npocs papes Annual citi bank Mythical ADT National Championship NCAA&T Tournament Presented by Verizon and Built by the Home Depot : Saturday Possibilities
In my previous post I outlined the entire idea behind this tournament and the selection process. Go take a look at that, it really is fine work. The at-large bids may still change after this Saturday's games however.
Lets look at the possibilities.
A Florida State upset of Virginia Tech, would place Florida State into the ACC automatic bids and bump Boston College down to an at-large berth which could knock out either South Carolina, Iowa or Fresno State or even the Eagles themselves. If the Buffs can follow tradition in the Big XII title game and create BCS havoc then Colorado will take an automatic bid from the Big XII and either force Oklahoma out of the tournament or displace one of the previously mentioned at-large teams.
A upset win by USF over WVU will cause for an uproar over Bulls fans about being dissed from the tournament. And of course USC/UCLA will affect the official rankings heading into the tournament. As long as UCLA does not get completly embarrassed they should still be in the upper 16 and play host to a first round game.

First Round Matchups
As of November 30/2005
The higher seed hosts the game
Team's will be reseeded after every round, to cut down on the illegal gambling bracket polls that have already sprung up everywhere

#1) USC (-78)
vs
#32) Northern Iowa
Should be an interesting game for comparison purposes and for the record books, so get the erasers out. A game against a Gateway conference opponent can really butter the Trojans up for a second round let down. I would be shocked if Northern Iowa musters any points here.

#2) Texas (-51)
vs
#31) BYU
Do not sleep on this Cougar offense, they did give Notre Dame a good run. Texas needs to stay focused so they can get out to that early lead and get Vince Young on the bench and keep him healthy.

#3) LSU (-41)
vs
#30) UCF
While I think USF would be a much harder draw here for LSU, I'll take George O'Leary over Lester Miles any day of the week. LSU has alot of experience against cupcakes this season however playing UL-Scrub and Appalachian State in back-to-back weeks.

More first round matchups to come, check back daily.

-n