To avoid talking about basketball...

...I'll say this: I'm surprised how many people asked me about NCAA Football (the video game) after I mentioned it in the America 12 post yesterday.

When it comes to that game, here's my m/o: I only play single-player dynasty mode, I only play on Heisman difficulty (not trying to brag, but I like it to be really hard, if possible), and I only coach shitty schools.  Over the course of the last decade, here is the exhaustive list of teams I have elevated to elite status and a national championship.  In no particular order...

Virginia, multiple times (of course)
Baylor (pre Art Briles, when they were super-crappy)
Iowa State
Temple
Purdue
Indiana
Washington State
Vanderbilt
Kansas

Here's where it gets really fun...
Memphis
UAB
SMU
Rice
Tulane
Army
Bowling Green
Akron
Eastern Michigan
San Diego State
Wyoming
Colorado State
UNLV
Hawaii
Middle Tennessee
Louisiana-Monroe
Utah State
Idaho

Currently working on: New Mexico

Some superlatives from the last decade or so of wasting copious hours of my life playing the various annual iterations of this game...

Toughest place to win: Army
Second toughest: Idaho
Top five favorite rags-to-riches schools: Memphis, Tulane, UNLV, Utah State, Wyoming

Sweet, sweet Green Wave

Longest non-Virginia coaching tenure: Memphis (~10 seasons)
Wackiest in-game realignmageddon: guiding Idaho into the Pac-10
Second wackiest: Memphis into the SEC
Third wackiest: Army into the Big 10
To-do list: Virginia (always and forever), Navy, Ohio U, Buffalo, UMass, Toledo, Western Michigan, Louisiana-Lafayette, FIU, FAU, South Alabama, San Jose State, UTSA
#1 lesson learned: I hate the Big 10
#2 lesson: develop recruitng pipelines in Florida, Texas, and/or Cali
#3 lesson: recruit running backs and convert them into defensive ends
#4 lesson: once winning gets easy, jump ship to the next challenge, never overstay the challenge
Uniforms I liked at first but then learned to hate: Indiana, Army (with the camo), SMU, Vandy, ULM
Uniforms I was meh about at first but then learned to love: Tulane, UAB, Memphis, Utah State, UNLV

Biggest self-indulgence: Writing this Wahooze post.

America 12

Looks like the football remnants of the Big East are going to call themselves the "America 12 Conference."  And it also sounds like they are going to reach out to Tulsa* to... you know... actually get to 12 teams.

America 12 membership:

Cincinnati

ECU

Houston

Memphis

Navy

SMU

Temple

Tulane

*Tulsa(?)

UCF

UConn

USF

It's a weird conference.  Very weird.  But I'm not going to lie -- as boofooed as this conference has been during realignmageddon - really, it's like it fell into a lava-spewing crack in the earth caused by the tremors - it's not so bad what they've clumped together.  It seems somehow workable to me.  Sure, it has a C*USA feel to it, and sure, none of these schools are really football powerhouses.  But I bet they play some fun games, and I bet I'll enjoy guiding an America 12 school in NCAA Football 14.  (Tulane Green Wave, I'm looking at you.)

Meanwhile, in case you missed it, the "Catholic 7" took the name "Big East" and invited Butler and Xavier (and maybe Creighton*) to forge a pretty damn good basketball conference.  It's good, because the Big East was always a basketball conference, anyway.  This one will rival the ACC, BigTen, and Mountain West (that's right, the Mountain West) as the best basketball conference in the land.

Big East membership:

Butler

*Creighton(?)

DePaul

Georgetown

Marquette

Providence

St. John's

Seton Hall

Villanova

Xavier

Realignmageddon touches everyone, in different and special ways.  Rock on, realignmageddon.  Rock on.

Bubblicious...

Along with Nathan's fantastic analysis in tracking the bubble scene (see his fine work in the comments section of the "Viewing Guide" post), there is THIS amazing piece from Streaking the Lawn.  Click and read that.  Right now.  Drop everything and do it.

Also, stumbled across THIS little beauty.  Seriously, it's a bracket nerd's paradise.  And the fun thing is that Virginia's super-wacky tournament résumé (great wins, horrendous losses, meh RPI, generally passing the eyeball test, but not always) is giving bracketologists everywhere something to talk about.

So tonight... is pretty much a must-win.  My cable is still out as of right now, so I might not even get to watch.  Bodes well for the Hoos, being the giant drippy jinx that I am.

Go Hoos.

FUNDAMENTAL!

Viewing Guide

My friend Nathan made us an awesome Bubble Viewing Guide!

Clickslap HERE to take a look-see.

Thanks Nathan!

You are now a Lobos, Bulldogs, Wildcats, Longhorns, Jayhawks, Runnin' Rebels, Bulls, Buckeyes, Cornhuskers, Cowboys, Mountaineers, Gators, Colonials, Billikens, Tarheels, Horned Frogs, Tigers, Thundering Herd, Golden Knights, Fighting Irish, Golden Eagles, Rams, Hoyas, Trojans, and Bruins fan.

GO BILLIKENS!

As you know, we're on the bubble... after two blissful days as a tournament lock after beating Duke.  Losing to BC yesterday has cast us in with the 27 teams listed below, fighting for what will probably be 10-12 tournament spots, depending upon how the various and sundry conference tournaments play out.

These teams listed below are our enemies.  Listed beside them are their opponents down the stretch.  Since we want our fellow bubble teams to lose, we need to see their opponents win.  Makes sense, right?  Thus, we are now Lobos, Bulldogs, Wildcats, Longhorns, Jayhawks, Runnin' Rebels, Bulls, Buckeyes, Cornhuskers, Cowboys, Mountaineers, Gators, Colonials, Billikens, Tarheels, Horned Frogs, Tigers, Thundering Herd, Golden Knights, Fighting Irish, Golden Eagles, Rams, Hoyas, Trojans, and Bruins fans.

Bubble Team -- Remaining Opponents

Air Force -- SDSU, New Mexico

Alabama -- Ole Miss, Georgia

Arizona State -- Arizona

Baylor -- Texas, Kansas

Boise State -- UNLV, SDSU

BYU -- n/a

California -- Stanford

Cincinnati -- USF

Illinois -- Iowa, Ohio State

Iowa -- Illinois, Nebraska

Iowa State -- Oklahoma St., West Virginia

Kentucky -- Georgia, Florida

La Salle -- George Washington, St. Louis

Maryland -- UNC, UVA

Oklahoma -- West Virginia, TCU

Ole Miss -- Alabama, LSU

San Diego State -- Air Force, Boise State

Southern Miss -- Marshall, UCF

Stanford -- Cal

St. John's -- Notre Dame, Marquette

Saint Mary's -- n/a

Temple -- Fordham, VCU

Tennessee -- Auburn, Missouri

UMass -- Butler, Rhode Island

Villanova -- Georgetown

Washington -- USC, UCLA

Xavier -- St. Louis, Butler

Meanwhile, beware the dreaded 'bid thief,' shitbag mid-major schools with good enough tourney résumés to gobble up an at-large bid even if they lose in their podunk conference tournament.

Akron

Belmont

Bucknell

Louisiana Tech

Memphis

Middle Tennessee State

Hate them, but pull for them to win their conference tournaments so we don't see the at-large allotment drop for the bubble teams.

And there you have it, your college basketball viewing guide for the next two weeks.  Pull for the Hoos to win - obviously - pull for the other bubble teams to lose, and pull for the potential bid thieves to win their conference tournaments.

Quin's Essential

In case you missed it on Wednesday, the Hoos reeled in consensus 5-star free safety prospect Quin Blanding from Bayside high school in Virginia Beach.  If this is news to you, you really should read more about it -- HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Say hello to "Pretty Ricky"

Saying Blanding is a 5-star doesn't even begin to tell the tale.  He's not only the #1 safety recruit in the nation, he's also the #4 recruit overall according to Rivals (#7 overall according to 247) and the #2 recruit in the state of Virginia.  Some analysts have joked that if the recruiting services gave out 6th stars, Quin Blanding would get one.

So he's a great player -- a free safety all the way, a guy who runs like a deer and hits like a truck, who is smart on and off the field, ca cover from sideline to sideline and boundary to boundary, has the proverbial 6th sense when it comes to taking proper angles from the safety position, has the clichéd "high football IQ," has outstanding ball skills, has a great attitude and work ethic, is a grinder, instinctive, has legit NFL potential, and is a charismatic leader.

And it's that charismatic leadership that makes Quin so essential.  Because not only are we getting a great player - probably the best safety prospect we've had since Anthony Poindexter, and it might not even be close - he's also one of those "first domino" types of recruits who has a ton of friends who happen to be very talented football players, guys who Blanding will work hard to help recruit to UVA.  Those very talented friends include:

• 5-star defensive tackle Andrew Brown
• 4-star wide receiver Jamil Kamara
• 4-star defensive end Jalyn Holmes
• 4-star offensive lineman Steven Moss
• 4-star defensive tackle Derrick Nnadi

It's not a stretch to think that Blanding could help reel in four of these five recruits, giving Virginia its best recruiting class in a over a decade, and setting the stage for UVA to ascend to the top of the ACC and to a position of national relevance.

So celebrate this commitment, because it's a pretty big deal.

Yep, that's right.  Number 3.  I have little doubt Pretty Ricky will be able to live up to the legacy of Dex.  Incredible to be able to say that, isn't it?

Worth 1000 Words

Unfortunately, I haven't had time to talk about Quin Blanding or the SUPERHUGE upset win over Duke, but there is at least this:

And this:

Great, great win last night.  And how about Joe Harris?  Best game I've ever seen a UVA player have, it was just awesome.  Every dead ball, he was walking around breathing in big angry, heaving gulps, like he was turning into a werewolf or something.  As Doc Walker might say, maybe Joe was transforming into a psycho ninja cyborg werewolf.

As I was saying on the 247 message board, it's definitely time for us to start considering where Joe ranks among the list of UVA greats, especially over the course of the last 15-20 years.

I'm still in a swirl of euphoria from last night, but I don't think I'd trade Joe for Mike Scott, Sean Singletary, Roger Mason, Travis Watson, or Curtis Staples right now. Getting into that '95 team that went to the Elite Eight... that's where my mind is right now. How does Joe stack up against key cogs on that that team? Junior Burrough?

Bryant Stith was a special, special player. Best UVA player I've ever seen (Ralph was before my time). But Joe has a chance to at least match Stith's stature.

Joe is only a junior. He has this coming postseason and then all of next season to define his ultimate legacy. But best player since the mid-90s I think is firmly in his sights.

In any case, I definitely see a jersey retirement in Joe's future.

Anyway, that was a huge win.  We're off the bubble and safely into the Tournament, I'd say.  Still, can't afford to shit the bed in these last three games.  Need to win two of them.  At BC on Sunday could be tough, coming off of the high of beating Duke.

Watch the video.

(At the 0:39 mark, I'm pretty sure Justin Anderson is saying: "Don't you realize? The next time you see sky, it'll be over another town. The next time you take a test, it'll be in some other school. Our parents, they want the best of stuff for us. But right now, they got to do what's right for them. Because it's their time. Their time! Up there! Down here, it's our time. It's our time down here. That's all over the second we ride up Troy's bucket.")