Toledo Finally Falls But Hangs Tough at Kansas

We saw tonight another undefeated team go down after Toledo fell at Kansas. The result was not unsurprising, but Toledo proved a lot about itself even in a ten-point loss. Elsewhere, a major Big 12 team fell rather unexpectedly, and two major conference teams battled for RPI points for themselves and their respective conferences.

NCAA College Basketball Naps During the NFL's 17th Week

With Week 17 in the NFL underway, college basketball was smart to not put any marquee games on Sunday. Still, there were a few games of note. Drexel fell further off the bubble, perhaps permanently, and Notre Dame nearly added a dreadful loss to its at-large resume when it needed overtime to take out a mediocre Canisus.

Bracket Brief for December 29, 2013

Seed	West (1) Anaheim (Th/Sa)	South (4) Memphis (Th/Sa)	East (2) New York City (Fr/Su)	Midwest (3) Indianapolis (Fr/Su)
Site 1 16 8 9	San Diego (Fr/Su) Arizona No. Colo./Char. So. Gonzaga Virginia	Buffalo (Th/Sa) Ohio State NC Central Missouri Xavier	Buffalo (Th/Sa) Syracuse Boston U Harvard Michigan	Milwaukee (Th/Sa) Wisconsin Bryant/Texas So. New Mexico Arkansas
Site 5 12 4 13	Spokane (Th/Sa) Baylor Tennessee/Illinois San Diego State North Dakota State	San Diego (Fr/Su) North Carolina New Mexico State Colorado Drexel	San Antonio (Fr/Su) Kentucky Arizona State/VCU Iowa State UC Santa Barbara	Orlando (Th/Sa) Florida State Toledo Massachusetts Southern Miss
Site 3 14 6 11	Raleigh (Fr/Su) Duke Manhattan Memphis Georgetown	Orlando (Th/Sa) Florida Belmont Louisville Butler	San Antonio (Fr/Su) Wichita State Mercer Pittsburgh Oklahoma	Spokane (Th/Sa) Oregon Green Bay Iowa LSU
Site 7 10 2 15	Milwaukee (Th/Sa) UCLA Texas Michigan State Elon	Saint Louis (Fr/Su) Saint Louis Minnesota Oklahoma State Louisiana Lafayette	Raleigh (Th/Sa) Connecticut Stanford Villanova Stony Brook	Saint Louis (Fr/Su) Creighton Cincinnati Kansas Stephen F. Austin

Note: Through games of December 28, 2013. Teams in italics below represent automatic bids. The rankings at the top of each column are based on the overall seeds of the top four teams, so the winner of the regional with the team seeded #1 overall would meet the winner of the regional with the team seeded #4 overall.

A Busy College Basketball Saturday Doesn't Disappoint

Even though this Saturday had fewer games than we'll probably see going forward, a number of games with huge implications were played, including some gems from Villanova at Syracuse and Louisville at Kentucky. The last Saturday in 2013 was entertaining from morning to night, and it should leave all fans hungry for what we're about to see over the next three months.

No Surprises in College Basketball Just After Christmas

Friday night was quite in college basketball as the only three ranked teams in action, Ohio State, North Carolina, and San Diego State, all rolled over their competition.

The Diamond Head Classic Destroy's Saint Mary's At-Large Profile

So here I was, ready to proclaim Saint Mary's the new West Coast Conference power.

On Monday Night, College Basketball's Bubble Teams All Won

Some nights, there are no games involving teams where both teams have a realistic shot at an at-large bid. And then some nights, there are no upsets. Monday night was one such night. So what follows is a list of games involving teams you should be watching for your bracketology who won exactly as expected: favored teams beating teams they should beat.

Several Bubble Teams Lose, and College Basketball Loses One More Unbeaten Team

Following Saturday's big action, there weren't too many meaningful games on Sunday. Yes, a lot of bracket-bound and bubble teams were in play, but not many had difficult tests to face. We did see one bubble team suffer a devastating loss, and we lost another unbeaten team tonight in Hawaii, but for the most part, things went as scheduled. For example, Creighton took out Cal today, and while Cal is quite clearly on the bubble, losing on the road to a team squarely in the bracket doesn't hurt. Let's take a look at the two games that really did change the landscape.

Bracket Brief for December 22, 2013

Seed	West (1) Anaheim (Th/Sa)	East (4) New York City (Fr/Su)	Midwest (2) Indianapolis (Fr/Su)	South (3) Memphis (Th/Sa)
Site 1 16 8 9	San Diego (Fr/Su) Arizona N. Colo./Char. So. Saint Louis Minnesota	Buffalo (Th/Sa) Syracuse Bryant Michigan Georgetown	Buffalo (Th/Sa) Ohio State Elon Virginia LSU	Milwaukee (Th/Sa) Wisconsin NC Cent./TX So. UCLA Gonzaga
Site 5 12 4 13	Orlando (Th/Sa) Saint Mary's New Mexico State Pittsburgh Drexel	San Antonio (Fr/Su) Kentucky Ariz. St./Geo. Wash. Wichita State Southern Miss	Spokane (Th/Sa) San Diego State Toledo Colorado Belmont	San Diego (Fr/Su) UConn Butler/Texas North Carolina North Dakota State
Site 3 14 6 11	Milwaukee (Th/Sa) Michigan State Stephen F. Austin Memphis Stanford	Spokane (Th/Sa) Oregon UC Santa Barbara Iowa State Illinois	Raleigh (Fr/Su) Duke Manhattan Baylor VCU	Orlando (Th/Sa) Florida Green Bay Massachusetts Marquette
Site 7 10 2 15	Saint Louis (Fr/Su) Creighton New Mexico Kansas Bucknell	Raleigh (Fr/Su) Florida State Missouri Villanova Stony Brook	Saint Louis (Fr/Su) Iowa Arkansas Louisville Mercer	San Antonio (Fr/Su) Harvard Cincinnati Oklahoma State Louisiana Lafayette

Note: Through games of December 21, 2013. Teams in italics below represent automatic bids. The rankings at the top of each column are based on the overall seeds of the top four teams, so the winner of the regional with the team seeded #1 overall would meet the winner of the regional with the team seeded #4 overall.

Two More Unbeaten Teams Fall, But Some Teams Fall Out of the Tourney Completely.

Saturday was an extremely busy day for college basketball as we saw two more undefeated teams, UMass and Mizzou go down for the first times this year. We're now down to the top 10, though we came close to being down to 9 when BYU took Oregon into OT. We also saw and ACC team and an Ivy League team all but playing themselves out of the possibility of at-large bids at this point with silly office supply purchases. Let's take a look at a a few choice games and look at what else happened today, as well as preview Sunday's games.

The Ivy League Continues to Rise, and A Big West Team Falls off the Bubble Completely

It is a very good thing that Friday night was so slow in college basketball, since my Comcast internet connection went down for several evening hours. Barring any upset, there was only one Friday night game, Princeton's neutral-court game against Pacific, might be worth recapping. Let's see if anything else popped up during Friday's schedule.

Duke Pulls Away From UCLA and Two Aspiring Tourney Teams Suffer Shocking Losses

Thursday night was relatively quiet for college basketball. In the conference season, a number of conferences will head up with weekend prep games on Thursday night, but on the one before Christmas, we saw relatively few decent games. Barring any upsets, the only one worthy of much of a mention was going to be Duke and UCLA. So let's take a look at what happened.

And Then There Were Twelve

Traveling all the way from one coast to the other is always a bit of a daunting task for a team in college basketball. Winning a game at the other team's place is even more difficult. That's just what Stanford did on Wednesday night when it took down one of the last unbeaten teams: UConn. We also saw an interesting game with Texas going to UNC. Let's take a look at Wednesday night's action.

College Basketball Loses One More Unbeaten and Other Tuesday Night Drama

We started the night with fourteen unbeaten squads. Four, Wichita State, Pittsburgh, Oregon, and Toledo, were in action. One of the four would not make it through the night. Meanwhile, Florida and Memphis played an absolute war of a game in MSG. Find out about a good Wednesday night of hoops inside.

Monday's NCAA College Basketball Recap: Duke Rolls

Nothing much happened on Monday night, so we'll just have a quick look at the one important game before heading on to previewing Tuesday's action.

College Basketball Calms Down for Finals

Not much happened on Sunday, certainly nothing that would have changed the bracket. Teams won games as they were expected to, letting college basketball fans who are actually in college more time to study for finals. Let's go over the couple of games of note that were played.

Bracket Brief for December 15, 2013

Seed	West (1) Anaheim (Th/Sa)	South (4) Memphis (Th/Sa)	Midwest (2) Indianapolis (Fr/Su)	East (3) New York (Fr/Su)
Site 1 16 8 9	San Diego (Fr/Su) Arizona Char. So./No. Colo. New Mexico Indiana	St. Louis (Fr/Su) Ohio State Stony Brook Kentucky Virginia	Milwaukee (Th/Sa) Wisconsin Elon/Southern Creighton Harvard	Buffalo (Th/Sa) Syracuse North Carolina Central Marquette Michigan
Site 5 12 4 13	Orlando (Th/Sa) Iowa State BYU Connecticut Belmont	San Diego (Fr/Su) Massachusetts Florida State Colorado Toledo	San Antonio (Fr/Su) Kansas Arkansas Wichita State New Mexico St.	Spokane (Th/Sa) UCLA Southern Miss Missouri North Dakota St.
Site 3 14 6 11	Orlando (Th/Sa) Florida Louisiana Lafayette Memphis VCU	Raleigh (Fr/Su) North Carolina Green Bay Saint Louis Xavier/LSU	Spokane (Th/Sa) Oregon UC Santa Barbara Baylor Drexel	Milwaukee (Th/Sa) Michigan State Bucknell Duke Dayton/Arizona St.
Site 7 10 2 15	Raleigh (Fr/Su) St. Mary's Georgetown Pittsburgh Manhattan	San Antonio (Fr/Su) Gonzaga Minnesota Oklahoma State Mercer	St. Louis (Fr/Su) Iowa Clemson Louisville Bryant	Buffalo (Th/Sa) San Diego State Tennessee Villanova Oral Roberts

Note: Through games of December 14, 2013. Teams in italics below represent automatic bids. The rankings at the top of each column are based on the overall seeds of the top four teams, so the winner of the regional with the team seeded #1 overall would meet the winner of the regional with the team seeded #4 overall.

Arizona's Current Stranglehold on College Basketball

A busy Saturday got off to an amazing start with Arizona heading to Michigan for its toughest game of the season thus far. Flying back to Tucson with a win under its belt, Arizona increased its hold on the overall #1 seed. Let's take a look at that game and all the other best action as teams tune up for conference play.

Iowa Rules the Basketball World (For One Night)

The State of Iowa took center stage on Friday night as Iowa and Iowa State, who are both having excellent seasons so far, squared off for state bragging rights. The Cyclones and the Hawkeyes were seeded on the 5 line and the 7 line, respectively, last week. Going into the game, Iowa had more to gain considering they were going for a road win, and Iowa State needed more help since Iowa will get a boost in strength of schedule since the Big Ten is better than the Big 12 this year. So who came out on top?

How to Improve March Madness

Maryland won at Boston College, avoiding a bad loss, so the Terrapins' resume improves a bit (or at least doesn't fall). There were only five other games tonight, so no need for a recap. I think tonight would be a good night to talk about some ways to improve March Madness. I am simply not much for tradition. If there's a change that we can make to make next year better, implement it. Now. So here are the four most important easy fixes that we could implement fairly easily.

When Basketball Teams Hold Serve

Often times, prepping for an at-large bid means doing exactly what you're supposed to do. Even if you have a somewhat decent team on the schedule, home or away, you need to win those games to secure your berths. That's what happened on Wednesday night, as only one team damaged its tournament resume. All the rest of the important games involved teams not getting upset, which is just as important as filling up the resume with good wins. A couple of teams also are trying to claw their way onto the bubble, and stepped a little closer by beating their inferior competition. Let's take a look at Wednesday's action.

Florida Knocks Kansas Down Another Notch, and Other Games

Kansas is quickly becoming the poster child for the teams that we all thought were elite at the beginning of the season but instead are merely very good (or worse). Can they rebound, or will the Jayhawks and their tournament seed continue to fall?

What a College Football Playoff Should Look Like

The Bracket Briefer likes to wander outside of college basketball from time to time. In this case, it is to look at what a college football playoff would look like if the powers that be did it right. Yes, yes, the BCS is gone, and next year, we have ourselves a four-team playoff, but that would still be riddled with a great deal of problems.

Sunday/Monday Recap

Not much happened on Sunday or Monday in college basketball, so the NCAA recap was condensed into one post. Besides, the new Brief came out last night, so that was plenty to chew on to begin with. The bracket would have remained substantially the same no matter what the results were in these games.

Bracket Brief for December 8, 2013

Seed	Midwest (1) Indianapolis (Fr/Su)	South (4) Memphis (Th/Sa)	East (2) New York City (Fr/Su)	West (3) Anaheim (Th/Sa)
Site 1 16 8 9	Milwaukee (Th/Sa) Wisconsin Quinnipiac/Southern Creighton Cincinnati	St. Louis (Th/Sa) Ohio State Davidson St. Mary's Georgetown	Buffalo (Th/Sa) Syracuse Boston U Virginia Michigan	San Diego (Fr/Su) Arizona N. Colo./Winthrop Gonzaga Indiana
Site 5 12 4 13	Spokane (Th/Sa) UMass Drexel Oregon Green Bay	San Diego (Fr/Su) Colorado Fla. St./G. Wash. Kentucky Toledo	Spokane (Th/Sa) UConn LSU/ASU Wichita State UC Santa Barbara	San Antonio (Fr/Su) Iowa State Belmont Duke New Mexico State
Site 3 14 6 11	Raleigh (Fr/Su) North Carolina North Dakota State Baylor Tennessee	San Antonio (Fr/Su) Oklahoma State UAB Missouri Marquette	Orlando (Th/Sa) Florida Louisiana Lafayette San Diego State Illinois	Orlando (Th/Sa) Michigan State Mercer New Mexico BYU
Site 7 10 2 15	St. Louis (Fr/Su) Iowa Harvard Louisville Oral Roberts	Raleigh (Fr/Su) Saint Louis Minnesota Pittsburgh Bryant	Buffalo (Th/Sa) Memphis VCU Villanova Stony Brook	Milwaukee (Th/Sa) UCLA Clemson Kansas North Carolina Cent.

Note: Through games of December 7, 2013. Teams in italics below represent automatic bids. The rankings at the top of each column are based on the overall seeds of the top four teams, so the winner of the regional with the team seeded #1 overall would meet the winner of the regional with the team seeded #4 overall.

Saturday's Action Overshadows Football's Championship Week

Although the games to decide the BCS matchups were played today, a full slate of terrific hoops also took the stage, and we were provided with far more excitement from the hardcourt. From buzzer beaters to upsets to continued impressive season-opening win streaks, today had it all. Let's get to the games.

Sometimes a College Basketball Game Only Matters to One Team

Kentucky and Baylor played one of the best games of the early basketball season, and then the men took the court. But it was worth us all waiting around to see the men's game, because they also played a gem. The question is, however, whether Kentucky or Baylor will have much change as far as Selection Sunday is concerned. As I'll discuss later, the game really only changes things for one of the two teams. Let's look at that and tonight's other most important action.

A Quiet Thursday Night Heats Up

A Thursday night that looked quiet at first glance actually had a few good story lines with some tournament implications. Oklahoma, VCU, Providence, Ole Miss, and San Diego State all struggled, and one didn't survive. Still, tonight's results did not have a drastic effect on the bracket as predicted last weekend. As for tomorrow, Friday night's slate actually looks better, with a number of Top 25 teams in action. But before we head off, let's look at the five games with the biggest impact from today's action.

The ACC-Big Ten Challenge, Day Two, and More

The ACC-Big Ten challenge finished up its final night tonight, ending in a tie for the second year in a row, but not before Michigan State and North Carolina decided to shake everything up. Unfortunately, the rest of Wednesday night's Challenge games had little effect. Ohio State and Wisconsin took care of business, and the other three games were filled with teams who aren't yet in the running. Let's take a look at tonight's action.

Big Happenings in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge

After the ACC won each of the first ten years of the ACC-Big Ten Challenge, the Big Ten won for three consecutive years before last year's 6-6 tie. This year, the ACC took an early 4-2 lead after the first day of the challenge, though the Big Ten's Michigan State, Ohio State, and Wisconsin are all on the slate for day two. Still, a number of the match ups could end up having ramifications on Selection Sunday.

Monday: Quiet Day

Most days, especially in December, are quiet when it comes to what might cause changes in the next bracket prediction. This Monday was not an exception, as the basketball world remained quiet after a busy weekend.

The March Madness Bracket Creates Daily Madness

It is an interesting job, this one of being a bracketologist. As I was working on tonight's bracket, I put my blinders on to the basketball world, ensuring that I used only the games completed as of last night. Little did I know how much was changing around me. A wealth of games made what would have been a huge impact on the way that the most recent bracket came out. Let's look at some of the most interesting of today's games:

Bracket Brief for December 1, 2013

Seed	Midwest (1) Indianapolis	East (4) New York	South (2) Memphis	West (3) Anaheim
Site 1 16 8 9	Milwaukee (Th/Sa) Michigan State IPFW/Texas Southern Clemson Georgetown	St. Louis (Fr/Su) Oklahoma State Oral Roberts Virginia Marquette	St. Louis (Fr/Su) Kansas Elon/Winthrop San Diego State Indiana	San Diego (Fr/Su) Arizona Hawaii Creighton Michigan
Site 5 12 4 13	Spokane (Th/Sa) Connecticut Drexel Iowa State New Mexico State	San Antonio (Fr/Su) North Carolina LSU/Illinois Wichita State Green Bay	San Diego (Fr/Su) UCLA Belmont Iowa Charlotte	Spokane (Th/Sa) Gonzaga Missouri/Maryland Wisconsin Toledo
Site 6 11 3 14	Orlando (Th/Sa) St. Louis New Mexico Villanova Louisiana Lafayette	San Antonio (Fr/Su) UMass Arizona State Florida Stony Brook	Raleigh (Fr/Su) St. Mary's VCU Duke Holy Cross	Orlando (Th/Sa) Oregon Cincinnati Syracuse Mercer
Site 7 10 2 15	Buffalo (Th/Sa) Memphis Tennessee Pittsburgh North Carolina Central	Buffalo (Th/Sa) Dayton Colorado Ohio State Quinnipiac	Raleigh (Fr/Su) Baylor Harvard Kentucky Weber State	Milwaukee (Th/Sa) BYU Florida State Louisville Bryant

Note: Through games of November 30, 2013. Teams in italics below represent automatic bids. The rankings at the top of each column are based on the overall seeds of the top four teams, so the winner of the regional with the team seeded #1 overall would meet the winner of the regional with the team seeded #4 overall.