So, after coming up with a coherent and (I believe) accurate bracket recently, I have developed a further hatred of ESPN.com’s Joe Lunardi. This is Lunardi’s job. His only job: Lunardi “accurately” (64 of 65 teams correct during the last 10 years) predicts the teams in the NCAA tournament. Today on ESPN2’s First Take, Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg took a dig at Lunardi saying to Dana “I hate Jesus” Jacobsen that Lunardi isn’t very accurate. Considering that there’s usually 4 or 5 bubble teams, missing a team every year isn’t exactly great. Jacobsen was caught completely off guard, as Lunardi has been preening about on the network this weekend and was in studio during this interview. Her “Oh god. Don’t make him mad, Seth,” look during the interview brought great applause from me.

The point of all of this is this: Seth Greenberg is right. Joe Lunardi is not the NCAA Tournament Committee. His saying that “Team X” is out and “Team Y” is in, and ESPN taking his statements so seriously you would think they could be found in the book of Exodus, is foolish. Lunardi is no better than any D-Bag blogger (me) with too much time on their hands. Except Lunardi is employed by “The Worldwide Leader” and I am not employed by anyone. ESPN is devoting way too much time to what Joe Lunardi has to say. Let this fiasco that is Championship Week play out and see what happens.

Here’s what’s happened so far:

-VCU may have played their way out of the tournament by losing to William and Mary yesterday. They’re in a no-win situation, unless someone actually looks at their resume and realizes that they belong in the tournament despite the loss. They’re better than the “Bubble teams” (Syracuse, Maryland, Florida, Ohio State, etc.) . If they don’t get in, I’ll be a tad angry.
-I turned off the San Diego/Saint Mary’s game about 5 minutes in last night because the Gaels were dismantling the Terreros. I even joked to my roommate, “I guess I’ll turn off the TV because I don’t really think this is much of a game.” Well, turns out that the Terreros hadn’t been completely dismantled because they won the game in double overtime. Saint Mary’s is still in the field of 65, unless San Diego beats Gonzaga tonight, which would then mean that the West Coast Conference would get 3 teams in, which the committee will not allow, thus eliminating the deserving Bulldogs (Gonzaga) or Gaels (Saint Mary’s) from the field and replacing them with the Syracuse Orange and their abysmal record. Fun.
-As a college basketball fan (can you tell?), I am starting to hate the conference tournaments because they provide the opportunity for underachievers (Maryland and Ohio State) to play their way in to the real tournament by giving them the opportunity to play teams with nothing to gain (Michigan State) and thus increase their RPI. Here’s an idea: Scrap the conference tournaments. Yes, sponsors will weep and college presidents will stomp their feet, and all that jazz. However, I don’t want to see an undeserving, underachieving Maryland team make the field of 65, while a scrappy Virginia Commonwealth team with a star point guard that no one knows or remembers (Eric Maynor) has to play in the NIT, because of a 2 point misstep against an overachieving William and Mary team. VCU’s entire season, 22-5, before the loss to W&M, is washed away because of one loss, while Ohio State’s entire season, 19-12 (losses to Michigan and Minnesota included), is forgotten about if they beat a mediocre Michigan State team with nothing to gain. I hate it. It’s not as corrupt as the BCS, but it’s close.

Should we just discount one or both of UCLA’s last two victories? Can we do that?

The Phoenix Suns and Sacramento Kings beat the San Antonio Spurs and Los Angeles Lakers yesterday. The NBA: I don’t get it.

I’m probably going to have an NFL Mock Draft this week. It might be just a top 10 (so I don’t begin to hate Mel Kiper Jr. the same way I now hate Joe Lunardi) or it might be a full first rounder. So look for that.

I’m going to end with a bit of slightly breaking sports news. It’s not important, so you can skip it, but it has interested me all season. First, the backstory:

Lute Olson’s name is written on the court at the McKale Center at the University of Arizona. He has coached the Men’s basketball team there since 1983. They have won a national title under Olson (1997). Olson is notorious for letting his athletes just play, having a thin playbook and little on-court control. Lute Olson’s wife, Bobbi, whose name appears next to Lute’s on the court, died a few years ago, after 47 years of marriage. Two years later, Lute remarried. He filed for divorce in 2007 and soon after, announced he was taking a leave of absence from Arizona basketball, for “personal reasons” after the season began.

Kevin O’Neill took over for Olson after he took his leave in December and has installed a functional offense, with a thick playbook, and coaching control. The players, by all accounts, enjoy playing for him. O’Neill has a ton of coaching experience (in both the NBA and College, with the Toronto Raptors and Northwestern Wildcats, respectively). He was named Lute Olson’s successor as head coach if and when Olson retired, at the start of the season.

What has bothered me as a follower of Pac-10 basketball this season is the thought that Olson could come back whenever he wanted and take this team away from O’Neill. O’Neill has turned a Lute Olson team (all offense/no defense) into a basketball team that can score AND defend. It’s his own team, with someone else’s players and he’s done a very good job with ‘Zona.

Today, that day came and Lute Olson announced he will return at the start of next season, which will push O’Neill back to an assistant role. This is incredibly unfair to Kevin O’Neill who has proved himself to be a good coach, capable of leading Arizona. If you’re the University of Arizona, do you allow your aging legend coach (73 years old) to continue to coach kids more than a half century younger than him or do you allow a significantly younger man with a grasp on the current state of college basketball, who is in touch with today’s players, but has no glamorous spots on his resume, lead your team? My pick, as if you couldn’t tell, is O’Neill. Arizona’s will inevitably be Lute Olson’s. And they will falter because of it.

Game O’ The Day: Though I’m very excited for the Clippers/Heat matchup tonight, to see who will score 80 points first, the real game of the day is the West Coast Conference Final between Gonzaga and San Diego. If you are a fan of VCU, Western Kentucky, UAB, Saint Mary’s or, God help you, Syracuse, Ohio State, or Florida, you’re rooting for the Bulldogs. If you like to watch people suffer, you’re rooting for the San Diego Terreros. I’m rooting for Gonzaga, because I do not want to see Saint Mary’s and VCU pushed aside for a team that went on a late run in a conference tournament that happened to be played on their own court. The game is on ESPN2 at 9 P.M.