Day of Preliminaries, and American Enters the 2014 NCAA Bracket

Most of Wednesday's action consisted of the first round of many tournaments. So, essentially, most games involved teams far off the bracket bubble. A few involved bubble teams, but only one such team lost: Georgetown. Georgetown was pretty far off the edge of the bracket anyway, so it is not Earth shaking.

Bracketologist Yahoo! Group

I set up a bracket pick-em group for my fellow bracketologists and me on Yahoo! I figure after we seed them all, we might as well pick them all too. And you could win a billion dollars. The Yahoo bracket group is here, feel free to message me on Twitter at @BracketBriefer for the password.

Happy picking everyone, and good luck on Selection Sunday with your bracket projections!

Upset Directional State: Conference Tourneys Go To The Spoilers

The big story this year is how many #1 seeds are falling in their conference tournaments. So far, no bubble spots have been stolen, but at this rate, bubble teams should be terrified. Two upsetters, Milwaukee and Mount St. Mary's, got their automatic bids Tuesday night, on the home court of their opponents no less. But a couple of favorites, North Dakota State and Gonzaga, got their bids too. The important thing to note from tonight's losing teams is that BYU is still safe for an at-large bid.

Bracket for March 11, 2014

Seed	South (1) Memphis (Th/Sa)	East (4) NYC (Fr/Su)	Midwest (2) Indy (Fr/Su)	West (3) Anaheim (Th/Sa)
Site 1 16 8 9	Orlando (Th/Sa) Florida Wofford/Coast. Car. George Washington Arizona State	Buffalo (Th/Sa) Villanova Stony Brook Massachusetts Iowa	St. Louis (Fr/Su) Wichita State Wright State Baylor Memphis	San Diego (Fr/Su) Arizona Weber St./TX So. Texas Harvard
Site 5 12 4 13	San Diego (Fr/Su) North Carolina St. Joe's/Neb. Iowa State Louisiana Tech	Spokane (Th/Sa) VCU North Dakota State Cincinnati Manhattan	San Antonio (Fr/Su) Ohio State Tenn./So. Miss Saint Louis Stephen F. Austin	Spokane (Th/Sa) Michigan State Toledo San Diego State Georgia State
Site 3 14 6 11	Milwaukee (Th/Sa) Michigan Boston U Oklahoma Stanford	Raleigh (Fr/Su) Duke Delaware Gonzaga St. John's	San Antonio (Fr/Su) Creighton Mercer New Mexico Xavier	Orlando (Th/Sa) Louisville NC Central Oregon Dayton
Site 7 10 2 15	Buffalo (Th/Sa) Connecticut BYU Syracuse Robert Morris	Milwaukee (Th/Sa) Pittsburgh Oklahoma State Wisconsin Utah Valley	St. Louis (Fr/Su) UCLA SMU Kansas UC Irvine	Raleigh (Fr/Su) Kentucky Colorado Virginia Eastern Kentucky

Note: Through games of March 10, 2014. Teams in italics below represent projected automatic bids. Teams in bold below represent secured 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.

Nothin' But Postseason

The regular season is now closed, and the major conferences have a few days off before their tournaments start. That left Monday to the little guys, who crowned three more champions, all who will receive automatic NCAA bids. Only one of those teams, however, won its conference's regular season championship, so clearly the NIT is filling up with mid-majors.

Bracket Brief for March 10, 2014

Seed	South (1) Memphis (Th/Sa)	East (4) NYC (Fr/Su)	Midwest (2) Indy (Fr/Su)	West (3) Anaheim (Th/Sa)
Site 1 16 8 9	Orlando (Th/Sa) Florida Wofford/Co. Car. Geo. Wash. Arizona State	Buffalo (Th/Sa) Villanova Stony Brook Pittsburgh Harvard	St. Louis (Fr/Su) Wichita State Weber St./TX So. Baylor Memphis	San Diego (Fr/Su) Arizona Utah Valley Texas Iowa
Site 5 12 4 13	San Diego (Fr/Su) North Carolina Stephen F. Austin Saint Louis Iona	Spokane (Th/Sa) Ohio State Louisiana Tech Iowa State North Dakota State	San Antonio (Fr/Su) Michigan State Tenn./St. Joe's Creighton Toledo	San Antonio (Fr/Su) VCU So. Miss/Neb. Cincinnati Georgia State
Site 3 14 6 11	Raleigh (Fr/Su) Virginia Delaware Oklahoma Xavier	Orlando (Th/Sa) Louisville NC Central Oregon Dayton	Spokane (Th/Sa) San Diego State Mercer Gonzaga St. John's	Raleigh (Fr/Su) Duke Boston U New Mexico Stanford
Site 7 10 2 15	Milwaukee (Th/Sa) Connecticut BYU Wisconsin Eastern Kentucky	Buffalo (Th/Sa) Kentucky Colorado Syracuse Robert Morris	St. Louis (Fr/Su) UCLA SMU Kansas UC Irvine	Milwaukee (Th/Sa) Massachusetts Oklahoma State Michigan Wright State

Note: Through games of March 9, 2014. Teams in italics below represent projected automatic bids. Teams in bold below represent secured 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.

Conference Tournaments: Hurting Mid-Major Conferences Since Forever

Today, we saw the stupidity behind conference tournaments. This season, the America East decided to host its conference tournament in Albany. #1 seed Vermont, who lost only one game in the conference all year, was stuck playing #4 Albany, who lost seven conference games. Not entirely surprisingly, behind its home crowd, Albany knocked off Vermont, eliminating who is clearly the America East's best team from tournament consideration.