(Bumped to the front page by PJS, because I was going to write the same thing, and now I don't have to!)

According to Joe Lunardi over at the world wide leader, the Golden Gophers men's basketball team is slated to be a 10 seed (they had previously been off the board all together, including bubble teams on the outside) facing off against seventh seeded Miami in Portland.  Lunardi also has Kentucky as a 9 seed in Dayton.  If the seeds are this close between Kentucky and Minnesota, I can't see the committee resisting putting them against each other in some fashion in the first round.  As it stands now, the Minnesota/Miami winner would presumably play Gonzaga.  Oh the sweet irony.  The downfall of our program began with Gonzaga's run to one of the elite programs in the country back in 1998.

Michigan joins Minnesota as the 6th Big Ten team in the tournament; the highest tally in some time for the Big 10 and more than the Pac-10 (5) and SEC (4).  Lunardi projects Michigan getting an 8 seed an squaring off against Maryland in the first round opposite top seeded UConn.  Ohio State and Purdue each are looking at top billing for the Big 10 with 3 seeds.

Of course, this is basically if the season ended today--which it most certainly is not.  Naturally, this is a living, breathing document that will see a lot of change as we get closer to March and teams' resumes become more crystalized.  But it is good to see us in the picture.  A decent Big 10 showing should be all we need to make it  into the dance.  if we can continue to knock off a few of the big boys, our projected seeding will only climb.

On a personal note, I will be attending the first two rounds of the tournament on location in Miami (regardless of who is playing there).  I'm selfishly hoping for the Gophers to land in one of those pods of the tournament.