It seems like every year the usual suspects are lined up as contenders for the best basketball conference in the country.
Big East. ACC. Pac-10. Big Ten.
But the Big 12 never seems to get much love, despite some impressive numbers that suggest the newest of the major conferences deserve to be part of the conversation. No conference has advanced more teams to Elite Eight (13) and Final Four (six) since 2002. The Kansas Jayhawks even cut down the nets in 2008.
In an effort to talk about something college basketball-related other than scandals in the summer, let's talk best current coaches. We'll attempt to order the top 25 current coaches in the nation. This is about the present and the future, not the distant past. What a guy did in the mid-90s doesn't matter near as much as the direction his program is currently headed. Past pedigree also matters, to an extent. For the perfect mix of past accomplishments with present achievement and a paved road for future success, look no further than the man atop the list.
It is as the sports Almighty intended it. For every winner, there is a loser (take that and your nil-nil ties, soccer!). For every Tiger Woods, there is a Detroit Lion. For every Isiah Thomas as a player, there is an Isiah Thomas as a general manager, league owner, boss and suspected poor Parcheezi player. And for every North Carolina with its win for the program's ring, there is a Wake Forest, which now hasn't made the Final Four since Carolina coach Roy Williams entered puberty. Check out FanHouse's breakdown of the winners and losers of the NCAA tournament, other than those five-time national champion Heels.
Georgia fired Dennis Felton in mid-season appeared to be thoroughly botching their coaching search. They targeted Missouri coach Mike Anderson, and had to wait until he finished a strong run to the Elite Eight. In doing so, Georgia missed out on other coaches like Anthony Grant. If not for the farce of a coaching search in Arizona overshadowing things, Georgia would have been receiving plenty of ridicule.
Anderson rebuffed Georgia and the reported $2 million plus offer to stay at Missouri for a nice raise, but not what Georgia was offering. Georgia's coaching search appeared to be in disarray. As if the program did not expect to be rejected by their first choice if they overwhelmed him with cash.
The year 2009 will be remembered as one without a Cinderella. The year college basketball's biggest brothers took a baseball bat to her glass slipper and turned it into a bucket of shards.
And, by any trick of math, they would be right. There was no plucky mid-major from a town your map has never heard of and no Cinderella with a seed as big as your shoe size.
But there was a darling. And it was Missouri, the star of this tournament.
On behalf of basketball fans everywhere, thank you, Missouri, for a brilliant run and a tough, impressive effort against Connecticut in the regional final. You gave us a great game to watch, and you really made the Huskies earn their way into the Final Four. And everybody should have to earn their way into the Final Four.
The way this thing started, it looked like a rout. UConn raced to that huge early lead, and you figured, "Oh well. Mismatch."
But then a funny thing happened. Missouri didn't go away.
GLENDALE, Ariz. -- Marcus Denmon already had his one shining moment, that freeze-frame picture to keep for a lifetime, long after the highlights of this NCAA tournament fade.
The Missouri freshman snagged an inbounds pass Thursday night, sidestepped to avoid a hand waving in his face, and let history fly. From three-quarters out, with the halftime buzzer about to blare, Denmon's fling dropped flawlessly through the twine to put his team up by 13, and from that second on Mizzou knew it had been touched by something special, something only a handful of teams get to experience as March rushes to a close.
The NCAA tournament is just one day away, so FanHouse writers and editors got together to talk over each region. The Midwest Region got the ball rolling, followed by the East. The South looks like it could go to the top seeds, but what about the West? Here is the last installment of our NCAA FanHouse Roundtables.
Chris Burke: Unlike the other three regions, where it's the top seeds' bracket to lose, UConn may not have the same stranglehold over things due to Jerome Dyson's injury. The Huskies have lost two straight and are just 4-3 since Dyson hurt his knee, so they look, to me, like the most vulnerable of all the No. 1 seeds. It doesn't help that, after the first round, they may not have another easy game. The other six teams in the top-half of this bracket can be considered threats, from Washington right on down to Mississippi State and Northern Iowa.
Mike Anderson was the best story in football in 2000, a 27-year-old rookie and Marine Corps veteran who came out of nowhere to rush for 1,487 yards and win the league's rookie of the year award with the Denver Broncos.
Anderson spent five more seasons with the Broncos and then the last two with the Baltimore Ravens, but he never matched that level of success, and he's not currently under contract to any NFL team. And now no team could play him in 2008, even if they wanted to.
Howard Balzer of Sports XChange is reporting (via PFT) that Anderson has been suspended for one year, apparently for a violation of the league's substance-abuse policy. He was previously suspended four games in 2003 for a violation of the substance-abuse policy.
Realistically, this suspension means his career is over no one is going to sign a 35-year-old running back coming off a yearlong suspension. It's a disappointing end for a career that had such a great beginning.
After watching Steve McNair throw three interceptions last night, including one in the end zone where the Ravens could have taken a 6-3 lead into halftime and two interceptions in the fourth quarter, it would be easy to place all the blame on him. Unfortunately, this is a team that still can't run the ball effectively, due to the combination of the continued ineffectiveness of Jamal Lewis (an anemic 2.9 yards per carry) a back that just doesn't seem to have the ability to break tackles any longer. Still, both Mike Anderson and Musa Smith seemed to be able to move the ball more effectively when they got their touches.
Still, McNair deserves to shoulder some of the blame, mainly because he simply doesn't have the skills anymore to be a first line starting quarterback. I've been astounded at the kid gloves treatment McNair has gotten so far this season (never more apparent than on Tuesday's edition of PTI, as Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon continued to ignore McNair's obvious shortcomings), even as he consistently short-hopped balls to receivers as often as he overthrew them. And forget about throwing the deep ball, as it seems McNair is just as likely to throw an interception as to make a long completion downfield.
The result: For three weeks in a row now, the Ravens put the game on McNair's shoulders in the fourth quarter, but this time they rolled the dice and it came up snake eyes. With a running game that can't seemingly get on track, McNair may very well be faced with the same situation deeper into the season. But while the Ravens may still talk about all the confidence they have in their veteran quarterback, there are only so many times you can call on the old warhorse, and I'm afraid the fourth quarter breakdown we saw last night is only the first of many.
It is as the sports Almighty intended it. For every winner, there is a loser (take that and your nil-nil ties, soccer!). For every Tiger Woods, there is a Detroit Lion. For every Isiah Thomas as a player, there is an Isiah Thomas as a general manager, league owner, boss and suspected poor Parcheezi player. And for every North Carolina with its win for the program's ring, there is a Wake Forest, which now hasn't made the Final Four since Carolina coach Roy Williams entered puberty. Check out FanHouse's breakdown of the winners and losers of the NCAA tournament, other than those five-time national champion Heels.
Georgia fired Dennis Felton in mid-season appeared to be thoroughly botching their coaching search. They targeted Missouri coach Mike Anderson, and had to wait until he finished a strong run to the Elite Eight. In doing so, Georgia missed out on other coaches like Anthony Grant. If not for the farce of a coaching search in Arizona overshadowing things, Georgia would have been receiving plenty of ridicule.
The year 2009 will be remembered as one without a Cinderella. The year college basketball's biggest brothers took a baseball bat to her glass slipper and turned it into a bucket of shards.
This is a thank-you note. 
GLENDALE, Ariz. -- Marcus Denmon already had his one shining moment, that freeze-frame picture to keep for a lifetime, long after the highlights of this NCAA tournament fade.
The NCAA tournament is just one day away, so FanHouse writers and editors got together to talk over each region. The Midwest Region got the ball rolling, followed by the East. The South looks like it could go to the top seeds, but what about the West? Here is the last installment of our NCAA FanHouse Roundtables. 
Mike Anderson was the best story in football in 2000, a 27-year-old rookie and Marine Corps veteran who came out of nowhere to rush for 1,487 yards and win the league's rookie of the year award with the Denver Broncos.
Now that the Ravens undefeated season has come to an end on national television against the Broncos, I hope everyone understands exactly what I'd been seeing for the first four weeks of the season: A team with a dominant defense on one side of the ball, coupled with an inconsistent offense that always seemed to be teetering on the brink of disaster.
