2014 NCAA Tournament Automatic Bids

Here are the teams that have earned their conferences' automatic bids for the 2014 NCAA men's basketball tournament.

Major conferences:
ACC: Virginia
Big Ten: Michigan State
Big 12: Iowa State
Pac-12: UCLA
SEC: Florida

Mid-majors we've done Know Your Mid-Majors on as of Selection Sunday:
American Athletic: Louisville^
Atlantic 10: St. Joseph's
Atlantic Sun: Mercer^
Conference USA: Tulsa^
Missouri Valley: Wichita State
Ohio Valley: Eastern Kentucky
Southland: Stephen F. Austin
SoCon: Wofford
Summit: North Dakota State
Sun Belt: Louisiana-Lafayette
WAC: New Mexico State
West Coast: Gonzaga

Mid-majors we will do Know Your Mid-Majors on after Selection Sunday:
America East: Albany
Big East: Providence
Big Sky: Weber State
Big South: Coastal Carolina
Big West: Cal Poly
Colonial: Delaware
Horizon: UW-Milwaukee
Ivy League*: Harvard
MAAC: Manhattan
MAC: Western Michigan
MEAC: North Carolina Central
Mountain West: New Mexico
Northeast: Mount St. Mary's
Patriot: American
SWAC: Texas Southern

*The Ivy League does not hold a conference tournament.  The conference's automatic bid goes to the regular season champion.

^Indicates a school that is changing conferences over the summer.

Mike's Day at Planet Comicon

You may recall that, as a result of picking worse than Tim on how the 2013-14 NFL season would finish, Mike was given a batsu game - go to Planet Comicon and get an autograph from John Ratzenberger, the actor who played mailman Cliff Clavin on Cheers.

Planet Comicon was this weekend at Bartle Hall in Kansas City.  How did Mike do?

Mike got the autograph and generally had a great time at Planet Comicon.

Episode 49 - Know Your Mid-Majors: SoCon

Mike concludes a string of three straight solo Know Your Mid-Majors segments with the Southern Conference (SoCon).

Interesting fact about this conference: if spawned not one but two of our current major conferences - the Southeastern Conference (SEC) in 1932 and the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) in 1953.

The 2013-14 members of this conference are:

• Appalachian State (leaving for Sun Belt in summer 2014)
• Tennessee-Chattanooga
• The Citadel
• Davidson (leaving for A-10 in summer 2014)
• Elon (leaving for Colonial in summer 2014)
• Furman
• Georgia Southern (leaving for Sun Belt in summer 2014)
• Samford
• UNC Greensboro
• Western Carolina (Mike can't pronounce the name of the town this school is located in)
• Wofford

Joining the SoCon during the summer are East Tennessee State (Atlantic Sun), Mercer (Atlantic Sun) and Virginia Military Institute (VMI) (Big South).

Former St. Louis Rams CB Cortland Finnegan, who introduced the "Smack Cam" fad in the Rams locker room in 2013, is a Samford grad.  Therefore, audio from some of Finnegan's "Smack Cam" videos is used in this episode for illustrative purposes only.

Click here to download.

Episode 48 - Know Your Mid-Majors: Atlantic Sun

Mike is solo again for Know Your Mid-Majors.  Today's conference: Atlantic Sun Conference.

The 2013-14 schools of this conference are:

• East Tennessee State (leaving for SoCon in summer 2014)
• Florida Gulf Coast (founded in 1991, this is the newest NCAA DI school - and made the tournament in 2013)
• Jacksonville
• Kennesaw State
• Lipscomb
• Mercer (leaving for SoCon in summer 2014)
• Northern Kentucky
• North Florida
• South Carolina Upstate
• Stetson

 


Click here to download.

Episode 47 - Know Your Mid-Majors: Sun Belt

Mike starts a string of three solo Know Your Mid-Majors with the Sun Belt Conference.

The 2013-14 schools of this conference are:

• Arkansas State
• Arkansas-Little Rock
• Georgia State
• Louisiana-Lafayette
• Louisiana-Monroe
• South Alabama
• Texas State
• Texas-Arlington
• Troy
• Western Kentucky (leaving for Conference USA in summer 2014)

Joining this conference over the summer are Appalachian State and Georgia Southern, both from the Southern Conference.

This edition of Know Your Mid-Majors contains small clips from the Tony Kornheiser Show (during its ESPN Radio incarnation) where he talks about a controversy around Western Kentucky's blob-like mascot Big Red.  Intended for illustrative purposes only.

Click here to download.

Episode 46 - Know Your Mid-Majors: Conference USA

Today's Know Your Mid-Majors deals with the quintessential high mid-major: Conference USA.

The 2013-14 schools of this conference are:

• Alabama-Birmingham (UAB)
• East Carolina (headed to the American Athletic in summer 2014)
• Florida Atlantic
• Florida International
• Louisiana Tech (Terry Bradshaw's alma mater)
• Marshall
• Middle Tennessee State
• UNC Charlotte
• North Texas
• Old Dominion
• Rice
• Southern Mississippi (Brett Favre's alma mater)
• Texas-El Paso (UTEP)
• Texas-San Antonio (UTSA)
• Tulane (headed to the American Athletic in summer 2014)
• Tulsa (headed to the American Athletic in summer 2014)

Western Kentucky (currently in the Sun Belt Conference) joins this conference in summer 2014.

 


Click here to download.

City wins League Cup. Mike is SAFE!

The 2013-14 edition of England's League Cup has come and gone.

Manchester City 3-1 Sunderland

Mike correctly picked City to win this game - and by 2 goals.

As a result, Mike is SAFE and does not have yet another batsu game coming for the time being.

There is still the matter of the NBA regular season as well as Barcelona's fate in the UEFA Champions League.

So far, 5 of the issued 6 batsu games have been completed.  The one outstanding is Mike getting a certain autograph in less than two weeks (he still hasn't got tickets).