So my CollegeHoopsJournal.com quick piece on UNC Wilmington’s, the longest coaching search in America, abruptly ended one day after the piece came out… piece can be found here

College Hoops Journal had me speculate on coaches. I guess the best thing for a coach right now is to be a TV analyst since Tim Welsh and Steve Lavin went from television to Hofstra and St. John’s respectively.

In an interesting move, Siena coach Fran McCaffery moved on Sunday from Albany to Iowa, taking the Iowa Hawkeyes job (ESPN).

Matt made the war top as bleak as the news for Siena fans.

I think we all had to figure this was going to happen. As much as I’ve heard Fran on every single phoner say that he is very happy in the capital region and with Siena, there were just so many opportunities that (apparently) loved him.

I think, Matt agrees that this is more a testament to how badly the Seton Hall and St. John’s jobs aren’t wanted. The upside there is being 8th in the Big East, maybe. While the upside in the Big Ten, presumably, is competing for a league title.

However it happened, I’m happy for him and wish him the best at Iowa. Now onto Siena’s search for a new head coach, oh an Iona’s too since Kevin Willard left for the Seton Hall job.

RushTheCourt and CollegeHoopsJournal highlight my coaching candidates piece for St. John’s and Seton Hall.

Now that the Saints season is over, time to take a look at everything I just wrote over the last week or so.

Expert Bracketology
The ‘What If’ Game
Q&A Hammer & Rails
Andy Glockner
Michael Ospioff Gary Post Tribune
John Gasaway Basketball Prospectus
Kenny Hasbrouck signed by Heat
Predictions

So I’ve probably done more basketball watching this year than I’ve ever done in a while. Yet when it came time to do brackets, I didn’t feel like putting my bracket in any money pool. Weird right?

Well my round one was ok.

Some of my picks I made because of the writers I liked. I liked the writer who covered the Missouri Tigers who I e-mailed back and forth when he voted Siena in his top 25, so I picked them over Clemson and won.

As of the first round I only have one perfect region, that is the West Region where my Murray State upset held on and BYU managed to win in 2-overtimes.

I made 23 of 32 picks in the first round. That’s alright… so far. More next week when I have picks after round two.

As Selection Sunday approaches, that means I should recap what I’ve been writing about over at SienaSaintsBlog.com.

MAAC/Arena Square off over fans. Siena fans rushed the court Monday night when they won and the MAAC, trying everything to stop them, is very mad at the Times Union Center. So the TUC General Manager and MAAC Commissioner square off. Next time this happens at a MAAC tournament, they should just have a duel.

Siena: Expert Bracketology. I reached out to a countless number of Bracketologists and got a ton of quotes on Siena’s chances on who they’ll play and what seed they’ll be. It’s a lot tougher and more of a news piece than just looking up the seeds on the internet every day plus I think it turned out to be a piece that I’m proud of.

The What if Game. Since Siena was so close to the brink of losing the championship game Monday, I decided to play a what if scenario with the experts on if Siena could have made it if Colin Nickerson’s shot fell. Farifield had a great year by the way, probably will play in a postseason tournament and could be the favorite next year when the tournament goes to Bridgeport. Only reason I say could be is because they lose Seniors Anthony Johnson and Mike Evanovich which is a little bit of a loss.

Selection Sunday will be fun for me. I’ll be on a train heading home from work when, in all likelihood, Siena’s seed and pairing will be announced. From there I will head home, search for the other team’s writers/bloggers out there and try to get answers on their team. Meanwhile someone will write a profile of the Saints on our site and we’ll have big traffic numbers Monday!

While the controversial pulling the team from handshakes and yelling at a reporter started the weekend for the Saints, I had a bunch of other favorite videos but this one from the last weekend at the MAAC Tournament was probably the best.

Meanwhile the site was being mentioned at ESPN.com of all places on their College Basketball Nation Blog:

Siena Saints Blog has video of McCaffery explaining the move and getting testy when the media tried to question him about it.

Then follows that up by quoting our article on the matter. Not the Times Union, not the Troy Record but our article on it! This is why you pair video and stories, for things like this!

RotoSavants Writing continues here. Once this MAAC Tournament ends I’m going to definately jump into a ton of mock drafts in order to get ready for the year. One of my gripes is that in the drafts, the rankings are gerenally influenced from last year. The guys that helped you last year might, and probably won’t, help you this year. Sometimes I’ll fall into the crutch of drafting a guy that helped me last year. Guys like Garrett Jones I will not touch this year but, then again, I might still take a flier on Chris B. Young who burned me severely last year.

I did a few player reels on SienaSaintsBlog this week. Now that it’s been a few days, and SienaSaintsBlog got the traffic, check them out here!

Meanwhile I am working on my HTML skills again in Albany this weekend at the MAAC Tournament..