Too early to speculate on Bracketbuster opponent?

As the High Roller mentioned earlier this month, ESPN officially announced which schools would be playing in this year's Bracketbuster. This news confirms what Coach Wolff told me this summer, that BU would host a Bracketbuster game at The Greek this year, the first ever home BB matchup for the America East.

The games feature a whopping 102 schools. Thirteen of the games will get the Hollywood treatment on ESPN, ESPNU (which I don't get), ESPN Classic (which I don't get), and ESPN360.com (which I don't get). So even if the Terriers are good enough to play in a TV game this year, odds are I won't be able to watch anyway.

Unlike the High Roller though, I don't think February 20-21 seems too far away to speculate about matchups, does it?

Here's the full roster, separated into Home and Away teams, and sorted by last year's RPI:

HOME TEAMS	ROAD TEAMS
Drake	Butler
Kent State	Illinois State
Davidson	VCU
St. Mary’s	George Mason
Creighton	Southern Illinois
Siena	Cleveland State
Nevada	Utah State
Wright State	Miami (Ohio)
UC Santa Barbara	Akron
Portland State	CS Fullerton
San Diego	Ohio
Valparaiso	Austin Peay
Winthrop	Boise State
Rider	UMBC
Marist	Bradley
Niagara	CS Northridge
Western Michigan	Missouri State
New Mexico State	Northern Iowa
UNC Wilmington	Morgan State
Indiana State	Pacific
Old Dominion	Loyola-Maryland
Georgia Southern	Green Bay
Illinois-Chicago	UC Irvine
William & Mary	Appalachian State
Fairfield	Northeastern
Milwaukee	Hartford
Central Michigan	Delaware
Murray State	Toledo
Vermont	North Dakota State
Wichita State	Gardner-Webb
Bowling Green	Elon
Bucknell	Iona
Tennessee-Martin	Morehead State
James Madison	Montana State
Cal Poly	Hofstra
Tennessee State	Fresno State
Loyola Chicago	Liberty
Youngstown State	Buffalo
Towson	Manhattan
Eastern Michigan	Tennessee Tech
San Jose State	Fairleigh Dickinson
Boston U.	Georgia State
Drexel	Detroit
Evansville	UC Riverside
Eastern Kentucky	Northern Illinois
Hawai’i	Saint Peter’s
Southeast Missouri State	Canisius
Ball State	Louisiana Tech
Idaho	South Dakota State
UC Davis	Eastern Illinois
Long Beach State	Jacksonville State

Although it's a rough estimate, last year's rankings dictate that we would have gotten Georgia State this year - a serious upgrade from St. Peter's (who you'll notice is 4 spots lower than BU). Vermont (North Dakota State) and Hartford (Wisc.-Milwaukee) got cool matchups too.

Based on past history, we'll get a shitty MAAC team again. Luckily, we can't get St. Pete's again since we're already playing them this year, but I guess that puts Manhattan back into the mix. Somehow, ALL 10 TEAMS from the MAAC make it into the Bracketbuster! It makes no sense! So of course, we'll probably end up with Iona, or Canisius, or someone equally as lame.

For selfish geographic purposes, I'd love to draw VCU or George Mason, or maybe Morgan State or Loyola if we suck this year. And the High Roller would I'm sure enjoy UC-Irvine or UC-Riverside or Cal State Fullerton.

But part of me just wants some random team we've never faced before - kind of like Albany randomly got Boise State a couple years ago. I'd gladly take Utah State or Austin Peay or Detroit or South Dakota State.

Baby Steps

Word has it that BU will get to host their bracketbuster game this coming February, a very small step forward for their basketball program. Now, it's just a matter of getting that game on ESPN, ESPN2, or ESPNU. I'll take any of the three, but there's no way of knowing until the season gets under way, and we see which mid-majors dominate. And the game is also roughly 5 1/2 months away, so no point in getting excited, just thought I'd let y'all know.