Here’s this week’s bracket:

Madness?: No, this is the Spartans. Back from an 0-2 start, Michigan State has finally moved into the fourth #1 seed position. Their resume looks better every week, they have the inside track to win the toughest conference in the country, and they get their primary competition for that title (Ohio State) at home down the stretch. It also helps that Ohio State is MSU’s primary competition for a #1 seed. Duke has also swung back into a #1 seed — as David said on the BracketPod, they have beaten Michigan State, Michigan, Kansas, and North Carolina AWAY from home this year. Who else can say that?

So what about Missouri?: Currently, the Tigers sit in fifth place on the S-curve. They’ve got a LOT of national momentum, but their resume just doesn’t stack up to Michigan State or Ohio State, and I’m curious to see how they handle Kansas on the road.

Oh wow, it’s you again: I’ve been railing against the Pac 12 all season. And it’s still not a good conference, believe me. But I’m having trouble with the bottom of the at-large field now, because as unimpressive as some of these Pac 12 resumes are, they’re starting to look more consistent than their competition. Washington made it into the bracket this week, and Oregon barely got left out. Arizona is slowly assembling a bottom-of-the-field type of resume. And California continues to win games. I used to think the Pac 12 was destined to one shameful bid. Now they could get two or three, which would be a real shame.

The first law of bracketology: There’s a lot of doomsayers in the bracket world, and many like to talk about games being “must-win” or losses being “crippling” to seeding or bid chances. But remember the first law of bracketology — Thou Shalt Not Overreact To Any One Game. We’ve seen Northwestern given the last rites about six different times this year, yet they are still solidly in my field. Indiana got blown out at Iowa, and it was a very disappointing loss for the Hoosiers, but it was only one game, on the road, against a team that is sniffing around the Top 100. Miami followed up their win at Duke with close losses at Florida State and at home to UNC, and people started tweeting about their demise (nonsense!). As bad as losses may look, they’re often times not.

Rising: The teams who helped themselves out the most this week were New Mexico, Wichita State, and Michigan. The Lobos have gone from questionable 10/11 seed range to 6-7 seed range, and still have room to climb. Wichita State’s dismantling of Davidson should put them solidly on the 4 line. Meanwhile, Michigan’s hot streak has pushed them up into 3 seed range.

Falling: Baylor is dropping like a rock, mostly due to their resume being devoid of any wins over potential seeds better than 7. Mississippi State and Alabama are really struggling right now, and don’t have a great deal on their resume to back themselves up. The trios of teams from the Big Ten (Illinois, Northwestern, Minnesota) and Big East (Seton Hall, Cincinnati, Connecticut) continue to do significant damage to themselves, and the Gophers actually dropped out of the bracket this week.

Last Four In: Xavier, Seton Hall, Washington, St. Joseph’s

Last Four Out: UCF, Oregon, Colorado State, Minnesota

We also take in the full smorgasboard of college basketball, talking everything from South Florida’s at-large chances to Drexel and Long Beach State’s standing in the S-curve hierarchy. That and much much more, only on the Bracketology Show!

Special guest for this podcast is Mike Portscheller of Big Ten Geeks. This episode also features comments and commentary from Scott, Matt Blaszka, Chronic Hoosier, Mike Petry, and a late-in-the-game call from Tanner.

VJIII’s absence is the Ewing Theory on Steroids
    Assuming everyone is familiar with Bill Simmons’ Ewing theory of teams that play better without the “superstar” than they did with him. Though counter-intuitive, this actually makes sense.  When the dominant personality on a team goes down, the entire team fills the vacuum and everyone plays above his previous expectations.
    So what’s that have to do with Verdell Jones III? Well despite his numerous limitations, over the last four years it became quite clear that VJIII was probably the dominant personality on the squad. Unlike virtually every other player on the roster, Jones has never lacked the confidence or drive necessary to be a team leader.  (EVEN WHEN ALL EVIDENCE SCREAMED HE SHOULD IN FACT NOT BE SO DAMN CONFIDENT) There’s a reason he took the initial inbound pass against Kentucky and dribbled up court, where he was likely the number one scoring option had he not noticed Christian Watford. There’s a reason why when the shot clock winds down, all too often the ball ends up in his hands. I should point out that despite my frequent defense of him, I don’t think he’s best suited for this role. If IU needs someone to get to the rim, I’d much rather it be Victor Oladipo or Will Sheehey. If IU needs someone to take a tough shot, I’d much rather have just about anyone aside from Tom Pritchard.
   This is why Verdell’s “Ewing Theory” impact has been even greater than what you’d normally expect.  In general, the injured athlete is in fact the best player on the team. The reason people forecast doom is because obviously a team will miss it’s leading scorer, or top post player. In this case however, Verdell was far from the best player.  When other people had to fill the void, they were actually better than the original player.  Hopefully, the two games without him won’t be forgotten as he gets back into the rotation and Verdell can continue to evolve into a talented role player which is the role that suits him best.

Stat to distract you from those awful Jared jewlery commercials: Since Bruce Weber whined about the discrepancy in foul shots last week, I thought I’d look at how meaningful the discrepancy was. Taking just the conference games, IU leads the B1G Ten in Free Throws Made(216) Attempted(285) and Percentage(75.8%.) The Hoosiers are averaging 21.9 FTA/Game so far while IU opponents are averaging 19.8 FTA/game. So Bruce can quit whining. But the dramatic difference is comparing this year to last year. Last year, IU went to the free throw line 300 times in 18 games for an average of about 16.7 attempts per game but opponents went to the line an astounding 472 times, and average of 26.3 times per game.

Scouting Future Opponents:
1. Iowa travels to Penn State on Thursday
2. North Carolina Central faces North Carolina A&T  on Saturday
3. Minnesota faces THE Ohio State University on Tuesday

Prediction: The Bowling Ball with the Homer inscription will not pass muster as a Valentine’s Day gift, despite the obviously hysterical reference.
Northwestern strikes me as a less physical but more skilled Purdue team. IU will need to impose its’ physical strength much like it did against the Boilermakers. I think Northwestern makes IU sweat this out, but the Hoosiers pull away late in 2nd half and win 76-65.

Cougar Headaches: One of the more unpleasant aspects of doing Bracketology every year is dealing with BYU and their “special needs” when it comes to bracketing. For those of you who are unaware, BYU requires that they never play on Sunday due to religious obligation. So every year that the Cougars are eligible for a bid, we end up having to do bracket gymnastics trying to find a site that appeases them. What this requires is finding a pod for them which plays on Thursday/Saturday, AND which feeds into a Regional that plays Thursday/Saturday. If that sounds simple, it’s not — since the pods are uncoupled from the regions, and since they are largely decided based on the conference affiliation of the protected seeds, and since the pod orientation is almost always decided based on who the top four seeds are (and trickles down from there)…what we end up with is a mess. Like this week! BYU was one of my last four in, which should land them in a play-in game. However, the only 4/5 pod that they could fit into was the Louisville/Boston pod…and that created havoc elsewhere thanks to the overabundance of Big East teams. So the Cougars get bumped OUT of the play-in game, down to a 13 seed, where they play Wisconsin.

Baylor scares: Scott Drew’s team presents an interesting challenge. Everyone seems convinced that they’re actually a top 10 team, yet they’ve done nothing to actually prove that this season. They’ve had exactly four games against really top-shelf competition, and they’ve lost all four. They now have no opportunities left to get a big win before the Big 12 tournament. We talked about this as a possible 1 seed just a few weeks ago. Is it now possible that they might not even garner a 3 seed?

Unevenly distributed: The Big Ten has nine teams in this field once again, and I don’t see that changing unless Minnesota or Illinois really falls off the map. It’s interesting to see how the teams are clustered, though. The conference has five teams in the top four seed lines, and three of them (Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana) are frankly difficult to distinguish for seeding purposes. Then there’s a huge gap before you get to the next team (Purdue, at a 9 seed), followed by a cluster of teams in the 10-12 range.

Arrivals: Texas, Seton Hall

Departures: Colorado State, Central Florida

Big Ten (9): Ohio State, Michigan State, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Purdue, Illinois, Northwestern, Minnesota

Big East (9): Syracuse, Marquette, Georgetown, Louisville, Notre Dame, West Virginia, Connecticut, Cincinnati, Seton Hall

Big 12 (6): Kansas, Missouri, Baylor, Kansas State, Iowa State, Texas

SEC (5): Kentucky, Florida, Vanderbilt, Mississippi State, Alabama

ACC (5): Duke, North Carolina, Florida State, Virginia, Miami

Mountain West (3): New Mexico, UNLV, San Diego State

Atlantic 10 (3): St. Louis, Temple, Xavier

West Coast Conference (3): St. Mary’s, Gonzaga, BYU

Missouri Valley (2): Wichita State, Creighton

Conference USA (2): Memphis, Southern Mississippi

On this edition, Galen and The Committee are joined by Matt Norlander of CBS Sports, and he talks with us about a variety of issues, including who currently gets the fourth #1 seed, where the vast middle of the Big Ten is destined to end up, and what the heck is going on with the Atlantic 10 and Mountain West conferences.

We also talk about Baylor’s trevails in the last week, the deal with North Carolina, the surprising swoon from Creighton, and the emergence of ESPN’s new BPI ratings system. As always, we couple these and other topics with analysis and commentary on all levels of college basketball, from the biggest conferences to the one-bid leagues.

Be sure to check us out on iTunes at http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast//id485301452. And as always, thanks for listening! Be sure to join us on the live show next week, from 9-11 pm.

We all know that these expectations have changed. While sitting at 19-6 and 23rd in the country, it’s easy to see why this has been such a pleasing year for IU fans. At a glance, a team that hadn’t been ranked in three seasons cracking the top 10 earlier this year should create excitement in the fan base.

However, it’s not the wins themselves, but who the Hoosiers are beating that’s gotten fans excited.

Part of what made the early-Crean years so tough for the Hoosiers was not only the suffers they had, but the success other Indiana colleges had. Their biggest rival, Purdue, had a dynamic trio of stars. Notre Dame finished among the top of the Big East and had some of their most successful years. Plus, there’s Butler and their success. Heck, you could even throw in Kentucky, who’s IU’s biggest non-conference rival.

Let’s take a closer look at the records of the notable Indiana colleges and UK from the 2008-09 season through the 2010-11 seasons.

Indiana – 28-66
Purdue – 82-24, 2 Sweet 16 appearances
Butler –  87-21, 2 national title game appearance
Notre Dame –  71-34, 2 NCAA tournament appearance
Kentucky – 86-26, 1 Elite Eight appearance, 1 Final Four

The discrepancy is huge. While IU was nearly 40 games under .500, The Boilermakers, the Bulldogs, and the Wildcats all were nearly 60 games over .500. Their success came at the worst time possible for an IU fan.

Fast forward to this season. Notre Dame had lost key players to graduation and their star Tim Abromaitis to an injury. Purdue had just said good-bye to two-thirds of it’s Big Three. Butler said bye to it’s two stars in Shelvin Mack and Matt Howard. All the while, IU was only welcoming talent, most notably in the form of a 7-footer from Washington, Indiana. And while big things weren’t expected of IU this season, the changing of the guard would be nice.

However, as we know, IU wasn’t ok with just a mediocre season. They flew out of the gates and looked like a team no one thought they’d be. The first bit of redemption came when IU throttled an Evansville team that went .500 last year and made the CBI. It was a small step in the right direction, but there was more to come.

Next came the showdown in Assembly Hall against Butler, a team that had dominated the media in Indiana. IU blew them out of the gym from the get-go and offered another taste of redemption. Taking down the “Dawgs” only added to their swagger.

The biggest test came on December 10th when undefeated IU faced undefeated Kentucky. Perhaps the most frustrating team to watch during IU’s down years was Kentucky, who simply reloaded with talent each season. This season was no different as they came into IU with a far more talented unit.

Whether it be the years of sitting in the shadows or embracing the moment, but IU dominated the game, holding a double digit lead for most of the second half. However, as the old saying goes, every team has a run in them and Kentucky took the lead late. We all know what happened next as Christian Watford not only upset Kentucky, but put IU on the map again.

The Indiana Redemption Tour’s next stop was Indianapolis where they met Notre Dame. IU flexed their muscles inside as Zeller finished with 21 points and 8 boards as IU rolled through another Indiana school.

The tour was put on hold until last weekend, when the last stop of the season was made in West Lafayette. Purdue’s dominance over IU in recent years was incredibly frustrating and for the first time in many years, IU was in a good position to win the game.

And that they did.

Aided by great play from freshman Remy Abel and the slightly more experience Victor Oladipo, IU finished off Purdue and made it a perfect 5 for 5 in the Redemption Tour.

With one more game against Purdue to end the season, IU has one more chance to make a statement, but it couldn’t be any louder than the one they’ve made.

Indiana is back. All other Indiana schools have been warned.