference play next season. If it's the house Knight paid for, Kent's teams built it. But he's not going to coach in it. No one's saying so yet, but the signs are undeniable. Kent barely survived a year ago, after winning just eight games. The expectations were clear coming into this season: Win. Yet even after victories at USC and UCLA last week, Oregon is 14-14 overall and in last place in the Pac-10 at 6-10 (and keep in mind, the league is as down as it's been in many years)."
• CBS has a multimedia breakdown of "bracket science" -- in other words, the mathematical chances assigned to each seed's success based on the history of the tournament. It doesn't factor in teams, obviously, but it's an interesting look at the way a completely mathematical bracket plays out.
• Not just anyone can put on a plaid jacket and a pair of big-rim glasses and look like Jim Boeheim ... but this Syracuse fan, the winner of a photo contest at Syracuse.com, came awfully close.

As always, follow me on Twitter to send me links and tips.

• Tuesday, Sports Illustrated published Stuart Mandel's reporting on NCAA tournament expansion, and it's one of the better expansion-related pieces you'll read anywhere. There's plenty of new information there, like the fact that NCAA tournament ratings have actually gone down since the NCAA signed its original contract with CBS, so the chips aren't all on the NCAA's side of the table. There is new stuff about a cable model -- cough, ESPN -- and the benefits of subscription fees therein. And there's also this bit of hilarity on regular-season dilution from Xavier athletic director Mike Bobinski (no relation, of course, to Soda Popinski): "I understand why people would make that argument, but I don't know how you could prove that one way or the other," he said. "You can look at the other side of that -- instead of lessening the importance of the regular season, maybe [expansion] would increase the importance? It makes it a very challenging topic." This is a little like Owen Wilson's Eli Cash in the Royal Tenenbaums, as he reads his ridiculous book on Charlie Rose: "Well, everyone knows Custer died at Little Bighorn. What this book presupposes is... maybe he didn't." Bobinski actually has a point here -- there's nothing to prove that expansion will dilute the regular season; it's reasonable to believe the regular season will retain its importance in deciding NCAA tournament seeds, not to mention settling rivalries -- but the counter-intuition of the quote is still very entertaining.
• Speaking of tournament expansion, Jeff Eisenberg runs down the list of soft bubble teams and posits that maybe we should be thinking about contracting this tournament rather than expanding it. If the 2009-10 season had a 96-team tournament, there would be a lot of chaff in that 65-96 group.
• Is Wesley Johnson coming back for another season? He certainly seems to think so: "Nah," said Johnson (when asked if he had just played his final game in the Carrier Dome Tuesday night). "It's a wonderful feeling playing for this crowd. I saw the 34,000 come out for (Villanova), and with all the fans giving me that support, who wants to leave?" Of course, NBA draft commitments are a little like announcing your run for president: You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. This is the only answer Johnson can give right now; he's not going to come out and say "Well, jeez, it looks like I'm a surefire top 10 pick, so I'd be pretty dumb to come back for another year and risk injury. Of course I'm leaving!" But that doesn't mean Johnson isn't being sincere, either. Just that Syracuse fans probably shouldn't get their hopes up, is all.
• Meanwhile, here's one argument for why Andy Rautins is more valuable to the Syracuse -- and a better Big East player of the year candidate -- than his aforementioned teammate. It's not that unreasonable.
• Villanova is fading a bit down the stretch -- in other words, their bad defense (caused by a prodigious number of fouls) is catching up to them in the won-loss column -- while Jay Wright says he and his team are still "evolving."
• South Carolina fans and media are taking stock of Devan Downey's remarkable career, which has seen the undersized guard turn in one of the country's most impressive (if not most efficient) offensive seasons in 2009-10.
• Yet Another Basketball Blog's rundown of this year's biggest surprises and disappointments.
• Ballin Is A Habit runs down what it calls the "real March Madness" -- the automatic bid conference tournaments, which began Tuesday night.
• Chris Dobbertean at Blogging The Bracket likewise runs through last night's conference tournament results.
• FanHouse's Matt Snyder says, thanks to Robbie Hummel's injury and a truly horrific couple of months by the Hoosiers, that tonight's Indiana-Purdue feels "lifeless."
• A Sea Of Blue reminds its denizens just how important tonight's game at Georgia is. Not only is the game important, but it's going to be difficult; few seemingly "bad" teams have been as tough an out as Mark Fox's Georgia team this season.
• And, finally, a trip around the ESPNTubes: Pat Forde's latest cribs-heavy edition of The Minutes is, per the usual, a must-read. Joe Lunardi explains his latest bracket update (Insider). Andy Katz delivers a primer on the mid-majors you should probably start paying attention to. And Rick Reilly dips his toe in the college basketball waters, weighing in on everyone's favorite topic: court-storming in college basketball.

The Morning After is our semi-daily recap of the night's best action. Try not to make it awkward.

No. 7 Ohio State 73, Illinois 57: There were zero upsets to speak of last night, and Illinois' bid for a tournament-securing win at Ohio State was no different. Instead, the night was a feel-good Buckeye festival. Thad Matta's team secured a share of the Big Ten title. Evan Turner got a national spotlight, not that he needed it (more on this below). And Mark Titus, the by-now-famous purveyor of Club Trillion, made the most of his senior night, notching one final trillion in front of hundreds of Club Trillion t-shirt-clad OSU fans -- not to mention raising a whole bunch of cash for sick children. Really, things couldn't have gone much better.

The most notable performance of the night -- other than Titus', obviously -- probably came from Ohio State sharpshooter Jon Diebler, whose seven 3-pointers for 21 points (this scoreline math is refreshingly simple) helped bury the Illini in the second half. After the game, though, the only national topic was Turner. More specifically, the topic was "Is Evan Turner the player of the year?" Every analyst ESPN had to offer on Sportscenter proclaimed it to be true. The only dissenters? America. In a SportsNation poll, 37 percent of the country voted for John Wall as the player of the year; Turner notched 33 percent of the vote. Which means one thing, America: You're on notice. I know Wall might be the most familiar name, but it's March now. There's no excuse for this. Inform thyself. Wall is a great player, but Turner has had a better season, and he deserves the award. I thought we Turner advocates had settled this issue already -- seriously, you have no idea how good it felt to see the unanimous pundit praise for Turner Tuesday night -- but apparently not. We have more work to do. Turner bandwagon team ... assemble!

No. 19 Vanderbilt 64, Florida 60: Again, no upsets here: Florida, like Illinois, could have sealed an at-large NCAA tournament spot with a win over the sturdy Commodores on Tuesday night. It didn't happen. Still, the Gators acquitted themselves nicely in the loss; Florida held a typically efficient Vanderbilt offense to a mere 64 points on 60 possessions. Billy Donovan's team was undone by its poor shooting, though, hitting 21-of-50 2-point shots and just 2-of-13 from 3 for a paltry 31.8 effective field goal percentage. Even in a solid defensive effort, that's not going to get the job done.

The Associated Press wrap of the game seems to think that Florida significantly hurt its tournament chances with the loss, but that seems slightly overstated. Sure, Florida didn't help itself, but losing by four to Vanderbilt at home isn't the worst result in the world, is it? Florida might have more work to do -- but no more work than before Tuesday, right?

Everywhere else: Cincinnati likewise needed a big win to keep itself in the at-large conversation. They almost got it, but insert the old koan about horseshoes and hand grenades here ... UTEP clinched the outright Conference USA title with a hard-fought win at Marshall ... Missouri's Zaire Taylor almost perfectly recreated Tyus Edney's famous game-winner in a thrilling overtime win at Iowa State ... North Carolina became the second team in the history of college basketball to get to 2,000 wins; one wonders if the current players felt strange holding that 2,000-win plaque, given this season's ugliness ... Syracuse had no problems with St. John's on senior night ... Baylor won at Texas Tech, handing Pat Knight's team its sixth straight loss ... Minnesota suffered a major letdown at Michigan, one which officially puts the final nail in the the already almost-entirely-assembled Gophers' coffin ... Trevor Booker did manly things in Clemson's win over Georgia Tech ... and Marquette shredded Louisville's zone in a 21-point win in Milwaukee.

Syracuse wins its first game as the No. 1-ranked team since 1990.

March is an awesome month. The weather in my adopted town has a lot to do with this; in many ways, March 1 is a huge mental marker for the imminent return of days when you don't have to encase your body in 30 pounds of Gore-Tex just to step outside the house. But forget the weather: March is really awesome for the basketball it promises -- the final week of conference play, the 31 conference tourneys, and the rapturous glory that is the NCAA tournament. Welcome, one and all. The next 30 days are going to rule.

To celebrate, how about some links? OK then:

• Hoyas fans are none too pleased with the effort Georgetown gave in Saturday's not-really-all-that-competitive loss to Notre Dame, a loss that will likely hurt Georgetown's seed and has put Notre Dame right back in the bubble conversation.
• Georgetown's shame had a lot to do with the suddenly off-the-charts play of Ben Hansbrough, who, yes, is Tyler Hansbrough's brother and who, yes, heard plenty about being Tyler Hansbrough's brother throughout his first season for the Irish. Hansbrough doesn't have the sheer talent or raw strength of his older sibling, but on Saturday he displayed several of those vaunted Hansbrough-y qualities: basketball intelligence, will, and boundless energy. Oh, and it helps that he can stroke the outside shot; that's at least one thing Tyler never quite mastered.
• If you were a Kansas fan, would you be upset about Saturday's loss at Oklahoma State? The Jayhawks are 27-2, after all, and the loss doesn't demonstrably effect Kansas' accomplishments this season -- they'll still be the Big 12 regular season champs and a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament. Still, though, something more was lost on Saturday, as the Kansas City Star's Martin Manley wrote this weekend: "If you stop and think about it, this is one of the most disappointing regular season losses in KU’s 500 years of basketball. How can I make such a radical statement? Well, first of all I don’t care about a loss. For crying out loud, they are 27-2. But, here is what got flushed down the toilet Saturday. 1) They probably will not beat North Carolina to 2,000 wins. 2) They will not make 2,000 wins on March 6th, the last regular season game and on the road against their primary rival – Missouri. 3) They will not hit 30 wins on March 6th. 4) They will not be 16-0 in the conference. 5) They are no longer chasing the best beginning in KU history of 34-1. 6) They no longer have a chance at 39 wins – which would be an NCAA record. 7) They likely will not be #1 in the polls. 8) It was only the second game in the last 103 that a KU opponent has hit over 50% from the field and they were at 60.4%!..." OK, so none of these are reasons to freak out -- but for fans interested in historical markers and statistical quirks, the loss will still be disappointing.
• For now, though, Rock Chalk Jayhawk is more concerned with honoring Sherron Collins, who will play his final game at Allen Fieldhouse when Kansas State comes to town on Wednesday.
• Ballin' Is A Habit praises Tennessee's win over Kentucky Saturday, and asks the question: Just how good are the Volunteers? Here's my short answer: Good, not great, but with Bruce Pearl at the helm, the Vols will always be a dangerous tourney team. Fair?
• Meanwhile, John Calipari claims that two of his players "sleepwalked" against Tennessee, though he wouldn't name names. The Lexington Herald-Leader's Jerry Tipton does a quick elimination process and comes up with Darnell Dodson and DeAndre Liggins -- and perhaps forward Patrick Patterson -- as the prime suspects of Cal's postgame scorn.
• The Only Colors takes a long look at Durrell Summers' inconsistency, finding that Summers is actually pretty peerless on offense so long as he stays inside the three-point line. Defensively? That's a slightly less complimentary story.
• As is the case every March, there's been plenty of discussion lately about the methods the selection committee uses to pick its field of 65; I could link all of these posts separately, but since Mike Miller went ahead and rounded them all up, head over and peruse accordingly.
• Adam Zagoria asked former Pitt players whether they were surprised at the success of the star-less 2009-10 team. The answer is unlikely to surprise.
• The New York Times' Pete Thamel remains on top of the Binghamton beat, where there is concern the school hasn't entirely shifted its focus from the win-at-all-costs attitude that got Kevin Broadus suspended and upended the team in the offseason. The key graph: "Even though the university president, Lois B. DeFleur, has announced she will retire in July; the athletic director, Joel Thirer, has resigned; and the men’s basketball coach, Kevin Broadus, has been placed on paid administrative leave, faculty members and administrators are concerned that those who carried out the orders in building a big-time basketball program remain. They worry that when the SUNY chancellor, Nancy L. Zimpher, makes recommendations to the board March 23, she will focus on Binghamton’s athletic problems, not its academic troubles."
• Are officials overworked? They would tell you no. The reality seems otherwise.
• The Big 5 title -- the yearly championship awarding the Philadelphia area's best team -- will go to Temple for the 26th time in 2009-10.
• Finally, everyone's probably familiar with the basketball odyssey taken by Wes Johnson before he ended up at Syracuse, but this story from the Post-Standard lays out the recruiting pitch given to Johnson and his brother by assistant coach Rob Murphy: “I said ‘OK, if you guys want to waste time, go ahead, but I’m telling you in the next couple days, you’ll call me back and say I’m going to Syracuse,’” Murphy said, recalling the final conversation of the trip. “‘You’re not going to find any place like this. We’ve got everything you want. You want to be a professional. You’ll work hard and play against Paul Harris and all these guys next year in practice and then next year, you’ll probably start for us, we’ll have a good year and you’ll go pro. It’s just that simple.’" Not bad, right?

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- This gives new meaning to The View. Binoculars not included. But definitely required.

Section 332. Row V. Seat 1.

Also known as fan 34,616 on this snowy night in Central New York.

To give you some perspective, that lucky seat is located well beyond the end zone in the southeast corner of the Carrier Dome. And the left baseline in front of the visitor’s bench at the northwest and opposite end of the Dome is located about 5 yards into the west end zone and about 10 yards from what would be the north sideline. So what is that, about 150 yards apart? See what I meant about binoculars and what I should have said about setting the DVR so you could actually watch the game when you return to the comfort of home.

One hour before tipoff of No. 8 Villanova vs. No. 4 Syracuse, curiosity reigned supreme and fans and media ventured to the very top of the Dome to see what all of the hype was about. And in row 22 against a concrete wall they found it. No one was actually sitting in this section that had never been sold for a basketball game, but it should be full of fans by the time the game starts.

And once the sellout crowd is officially announced it will represent the largest on-campus crowd in NCAA basketball history. It will surpass the previous mark of 33,633 that was set in this same building against this same opponent back on March 5, 2006 -- in the last regular-season appearance by Gerry McNamara at the Dome. Nova won that game 92-82.

Syracuse is 4-1 in games at the Dome with crowds of more than 33,000, and 45-22 in games played here that had attendance top the 30,000 mark -- including 0-1 this season after a 66-60 loss to Louisville back on Feb. 14.

With a win tonight, the No. 4 Orange have a realistic shot at being the nation’s new No. 1 team after top ranked Kansas and No. 2 Kentucky both lost earlier today.

If Syracuse wins, whoever is sitting in the farthest reach of the Dome will undoubtedly go home happy and be able to say he (or she) was there for The Game. But it’s safe to say there won’t be anyone sitting in that seat one month from today when the NCAA East Regional final is played in this building because Syracuse can’t play here in the national tournament.

Come to think of it, I wonder when the last time that seat was occupied for a Cuse football game? Last season’s largest crowd was listed at 48,617 for the home opener against Minnesota on Sept. 5, which was about a thousand shy of a sellout.

SU athletic director Dr. Daryl Gross has publicly stated his desire to stage a Dome basketball game with the court moved to the middle of the facility with the goal of crowd that topped 50,000. If that ever happens, Saturday night’s Bob Uecker seats might become prime real estate.

The stars -- or at least the schedules -- had aligned. One look at today's hoops schedule and it was clear this was, at least on paper, the best Saturday of college hoops we've had all year. All we needed was for the games to live up to the hype.

They did. It was. And we're not done yet.

The insanity that will be Syracuse-Villanova is still minutes away from tipoff, but look how far we've come already: Notre Dame won at No. 13 Georgetown to reinvigorate its tournament hopes. No. 12 New Mexico beat No. 11 BYU in Provo to clinch a share of the Mountain West title (and make a pretty clear argument as to who the best, most tourney-ready MWC team really is).

No. 17 Tennessee knocked off No. 2 Kentucky in Knoxville, building a big lead in the first half before succumbing to Kentucky's inevitable onslaught ... only to score the last nine points of the game, seal a thrilling win over a hated rival, and hand UK its second loss of the season.

Then, of course, there was Kansas. Anyone who thought we'd end the day with not one but both of our top two teams in road losses deserves some sort of clairvoyance award and a lucrative late-night cable infomercial. Just a few hours after Kentucky fell, the Jayhawks lost their first conference game of the season at Oklahoma State.

If the loss itself wasn't shocking -- playing on the road in conference play is always hard, even for great teams like Kansas -- the way Oklahoma State thoroughly handled Kansas was. The Cowboys dominated Sherron Collins and company almost from the opening tip. By halftime, the lead had ballooned to 47-29. James Anderson was scoring at will against Kansas' typically impenetrable defense, and when the Cowboys didn't make shots -- which was rare; they posted a 69.8 percent effective field goal rate -- they were able to grab the offensive rebounds that Cole Aldrich and the Jayhawks almost never allow.

Much like their compatriots at the top of the polls, Kansas fought back late, eventually closing the lead to nine with over two minutes to play. Unlike Kentucky, though Kansas wasn't able to get any closer than that, thanks in large part to 5-foot-9 OSU sharpshooter Keiton Page's four late 3s. And that was that: Just like No. 2 before them, No. 1 had fallen, and any dreams of a perfect Big 12 season would be deferred.

All of which sounds very dramatic, of course. And it was. Still, let's not overplay KU's loss. The Jayhawks would never admit it, but they had nothing substantial on the line in Saturday's game. They'll still be the Big 12 regular season champs. They'll still be the No. 1 seed in the Big 12 tournament.

Most important of all, they'll still be a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament -- probably the No. 1 overall seed, barring a Big East tournament title by Syracuse. We should take notes from last year's eventual champs, the North Carolina team that blitzed the NCAA tournament from start to finish. In the regular season, sometimes the best team doesn't win. Sometimes the best team seems downright disinterested. Kansas' loss felt a lot like that today, and while that's not exactly the best excuse for a loss -- eh, we didn't have anything to care about, right? -- it shouldn't affect the way we look at the Jayhawks going forward. Make no mistake: Bill Self's team is still the favorite.

Want to know the most awesome thing about today? All of that already happened ... and the day's best, most important game is still minutes away from tipoff. (Which is not to mention Mizzou-Kansas State, a very good Big 12 matchup currently in progress.) Syracuse-Villanova should be everything everybody (including the record crowd currently packed inside the Carrier Dome) hoped. But if it isn't? Oh well. Saturday was still the best day of college basketball we've had all season. It was the perfect way to welcome March, the very best month of the year.

Show of hands: Who's ready for the tournament? Yep. Thought so. Me too.