Hey! We've been here before!

Have you been following either or both of this season's NCAA Division 1 basketball tournaments?

I was disappointed at both Iowa basketball teams, pleased at how far both Iowa State hoops squads did, but...I wasn't surprised at how the season ended for Nebraska's women, Creighton's men, and Creighton's women.

Now each tourney is down to four clubs...and here's how I think it'll all end:

WOMEN: South Carolina over Louisville, Stanford over Connecticut (although I smell a win for the Huskies against the Cardinal), and South Carolina ending Stanford's reign.

MEN: Villanova over Kansas, Duke over North Carolina, and Duke sending Mike Krzyzewski into retirement in style by stopping Villanova.

There you are: Eight teams that've already been to the Final Four before...seven of them have won it all before. (Only Louisville's women have yet to be the last to cut down the nets.)

Well, let's just sit back this weekend and see what REALLY happens.

Well, at Long Last, I Did It! (Part 1)

A couple of days ago, a coworker friend of mine was passing out copies of the bracket for the 2013 NCAA Division 1 men's basketball tournament to other crew members.

When I got home this past Tuesday night (as this year's tourney started out with two of four first-round games), I did something I'd never, ever done before:

I actually filled out the bracket sheet.  

So, right now, with the second-round contests starting later on today, I'd like to offer my predictions on how what could turn out to be one hell of a men's D-1 tournament could shape up. (Yeah...I know four games already are on the books!)

FIRST ROUND: North Carolina A&T over Liberty
                            St. Mary's over Middle Tennessee State
                            Boise State over La Salle
                            James Madison over LIU-Brooklyn

SECOND ROUND: Midwest-  Louisville over North Carolina A&T
                                                     Missouri over Colorado State
                                                     Oregon over Oklahoma State
                                                     St. Louis over New Mexico State
                                                     Memphis over St. Mary's
                                                     Michigan State over Valparaiso
                                                     Creighton over Cincinnati
                                                     Duke over Albany
SECOND ROUND: West-  Gonzaga over Southern
                                               Wichita State over Pittsburgh
                                               Wisconsin over Mississippi
                                               Kansas State over Boise State
                                               Arizona over Belmont
                                               New Mexico over Harvard
                                               Iowa State over Notre Dame
                                              Ohio State over Iona
SECOND ROUND: South-  Kansas over Western Kentucky
                                                 North Carolina over Villanova
                                                 Virginia Commonwealth over Akron
                                                 Michigan over South Dakota State
                                                 UCLA over Minnesota
                                                 Northwestern State over Florida (!)
                                                 San Diego State over Oklahoma
                                                 Georgetown over Florida Gulf Coast
SECOND ROUND: East-  Indiana over James Madison
                                              North Carolina State over Temple
                                              UNLV over California
                                              Syracuse over Montana
                                              Butler over Bucknell
                                              Marquette over Davidson
                                              Colorado over Illinois
                                              Miami (FL) over Pacific
THIRD ROUND: Midwest-  Louisville over Missouri
                                               St. Louis over Oregon
                                               Michigan State over Memphis
                                               Duke over Creighton
THIRD ROUND: West-  Gonzaga over Wichita State
                                          Kansas State over Wisconsin
                                          Arizona over New Mexico
                                          Ohio State over Iowa State
THIRD ROUND: South-  Kansas over North Carolina
                                           Virginia Commonwealth over Michigan
                                           UCLA over Northwestern State
                                           Georgetown over San Diego State
THIRD ROUND: East-  Indiana over North Carolina State
                                        Syracuse over UNLV
                                        Butler over Marquette
                                        Miami (FL) over Colorado
REGIONAL SEMIFINALS: Midwest-  Louisville over St. Louis
                                                                 Duke over Michigan State
                                              West-  Gonzaga over Kansas State
                                                           Ohio State over Arizona
                                              South-  Virginia Commonwealth over Kansas
                                                             Georgetown over UCLA
                                              East-  Indiana over Syracuse
                                                         Butler over Miami (FL)
REGIONAL FINALS: Louisville over Duke
                                    Ohio State over Gonzaga
                                    Virginia Commonwealth over Georgetown
                                    Butler over Indiana
NATIONAL SEMIFINALS: Louisville over Ohio State
                                             Butler over Virginia Commonwealth
CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: Louisville over Butler  

If you're one of the millions of Americans who filled out a bracket this week, how does yours look? Do you think Rick Pitino's Cardinals are going to cut down the nets at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA on 4-8-2013?

Let me know what YOU picked.

When I come back, I'm going to show you how I think this year's NCAA Division 1 women's basketball tourney will end up. Stay tuned!

Now You Can't Tell the Conferences without a Scorecard

I saw this in my local newspaper and I cringed.

It was announced last week that Louisville will quit the Big East Conference (the Cardinals just got through tying Cincinnati and Rutgers for the league football title) and, effective in two years, go into the Atlantic Coast Conference...the exact same decision made earlier this year by Pittsburgh and Syracuse.

And Louisville's decision came after (1) Notre Dame decided to take all of its sports- except football, of course; can't jeopardize that contract with NBC- to the ACC from the Big East and (2) Rutgers itself decided to trade its membership in the Big East for a chance to become the Big Ten Conference's 14th member. (Maryland- a charter member of the ACC, a league that goes back to the 1953-54 academic year- will start doing its thing in the Big Ten in 2014, same year Rutgers officially becomes a member of the league that gave us Nile Kinnick, Dave Winfield, Magic Johnson, and Katie Smith.)

And I'm wondering to myself: "When will all of this end?"   

I thought it was going to end with the Big 12 Conference taking in TCU and West Virginia...a move that still leaves that circuit with ten schools, what with Nebraska, Colorado, Missouri, and Texas A&M all saying "bye bye." (I still believe that Texas A&M and Missouri wanted the bigger paychecks Southeastern Conference membership could provide...and that Nebraska wanted to go into the Big Ten because it got tired of losing to Texas in football. Oh, well...)

All of these ACC moves during this 21st Century have been all about that green folding stuff...especially the kind that football can generate. [Remember when the league snatched Miami (FL), Virginia Tech, and Boston College from the Big East during 2004-05?]

The Big East retaliated by prying Cincy, Louisville, and South Florida (they've got football teams) as well as DePaul and Marquette (schools that used to compete on the gridiron) out of Conference USA.

And then C-USA made up for that by yanking Rice, SMU, and Tulsa out of the Western Athletic Conference.

In turn, the WAC enticed New Mexico State and Utah State out of the Sun Belt Conference.

Here we are, almost a decade after the ACC sought to prove it could compete in football.

And I'm wondering to myself: "When will all of this end?"   

I remember when the Big East got started (1979-80, same year as the Horizon League and the Atlantic Sun Conference, neither of which wages a football championship). The BEC was billed as the East Coast alternative to the ACC, then- as now- the most respected circuit when it comes to men's basketball.

The Big East was the league the sports reporters up in the Northeast (especially in the New York City area) had been on their knees begging for.

And they were licking it up, all right. Between 1979-80 and 1990-91, Big East squads had won as many NCAA Division 1 men's hoops tourneys as did ACC contingents- two apiece, with North Carolina's 1982 win and North Carolina State's 1983 conquest followed by Georgetown winning it all in 1984...then getting evicted from the throne room a year later by Villanova.

All four of those championships ranked right up there in NCAA history.

At that very moment, both the ACC and BEC were building good resumes in women's basketball (at a time when the SEC and the then Pac-10 were the most respected leagues)...but the championships wouldn't start coming until the middle 1990s, when North Carolina got it done (1994), only to lose its title a year later to Connecticut.

By then, Big East officials had started offering their schools a football championship...so that they wouldn't play as independents anymore.

And it looked good at first...as long as Miami (FL) was the dominant team in the Big East.

1991 was the first year Big East teams fought for a football championship. A year later, the SEC went from 10 members to 12...by taking in football indie South Carolina and by getting Arkansas to jump the Southwest Conference.

The SEC leaders found out they could now split their circuit into divisions and put on a championship football game.     

Within five years, other Division 1-A conferences sought to duplicate the SEC and get their own grid title games going. When the SWC imploded in 1996, the Big 8 took in four of its schools and became the Big 12. The Mid-American Conference expanded to 12 schools. (It's now got 14.) C-USA took in Houston and eventually got other universities to join.

And the WAC ballooned to 16 members...only to become a joke to sports reporters and talk-show hosts. (In 1999, eight WAC schools got tired of being laughed at by the Jim Romes of the world and formed the Mountain West.)

But now, with this current amount of movement going on among D-1-A institutions, the WAC is celebrating its 50th birthday with a limp...all because it might have to drop football.

Idaho and New Mexico State have decided to go it alone (a la Notre Dame and original WAC member BYU- one of the Mountain West's charter members). And this after Fresno State, Hawaii, and Nevada left the WAC in time for this current school year...duplicating Boise State in the process by going to the Mountain West.

WAC newcomers Texas State and Texas-San Antonio are already ticketed for other leagues...like C-USA or the Sun Belt.

Oh, well.

The next several years really are going to be interesting as conferences and schools alike prove it's really all about The Money. 

After all, if schools and conferences won't be loyal to each other, how in the world can their fans expect to show continued loyalty?

And I'm still wondering to myself: "When will all of this end?"