This Bracket Formula Zigs, but Sure Doesn’t Zag

News, notes, musings and commentary while trying to figure out what the (insert applicable Bob Knight cuss word here) the NCAA tournament selection committee did to Gonzaga and my printable bracket ...

News item: NCAA tournament pairings are released.

Second thought: It’s tough to get a bracketologist to make house calls on a Sunday, yet I somehow snagged a guy who was able to adjust my sacroiliac and explain how the new first-round formula works.

The idea, he said, was to make travel easier for teams in the early rounds, so that’s why Pepperdine can be in the Midwest Regional and USC in the South yet both schools can have opening-round games in Sacramento.

However, there is no explaining what happened to Gonzaga. Not only did the Bulldogs get a lousy No. 6 seeding in the jerky-tough West Regional, the Zags even got shipped to Albuquerque, by far the toughest opening-round site to spell.

Incredibly, selection committee chairman Lee Fowler scratched his head and told CBS that Gonzaga “is not an easy team to seed.”

Well, sure it is. Gonzaga, which has more than earned its NCAA chops, won the West Coast Conference, is No. 20 in the latest RPI and is infinitely more qualified to be a No. 3 than Georgia, which checked out of the Southeastern Conference tournament so fast players forgot to pick up their free watches.

NCAA geniuses, Part II. In its Herculean effort to save the NCAA a few bucks on travel expenses (you know that $2 billion CBS is paying only goes so far), the committee ended up with tilted brackets.

Duke has a relative duck-walk through the South while the West is a basketball booby trap, with four conference tournament champions--Cincinnati, Oklahoma, Arizona and Ohio State--loaded on one side of the plate.

Also, note to commissioners. Playing conference title games Sunday is about as important as the old NCAA third-place consolation game.

Case in point. Oklahoma, fighting for a No. 1 seeding, upset top-ranked Kansas in the Big 12 title game but still got stuck with a No. 2 seed because, we assume, the NCAA committee didn’t want to tinker with its vaunted S-curve so close to the pairings announcement.

Maryland, which lost in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament semifinals Saturday, easily retained its No. 1 seeding and appears to have garnered the top spot overall by virtue of getting to open against Tuesday’s “play-in” winner.

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News item: Kansas is the team to beat in the NCAA tournament.

Second thought: So much for trying to get an early jump on this column. That loss to Oklahoma on Sunday hit me like a truck; imagine how it hit Kansas Coach Roy Williams.

You hate to think Kansas is about to take another NCAA fall, and the talented but title-less Williams will leave another tournament in tears, yet you get the feeling this could be 1997 all over again.

This is clearly Williams’ best team since that Jayhawk juggernaut featuring Jacques Vaughn, Scot Pollard and Raef LaFrentz. Kansas had won 34 games before getting bounced out in the Southeast Regional semifinals by Arizona, which finished fifth in the Pac-10.

I’ll never forget Williams saying after that loss in Birmingham, Ala., “I’m going to keep knocking on the door and one of these days, I’m going to knock the sucker down.”

The time has come, Roy, and the door is awaiting your boot.

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News item: Alcorn State and Siena meet in Tuesday night’s “play-in” game at Dayton, Ohio.

Second thought: The semantics conscious NCAA insists this is not a “play-in” game. OK, what else would you call it? If it’s a first-round game, then what game does Tuesday’s winner advance to, a second-round, first-round game?

Actually, “play-in” is a kinder euphemism than some others I had in mind:

“Loser Goes Home! (Winner goes home Friday)”

Bracket Busters

48 Hours (until real tournament starts)

No Net Gain

We Opted Out of the NIT for This?

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News item: Arizona Daily Star reports that downtown Los Angeles hotel housing Pac-10 officials and players for weekend’s conference tournament did not have cable access to Fox Sports Net.

Second thought: We heard bellhops kept players and officials abreast of all the tournament action through an intricate system of secret hand signals and door knocks: Example: it was one knock if Cal Coach Ben Braun out-coached UCLA’s Steve Lavin, two knocks if Stanford Coach Mike Montgomery checked out early. Three knocks? That was the signal to tune to ESPN for updates.

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News item: Nebraska finishes No. 115 in the latest Rating Percentage Index and does not make the NCAA tournament.

Second thought: Incredibly, the Cornhuskers are holding firm at No. 2 in the latest bowl championship series rankings and think they are deserving of a Final Four matchup against, perhaps, Miami.

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News item: Brian Dennehy stars in profanity-laced performance as Coach Bob Knight in ESPN’s “A Season on the Brink.”

Second thought: Knight’s use of the F-word 15 times in one three-minute snippet breaks the record for a coach/manager set by former Dodger manager Tom Lasorda after he was asked once to assess slugger Dave Kingman’s performance.

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News item: CBS announcer Billy Packer calls the Knight movie “a piece of garbage.”

Second thought: In an industry note, ESPN plans to air Packer’s raw and unexpurgated comments about the movie on ESPN while ESPN2 will simulcast a version that has been toned down for family consumption.

News item: Kobe Bryant says of Reggie Miller, “I don’t like him at all.”

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Second thought: Bryant reveals other “likes” and “dislikes” on the upcoming Barbara Walters Special. Likes: soft summer sunsets, chocolate ice cream, moonlit drives. Dislikes: Miller (“He probably has a sister who shoots better”), movies with foreign subtitles, NBA referees with an agenda, Phil Jackson “when he stares at me that way.”

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News item: ABC pulls plug on John McEnroe-hosted quiz show, “The Chair.”

Second thought: The network is retaining rights to the show’s title in the off chance they can work out a quiz-show deal with Bob Knight.