ESPN Bracketologist

[OrangeandBlack74]

Joe Lunardi from ESPN.com is currently chatting online, and he was posed the following question about his current NCAA bracketology, in which he has 4 MVC teams included (Creighton, SIU, Missouri State and Wichita State):

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/bracketology

Matt (Wichita): Joe, I know it's early, but how can you have DePaul in as a 10-seed, yet not even consider putting in Bradley, who by the way, beat DePaul by 20 this weekend.

Joe Lunardi: (4:21 PM ET ) Admittedly the bracket was compiled before the first weekend results. I'm not going to sour on DePaul just yet, but I think we should all keep an eye on Bradley (despite the personnel losses from last year's terrific finish).

[Bravesguy]

It's not ESPN, but CBS has a column that applauds Bradley's win over DePaul.
"Win to brag about It didn't take long for the Missouri Valley Conference to start whipping folks again, did it? Bradley, without its top four scorers from last season, opened Saturday with a 78-58 drubbing of DePaul, proving that the MVC has again cracked the code of the RPI, just like all the BCS-conference mouth pieces suggested last season. The secret, if you're wondering, remains the same. It revolves around winning lots of games, including the ones against Big East schools (like DePaul) projected by most to make the NCAA Tournament.

Final thoughts Of all the games this weekend, the biggest stunner, even more so than Virginia over Arizona, was Bradley routing DePaul. Keep in mind, these are not the Braves you watched in the Sweet 16 last season. These Braves are missing big parts, including NBA lottery pick Patrick O'Bryant, and that's why they were picked eighth in the Missouri Valley Conference's preseason poll, which means the team picked eighth in the MVC just beat the team picked eighth in the Big East. By 20 points. I'm not sure what that means, really, but I know it doesn't make me look stupid for ranking three MVC schools (Wichita State, Creighton and Southern Illinois) in my preseason Top 25. And for that, to Bradley, I'd like to offer one more Led Zeppelin song."

http://www.sportsline.com/collegebasketball/story/9799596

[tornado]

Also nice writeup from Yahoo Sports

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/news?slug=rivals-71685&prov=rivals&type=lgns

[Bravesfan]

Nice kudos to Bradley and the Valley! But agreed, it is early, and the conference schedule will be challenging. That said though, Bradley will win more games than people expect, if for no other reason than they don't lose that often at home, and they have quite a few relatively easy OOC games to accumlate some wins (no, I'm not classifying Michigan St and Illinois as easy)!

[Big Mike]

That was a couple of nice reads guys.........thanks for finding them!