“The good people of the world are washing their cars on their lunch breaks.” – S.C.
But all I want to do is watch some conference tournament action!
No, I will not be one of the “good people of the world” tomorrow. I’ll be taking time off so I can be planted in front of the TV watching the Big East tournament. If for some reason you are foolish enough to work tomorrow, check back here for my comments on the afternoon session.
In the mean time, I have links to the conference tournament brackets. Yes, you can find these everywhere, but I am linking to the printable brackets! Printing brackets is fun. Filling out brackets is fun. Why wait until next week? You know you want to.
Big East Bracket
Where else can you find 5 AP ranked teams and 9 teams with legitimate bubble chances? In what other tournament could all 8 quarterfinal participants make the NCAA tournament? Big East expansion may have diluted the value of the regular season, but it has also made the Big East tournament the premier conference tournament in the land.
Pac 10 Bracket
The Pac10 isn’t far behind thanks to 9 teams that are capable of making it to the semis. And even if Oregon St. is horrible, they could still cause the Arizona fans to pull their hair out on Wednesday.
ACC Bracket
How hilarious is it that the only ACC game airing on ESPN2 on Thursday pits Georgia Tech and Virginia, two teams with no at-large hopes.
Big 12 Bracket
Hey, the Big 12 bumped the Big Ten out of their traditional noon Thursday slot on ESPN2. And Oklahoma St. versus Texas Tech should be much more entertaining than Iowa versus Michigan. Nice job ESPN. (By the way, if anyone else out there actually noticed this TV scheduling change, you can officially be my friend.) Also, Kansas may have lost the tie-breaker and gotten stuck with the two seed, but they face the Nebraska / Missouri winner on Friday. Top seeded Texas gets the Texas Tech / Oklahoma St. winner. I think Texas would rather have lost that tie-breaker.
SEC Bracket
It is always fun to see the unfair bracketing that results from the two division format. Vanderbilt, a team that is comfortably in the NCAA field, has to play on Thursday. Meanwhile Arkansas, a team that probably needs to beat Vanderbilt to make it in, gets a bye.
Big Ten Bracket
Don’t you love it when the regular season finale gets re-hashed a few days later? Oh, not really? Well Ohio St. versus Michigan St. still matters a lot.
MWC Bracket
How many people in Iowa want to scream now that Steve Alford has New Mexico sitting at 24-7?
Atlantic 10 Bracket
Finally, the A10 has some meaningful games to watch again. The last few years have been brutal.
Don’t Lose Memphis! CUSA Bracket
To put it another way, the recent A10 brackets have held all the intrigue of this year’s CUSA tournament bracket. (How to preview SMU vs UTEP. Hmm, I’ve got nothing. Did you know both schools are located in Texas?)
Don’t lose Kent St! MAC Bracket
Useless fact of the day: Prior to last year, the MAC first round games were held at campus sites.
WAC Bracket
The WAC has no bubble implications this year, but I’m including the bracket for historical purposes. The bad news is that you have to go to page 20 of this PDF to find the printable bracket.