NCAA Basketball March Madness

Among the many criteria the NCAA tournament selection committee uses to select and seed the 65 teams for the NCAA tournament, the most statistically irrelevant is the "last 12 games" criteria. The NCAA has finally seen the light and eliminated the last 12 games from the toolbox.

There are many reasons for the stat's uselessness. There is little statistical correlation to how a team finished their season, and that team's performance in the NCAA tournament. It is generally misleading, especially in the power conferences where TV scheduling emphasizes that the projected top teams play each other later in the season while the teams expected in the lower half face each other.

A great advantage for big-time college athletics is that they are tax-exempt. From the NCAA to the athletic departments at Texas and Ohio State, they can reap the revenue and not pay taxes because they are part of educational systems.

With the country in a recession, the national deficits rising and tax revenue declining, the U.S. Government has to find other revenue streams. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), in a report, suggested looking into the commercial activities of collegiate athletic departments.

The Michigan State Spartans concluded a very successful season just over a week ago. They rode a two-seed past the defending champions, the top overall seed, and a supremely talented Connecticut squad before falling to the obvious best team in the nation, the NCAA champion Tar Heels.

After a brief rest, the Spartans will eventually get back to work in East Lansing, and it won't be a rebuilding project. It will be a reloading one. They did lose Goran Suton, Travis Walton and Marquise Gray to graduation, but there's plenty left for Tom Izzo to make another Final Four run -- one that would be his sixth in the past 12 years.

If you've ever seen a man get a five-figure bill from the IRS while an elephant simultaneously steps on his foot, you might have a general frame of reference for the level of rancor Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski can raise when defeat comes his way.

So, as he explained a 79-71 loss to North Carolina, the sixth Heel win in the last seven games and the second time in three seasons he's been swept by his rival, a funny thing happened.

First of all, allow us a moment to give Penn State some credit. They had never won 10 Big Ten games in one season until they garnered their tenth of 2009 Thursday night. They apparently have a flair for the dramatic, as they trailed by six with under two minutes left. A Stanley Pringle three, a huge offensive board -- followed by two free throws -- from David Jackson, some good defense, and a clutch runner from Talor Battle propelled them to an unbelievable victory over a very solid Illinois team for the second time this season.

Christian Laettner did many amazing things in his four years at Duke. But one instance stands out above the rest, a pump-fake, turnaround, buzzer beating jump shot against Kentucky in the 1992 regional final which gave the Devils a single-point victory in overtime against Kentucky, then coached by Rick Pitino. Vitamin Water relives that classic moment in hysterical fashion with the following awesome commercial (via Rush the Court).

March started days ago. The Madness started Wednesday night.

On an evening where bubble teams could've punched their ticket to the NCAA tournament and boosters could've started humming bars of "One Shining Moment," teams turned down invitations like they were to a wedding without an open bar or the People's Choice Awards.

A memo, fellows. This isn't an invitation to a candlelight dinner with Randy Johnson. "Big Dance" doesn't mean you're cutting a rug with Mark Madsen or waltzing cheek-to-cheek with Mike Tyson.

You actually want to go to this thing.

Each week, ESPN's Joe Lunardi predicts the NCAA tournament field if the season ended today. While he's good at this, Lunardi only focuses on past performance, and wins and losses. Bracketology Busters looks at which teams should be expected to perform significantly better or worse than their projected seeds.

This week we'll look at a team that's seen their perception drop after a great three-year stretch, but is primed to make yet another late season run.

One of the biggest gripes against former CBS basketball analyst Billy Packer was that he didn't respect the mid-majors. He famously complained that there were too many mid-majors in the 2006 NCAA Tournament. That was the year that George Mason upset Michigan State, North Carolina and UConn to get to the Final Four.

This will be the first Packer-less tournament in decades as he retired after last year's Final Four. It's a shame for him because he would have loved the makeup of the brackets this time around. Going against the recent trends, it looks as if the major conferences will get most of the at-large bids, leaving the mid-majors out in the cold.