Selection Sunday is six days away. Time to start digging under your mattresses for pool money.
Big Ten co-champ and tournament No.1 seed Illinois? Up to No.12 on my ballot — four spots higher than Monday’s new AP Top 25 poll has the Illini, who still are behind both Purdue and co-champ Wisconsin. Missouri Valley tournament champ Loyola? Still unranked, but when has something as trivial as that stopped the Ramblers before? It’s hard to know how important the weekly AP poll is to most fans throughout the season, but we can safely assume no one will be paying much attention to it from here. It’s all about the NCAA selection committee now. Selection Sunday is six days away. Time to start digging under your mattresses for pool money. By the way, will Illinois and Loyola be in the same region again as they were a year ago? Would the committee dare line them up to meet again before the Sweet 16? ESPN’s Joe Lunardi has the Illini as the 4 seed in the East and the Ramblers as the 11 in the Midwest.
