#1 Tennessee visits Vandy tonight

Barack Obama isn't the only frontrunner who will be on national TV tonight trying to defend his recently acquired top-dog status against a rival's onslaught. At 9:00 PM EST -- the same time as the Democratic debate on MSNBC -- the #1-ranked Tennessee men's basketball team will face #18 Vanderbilt on the Commodores' home floor. The game will be on ESPN, and Bruce Pearl will be in his orange blazer.

Go Vols & Go Barack!

P.S. I'm looking ahead a bit now, but take a gander at the Big East standings, and then ponder for a moment Thursday night's big game: Notre Dame at Louisville, 7:00 PM on ESPN. Holy cow. Mike Brey's boys playing, maybe, for a Big East regular-season championship? I love it! Oh, and did I mention it's part of an Irish Trojan doubleheader? USC visits Arizona at 9:00 PM Thursday, also on ESPN. Sweet.

P.P.S. About that "Big East championship" business: Notre Dame, Louisville and Georgetown are all currently tied in the loss column. If the Irish beat the Cardinals, they'll be ahead of them, obviously. Then it's just a matter of the Irish winning out and the Hoyas losing one. The schedules are very conducive to such a result: Notre Dame's final three games are against conference weaklings DePaul (10-16, 5-9), St. John's (10-16, 4-10) and South Florida (11-16, 2-12), while Georgetown, after hosting St. John's tomorrow, finishes up at #21 Marquette (21-6, 11-5) and vs. #13 Louisville (22-6, 12-3). So basically, if the Irish beat Louisville, they would then simply hold serve against the bad teams and hope Georgetown -- which owns the tiebreaker against the Irish -- loses to one of its final two, highly regarded opponents.

So while Notre Dame won't control its own destiny with a win Thursday night (er, unless St. John stuns Georgetown tomorrow), they'd be putting themselves in excellent position for a possible conference championship.

Go Irish!

UPDATE/CORRECTION: In comments, Johnny Mac points out that tiebreakers are only used for seeding purposes, not to determine conference championships, so Notre Dame would be named Big East co-champion if they tie with Georgetown for first. So the Irish do control their own destiny for the conference title, though not for the #1 seed in the conference tournament.

Comments

[jalypso]

Debate to be held in Brendan Loys nick
of the woods.Now We know Hillary will
getting a Good moderator this time.

[jalypso]

Debate to be held in Brendan Loys nick
of the woods.Now We know Hillary will be
getting a Good moderator this time.

sorry

[JohnMac]

If ND ends up tied they will officially be co-Big East champions. The Big East uses tiebreakers for tournament seeding purposes only.

[David K.]

This from the guy who kept saying "Fire Mike Brey"
;-)

[jalypso]

LoL! you like it!!!

[jalypso]

John mccain going to when hand down !1!!
People are to stupid to see past the REpublican trickery!!!Im willing
to bet on that!!!Them old bastards is
going to when on default!!!K.K.K.

[Brendan Loy]

David, the "Mike Brey's boys" was a deliberate self-deprecating reference to my well-documented history of demanding Brey's ouster. :) The crow continues to be tasty...

[Brendan Loy]

P.S. Fire Mike Brey. :P

[jalypso]

John Mccain fears Hillary Clinton like
a Vietnam jungle that caused flashbacks.
He jumps up at night screaming Hillary!!
Goes into Rambo mode kick down a door
shout come on you hamburger hill!!!I
need some sum some ??Calls brendan loy,
G.w.b for hard cash endorsement

[Marty West]

Roy Hibbert is going to eat people alive in the tournament. Georgetown looks nice.

I was at the Nova vs. Marquette game last night and they looked like shit. We left when Nova was down 18.

[Becky]

Whatever, Brendan. Mike Brey has an AWESOME assistant coach.

[FzxGkJssFrk]

GO DORES!!

Sorry, I couldn't resist :)

[nope]

ND is going to lose to Louisville so it won't matter.