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Monday, March 25, 2013

Morning Win Salutes March King Robert Morris

Today's Big Winner: Robert Morris

You can put your brackets away: Robert Morris wins March.

Whichever team wins the national championship can't possibly have a fan base as giddy as the one we saw last night when Robert Morris knocked out Kentucky in the first round of the NIT.

Typically, a first-round NIT game wouldn't draw that much attention. But this is Kentucky, the defending national champ, exiled from the NCAA Tournament despite the country's best recruiting class and John Calipari's seemingly fool-proof arbitrage of the NBA's foolishly arbitrary age rules.

Not only was Kentucky shunted to the NIT, but because the NCAA Tournament is being played in UK's arena in Lexington, the Cats had to play their NIT opener on the road at Robert Morris -- as rabid of a scene as you could ask for down the stretch.

*This is the greatest thing ever to happen to Robert Morris basketball (displacing the shoulda-woulda-coulda near-upset by 15-seed RMU over 2-seed Villanova in the 2010 NCAA Tournament).

*This is the greatest thing ever to happen in the (post-relevant) history of the NIT, a once-proud event now reduced to trolling Kentucky fans. (Pardon me: Successfullytrolling!)

*This is the greatest thing ever for any fan who enjoys the schadenfreude of watching Kentucky humiliated. (Adding insult to insult, now Calipari has to try to balance some of his underachieving freshmen sticking around into next year, complicating any playing-time expectations had by his insanely talented incoming freshman class. It's supposed to be "one-and-done," not "one-and-one-more.")

Most of all, this is the greatest appetizer for the next three weeks.

Bobby Mo, we salute you.

http://youtu.be/4t9jFYrwK1I

*****

OK: Take your brackets back out.

Picking Louisville this year is not the same as picking Kentucky last year. And yet nearly everyone among the college hoops punditry is picking the Cardinals. Meanwhile, if you check out some of the "national brackets" that aggregate everyone's bracket picks together, so is a plurality of fans.

As someone who picked Florida to win it all, I hesitate to point you to the Harvard genius John Ezekowitz, whose system out-picked roughly 97% of the country last year -- his method tabs Florida this year. (That doesn't mean, by the way, that the data say Florida will win -- only that probabilistically they have a better chance than most.)

Just to run down the checklist:

*Region-by-region analysis.

*Your preferred pundit(s).

*Wisdom of the crowds.

*The "big data" guys.

*Your own gut.

Unlike last year, there is no "obvious" pick -- even if almost every pundit sees it that way. (Not Nate Silver!) Folks touting the unpredictability of this season just a week or two ago are now ignoring that -- not to mention the advanced analytics -- and it is unclear why.

But it is fairly obvious that there is no way this tournament proceeds that neatly.

****

More of today's winners

*President Obama: Has it both ways, picking Louisville AND Florida in his Final Four. (Great minds!)

*Saint Mary's: Did you see enough to pick them to beat Memphis? (Yes.)

*North Carolina A&T: First-ever NCAA Tournament win! Woot!

*Dominican Republic: Wins WBC. But you were paying attention, right? (Right?)

*Boise State vs. LaSalle: Two mid-majors battle it out for the right to play Kansas State -- not an unbeatable opponent, mind you. Worth a peek, if only to potentially influence a point or two on your bracket results that might come in handy down the line.

*LIU-Brooklyn vs. James Madison: Forget Rayshawn Goins' half-a-game suspension and focus on LIU point guard Jason Brickman, who led the nation in assists this year.

*Denver Nuggets: While the Heat get all the attention, the Nuggets have won 13 in a row, including last night's decisive win over West standard-bearer OKC.

*Heat Watch: Win No. 24 in a row will come tonight in Cleveland.

*Woods and Vonn: Despite her jokes in 2010, she clearly doesn't mind Woods' "history."

*Jim Brown: Smacks down players who are griping about the new RB rules.

*Patrick Stevens: Our resident college hoops guru goes big time.

*truTV: Did you find it yet? Here's some help.

*****

Today's big non-winner: Rex Ryan. First he shrugs off the Revis situation. Then he back-pedals from the Super Bowl guarantees he formerly relished. Finally, he dangled that Tim Tebow has a shot at the Jets' starting QB job. That's a lot of shoveling.