What you've all been waiting for: BRACKETOLOGY

It's some folks out there who've been waiting on this but It was way too difficult doing a preseason bracketology without a cheat sheet. I really don't have the time to do a thorough review on all 300+ Division teams so I just had to wait until out-of-conference play ended. Before we get to my bracket, here's just a few things I noticed.

The major conferences aren't the only ones doing some shifting. The America East, Colonial, and Atlantic Sun all did some shuffling. The Colonial, which was mainly a conference that stretched from DC to North Carolina, now goes from Atlanta to Boston. East Tennessee State downgraded from the Southern Conference to the Atlantic Sun (I really don't know what that's about).

The Colonial (CAA) and the Missouri Valley (MVC) conferences are really having good years. While it still will probably be a one-bid conference, the CAA has shown well. Drexel almost bead UCLA and Duke in the preseason NIT. Old Dominion beat DePaul, Hofstra won at St. Johns, and it took OT for Wake Forest to beat George Mason.

If the MVC only gets 3 bids as it did last year, then they got screwed. They have the 5th best conference RPI. That's better than the Big XII, Pac-10, A-10, Mountain West, WAC and Conference USA. The MVC deserves 4 or 5 bids this year.

Speaking of Conference USA...It's bad. Real bad. It has the 20th ranked conference RPI. That's worst than the Mid-American, Southern, Southland, Ohio Valley, Sun Belt and Horizon League.

I just want to give everyone out there a warning. I am not very confident in this bracket. You really have to wait and see what happens during conference play. Right now if you took a look at the RPI of these teams and it's a mess. The RPI is not the end all, but it is a good tool to use most of the time. I like basing my brackets off the hard facts and I had to use my judgement which can be very dangerous on January 2. I expect this bracket to look extremely different over the next couple of weeks.

The Big East is too big now. I got 9 teams in from the Big East. Boston College doesn't fit in with the ACC at all. GW isn't as good as people think they are. With the weak schedule the Colonials played, I'm given them an error margin of 4 conference losses for them to feel comfortable if they don't get the automatic bid. This bracket is good for games through January 1.

NCAA Tournament
Washington, DC
1.Duke16.Bethune-Cookman Greensboro, NC
8.George Washington9.Michigan
5.Cincinnati12.Drexel Dallas, TX
4.Kentucky13.Northern Illinois
6.Iowa St11.West Virginia Salt Lake City, UT
3.Arizona14.Tennessee Tech
7.Northern Iowa10.Colorado St Auburn Hills, MI
2.Michigan St15.Sam Houston St
Oakland
1.Villanova16.Vermont Greensboro, NC
8.Indiana9.Arkansas
5.Wake Forest12.Texas A&M San Diego, CA
4.Washington13.Penn
6.Nevada11.Kansas St Philadelphia, PA
3.Pittsburgh14.Western Kentucky
7.Iowa10.Wichita St Jacksonville, FL
2.Florida15.Montana
Atlanta
1.UCONN16.Fairleigh Dickinson/Jackson St Philadelphia, PA
8.Bucknell9.Tennessee
5.Ohio St12.Colorado Jacksonville, FL
4.NC State13.Iona
6.Texas11.Bradley Dayton, OH
3.Louisville14.Pacific
7.North Carolina10.UAB Salt Lake City, UT
2.Gonzaga15.Winthrop
Minneapolis
1.Memphis16.IUPUI Dallas, TX
8.Syracuse9.Vanderbilt
5.Maryland12.Missouri St Auburn Hills, MI
4.Wisconsin13.Loyola (Ill)
6.Boston College11.Georgetown San Diego, CA
3.UCLA14.Davidson
7.Oklahoma10.DePaul Dayton, OH
2.Illinois15.Gardner Webb

My fears confirmed

I always thought that the rest of the Western world had more issues with race than had led on. I mean let's face it, it's pretty naive to think that it wouldn't. People of European decent have oppressed people of color on every habitable continent on Earth. If America, a relatively young country, has yet to deal with all its issues with race, what's there to make you think places with much longer history would have done better.

What triggered this was a Real Sports' story on racism in European soccer. Know I knew of the problems they were having in Spain, however it seems to commonplace in Italy, some British Stadiums, Germany and just about all of Eastern Europe. You have whole sections of stadiums doing the Nazi salute, making monkey sounds whenever a black player touches the ball, throwing bananas at Black players and that's just the beginning.

In a soccer match between Spain and France last year in Madrid, the entire stadium of about 80,000 did the monkey chant and also chanted in unison; "Jump if you're not Black" because France has Black players on its national team.

What's worst is that it's not just the fans. An Italian star was suspended for doing the Nazi salute during a game. The Spanish national coach called France's Thierry Henry, one of the best soccer players in the World and a Black man, a "Black piece of shit." An Italian hockey player was just suspended permanent last week from the national team because he was yelling racial slurs at a biracial player during a game.

What's really upsetting about all this madness is that no one is really doing anything about it and it has been going on for years. I know we still have these type of people in America, but it's NO way they'd be allowed to do this in America in 2005.

When you couple this problem up with the recent race riots in France and in Australia and you start to see that the reconciliation that Europe and the Western World claimed to have with people of color has yet to fully come to fruition. I'm really worried about people of color around the world now. I know these racists, just like in America, are small in number. However, they have gumption that racists in this country haven't mustered yet. Add that to governments that really won't do much to alleviate the problem and you have a very bad situation brewing.

21st century starting to look a lot like the 20th to me.