With no more Arkansas-Pine Bluff, who cares about March Madness?

Yikes, do I suck at blogging...almost as much as Kansas sucks at making me money. Since I never got around to doing a pre-tourney blog post, here's my Final Four:

KANSAS
KANSAS STATE
WEST VIRGINIA
DUKE
with KANSAS over WEST VIRGINIA in the finals

My PRESEASON Final Four from back in November (with their actual finish in parens):
KANSAS (1 seed, 2nd round)
VILLANOVA (2 seed, 2nd round)
PURDUE (4 seed, still alive)
TEXAS (8 seed, 1st round)
with Kansas over Purdue in the finals

I'm a stat geek, so here are some funz factz you might not see anywhere else (yeah, the 2nd round isn't even over, but I'm killing time until dinner reservations):

- Kansas's loss to Northern Iowa is notable for a couple reasons:
- First 1 seed to lose before the Elite 8 since 2006 (LSU over Duke in Sweet 16)
- First 1 seed to lose in the 2nd round since 2004 (UAB over Kentucky, Alabama
over Stanford)
- Kansas loses to a double-digit seed for the 3rd time in Bill Self's tenure.
The other two were also big upsets, both in the 1st round: 14-seed Bucknell in
2005 and 13-seed Bradley in 2006

- Northern Iowa becomes only the 4th 9-seed of the 64-team era to advance to the Sweet 16. They join UAB (2004), Boston College (1994) and UTEP (1992). UAB and UTEP both lost in the Sweet 16, but Boston College made to the Elite 8, where it lost to 3-seeded Florida. Nine-seeds fared better in the pre-64 team seeding era (1979-1984), where St. Joseph's (1981) made a run to the Elite 8 and Penn (1979) made it all the way to the Final Four. History says Northern Iowa should be rooting for Michigan State. 9-seeds are 2-0 all time vs. 5-seeds, but only 1-2 vs. 4-seeds.

- St. Mary's makes the Sweet 16 for the first time since 1959, while Baylor makes it's first Sweet 16 appearance since 1950.

- Cornell gives the Ivy League it's first tourney win since 1998, when the 5th-seeded Princeton Tigers made it to the 2nd round. The Ivy League hasn't been to the Sweet 16 since 9-seed Penn in 1979--a team that made it all the way to the Final Four, where it got crushed by Michigan State and Magic Johnson (but fortunately came away from the loss HIV-free). That Penn team also has the distinction of being the only 9-seed to make the Final Four.

- Non-BCS schools don't earn top three seeds very often, and when they do it doesn't end well. With 3-seed New Mexico's loss today, here are the numbers for mid-majors with top three seeds this century (NOTE: Memphis doesn't count since Calipari paid his players more money than they're making in the NBA):
2010: New Mexico (3) upset by Washington (11) in 2nd round
2008: Xavier (3) loses to UCLA (1) in Elite 8
2006: Gonzaga (3) loses to UCLA (2) in Sweet 16
2005: Gonzaga (3) upset by Texas Tech in 2nd round
2004: St. Joseph's (1) upset by Oklahoma St (2) in Elite 8
Gonzaga (2) upset by Nevada (10) in 2nd round
2003: Xavier (3) upset by Maryland (6) in 2nd round
2000: Temple (2) upset by Seton Hall (10) in 2nd round
Only Xavier in 2008 and Gonzaga in 2006 fulfilled or exceeded the expectations of their seed, and St. Joseph's in 2004 is the only other one to make the Sweet 16. But to be fair, the high-seeded non-BCS schools are perfect in the 1st round.

- With only half of the Sweet 16 filled out (I'm writing this on Saturday evening), we already have 6 conferences represented. Those include:
Big XII: Kansas State and Baylor
Horizon: Butler
Missouri Valley: Northern Iowa
Pac 10: Washington
SEC: Tennessee and Kentucky
WCC: St. Mary's

- Notable that only 3 power conferences have representation. The ACC, Big East and Big Ten will likely all be there by tomorrow. But only two more small conferences also have hopes of making it to the 2nd weekend, including the Atlantic 10 (Xavier - 6), and the Ivy League (Cornell - 12). I would--and have--put my money on Xavier. If Xavier and Cornell both win, that means 11 conferences will have representation in the Sweet 16--the most of the 64-team era.

- Ohio over Georgetown marks the first 14-3 upset since 2006, when Northwestern State overcame a 17-point deficit to Iowa.

- Robert Morris made it close, but Villanova's win means it will be at least 10 years since the last 15-2 upset (Hampton over Iowa State)

And finally, the stat of the day:
- CBS paid $6 billion for it's deal with the NCAA to televise the tournament. That's just slightly more than Kentucky boosters paid for John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Eric Bledsoe and Daniel Orton.

More stats as they come. If you don't hear from me, it means West Virginia lost and crushed my hopes & dreams.

Today's homoerotic sports moment is brought to you by Andrew Doobay