Lucky for me, this is my Spring Break week. This should be a 4-day National Holiday in celebration of the most fun days of the sports year. The first weekend of the NCAA Tournament features 48 college basketball games: 16 Thursday, 16 Friday, 8 Saturday, and 8 Sunday.

There are two things to discuss today:
1) Should the field expand?
and
2) Why were there fewer upsets in Day 1 than normal?

First things first. The tournament should absolutely not expand. The last expansion (to 65 games) has done absolutely nothing to add to the tournament. For those of you who don't know, the addition of the 65th team created a "play-in" game on the Tuesday before the real opening day on Thursday.

This year, the Rattlers of Florida A&M hit a buzzer-beater in their conference tournament final to beat the Hornets of Delaware St. and gain an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. But instead, they played Niagra, another conference winner, on Tuesday night. The Rattlers lost, and go home before the tournament really even starts. If conference champs are to receive automatic bids, they deserve to play on Thursday or Friday.

Presumably, the addition of the 65th team would relieve some of the griping and arguing about the team(s) not invited. Of course, this has not been the case. This year, Jim Boeheim, the head coach at Syracuse, was on radio and TV telling anyone that would listen why his team should have been in. No matter how many teams get in, there will always be a few who didn't that can make the argument that they should have.

So let's eliminate the "play-in" game, get it back to 64 teams, and let 65-128 work it out in the NIT.

Here's my theory on why there were fewer upsets on Day 1 than normal. The selection committee has finally realized that the "mid-majors" are actually good. Let's take a look at the seeding. Butler has never been a single digit seed. This year, they are a 5, and took out Old Dominion yesterday. Louisville, although no longer a mid-major because they are in the Big East, came in as a 6,and beat Pac-10 Stanford. Today, Southern Illinois comes in as a 4. A few years ago, the committee would never put these smaller schools this high. So when they win, it looks like a big upset. In reality, these teams are just good.

In fact, the only true upset yesterday (I don't count 9's beating 8's as a true upset, but consider that the committee gave mid-major Marquette the 8 to Big-10 Michigan St.'s 9) came from Virginia Commonwealth beating Duke. So the question is: Should Duke have really been a 6? They were 8-8 in conference. They finished 6th in their conference, and lost in the first round of their conference tournament. Including that loss, the Blue Devils entered the tournament on a 3-game losing streak.

Let's take a look at the other 6's. Vanderbilt was third in their conference, with a 10-6 conference record. Notre Dame (who is also ranked too high at 6) was 4th in their conference, with a 11-5 conference record. Louisville was 3rd in their conference, with a 12-4 conference record.

The ACC may be considered a stronger conference, but if a team can't do better than .500 in conference, does it really deserve to be ranked as a 6? Perhaps the selection committee was looking more at the name on the front of the uniforms than the body of work.

So the only true 'upset' came against a team that was ranked too high.

Last summer, Dave Woodley-Director of Athletic Bands at IU sent me an e-mail asking if I'd like to play with Hundred (IU's Marching Band) again this year. Considering what a great time I had last year, I was ready to say yes. But this year, Dave had something more in mind. Hundred takes a road trip to one Big 10 game every year. This year, the plan was to go to Ohio St. In addition, the Indianapolis Colts asked if the band could play halftime of the Redskins game. So the road trip became Ohio St. on Saturday-Colts game on Sunday. There was no way I was going to turn that down.

On Saturday morning, we got to be part of one of the coolest events I've seen. The Ohio St. Marching Band has a "Skull Session" the morning of each game day. It's held in St. John Arena, which holds more than 10,000 people. The "Skull Session" is a pre-game concert. And the place is absolutely full. Seeing all of those people there to watch the band was fantastic. After the OSU Band made their entrance, Hundred played their pre-game show and halftime show, which included the tune I was playing on. Then OSU's Band played their pre-game show and halftime.

As a musician, it was just amazing to see that many people out to support the band.

As a sports fan, the cool part was this: Jim Tressel brings the whole football team in coats and ties to the concert for a tune and says a few words. Then both the men's and women's basketball coaches come up and say a few words. It's great to see that kind of appreciation from the coaches.

Carl Lenthe, one of my colleagues at IU who teaches trombone, sent me this picture taken by his brother who was at the game. It will give you some idea of the size of the place. It does seat 101,568.





Although the game wasn't close (OSU won 44-3), I had a great time. The stadium is just amazing. The fans are incredibly supportive. And the OSU Band was a terrific host.

Sunday we drove to Indianapolis. The RCA Dome is attached to the Indianapolis Convention Center. So we left our cases in a ballroom, walked down a hallway, turned left, walked through a revolving door, and there we are standing on a football field. It's a little odd.

They brought us out to the field with 2 minutes to go in the first half. At halftime, we rushed on the field, played our show, rushed off the field and went back to Bloomington.

Erin Woodley, Advisor in the School of Music, took this picture (Thanks Erin):






The RCA Dome seats 60,272, which means we got to play for over 160,000 people in two days. How cool is that.

What a great weekend. I'm hoping for one more performance...at a Bowl Game.

Go IU,

Joey