The Final Update: Bilas Invitational Tournament March 11 Update

Whew. That was rough, having to put together a tournament with the likes of Lamar and Western Kentucky. Now, let's get back to good old-fashioned Trillas-style elitism, without all the Communistic welfare cases dragging down the bottom end.

Back Iron Bracketology (NOW with Automatic Qualifiers!)

Why should Joey Brackets get to have all the fun?

Let me share the bracket that the Back Iron Index would turn out if we abandoned the Bilas and Lunardi Rules from the previous posts (disregard conference records and let in conference tournament winners as AQ's).

Click here to examine it yourself. And read the details after the jump.

Bilas Invitational Tournament: March 6 Bracket Watch

Championship Week giveth, and Championship Week taketh away. Before we get to the updated S-Curve and bracket, let's examine the week's big movers:

The Newly Eligible (*= moved into field):
West Virginia (9-9 in Big East)*
Mississippi State (8-8 in SEC)*
Ole Miss (8-8 in SEC)

On the Come-Up:
+8: NC State, Oregon
+7: VCU
+5: Creighton, Murray State, Nevada
+4: Drexel, Akron
+3: Marquette, Indiana, Gonzaga, Florida State, West Virginia, Cincinnati, Washington, Tennessee, LaSalle

A Few Words on Cuonzo Martin as SEC Coach of the Year

John Calipari has Kentucky No. 1 in the country, 28-1 with a perfect 16-0 record in the SEC. My response? Yawn.

Cuonzo Martin has Tennessee 18-13, 10-6 in the SEC, and seeded second in the conference tournament. All this from a team that lost two thirds of its scoring, along with its head coach in a swirl of scandal. The Vols were supposed to finish last or next to it in this season's SEC race. My response? That's your SEC Coach of the Year.

The Inaugural Bilas Invitational Tournament Bracket Watch

Jay Bilas is just that bad-ass that he doesn't have to follow anyone on Twitter. Even Chuck Norris envies that level of trillness.

Another sign of his badassery is that you have to pay to read just about anything he writes on ESPN.com. This piece would probably raise a few more hackles if the general riffraff could read it. For those of you who are either broke, cheap, or have little interest in feeding His Royal Baldness's impenetrable swag, he advocates that the NCAA Tournament would be a better place if there were no automatic bids involved. The inevitable backlash from the Witty Handle Troll Brigade is predictably crucifying Bilas for trying to close the NCAA Tournament to all but the top half-dozen conferences (in other words, turning it into football).

No mid-major will ever make the tournament again, let alone make a run like Butler's runner-up finishes or VCU last year or George Mason in 2006. So sayeth Momsbasement69WTF or HoopsPimpDukeSuckit or whatever their "names" are.

Bilas's philosophy would be that those teams would have made the Tournament comfortably during the years they had their greatest successes, and it's quite likely that others would have joined them.

I have a hard time resisting the siren call of spreadsheets and rankings, so I've taken it upon myself to assemble a 68-team bracket where no one is automatically eligible, and some may in fact be automatically INeligible.

Murray State, MTSU, St. Mary's Struggle Under Burden of Perfection

While Murray State's first loss of the entire season is getting the most play nationally, two other potential mid-major tournament teams suffered their first conference losses in the past week.

Poll Dancing: How the Rankings Should Look (Jan. 9 Edition)

It's part and parcel of college sports that subjective human polls help shape a large part of a team or conference's perceptions nationwide. No one who's ever read a Top 25 ranking would dare claim that any of said polls are infallible, and that would include this one. Poll Dancing will examine the polls in each week of the season, try to find reason, and suggest alternatives. And occasionally quote random lyrics.

First, the TBI Top 25 after the jump.

Western Kentucky Gives Ken McDonald a Bad 24 Hours

Western Kentucky lost a game last night where Louisiana-Lafayette snuck an extra player onto the court. That's a bad night.

Then, head coach Ken McDonald got ambushed with this Friday morning. I'd be off somewhere having a stiff drink, 10 AM be damned.

McDonald's firing has prompted a great deal of hand-wringing on Twitter, and from people who should know better: Jon Rothstein, Matt Norlander, and Jeff Goodman, all writers that I love and respect. In fairness, most of the pity for McDonald has been over the timing of his firing. Mid-season, the night after losing on a "power-play goal," yada yada yada.

But, at first, some of it seemed to give me the impression that some kind of coaching genius was getting a raw deal. And I'm not sure where that impression would come from.

McDonald made the second round of the NCAA Tournament with his first team in 2008-09, sure. And Jon Gruden won a Super Bowl in his first year coaching the Tampa Bay Bucs. Just like Gruden inherited Tony Dungy's team, McDonald inherited a big chunk of Darrin Horn's team.

Since that 25-9 season, the Hilltoppers have gone 42-40, 21-16 in the Sun Belt. They're 5-11 this season, and have been exposed as being unable to count to six.

Sure, it's a team with seven freshmen, but it's also a team that ranks 334th in America in FG% (out of 344, so yeah, that's bad). Their average three-point shooting performance is 5-19, indicative of a coach who's not sure how to get his players to select better shots.

Eighteen turnovers per game ranks them 335th in the nation. Last night's ULL game was their first single-digit turnover performance all season. This is a bad team right now. If you think he should have gotten a full season to show what the team could do in league play, that's fine. But let's try to avoid spinning it into a good coach being unjustly forced to walk the plank. Because there's not a lot of evidence to that.

Morning Wood: January 5 (Temple of Doom Edition)

Some notes on last night's college hoop action:

• Perhaps this is why Duke doesn't play true non-conference road games. The No. 3 Devils traveled to Philly and got the No. 2 surprised out of them with a 78-73 loss to Temple. Whether Duke deserved their lofty ranking or not, this is a huge signature win for the Owls, and barring a clunker of a conference campaign, mark them down for an at-large spot if they don't claim the Atlantic 10 title. More on that later today. Duke, for their part, still doesn't have a point guard, and that will cost them in March. From Bobby Hurley to Jay Williams to Jon Scheyer, Duke's title teams have all had a steady hand on the rudder, and Austin Rivers' hand (1-8 from 2-point range, 2 assists and 3 TOs against Temple) is far from steady.

Conference Calling: ACC

In one of the first posts here on TBI, I discussed why the ACC was still one of college basketball's biggest dogs. As the season wears on, however, the conference's description is taking on a more negative tone, less "big dog" and more "dogging it."

Until Conference Realignment Roulette drags North Carolina off to the SEC or Duke to the Big 12 or something just as ludicrous, the ACC can never be completely written off. At least, UNC and Duke can never be written off. With the way the rest of the league is operating, it may very well be safe to ignore the other 10 teams.

• Real Time RPI currently has the ACC ranked below the Mountain West, of all things, in league RPI. The MWC has shown no fear of the Atlantic Coast, with not only UNLV's big win over the Tar Heels, but also TCU supplying the only blemish on the Virginia Cavaliers' season so far.