The Easter Bunny Hates You

This is absolutely moronic, non-sensical and... utterly hilarious.

The Randomness of Me

It's been awhile since I posted anything on here, so I think I'll just do a lightning round of topics.

• Lost in the great Kobe Bryant point string is the fact the Los Angeles Lakers are still a fatally flawed team and never was that more apparent than in their loss to the Memphis Grizzlies on Tuesday night. The Lakers, as has been the case all season long, can't defend anyone and it was only because the Grizzle are such a horrendous team that the Lake Show wasn't blown out of the water more. The Grizzlies were 3-for-15 from the three and missed their first 10 from distance and many of those were uncontested looks. What's more, the Lakers on offence can't get anyone other than Kobe or Lamar Odom, it would seem, to knock down shots with consistency. Sasha Vujacic is perhaps the only other player on the team whom you might actually think about defending on the perimeter. But LA went 13-for-35 (35!!!) from three on Tuesday night and had its fair share of open looks all the while blowing a lead that reached 15 points at one stage.

• Smush Parker is maybe the easiest starting guard in the league to defend. You don't have to have any respect for his shooting ability and if you can take away penetration from him, it's not like he's going to hurt you by finding other guys because, let's face it, he's a shoot-first style point guard who can't shoot.

• Nas' latest album "Hip Hop is Dead" has sparked a handful of debate on the topic the title speaks so loudly of. I'll blog on this more soon, but needless to say the hip-hop community never really gets the point. This whole "is it dead?" question isn't really a yes or no debate, although those who have a voice seem to want to make it that way. Incidentally, it's not his greatest album but his commentary on the genre is excellent in a handful of the tracks and makes the album, for hip-hop purists like me who were waiting for someone to step up and say something, worth the buy. (Ed. note: I'm aware the album is some three months old. I live in Brandon, cut me some slack.)

• It's official: I have no idea how to pick NCAA pools. My bracket blew up early again this year but I keep finding new ways to fail at predicting. Ironically, my bracket was a shambles this year because I went away from picking favourites. We all know that NCAA introduces us to Cinderella every year. Well, every year but 2007, I suppose. Two No. 1 seeds and two No. 2s are into the Final Four, leaving us without an upset special to hang our hats on.

One note pertaining to last weekend's games and it comes from the UNC-Georgetown regional final in which the Heels absolutely crumbled down the stretch. UNC coach Roy Williams has long been elevated in public opinion as one of the great coaches on the continent but there, in front of a national TV audience, was blatantly exposed. The Hoyas wiped out a late 11-point deficit and then brutalized UNC in the overtime all despite the fact that the Tar Heels had owned that game up until the final three minutes of the second half. The Heels absolutely owned the glass for the better part of the day — evidenced by their 20-10 edge in offensive rebounds — and Georgetown got itself into the game-long deficit mostly because it couldn't get second-chance points for itself and couldn't stop the Tar Heels from getting theirs.

But Georgetown goes to its 2-3 zone late in the second and suddenly UNC can't shoot a lick. The Tar Heels went 1-for-24 from the field over a 15-minute stretch that spanned part of the second half and overtime. But while they were absolutely horrendous from the field, two things happened that kept the Tar Heels from just getting the one or two hoops that could have sealed the win:

Even against a soft zone defence, they couldn't rebound the ball and looked like they had lost all desire to chase down loose balls and errant misses.

AND

Roy Williams refused to call a timeout.

And that's where the legend gets called out. No timeouts called in overtime even as the Hoyas built a quick six-point lead and had the crowd going bonkers in the first moments of OT. No timeout to calm things down, to make an adjustment against the zone. No timeout to just regroup and try to end the Georgetown run. Nothing.

Call it whatever you want, but a "legend" coach should know better.

• The Pittsburgh Steelers will take Nebraska DE Adam Carriker with their first pick of the 2007 NFL Entry Draft. Yes, this is me hoping, but it's also a very real possibility. A lot of mock drafts have the Steelers going for another DE — Florida's Jarvis Moss — and that's not a bad situation for the Steelers at all. Moss is versatile and should be able to make the adjustment to playing in the current 3-4 set that the Steelers have employed for years or to a 4-3 that many believe they'll switch to next year under new coach Mike Tomlin. However, just because many are picking Moss in their mocks, I'm going the other way and having wishful thinking that Carriker will be around and the Steelers will want him.

Do you realize I'm still waiting for my Nebraska and pro football worlds to collide just ONCE in this lifetime? Between Carriker's possibility of being a Steeler and December's announcement that the Winnipeg Blue Bombers added Zac Taylor to their neg list, I'm pretty much losing my mind. It has to happen some time. Please.

• One last CIS note, for those who care: The Brandon Bobcats men's basketball team stands to lose just two players from this season's team that was oh-so-close to winning a national championship but there is one player who is up in the air and with him carries a lot of 'ifs' for next season's squad. If PG Yul Michel doesn't return for his fifth season, the Bobcats are going to need to regroup fast. BU loses shooters Chad Jacobson and Taylor Cherris-Wilding and, as important as those two were to its season in 2006-07, Michel's presence can't be overstated. You have arguably the best defender in Canada, a veteran leader who rarely turns the ball over and regularly puts his teammates in better situations. It's very difficult to find a player with that kind pedigree to run your team. This would still be a very talented and experienced team, but if the Bobcats want to return to the place they were this March and be a legit contender on the national scene, they'll all have their fingers crossed that Michel returns.

That's it for today. Again, nothing overly deep or engaging. Just like the author.

Wrap it up

A few final thoughts from Halifax after a real good week of basketball wrapped up for one last time in the Nova Scotian capital...

To deal with the championship final, I said to anyone who would listen prior to the game that I thought Aaron Doornekamp would be the big factor for Carleton, and obviously he was. He hit two gigantic threes and the second one sealed BU's fate and was not well defended by the Bobcats at all.

Ironic, too, because the BU defence all game long was outstanding I thought. Yul Michel locked up Osvaldo Jeanty and he shot poorly from the field as did the entire Ravens team. Jeanty said after the game that "they didn't make my life difficult, I thought I made my own life difficult" in reference to the defensive match-up and his shot selection. I couldn't disagree more and I thought it was a completely misguided comment to not at least tip your hat to an oustanding defensive effort. There were some 6,000 people in the building and a lion's share of them would have totally disagreed with that statement.

That said, Carleton head coach Dave Smart did acknowledge the effort right off the bat. He mentioned that most people will see the poor shooting numbers of both teams and suggest it was a bad offensive game, but that would be to disregard how hard and how well the teams defended.

I agree with this. Yes, there were open looks missed by both teams, many from distance, but I have yet to see two teams battle defensively like these two did on Sunday. When you're clamping down on every possession, when you're having virtually every shot challenged with a hand in your face and then you manage to actually get a good look... well, those shots also become tougher.

I told coach Smart following the game that I thought as good as Michel's job on Jeanty was, so too was the job the Ravens did on Chad Jacobson, the Bobcat gunner. They knew full well he could hurt you from the perimeter (he had killed two teams prior to that game) and they made things very hard for him. He got virtually nothing in the way of open looks at the basket and they took away most of his catch-and-shoot chances. In the end, he hit two of his four threes and the last one was a pretty tough make where he curled off a screen and hit a quick release three that made it 51-49 at the time.

And that's what I'll remember from this championship more than anything is two teams absolutely beating up on each other with tremendous D and playing with all the intensity you expect from a national title game. Both teams kept raising the bar and Carleton — to steal (and paraphrase) a Vince Lombardi quote — just happened to be ahead when time ran out.

So those are the things I'll remember. That and the fact that Aaron Doornekamp pushes off every time he puts the ball on the floor.

Day 2

I told Dale Stevens and Mark Wacyk , both CIS diehards, that I'm lazy and this is proving it...

It's been a long few days but I'll just drop a few random notes on the Carleton-Brandon game that will determine the national championship Sunday:

• An interesting dynamic here: You have a team that has won four straight nationals and is clearly rolling with some confidence of knowing how to win big games vs a team that ABSOLUTELY wants them and has wanted them all year. BU has been overlooked, in their eyes, so who has more to battle for?

•The Yul Michel-Osvaldo Jeanty match-up is what we're likely to see to start, however, it's very easy we see a number of different sets from BU to try to make life difficult. We might see some zones from BU, if you asked my opinion. As for Yul, straight up he can lock down Jeanty but it will be tough and it will also come down to whoever can D him up in the event of changes or just foul trouble/strategy. Also, BU's attention to Oz will open things up, you'd figure, for some others like Stu Turnbell, the team's off guard.

• Jeanty might be the CIS player of the year the last two years, but (because of match-ups) I'm saying the most important part of Sunday's final is going to be Aaron Doornekamp and what BU does with him. Windsor shut him down well in the OUA final and Carleton struggled.

• Eric Glavic of St. Mary's got into two chirping matches with Brandon players Saturday, both which were started by the SMU quarterback who also plays hoops. He was first to get into Adam Hartman's grilll (no fouls), stood over Dany Charlery after a hard-ish foul and that left Whyms to come and get in his face Lrwe on. Both players shoved and got tech'd up. After the big loss, Glavic beaked at his towel boy, making it look like the guy who comes off a short bench ua better than anyone who stands behind it.

• Carleton is your favourite for a reason but BU is athletic and confident. I think ytou've got a 5 point game in the works and anyone who knows BU, and read Saturday's Brandon Sun, knows how it plays in five-point games.

This will be a great match-up. Check up with you in about 20 hours.

Day 1

HALIFAX — There will be no conference champions in the final four of the national men's basketball championship this weekend.

Lending more credence to the argument that conference winners aren't the only ones worthy of Halifax, all four conference champs went in the tank on the first day of the national tournament here Friday.

The Acadia Axemen were absolutely horrendous in a loss to a Carleton Ravens team looked every bit the part of a four-time national champion. The Ravens — who Windsor Star reporter Bob Duff felt shouldn't have been eligible to come to nationals because they lost the OUA final — were sharp and cold-blooded in dicing up an Axemen team that had become one of the great stories in Canada this season. Acadia was over-powered early, lost its discipline before you could blink and watched as Carleton landed a punch right square in the mouth of the AUS champions.

Elsewhere, the St. Mary's Huskies pulled off the first upset of the day and the Concordia Stingers looked nothing like a No. 1. First-team all-Canadian Patrick Perrotte was basically invisible and the Huskies grinded the game almost to a halt with a style that emphasized holding possessions and keeping the ball out of the favoured team's hands.

The Huskies will get the Brandon Bobcats who used a solid second half and a sudden Windsor Lancer collapse to earn a berth into the semifinals. Greg Surmacz, the 6-foot-7 NCAA transfer, had 12 points and seven boards in the first half but the Lancers went away from him in the second and instead settled for jumpers from distance. The Lancers even owned a nine-point lead at one point in the first half but really hurt themselves with shot selection in the second half and going away from the big Surmacz who was eating on every touch but suddenly was cut off.

The UBC Thunderbirds are once again going into the second day of competition as a losing squad in a 92-85 defeat at the hands of the wild card Ottawa Gee-Gees. The T-Birds wasted an absolutely outstanding performance from fifth-year conference MVP Casey Archibald who had 32 points on 13-for-15 shooting. Unfortunately, UBC has no one to blame but itself. Once again the Thunderbirds are not playing for a championship because they couldn't stop anyone from scoring and they didn't get enough help elsewhere. Chris Dyck, a class act and a dead-eye shooter, did not respond well to his first-ever nationals appearance missing 10 of his 12 shots from the field. But they gave up 92 points and that's not going to win you a lot of games ever. At Nationals, at anywhere. Ever.

Ottawa, meanwhile, was pretty impressive in its athleticism and looked like a battle-tested, self-assured and downright braggadocious. The Ottawa-Carleton match-up that we'll see in the semifinal is redundant, for sure, but the battle should be worthwhile. Do the Ravens and Gee-Gees want to play each other again? Hard to say. Probably not. After you've played someone 87 times in the past two seasons it gets a bit overdone.

There's one man's very brief and random thoughts on Day 1. Check back Saturday.

Beginning of the end

A small group of committed CIS supporters have successfully lobbied to have the non-televised tournament games available to watch via webcast on this site. They are going to by pay-per-view, however the fee is a paltry $7. If you just want to follow the games online, up-to-the-minute stats are kept here.

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HALIFAX — Arriving in the Halifax airport three days before the CIS national tournament starts, you might actually get away with believing not much was on tap for the Maritime city.

The airport is quiet, relatively without activity on a dull Tuesday afternoon. There are, however, volunteers — folks who have been doing this every year for many years — there to shuttle you off to the host hotel and get you ready for another March in Nova Scotia.

Upon finding me not on his list of expected arrivals in need of a shuttle back to said hotel, a volunteer obliged to assist and stuck me in with the UBC Thunderbirds who were on the same flight as I.

"Just keep in mind next year ..." and he edits himself.

As far as Halifax is concerned, there is no next year. The tournament that has rested in the city for nearly the past three decades will finally load up and move out, heading to Ottawa next year after Carleton successfully bid for a three-year term as the host of the CIS' marquis event.

Most teams have yet to arrive in Halifax. A couple will fly in Wednesday, Acadia will drive down Thursday. So the hotel is rather quiet and far from a hub of activity. Still the Thunderbirds, clad in "UBC BASKETBALL" from head to toe, were targets of questioning locals who showed their interest in the tournament that has become the city's baby.

Back to the airport, I completed the volunteer's sentence.

"Let's say, four years from now," I said with the assumption that the CIS would eventually change tunes and come back to the hotbed.

"Hey maybe next year when they screw it up," was his reply not-so-subtly insinuating that Ottawa's run as host wasn't going to be as illustrious as the predecessor's.

Odd that we're more than a year away from the nation's capital taking its first crack at nationals and yet there have been more than a few of those types of comments by more than one person. Ottawa's run as host could be a resounding success but there's no doubt that no matter where it's held, the fact that it's not in Halifax next year will mean the same shine won't be present in the eyes of many. There's just something about coming here. The east coast, the close proximity of most everything, the night life, the history of the city ... everything just combines to make Halifax a tremendous city to host. Oh, and they're pretty crazy about their local basketball too.

So maybe Ottawa is stepping in already down in the count.

Or maybe, all the obituaries that are so predictably to be written this week on the end of an era are much adieu about nothing. Seinfeld had to end eventually, Barry Sanders was going to retire one day and Barbaro was guaranteed of going to the glue factory. It tells us, too, that Halifax was bound to lose its yearly jewel one day even if a lot of people would prefer it differently.

If you're ruing the switch over to Ottawa for strictly logistical purposes, then you very likely have some beef and a fair debate.

If, however, the argument is solely nostalgic then the only recourse left is to just accept it at face value and not lament something that we all knew was bound to happen one day anyway.

Tears in your Duff

Well, I was going to leave well enough alone with the posts for Sunday after my cursory run at the Final 8 seedings, but a perusal of headlines around Canada eventually landed me at the web site of the Windsor Star and an absolutely misguided and downright foolish column that made the pages of the Star.

Columnist Bob Duff ranted about the Carleton Ravens' inclusion into the national tournament that comes despite the fact the four-time national champs lost in the OUA final this weekend. Duff's argument was that the Windsor Lancers deserved to be the lone Ontario team heading to the big dance and his logic was, put succinctly: "That’s how the post-season is supposed to work. You win, you go on. You lose, you go home."

So in Duff's world the national championship tournament shall only include four teams, a representative from each conference because, after all, those other losers should just go home. If you're going to be making the nationals a four-team tournament, keep in mind that you are also completely taking away the lustre of a three-day tournament in which much of the intrigue is generated by having more good teams all competing for one prize. Very simply, eight is a lot more fun than four.

Why in heaven's name would you ever want to diminish the marquis event in Canadian university sports? An event, it should be noted, that struggles mightily already for national recognition. Now you want to eliminate teams because, on any given night, they dropped one solitary game? A bit over-reactionary to say the least.

Now Duff's point that you have to win to move on isn't without merit because obviously you're looking to get the creme of the crop into the tournament. But anyone suggesting that Carleton isn't among the creme hasn't watched enough basketball.

Duff also suggests that the Wilson Cup final was meaningless because both teams were guaranteed spots in nationals already. By that logic, the folks at Texas and Kansas were probably sleepwalking through their Big 12 championship game on Sunday. No, instead they went to overtime with Kevin Durant scoring 37 points in a losing effort for Texas. Tell the Longhorns they don't deserve their spot in the NCAA March Madness. While you're at it, cancel the tickets of Duke, Boston College, Texas A&M, UCLA and countless other schools that didn't win their conference championships this weekend. Losers.

Shifting back to Canada, tell the Brandon Bobcats they can't go either. The team that was No. 1 for six of the final seven weeks of the season isn't worthy because of dropping a 76-73 decision to the UBC Thunderbirds in the Canada West final last weekend.

In fact, there is plenty on the line in these conference championships, guaranteed berth or not. Sure there's the admittedly minor aspect of winning your conference, which in the grand scheme of things amounts to merely bragging rights. But, on a much lesser scale than the grandiose NCAA tournament, wins in conference finals mean something in the rankings. With eight teams going, there is less wiggle room for teams to move up or down into different match-ups but make no mistake had Windsor lost that final, the Lancers would be looking at likely a No. 7 seed and a match with the Thunderbirds. Analyze it how you like, but some people would suggest the Lancers were much better served by winning.

"As well as they played Saturday," Duff wrote, "their reward should be more than a mere rubber stamp as the best team in Ontario."

Who cares?

Their reward is the exact same whether Carleton goes to the tournament or not. Having the Ravens there and having a national berth already sewn up doesn't diminish what Windsor achieved nor does it tarnish the overall picture of the national tournament. If Windsor goes and loses its first two games at nationals, is that Wilson Cup still going to gleam and be the ultimate source of pride? No, it will still be just the smaller trophy the Lancers earned when they wanted the big one. Maybe it's just folks in Ontario over-emphasizing the value of the Wilson Cup; after all, no one goes into the season with the ultimate goal being the Wilson Cup. In fact, all across this continent in university and college sports at all levels teams set out at the beginning of the season knowing full well that there are smaller prizes to be won, but there's only one big prize that they're after. This isn't a new concept, folks.

Regardless, if you went to university campuses in Lawrence, Kan., Chapel Hill, N.C., Eugene, Ore., Columbus, Ohio, or Gainesville, Fla., you would see celebrations and a tickled pink student body, for there you would be amongst conference champions. Heck, you'd find the same thing on the campus of Butler University, which captured the championship of the Horizon League, a mid-major conference that put two teams into the annual 64-team showdown.

But when Thursday rolls around and the NCAA tournament begins, no one will care a lick about those trophies. Nor will anyone care a lick about the Wilson Cup come Friday.

And that, in reality, is the way it's supposed to be.

In the national tournament, the more the merrier. And the sooner those pouting about conference championships realize that, the sooner they can just relax and enjoy the real games.

On The Road

The Final 8 field is officially set after representatives from the CIS came together to seed the national men's tournament that will start Friday in Halifax.

Here was my original prediction, late Saturday night:
1. Concordia
2. UBC
3. Brandon
4. Windsor
5. Acadia
6. Carleton
7. Ottawa
8. St. Mary's

Obviously, the red ones are the seedings I ended up being wrong on, but if you look at it, there really is only one mistake in that, and that's Carleton not being harshly penalized for losing the OUA final on Saturday. That was sort of the first domino and, in hindsight, I likely shouldn't have dropped them as far as I did.

Here, then, are your first-round match-ups:
(1) Concordia vs (8) St. Mary's
(2) UBC vs. (7) Ottawa
(3) Carleton vs (6) Acadia
(4) Brandon vs (5) Windsor

Posting my previous thoughts on the seedings, I suggested that I thought a Brandon-Carleton match-up would be a good one for the Bobcats and that was certainly not meant to diminish the potential for Carleton to once again win this thing. Obviously, no one in Canada would be cheering at getting Carleton in the first round. However, I just think speaking purely about match-ups, it's one that would have favoured BU because of the Bobcats athleticism, and ability to go greyhound and turn games into track meets. Conversely, Carleton would love to lock you down but we saw a bit of it in the Wilson Cup final on Saturday against Windsor that perhaps the Ravens can be susceptable to teams that have that sort of make up.

As it is, the relatively inexperienced Bobcats get a totally inexperienced Windsor team that is making its first nationals appearance in 25 years. The Bobcats boast just two players who have played in Halifax (Yul Michel and Adam Hartman) while the Lancers are going in completely wet behind the ears. To be honest, I think this is the biggest toss-up game of the first round, although Ottawa and UBC has some intriguing plot lines as well.

One of the red flags I raised about the Bobcats potential as a national contender was their inexperience in Halifax and, specifically, their ability to shoot the ball in an arena setting. The Bobcats are a very perimeter-oriented offence and, say what you want, but shooting in that enviroment — when you're used to basically playing in a glorified high school gym all season — requires a major adjustment. I think it's going to be integral that BU finds its touch from the outside early but also balances that with the understanding that their inside and mid-range game is very likely to be the key to whether they move on to the second round or get bounced in the first round for the third straight time.

This is why Windsor presents some difficulties for the ultra-athletic Bobcats. The Lancers are deep with talented bigs — and that's not overlooking BU's posts — and in a game between two largely inexperienced teams that will be battling nerves and new surroundings, points in the paint, rebounding and second-chance opportunities are going to be the biggest factors in my mind.

UPSET SPECIAL: I'm taking a hard-working Ottawa Gee-Gees squad over the UBC Thunderbirds. If this doesn't come through as an upset then I think you're seeing all four top seeds move on to the second round. (Even as I type that, however, I don't feel comfortable with the prediction. It's just been that kind of year).

UBC has gotten grittier on the defensive side, something I think was lacking in its past entries into the nationals. The big question will be whether Ottawa can clamp down and keep the Birds from running and crashing. The UBC big men aren't traditional post-up players: They get most of their rebounds and points from crashing and they do it well. The beauty with UBC is that it can rotate in a handful of talented posts and not really lose a step between any of them. Its backcourt, on paper, is an all-star team with Chris Dyck, former all-Canadian Adam Friesen and Canada West MVP Casey Archibald.

Again, though, the Thunderbirds are going to have to show they can play lockdown defence and win what could be an ugly game. In their defence, they did show that ability to grind out wins during the Canada West Final Four, proving that maybe they do possess a Halifax-style game after all.

One final note, on Acadia and Carleton. It's a tough draw for the Axemen who have hit their stride at exactly the right time. Acadia's doing great things with its depth, as evidenced by the championship win over St. Mary's on Saturday when AUS POY Paulo Santana fouled out with a few minutes to go in the game and the result still very much in the balance. I think this ends up being a low-scoring, gritty game and, if you consider Acadia an overwhelming underdog, then those types of games are the ones that underdogs salivate for. The Axemen can't get down to Carleton like they did against St. Mary's (down 16 with 10 to go). It just won't work. If the scoring remains low, if the Axemen can control possessions and be efficient with those possessions, then you might just have an upset.

Selection Sunday

The final seedings for the CIS national men's basketball tournament will be released Sunday, so I'll take one last crack at predicting where the Elite 8 will find themselves.

First off, this is how I see it going:
1. Concordia
2. UBC
3. Brandon
4. Windsor
5. Acadia
6. Carleton
7. Ottawa
8. St. Mary's

Now, let me explain (with last week's rankings in parentheses):

St. Mary's (NR) absolutely has to be an 8 after being unranked all year and then losing the AUS championship on Saturday. Concordia (1) won its conference after being the No. 1 in last week's rankings, so the Stingers are absolutely the 1 heading into Halifax. So that's your lock for a first-round game.

Moving down the list, Carleton (2) has to drop for a loss, but how far? UBC (3) will move up because of the Ravens loss in the Wilson Cup on Saturday. I have to think Brandon will move up too. But Carleton has to be ranked ahead of Ottawa (5) AND you can't have any of Ottawa, Windsor (8) or Carleton in a 4-5 or 3-6 game because they're in the same conference. (The CIS avoids inter-conference first-round games). In reality, Carleton's loss just pushes Ottawa further down now, whereas they might have been a 6 before the Wilson Cup final on Saturday.

Now, Windsor and Acadia (T9) both need top-6 spots — CIS rule — and Windsor needs to be ahead of Carleton but I don't think you can justify them moving up past UBC or Brandon (both have better records and have been ranked higher). Plus, you'd be asking Windsor to make a four-step rise in the rankings, which I think is bold considering the only team the Lancers beat who were ranked in the playoffs was Carleton. Windsor's 22-7 overall record and soft strength-of-schedule rating also hurts them. But I think you put Windsor ahead of Acadia because their record is better, their SOS is better and they've been ranked higher than them most of the season.

So there you have Carleton dropping all the way to the 6 (for the loss to Windsor and also having to avoid Windsor in a first-round game) and then Ottawa has to be below them.

The only question mark here is, does Brandon deserve to be a No. 3 when the Bobcats didn't even win their conference while Windsor and Acadia both did. However, Brandon's record is better, they were ranked higher, they were the No. 1 for six weeks, they have a stronger SOS and a higher RPI (the overall power index). No way Acadia should jump Brandon and I think Windsor's case for doing that is thin too.

So there you have it (I think)... The Brandon Bobcats, if you want to listen to me, will be playing the four-time defending national champion Carleton Ravens in the first round.

I'll deal with this on Sunday when the seedings officially come out, but I think — and call me crazy if you want — the Carleton match-up is honestly the best one available for the Bobcats.

More on that tomorrow.

Goin' Dancin'

The CIS men's basketball national championship tournament is less than two weeks away, marking the final time (as it stands now) the Big Dance will be hosted in Hali.

Following my trip to Halifax in 2003-04, I wrote an opinion piece in the Brandon Sun railing against the CIS' decision to stick with Halifax as its host site for its most marquis tournament. The article was in no way a condemnation of Halifax itself — anyone who knows me knows my affinity for the city — but rather a comment on the national university body's almost blind acceptance of the status quo.

Be careful — I suppse you could say — what you wish for.

The national tournament, which has been in the Nova Scotia capital for the past 24 years, will move to the nation's capital in 2008 for a three-year effort that marks the first time since 1982 the event will rest outside the Maritimes. Standing by the argument I made a few years ago, I'd normally be in favour of the switch: The bigger picture, I'd argue, is to keep the nationals from becoming the stale product you're in danger of creating by keeping it in the same place year after year.

But, as usual, the CIS has bungled it.

• More than one person has pointed out the fact that the tournament won't be held in Ottawa itself, but rather 20 minutes down the road in Kanata. All fine and good if out-of-town tournament teams, officials and media are staying in Kanata — which they won't be — but playing the tournament in a town that isn't actually Ottawa just isolates the centre of off-court activity (umm, you remember Ottawa, the supposed host site) from where games will actually be played. A 20-minute commute, at least once a day, from the host hotels to the host venue just insures massive frustration and inevitable hassles with shuttles, cabs and any other transportation.

• Taking another shot at Kanata, the host venue is the 19,000-seat Scotiabank Place, home of the Ottawa Senators and a wholly overambitious place to host the men's tournament. With all due respect to the people of Ottawa and southern Ontario in general, a best-case scenario would never lead to anywhere near a sellout of an arena that is 9,000 seats larger than the venue in Halifax that currently can't post sellouts. Now, while sellouts aren't needed nor expected, the fact remains that Scotiabank Place will just end up being more cavernous than the Halifax Metro Centre already is and anyone who has watched the nationals on TV in the past knows that will just make the event look bush league.

Shoot, I've been in the Metro Centre when it's three-quarters full and it still barely makes an impression when translated to TV.

• And finally, and most ridiculously, the successful bid from Carleton University (the official hosts) also included a virtually unreported clause that guarantees the Ravens a host bid into the Elite 8 each of the three years they host. So read that correctly:

In 2008, 2009 and 2010, the Carleton Ravens will be guaranteed their spot in the national tournament. Not Ontario. Not the OUA East. Carleton. Take one tournament bid off the table for the rest of the country to play for and, while you're at it, give the Ravens — the four-time defending national champions — another leg up in the recruiting wars. Oh, and see what you can do about getting a third Ontario team into the tournament, deserved or not.

We're more than a year away from changing locales for the biggest university event in Canada and already anyone who chooses to take more than a cursory glance at the situation can see question marks all over.

The good news is Carleton, the CIS and everyone involved with taking the men's nationals to Ottawa have time to make sure those questions are answered.

The bad news is, if the CIS' track record is any indication, some will get answered, most will not and even those like me who criticized the CIS' lack of action will be pining for the days when they left well enough alone.