I'm so happy for them. They got their guts stomped out by Digger Phelps, Jay Bilas, Dick Vitale and Herbert last Sunday night on Bracketology..."They don't deserve to be in"..."There are 3 better teams left out that should be in their place"...yada, yada, yada ...I'll bet they spent 30 minutes trashing VCU and UAB. They can shut up now.

I like the idea that the committe puts a great emphasis on your non-conference scheduling because that puts the onus on the teams themselves to play some decent OOC opponents on the road early in the year. You should not get the automatic "well they play in a tough power conference so they shouldn't have to play any tough OOC teams either at home or on the road". I'm tired of these marginal power conference teams getting a pass to the tournament just as long as they can have a .500 record in their conferences. All of these talking heads think that is justified instead of taking a mid-major like Missouri State or St. Mary's with a 23-6 record or whatever.

I have an idea for the committe....give heavy weight in the RPI to a power conference team that is willing to go to a so-called mid-majors home court and play a game. Whether they win or lose they gain more points by wiling to schedule and play a mid-major on their home court. I don't know how you would technically score the power points to your RPI rating but something should be done. Probably crazy thinking on my part but some of these power conference teams are in fact willing to do it such as Ole Miss coming to the Stephens Center this past season. It should be a bonus to Ole Miss RPI for playing on a non-power conference teams home floor in my opinion win or lose. In other words on a scale of 1 to 10 Ole Miss should get a 6 for beating South Alabama on their home floor and a 5 for losing to South Alabama on their home floor but should get a 8 for beating South Alabama at South Alabama and a 7 for losing at South Alabama. So in effect willing to play at a mid-major's home floor and even losing to them will give you a better power rating (7 versus 6) than playing them on your home floor and still winning. I'm sure better ideas are out there but don't they need to give these power conference teams some incentive to be willing to go on the road to play these mid-majors on their home courts?