Start of March Madness

In the next couple of weeks, the NCAA and NIT basketball tournaments will begin. The NIT may be a little tougher to get into than in recent years for mid-pack teams in major conferences--the number of teams has been dropped to 32 and mid-major regular season champions now qualify for the NIT if they lose their conference tourney. For the universities where I got degrees: on the men's side: Purdue is on the NCAA/NIT bubble while Missouri and Ole Miss are likely to go to the "sock hop" (NIT). Both Purdue and Ole Miss are likely to send their women's teams to the "big dance" (NCAA). Meanwhile, the basketball team of my present employer, Austin Peay, plays in the finals of the OVC tournament tonight against Eastern Kentucky (Go Govs!). The conference tournaments next week will have a lot of influence over the actual brackets.