Breaking News Update 4:00pm: Tubby Smith leaving Kentucky for Minnesota. Who’s next at Kentucky? My guess is they’ll call Billy Donovan first. I think he’ll stay at Florida, so who’s their next choice? Back to the original post…

This is not what I’d originally planned, but here’s a few things as the tournament starts up again tonight.

I haven’t watched the NIT too closely, but did catch the final minutes of a couple of games this week. Two nights ago, NC State’s run ended at West Virginia, and then last night Clemson held off Syracuse. They join Mississippi State and Air Force in the NIT Final Four.

I also watched a little of one of the women’s NCAA tournament games - Ole Miss knocking out defending champion Maryland. Maryland was hot at the end of last season and won the title, but despite having everyone back and a preseason #1 ranking, they haven’t really been a top five team all year. Ole Miss was up by more the 20 for a while and won without too much difficulty.

Saw a rumor about Steve Alford possibly leaving Iowa for New Mexico yesterday, but thought there was probably nothing to it. I stand corrected. ESPN is reporting that, according to sources, a a deal has been made and Alford will be introduced as the new Lobo coach tomorrow. I don’t know if I fully understand that move. New Mexico has good basketball tradition, but I was surprised that he’d leave a power conference for that job. However, according to the article, he was looking for a school where basketball comes first (which is probably not true at any Big Ten school, with the exception of Indiana.) And, there is apparently a Bob Knight connection that may have been part of the equation as well.

Not surprisingly, Duke’s Josh McRoberts will enter the NBA draft. How that affects the team next year remains to be seen. If power forward Patrick Patterson chooses to come to Duke, then the effect will not be as great, as I believe he will help their inside play. If he doesn’t, then it will be a bigger loss, with Brian Zoubek their only other true inside player.

Hopefully, McRoberts’ exit will make Duke more appealing to Patterson (who’s also considering Kentucky, Florida, Wake Forest, Virginia, and West Virginia), since they’d be playing a similar role on the team (much the way Carlos Boozer waited to sign until after Elton Brand declared in 1999.) Zoubek’s improvement between now and then is a key regardless, but if he’s all there is, then there’s a lot more pressure on him to perform. They have another very talented class coming in next year in Nolan Smith, Taylor King and Kyle Singler, and will have several outside threats, but they need another strong inside presence.

I was planning to write more about the tournament thus far, but just don’t have the time or will. The first weekend, for the most part, produced little drama or excitement. There were a few overtime games, but, based on the NCAA definition of an upset being five seed spots difference between the teams, there were only three upsets (Winthrop over Notre Dame, VCU over Duke, UNLV over Wisconsin.) That’s pretty boring. With the exception of the Vanderbilt win over WSU (6 over 3), all of the other low-seed wins were in 8-9 games and their second round equivalent, the 4-5 games, and those type of games aren’t really considered upsets.

However, that also means that a lot of quality teams are in the Sweet 16 and, hopefully, will produce a lot of quality games. We’ll see starting tonight. My predictions for this round would be as follows:

Midwest : Florida, Oregon
West : Kansas, UCLA
East : UNC, Georgetown
South : Ohio State, Texas A&M

Yes, I picked the higher seed in every game but one (A&M-Memphis). But the way it’s been so far, that seems about right. I’ll be a big USC fan tomorrow night, and would love to see Butler reach the Final Four. I’d even like to see UNLV in the Final Four. But most of all I’ll be pulling for Georgetown at this point, since I picked them to win it all.

By the way, I mentioned in a post last April or so about how I’d changed my mind about Billy Donovan and actually liked him now. Of course, I actually disliked him (for no good reason, just the whole Pitino factor from the past). This year, I have a couple of coaches that I’ve actually come to like a lot this year.

One is JT III at Georgetown, which is another reason I want them to win. I was never a fan of his dad until after he stopped coaching, but I really like III already. He did a great job at Princeton, and I hope he continues to do well at Georgetown.

The other is Tennessee’s Bruce Pearl. Despite my general dislike of all things Tennessee (see 1998), I’ve already admitted that I’ve grown to like Pat Summitt over the years, and now I’m saying the same about Pearl. He reminds me in some ways of the young Jim Valvano at NC State. He seems like he’d be a great guy to hang out with and talk about basketball, and he seems to really have fun coaching. I still can’t be a Tennessee fan, but I am starting to like Pearl more and more.

Phil Fulmer, don’t hold your breath.