Championship Week 3!!

Well, after another 19 went down tonight, we now have 172 alive and 172 dead.  We have reached the top of the hill, and are on the way down.  Here is the breakdown from Tuesday night.

DEAD COLUMN
Big East - Depaul, St. John's, Providence, Rutgers
MEAC - Morgan State, North Carolina A&T, Maryland Eastern Shore, South Carolina State, Coppin State
Atlantic 10 - Richmond, Charlotte, George Washington, Duquesne
Sun Belt - North Texas
Big Sky - Portland State, Eastern Washington
Ivy - Pennsylvania
Horizon - Valparaiso
Summit - Western Illinois

AUTO BID COLUMN
Sun Belt - Western Kentucky (Congrats, now make your plans for Dayton for the Opening Round.)
Ivy - Harvard (First time in the dance since the 1940's.  Has to feel good.)
Horizon - Detroit (McCallum staying in Detroit with his dad has paid off.  Nice win.)
Summit - South Dakota State (Going to the dance for the first time.  They'll be a tough out.)

Where we stand with five days of basketball left until the committee selects....

ALIVE                          172
AUTO BID                     12
AT LARGE LOCK         2
ZOMBIE                         4 (BYU, Iona, Oral Roberts, Drexel)

DEAD                           172

TOTAL                         344

Five more tournaments start on Wednesday.  Here are my quick predictions.

SWAC
I'll go with the two seed Texas Southern in this one.  Mississippi Valley State has dominated the league but Southern lost to them in OT once and by three the other time.  The tourney is in Texas and I think they get the job done here.

SOUTHLAND
Texas Arlington was undefeated in the conference until the last game.  That loss probably makes them hungry, they'll take this crown.

PAC 12
Always been an Arizona fan.  Bad loss for them at Arizona State last week.  They know they need this tourney to make the dance.  They will have Washington in the semi's and they lost to them twice.  Arizona doesn't go down the third time.  Arizona to win it.

CONFERENCE USA
Memphis has won 8 out of 9.  Tourney is in Memphis.  I think they take this one.

BIG 12
I don't see how it won't be Kansas vs. Missouri III for this title.  Missouri I believe has the better individual players, but Kansas has the better team.  But in these kind of playoff games, it seems like the team with the better players wins.  I'll take Missouri.

Five tourney champs so far, I've picked 5 correct.  Just going for 50%.  A good 20 or so teams could go down on Wednesday.  Business is picking up.  See ya tomorrow.

Curt