Now just what in the heck is an RPI?

A week from today we will start filling out our brackets and handing over our 20 bucks to the IT guy only to see the intern from Finance win the pool.

Joe Lunardi of ESPN.com, who got all 65 participants correct last year, has his latest bracket up, here.

#1 seeds: Uconn, Louisville (who bounces Oklahoma to a #2 seed), North Carolina and Pittsburgh.

Last Four In: New Mexico, South Carolina, Penn St., Arizona (bumped up from the list below)

First Four Out: San Diego St., Creighton, Florida and Miami.

San Diego St. has been on life support for about 2 straight weeks as Lunardi has had them on the “last four out” list for about the same amount of time. We figure Mongo’s alma mater needs to make it to the Mountain West conference finals to make it to the Dance.

We know we are not treading out onto a spindly limb by saying that we like Pittsburgh. They’ve got a rugged, skilled big man in DeJuan Blair, a talented wing man in Sam Young (pictured) and a pudgy little point guard who looks like he should be playing in a rec league, Levance Fields, who just knocks down clutch jumpers. Gritty defense and a multi-dimensional offense: a nice recipe for March.

We'll have more on all this later.

The Little Conference that Probably Will

Those shrieks of anguish you heard last night around 8:30 were from major conference bubble teams that just watched the USD Toreros take down the heavily-favored Bulldogs of Gonzaga in the finals of the West Coast Conference Tournament. This after another improbable come-from-behind victory against St. Mary’s the night before in double OT.

Its very possible now that 3 West Coast Conference teams will make the field of 64 when its named this Sunday and because of USD’s win last night and thus automatic bid, teams like Ohio St., Arizona St. and Syracuse may be on the outside looking in as it was felt Gonzaga and St. Mary’s would make the tournament as at-large bids regardless of how they did in the conference tourney. ESPN’s Joe Lunardi has his latest bracket, here, and has all 3 teams in. We had some thoughts on the WCC prior to the season.
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First year coach Bill Grier was a Zags assistant for years and was brought down here to duplicate some of the underdog magic that has won-over much of the nation as Gonzaga has acquired the moniker, “America’s Team” for some of their deep runs in the tournament over the past decade or so.

Quick NBA note: The talking points have gone out. Apparently, the Golden State Warriors are “the team that no one wants to play” in the playoffs. Hmmmm… let’s see who else is in the West that is currently playoff bound: San Antonio, Phoenix, Lakers, Hornets, Utah, Dallas, Houston. Anyone there you would prefer to play?