While my preseason projections won’t be available until the end of October, I have cranked out the odds for the holiday tournaments based on my rankings. Today’s column looks at who is likely to win each early season tournament, and what storylines to keep an eye on.

Do not hesitate to print out the tournament brackets and follow along as they happen. It is extremely easy to get busy with the Thanksgiving holidays and miss some of the best games of the season. But if you print out these brackets and fill them in, you won’t miss the upsets. Just click on the handy links throughout this document to find the printable brackets.

Preseason NIT Printable Bracket

I’ve already expressed my doubts about Michigan and my faith in Pittsburgh. But Pitt’s second round opponent will be very dangerous. Both Lehigh (led by NCAA hero CJ McCollum) and Robert Morris (led by super-scorer Velton Jones) have the ability to knock off Pittsburgh. These teams have a real chance to win the Patriot League and Northeast Conference, and this is the type of game that can mean the difference between earning a 15 seed and a 13 seed come March.

2K Sports Classic Printable Bracket

OSU’s Jared Cunningham, Alabama’s JaMychal Green, Purdue’s Robbie Hummel, and Villanova’s Maalik Wayns are gone, and those players were not only their team’s leading scorers last season, they were the heart of their respective offenses. Which rebuilding team will forge a new identity first? Because Anthony Grant has become a dominant defensive coach, while Craig Robinson has not, Alabama is the favorite here.

Charleston Classic Printable Bracket

There are some big name conference schools here, but this tournament is a dream for fans of mid-major squads. Murray St. won’t be able to duplicate last year’s 31-2 record, but with superstar point-guard Isaiah Canaan returning, Murray St. should have enough to beat Auburn and St. John’s. In fact, they might even face the College of Charleston in the semifinals. This offseason Charleston added head coach Doug Wojcik, a veteran coach who hasn’t been able to get to the NCAA tournament, but a coach who has consistently built strong defensive teams. If Wojcik can get Charleston to play great defense this season, he has enough returning talent to make a run at an NCAA tournament bid. Andrew Lawrence is clearly Charleston’s best returning offensive player, but the real player to keep an eye on is Adjehi Baru. Baru was ranked 37^th in the nation out of high school and is one of the highest ranked recruits to ever attend Charleston. And while Baru was a nice complimentary player as a freshman last season, it will be very interesting to see if he can break out as a sophomore.

Of course the clear favorite here is Baylor. Baylor may have lost some key post players to graduation and the NBA, but they have plenty of incoming talent. This will be our first chance to see the highly acclaimed 7’1” freshman Isaiah Austin in action.

Puerto Rico Tipoff Printable Bracket

Oklahoma St.’s odds aren’t poor because Oklahoma St. is a bad team. The Cowboys add Top 10 freshman Marcus Smart alongside former Top 10 recruit LeBryan Nash. That one-two punch will make Oklahoma St. a likely NCAA tournament team this year. But the Cowboys have a terrible tournament draw.  First Oklahoma St. has to face Akron. Akron point guard Alex Abreu may be under-sized, but he’s an extremely talented player, and 7 foot center Zeke Marshall could have played for a number of BCS teams. And while the MAC hasn’t had multiple NCAA bids since 1999, Ohio and Akron are strong enough to break that trend.

Meanwhile Tennessee is a heavy favorite to be the second round opponent. Tennessee may have only finished 19-15 last year, but the Vols played substantially better after Jarnell Stokes joined the team mid-season. And with Trae Golden and Jeronne Maymon becoming efficient scorers for head coach Cuonzo Martin, a lot of people have taken notice. Florida head coach Billy Donovan has gone on the record to say that Tennessee is the team to beat in the SEC this season.

And if Oklahoma St. wins that game, they only have to face NC State in the final, the same NC State team that many people have labeled as the ACC favorite. So no, Oklahoma St. isn’t a bad team. But their path to a Puerto Rico tipoff title is brutal.

Coaches vs Cancer

If you get tired of the sloppy play by all the new players in November, please don’t miss Notre Dame vs St. Joseph’s in the first round of the Coaches vs Cancer tournament. Both teams return all five starters from last season and have plenty of offensive stars. I’m going to keep writing about the shot-blocking CJ Aiken, super-slasher Carl Jones, and the super-efficient Langston Galloway until St. Joe’s gets more love, but this four team field is wide open.

Notre Dame is the favorite, but I do have one question for Irish fans. Given Scott Martin’s middling efficiency numbers in his career, was it a good thing that the NCAA granted him an additional year of eligibility? Martin made just 26% of his threes and 40% of his twos last year, and while injuries may have contributed to that, it is clear he wasn’t an elite player last year.

Paradise Jam Printable Bracket

Despite a host of mid-major schools, this tournament looks very dull. Mercer and Iona might compete for the ASun and MAAC titles this year, but neither looks like a likely at-large bid.

And still Connecticut’s tournament odds are not great. First NCAA tournament sanctions led to a host of transfers this off-season. Then the Huskies lost Jim Calhoun to retirement. And as we’ve seen in recent seasons, UConn has been a different team when Calhoun is out. He’s a special coach who can elevate the level of his players, and he will not easily be replaced.

Steve Alford’s team might actually be a little better on offense this season. The team loses Drew Gordon at the forward position, but New Mexico also loses AJ Hardeman. And as great an offensive player as Gordon was, Hardeman was a black hole on offense. With Alex Kirk returning from injury to provide that shot-blocking presence in the paint, and all the returning talent at the guard spots, New Mexico deserves more preseason praise.

Hall of Fame Tip-Off Printable Bracket

Washington’s Abdul Gaddy has had an injury filled career, but with Tony Wroten leaving early for the draft, this is Gaddy’s team. The senior point-guard will have to integrate some new pieces throughout the Washington lineup. Seton Hall will have a number of new faces as well, including Georgia Tech transfer Brian Oliver and Southern Illinois transfer Gene Teague. Realistically, the winner of this game will probably be headed to the NIT, but a win against Ohio St. would be a fantastic notch on any NCAA resume. While Ohio St. is the clear favorite thanks to the efficient high volume shooter DeShaun Thomas, there are questions about how the Buckeyes offense will run without Jared Sullinger.

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The older I get, the more I see that one of the things I love most about sports is the variety of it, the diversity of it and the CHARACTERS. Men’s tennis is at its best in many years because, for the first time in a long time, the top three or four players all have wildly different styles. The Tim Tebow story was fun on so many levels, but one of those levels was that he was just SO DIFFERENT in how he played — I’d say we are entering a great time for quarterbacks, because Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers and Eli Manning and Drew Brees and Michael Vick and Cam Newton and Tebow and others are not really alike at all.

-- Joe Posnanski

As a basketball fan, I’ve never understood the division that exists between fans of the NBA and the NCAA. While the NBA has the best basketball players in the world, March Madness is compelling in its own right and as entertaining as anything that happens on the professional level.

In the NBA, the owners of the 30 franchises consider turning a profit and getting an equal shot at the top players a right, regardless of how well (or how poorly) they run their organization and the respective size of their fan-bases. Since every losing team is a few ping pong balls from the rights to a LeBron James, Kevin Durant or Dwight Howard, personnel determines scheme in the NBA.

In contrast, the vast majority of the 344 Division I programs in college basketball have little chance of ever receiving a commitment from a McDonald’s All-American. But instead of petulantly trying to sabotage the sport in a misguided effort to legislate fairness, schools try many creative ways of leveraging the talents of the players they can recruit. As a result, scheme determines personnel in the NCAA.

At Syracuse, Jim Boeheim has made a Hall of Fame career out of running a contrarian scheme, in his case an aggressive 2-3 zone. The Orange traditionally have rosters full of “1.5’s”, 6’3+ combo guards lacking the quickness to defend elite PG’s and the size to defend SG’s, and “3.5’s”, 6’8+ combo forwards lacking the quickness to defend elite SF’s and the size to defend PF’s. However, because Syracuse never plays man defense, the athletic deficiencies of their players are minimized.

So while nearly every NBA team runs a fairly similar system of isolations, pick-and-rolls and man defense, an incredibly diverse array of styles can be found in the college game. On one end of the spectrum, teams like Missouri play four guards and pressure the ball 94 feet for 48 minutes, on the other, teams like Wisconsin run a deliberate motion offense, trying to minimize the number of possessions and shoot at the very end of the shot-clock.

In the NBA, the players are too good for the “40 Minutes of Hell” system (which Mike Anderson has brought to Missouri and Arkansas in the last few years) to be successful. Like Mike Leach’s bizarre pass-happy offense in college football, Anderson’s system, which he learned as a member of Nolan Richardson’s staff in Arkansas in the 1990’s, has philosophical holes that professional athletes can exploit. Nevertheless, that doesn’t make them any less entertaining on the collegiate level.

And with 68 teams set to compete in the NCAA Tournament, there are a lot more surprises in the college game. Even programs ranked in the top-15 like Murray State have barely been on national TV this season.

We have a pretty good idea of how teams like the Pacers and the 76ers match up with the top of the Eastern Conference but not whether an undersized Murray State squad can handle the size of an elite team from a Power Six conference. It’s an open question how Isaiah Canaan’s speed and athleticism translates outside of the Ohio Valley Conference. Non-conference play in college basketball generally ends in late December, so it’s almost impossible to gauge how younger teams like Texas, Washington and Tennessee who have found their groove in the last two months will fare in March.

In the NBA, it’s hard to envision a scenario where Chicago, Miami and Oklahoma City aren’t three of the final four teams left in the playoffs. In the NCAA, as many as two dozen teams have a legitimate shot at making a run at the Final Four.

Of course, in terms of entertainment, none of this makes the NCAA necessarily better or worse than the NBA, just different. But, as Posnanski writes, there’s something to be said for the concept of “different” in the modern sports world. Basketball fans of all stripes should enjoy March Madness; the NBA will still be here in a few weeks.

The 2011-12 college basketball season got underway over the weekend, with 127 games played on Friday following abbreviated schedules on Monday and Wednesday.

Game of the Weekend: Duke 77, Belmont 76

In the second half of the Duke-Belmont game, the Duke crowd was chanting “Tyler Thornton” based on the freshmen’s unexpected performance. Thornton had his moments offensively, including a pair of critical threes early in the game, and a beautiful interior feed to Ryan Kelly early in the second half. But the crowd wasn’t chanting his name because of his offense. They were chanting his name because of his defense. Thornton was not only consistently shutting down the opposing ball-handler, he also forced some timely turnovers. And when one of his steals led to an Austin Rivers fast-break dunk late in the second half, it looked like Duke might have clinched the victory.

But Belmont refused to go away. Just as they did in a 2008 NCAA tournament game, where Duke had to hold off a Belmont charge to win by one point, the Bruins continued to make an incredible number of hustle plays. Brandon Baker had a terrible game by any normal evaluation. He was 0-4 from the field, and at one point he air-balled a free throw. But with 2:20 left in the game, there he was diving out of bounds, and throwing the ball off a Duke defender, to try to save a possession for his team. For every defensive play Duke made, Belmont made one too.

And that’s when Tyler Thornton made his most timely move of the game. With less than a minute to go, Thornton picked up his 5^th foul, which caused Mike Krzyzewski to reinsert Andre Dawkins into the lineup. And with the shot-clock winding down and 25 seconds left in the game, Dawkins buried a three pointer that effectively sealed the victory for the Blue Devils. Dawkins was cold coming in off the bench, and 0-4 from three at that point in the game. But Dawkins has been an assassin from deep in his career, and his shot was the game-winner.

For Duke haters, there were plenty of reasons to claim Duke was lucky in Friday’s game. At one point in the game Seth Curry was crossing half-court, lost his balance, and barely touched the Belmont defender as he fell to the ground. The Belmont player was whistled for the foul.

For Duke fans, there was plenty to be excited about. Mason Plumlee had a beautiful hook shot early in the game in the paint. And Andre Dawkins caught a fabulous give-and-go and finished around the rim despite being surrounded by four Belmont players. Seeing players expand their offensive games is always a positive sign.

But for Duke pessimists, there was plenty to discuss too. Ryan Kelly had a key bucket after Belmont had cut the lead to one point. But he mostly fell into his traditional position as a role player on the team. The Ryan Kelly who dominated the ball and the action in China was nowhere to be seen.

And while Dawkins made the clutch play, Seth Curry and Austin Rivers struggled late in the game. Curry had a pair of miserable turnovers late. And Austin Rivers made even more questionable decisions. Rivers step-back three with eight minutes left in the game was simply a dumb shot, and the kind of thing he needs to avoid doing in Duke’s efficient offensive scheme. And River’s offensive foul with 2:51 left in the game was why Seth Curry had the ball in his hands in the final seconds to begin with.

But this game was really not about Duke. This game was about the Belmont Bruins. At 19^th in the Pomeroy Ratings last year, they were last season’s efficiency darlings. But despite returning the vast majority of the lineup from last season, Ken Pomeroy in the Basketball Prospectus book, and yours truly in ESPN the magazine, did not project Belmont as a Top 25 team.

And we used the same logic. One season is a small sample size. My model looked at Belmont’s defense last year and concluded that last year may have been an unrepeatable fluke. Here are Belmont’s defensive ratings in the last nine years under Rick Byrd:

Belmont’s defensive ranking

2011-23^rd
2010-107^th
2009-166^th
2008-204^th
2007-124^th
2006-250^th
2005-216^th
2004-145^th
2003-195^th

Can an A-Sun team really produce a Top 25 defense two seasons in a row? If the Duke game was any indication, the answer may be yes. Belmont held Duke to 101.8 points per 100 possessions on Friday. That was Duke’s worst offensive performance in a non-conference game since Butler held them to 100.7 in the 2010 national title game.

And as Baker showed with his hustle play to save the ball from out of bounds late in the game, maybe Rick Byrd really has found the right formula to get his defenders to give every last bit of energy. Byrd has used a deep bench before in his career. But he now uses it to enforce 40-minutes of hell defensively. By getting his players to play smart, aggressive defense, Byrd has pushed Belmont’s defense to another level.

Perhaps it is shocking to see a coach with 26-years tenure with his team be able to implement a better defensive system. But all the great coaches never stop learning. Bob Knight who is considered one of the greatest basketball minds of all time, reached his level of success by seeking out the great coaches of the previous era and learning as much as possible. John Calipari has readily admitted he never stops learning about the game. And Rick Byrd has never assumed he has all the answers. Because of that, Belmont remains a program on the rise. 

Upset of the Weekend: Loyola Marymount 69, UCLA 58 

The story heading into the season was that UCLA had a ton of depth in the paint, but limited depth on the perimeter. No one questions that UCLA has talent, but without the right mix of players, some have questioned whether they can live up to their lofty pre-season ranking. And by opening the season with a home loss to a team picked to finish fourth in the WCC at best, those concerns were confirmed.

But thanks to the wonders of a Fox Sports Replay, I can say that is not quite as bad as it looks. Loyola Marymount was 10 of 15 from three in this game, and without that hot outside shooting, they certainly would not have prevailed. Thus the key question is whether LMU’s hot outside shooting was a bit of a fluke, or something UCLA should be concerned about long-term. My review of the game suggests it was a bit of a fluke. From Anthony Ireland’s three pointer as the shot-clock expired, to Ashley Hamilton’s key shots with David Wear’s hand in his face, LMU was simply making a number of tough guarded shots. Certainly there were plays where the UCLA big men were slow to rotate. But when you sag to take away penetration and leave a true freshmen forward wide open for the other team, I’m not sure you can call that a bad defensive decision. (UCLA had no way to know that LMU freshman forward CJ Blackwell was such a dangerous shooter.) There were a few poor defensive rotations, but not nearly as many as I expected when I first looked at the box score.

For the most part, UCLA was dominant defensively. “Zeke” Jones had a horrible offensive game, shooting just 1-for-11 from the floor. But he displayed lock down defense in the second half. He shut down dribble penetration, got a key tie-up, and deflected a number of balls out of bounds when LMU tried to drive the ball into the paint. Those defensive plays simply do not show up in a traditional boxscore. Similarly Josh Smith was a non-factor offensively, but he still had a number of incredible blocks defensively. I have to believe that the perimeter defense will get itself sorted out, and UCLA’s length will be giving opposing teams problems all season. 

The long-term concern was how incredibly inefficient the UCLA offense was in this game. The easy thing to say is that the team took too many perimeter shots. But that’s too simple. The real problem is that they did not seem to have the right spacing to get the ball in the post. LMU refused to respect David Wear as a perimeter shooter, and when Wear was on the opposite side of the floor, Josh Smith was constantly being triple-teamed. At one point one of the UCLA guards tried to feed it inside, and the LMU defender was so far off Wear, that he simply stepped across and stole the ball.

Part of this may be solved with some schematic adjustments by Ben Howland. Post feeds seemed to work better when Wear was feeding the post. But in this game, basically the only thing that worked offensively for the Bruins was Reeves Nelson running the floor. (His coast-to-coast dribble and basket was rather amazing for a big man.) But if UCLA can’t get the right spacing to get Josh Smith more one-on-one opportunities, this is going to be an incredibly long season.

Elsewhere

- Due to transfers and suspensions, George Mason is also heavily depleted at the guard-position. But they prevailed with their forward dominated lineup this weekend. Forward Ryan Pearson had 28 points and 12 rebounds in the team’s overtime win over Rhode Island.

- The Michigan St. – North Carolina Carrier Classic has been discussed in depth elsewhere. And even though other people have mentioned it, I want to concur that the Spartans dominance on the offensive glass was a silver lining in an otherwise tough loss. As great a passer as Draymond Green can be, he seemed to float too much on the perimeter last year. And with Delvon Roe out for the year, seeing Green re-assert himself on the boards was a positive and necessary development for the Spartans.

- The Carrier Classic produced some iconic pictures, but the bad video still outweighs the good video this time of year. Unfortunately, with all the college football teams still in action, far too many early season games are televised without the benefit of high definition.

- Speaking of the visual, Northwestern’s new floor looks better on TV than I anticipated. The faded purple is the perfect shade.

- Former Top-10 recruit Renardo Sidney was unimpressive in Mississippi St.’s home loss to Akron to open the season, and this weekend he sat out with a groin injury while Arnett Moultrie scored 28 points and grabbed 13 boards in the win over South Alabama. I know I am not the only person asking whether Sidney is worth the trouble at this point.

- Vanderbilt lost at home to Cleveland St., but at least their defense was not to blame. The Commodores have now forced 36 turnovers in two games. There won’t be many games this season where the Vanderbilt offense lets the team down like it did on Sunday.

- After sitting out the last two seasons, Iowa St.’s heavily-hyped transfer Royce White was impressive in his debut. He scored 25 points in Iowa St.’s victory.

- After tearing his ACL the last two seasons, Purdue forward Robbie Hummel also returned and scored 21 points. After everything Hummel has gone through in the last 18 months, basketball fans everywhere had to applaud that result.

- Utah St. has seen the WAC crumble around them in recent years as so many teams have departed for the MWC. Thus beating BYU in the season opener had to be all the sweeter.

- TCU beat Florida Gulf Coast by 1 point in the season opener. To say this team is going to struggle next year in the Big 12 is a massive understatement.

- The MVC’s quest to become a multi-bid conference again got off to a nice start as Northern Iowa won on the road at Old Dominion. The Monarchs shot just 30% from the field in the home loss. But then Southern Illinois went and lost to a Division II team which does nothing for the MVC’s perception. A few weeks ago, I said Southern Illinois coach Chris Lowery probably needs to be replaced, and this loss only adds more fuel to the fire.