Sports InsideOut

1.  Vandy makes an Elite 8 run. My thinking:  Vandy is a lot better than people think.  Although they were on the outside looking in for the NCAA tournament a week ago, I held faith in them and said that they could be a candidate to make the Sweet 16, despite being 16-11 and in the First Four out in Joe Lunardi's tourney bracket.  The Commodores now have a much better chance to get in, with wins this week on the road against Florida (watch this  crazy shot ), and then over Kentucky on Saturday.  These wins should put them in the tournament, barring any collapse.  Additionally, Vanderbilt is #22 on kenpom.com, which is a lot better than their projected tournament seed right now.  They have a lot of shooting talent, a top level big guy, and enough veteran leadership to get the job done. 2. Xavier doesn't make the Sweet 16. My thinking:  The Musketeers are very overrated and inconsistent. According to kenpom.com, they have been one of the ...

The SEC may be the tightest race right now, with no dominant team, and 4 teams within a game of first place.  Kentucky has a one game lead over Texas A&M, South Carolina and LSU, but anything could happen from here on out.  Kentucky still has to go on the road against Florida and Vandy, and also has a visit from LSU, while Texas A&M gets to play Mizzou, Auburn and Mississippi State before playing a slightly tougher game against Vandy at home.  South Carolina also has an easy schedule the rest of the way, while LSU has to go on the road against UK.  Here is a little paragraph on each of the top 4 plus #'s 5 and 6 Florida and Vanderbilt. 1. Texas A&M I see the Aggies winning the conference, simply due to the fact that UK will probably lose one more game, and the Aggies really shouldn't.  Texas A&M is behind one game, but will move ahead of UK in the conference tournament seeding if UK were to lose, because they hold the tiebreaker due to th...

The PAC-12 is full of overrated and underrated teams, so I'm going to break the conference down that way. Let's start with the overrateds: Overrated Teams: Oregon Oregon is being treated like a top team right now, ranked number 16 in the AP poll, but the most incredible thing to me is that they are a 3 seed by top bracketologists Jerry Palm (CBS) and Joe Lunardi (ESPN).  This is absolutely ridiculous.  Oregon lost twice this week, once in an absolute blowout from the start, to an unranked team in California.  To be blown out by a team that isn't top 30 in either the AP poll or kenpom.com is not a good sign.  Not to mention, they followed up that loss with another loss, this one to Stanford, who was 11-11 and had lost 4 in a row, all to unranked teams.  Oregon has some decent wins. The one on the road against Arizona is particularly nice, but bad losses litter the schedule.  They have lost to an astonishing 5 non-top 60 kenpom.com teams and an even mor...