The Sock 'Em, Bust 'Em Board Because that's our custom

Best basketball weekend of the year

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The 12 games over the next four days typically makes for the best overall basketball theater of the season, so enjoy the feast, and we’ll be back at full speed here Monday. Our bracket pool is wide open, which is the result of the wild first weekend. Mr. Burns has been excellent, but eight others are within four points and 34 others are within eight points.

Then again, 12 of those contenders have no chance thanks to West Virginia’s early exit, and that’s … big … well, at least it’s apropos. The Mountaineers ruined some brackets, and now it appears Kansas and even Oklahoma will decide a lot of things. Those are risky propositions, too, because the Big 12 just hasn’t been good in the NCAA Tournament this year and hasn’t won a Sweet Sixteen game since 2012!

But if Steve Prohm wins tomorrow and Iowa State tops Virginia, the Big 12 then has nine coaches with an Elite Eight appearance now that Jamie Dixon is at TCU. The conference is tough, and you can safely assume the regular season and/or conference tournament costs teams in the postseason, but recent hires make it even tougher.

And while we’re on the topic of changes, there seems to be an idea every now and then about re-seeding the NCAA Tournament when we reach the Sweet Sixteen. I’m wholly against this — I think it punishes teams for getting in and having the audacity to advance, and it takes away the benefits of surprises in tournament play — but it isn’t universally unpopular.

So two questions: Are you for this? And if it were in place today, how would you seed this Sweet Sixteen?