Selection Sunday 2016 March Madness Champ Week NCAA basketball championships March 13
This year"s show has been expanded to two hours for twice the bracket fun.
The moment of truth has arrived. Nearly all of the automatic bids have been handed out and the bubble situation is almost settled. Now the only thing left to do is make the bracket, which will be revealed on the Selection Sunday show. As usual, the show will be televised on CBS and streamed online at NCAA.com.
The big change to this year"s show is that it"s now two hours long, instead of the previous one hour. That sounds like a recipe for even more padding and filler, which will no doubt frustrate viewers. But everybody will be tuning in anyway, so CBS and the NCAA come out the big winners, as usual.
By the time the show starts, we"ll already know which 32 teams have won an automatic bid after taking their respective conference tournaments. The only champions that have to be decided on Sunday are in the American Athletic, the Atlantic 10, the Big Ten, the SEC and the Sun Belt.
Beyond the drama of which teams will get the 36 at-large spots, we"ll also find out who gets the coveted No. 1 seeds. This year"s big candidates for the top line are Kansas, Villanova, Virginia and Oklahoma, while teams like Michigan State, Xavier and North Carolina also make a strong case for themselves.
As for this year"s tournament favorite, well ... there is no favorite. This has been one of the wildest and most unpredictable college basketball seasons in recent memory, and the NCAA Tournament promises to be no different. In other words, this is a bad year to be a betting man. We recommend you just sit back and enjoy the ride.
How to watch
Date: Sun., March 13
When: 5:30 p.m. ET
TV: CBS
Online: NCAA.com
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Greatest Cinderella: Was it the NC State Wolfpack or Butler Bulldogs?
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North Carolina will stay close to home as the top seed in the East.
The North Carolina Tar Heels were rewarded for yet another stellar season, earning the No. 1 seed in the East region. UNC made its case after beating Virginia to win the ACC Tournament. The Tar Heels get the built-in advantage of staying close to home, beginning the NCAA Tournament in Raleigh, N.C.
Check out the full NCAA Tournament bracket
The Tar Heels finished the regular season 25-6 and 14-4 in conference play, becoming the top seed in the ACC Tournament. They went on to steamroll Pittsburgh and Notre Dame in the postseason, with the 78-47 win over the Irish standing out as a dominant beatdown. The Cavaliers gave UNC a much bigger fight in the final round, but the Tar Heels eventually pulled out the 61-57 win. Virginia will travel out to the Midwest region as the No. 1 seed.
The rest of region is loaded at the top, with Xavier getting the No. 2 seed, West Virginia the No. 3 and Kentucky the No. 4. A potential UNC/Kentucky matchup in the Sweet Sixteen seems bound to be one of the best tournament"s best games, although mid-major champions Stephen F. Austin and Chattanooga should not be overlooked in this region.
Here"s the complete bracket for the East region.
1. North Carolina16. Florida Gulf Coast/Fairleigh Dickinson
You know the old saying: it"s Pi Day, Pi Day, gotta get down on Pi Day. And what better way to celebrate the date that embodies everyone"s favorite mathematical constant than with precisely 3.14 facts about pi.
1 A Japanese memory master Claims he can recite pi to 111,700 digits
Memorizing pi is an undeniably nerdy pursuit, but some people have taken the challenge to extreme lengths. Japanese memory master Akira Haraguchi has recited 100,000 digits of pi in public (it took more than 16 hours), andtold The Guardian that his personal record goes to111,700 digits. Haraguchi"s technique relies on assigning symbols to numbers, turning pi"s random sequence of digits into stories mostly, he says, about animals and plants.
"To me, reciting pis digits has the same meaning as chanting the Buddhist mantra and meditating," Haraguchi told The Guardian in 2015. "According to Zen Buddhism teachings, everything that exists in this world the mountains, the rivers and all the living creatures carries the spirit of the Buddha. Ive interpreted this to mean that everything that circles around carries the spirit of the Buddha. I think pi is the ultimate example of that."
A visual representation of pi. (Image credit: Creative Commons)
2 We know way more digits of pi than we need to
Pi may have transcended mere numberhood to become a cultural symbol, but it still has practical uses. As theseexamples show, engineers and scientists need pi for all sorts of tasks, including calculating flight paths (as the planes are traveling on an arc of a circle) and audio processing (as pi is used to calculate sine waves).
But calculations like these only needbetween five to 15 digits to be accurate, and we currently know pi toquadrillions of digits. Finding digits of pi may be a favorite pastime for researchers with idle supercomputers, but this is mostly just showing off. To get an idea of how unnecessary these digits are for practical calculations, consider the fact that you only need 39 digits of pi to calculate the circumference of the universe to the accuracy of the width of a hydrogen atom.
3 Pi has its own literary form: pilish
"Yes, I have a robot disguised as Nikola Tesla." This is my (sadly inaccurate) attempt at writing in pilish: a literary form in which the number of letters in each successive word match the digits of pi. The restrictive nature of pilish means it"s not particularly good for longer works, but the acknowledged master of pilish mathematicianMichael Keith has written anovella that follows pi"s digits for 10,000 decimals.
Scientists havesearched published works for examples of accidental pilish, but there seem to be few examples of any note. Happily, though, one of the earliest (intentional) examples of pilish is one of the most apposite. It"sthought to have been composed by English physicist James Hopwood Jeans and runs as follows: "How I need a drink, alcoholic in nature, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics!"
Tonight on AMC Talking Dead returns with an all new Sunday March 13, season 6 episode 13 and we have your weekly recap below. On tonights episode, guest talk about The Same Boat episode of The Walking Dead is discussed.
On the last episode Talking Dead host Chris Hardwick were sat down with Alanna Masterson (Tara), Ross Marquand (Aaron) and actor J.B. Smoove discuss the episode Not Tomorrow Yet from The Walking Dead. Hosted by Chris Hardwick. Did you watch the last episode? If you missed it, we have a full and detailed recap right here for you.
Tonight on Talking Dead as per the AMC synopsis, Melissa McBride (Carol), a surprise cast member and director Paul Feig discuss the episode The Same Boat from The Walking Dead. Hosted by Chris Hardwick.
Talking Dead airs tonight, at 10:30 PM ET on AMC after The Walking Dead. After The Walking Dead recap, Celeb Dirty Laundry offers a live recap of tonights Talking Dead! How excited are you knowing that both The Walking Dead and The Talking Dead are back? Sound off in the comments down below!
Tonights episode begins now Refresh Page often to get the most current updates!
#TalkingDead tonight has Paul Feig, director of the new Ghostbusters sequel, Melissa McBride (Carol) and Alicia Witt (dead Paula of the Saviors). Chris Hardwick tells Melissa that she was amazing tonight and asks if Carol was really breaking down.
Melissa says it was blurred and says her biggest fear is herself and what shes capable of doing killing. Chris says Carol hasnt processed since theyve been on the move. He says Carol is trending right now on Twitter. One Tweet called Carol the Heisenberg of the apocalypse.
Chris says sorry Alicia died but she says that was epic and the way to go. Shes thrilled. She says shes a mega fan. She says Scott Gimple followed her on Twitter randomly and the DMd then the audition came up and it was a bank robbery audition and was random.
She says she got the script on the plane and she could not have wished for anything more. She says Melissas work ash been a revelation and shes watched every episode. She says its crazy to think its out in the world since they shot it a while ago.
Alicia says they were dying laughing when the cameras were off. Melissa says they were behaving so inappropriately. Alicia says she and Melissa were laughing about really wrong things. Alicia says she had a canteen and she was all serious and then she missed her mouth and went down the front of her shirt.
She says she hoped Melissa didnt see it and says shes trying so hard not to laugh as shes dribbling it on herself. Paul Feig says he was blown away by the episode and says Melissas Carol is the best character on television right now.
He says he liked the lady-centric episode. He calls it a chess game of whether they would find empathy. He says it was a knockout episode. Now its the In Memoriam. We see slaughterhouse walkers, heeey ladies walkers, Donnie, no way out burning saviors, Primo, Molly, Chelle, and Paula.
The end note says Paula may have been a Savior but no one could save her from Maggie and Carol. Now we see behind the scenes of Lauren Cohan talking about Chelle and Paula who are like Maggie and Carols alter-egos.
She says working with Melissa on this episode is her Walking Dead dream come true and says it was the most inspiring experience and love that the craziness happened. She says she and Melissa stayed for those eight days of the episodes as those characters.
Melissa agrees that she and Lauren dont get to work closely like that so much. She says she loved seeing Maggie fighting so hard and says Carol wants Maggie and her baby safe back in Alexandria. Paul says you never smoke around pregnant Maggie.
Paul says if it was him, he would have a breakdown and says Maggie letting it all out and beating Mollys head was amazing. Chris asks Alicia about Paula killing her boss in minute one of the apocalypse. Alicia says the script was so beautifully written.
Alicia says h**l yeah since she was living a horrid existence already then the apocalypse happened and her boss kept her from her family so she killed him. Feig says AMC needs a new show called Better Call Paula. Alicia says after her family died, nothing mattered.
Now the quiz
#1 Which term for walkers is NOT used by the new group? Roamers, Growlers or Coldbloods? Roamers.
#2 What is engraved on Molls lighter? Clown, four leaf clover, or skull? Skull.
#3 Who was Frankie to Chelle? Her boyfriend, her son or her father? Her father.
Lauren talks about going through a Starbucks drive thru and the barista freaked out and says she loves her and shes her favorite. She says she fangirled on her and was so cute. She says then the girls boss told her she was on the intercom. Lauren says that was her favorite fan encounter ever.
Chris reads a tweet that says smoking isnt the silent killer Maggie and Carol are. Melissa says the difference is that Paul has lost her humanity and quit counting and says Carol is still counting. Melissa says it was awesome to shoot while she was tied up and Paula was telling her story.
She says it was strange and foretelling. Alicia says it was odd and she felt that Paula was watching Carol and something was getting under her skin. Chris says maybe Paula hated that Carol still felt things when she gave up her humanity.
Now a poll are you shocked about Carols crisis of conscience? Yes or No. Paul says youd have to have one or be a monster but says it wont stop her because shes a strong protector and mother figure. 68% say no they are not shocked.
Chris asks about Carol and Daryls embrace at the end. Carol says Daryl is one of the few she can let her mask go and be vulnerable with. Melissa says Carol would find it hard to wear that mask that helps her separate tasks when Daryl is looking at her.
She says it would be hard for Daryl to see the fake Carol with the cardigan. Chris says Daryl can adjust to what he needs to do. A caller asks Melissa what does it symbolize when Carol cut her hand on the rosary? Melissa says the rosary is worth researching if you dont know what it means.
She says the prayer alone, bless us now and in the hour of death, could be about Carol wanting faith. Melissa says the piercing the hand wasnt intentional. Now they hear that Walking Dead is getting a permanent attraction at Universal Studios Hollywood.
Now we see some inside info on tonights episode. Andy Lincoln was on set even though he was only on the walkie. Only one set was used for the whole episode and it was custom built. Jeananne Goosen who played Chelle is terrified of walkers and had to talk to the extras to remind herself they were just people.
Now a fan from the audience comes up and asks Melissa what she thinks was going through Carols mind when she burned those people alive. Melissa says terrible things and says the smell of burning bodies has to remind her of Carol and David and her own future in h**l.
Chris has for the fan some binoculars and a walkie talkie. He says maybe Rick will answer sometimes and ask for his friends back. Paul says he loved the burning Saviors and though Carol was just lighting a cigarette he thought she was having a smoke then she threw it in and it was badass.
Chris asks Alicia about the coffee story. Alicia says her favorite moment didnt make it in. She says it was cut and she knows why they cut it. She says it was after Paula was going out in the hall and then she says she would have probably sent funny cat pictures to Carol before all this.
Chris asks what if Paula find Ricks group instead of Negans and she says she think they could have turned her around because there was probably some humanity buried deep down. We see some tweets from fans next about not messing with Carol and Maggie.
We see some behind the scenes of the hallway walker fight and all the up close scenes. Jeananne calls it a rock-em sock-em show down. Maggie says they wanted kickass women fighting like men. We see Alicia getting ready to have her face ripped off and says the walker extra is going to bite her with his real teeth.
Alicia says it was so much fun to have her face eaten and says it was an amazing two weeks and the death scene was last and it was about 9 at night. She says its trust because they guy playing the walker was really biting and she had to trust hed get the prosthetic and not her face.
She says the prosthetic on her neck was a whole shooting aorta so someone was behind her with a pump and two gallons of blood. She says he went for the neck and she felt the blood go into every orifice and says she was full of blood because it malfunctioned.
She says they led her off dripping blood and she couldnt hug Melissa goodbye. Paul says hes fascinated by Negan and read the books but then stopped. He says when Rick shot Primo after he said he was Negan and he wanted to stop them.
He also says those guys had to die for calling walkers growlers. Melissa is asked about her comment as Carol to Maggie that shes meant to be something else. Melissa says Carol didnt want her out there. Shes asked if she prefers nurturing Carol or killer Carol and she says both.
We see a look at next weeks episode with Carol smoking with Daryl and her saying he got his bike back. He lights up and she says those people in the burnt forest took his bike. She asks if he saved them and says thats who he is. He says he should have killed them.
Paul says Daryl just validated Carols actions because he let them go and something bad happens. Paul is asked on Twitter where he sees them in five years. He says running a Frogurt and its all good. He says he just hopes theyre all alive and says theyre a badass team who can survive.
Chris says they stress him out every week doing things he knows they shouldnt. Chris says Alicia was amazing and says it was a wonderful way to go. Chris says Melissa brings strength and grace to her performances and says shes a joy to watch.
DSP Tries It: Blaming Daylight Savings Times For Low Stream Attendance
Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana Launched
Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana Launched
The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi today has approved the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana a path breaking scheme for farmers welfare.
The highlights of this scheme are as under:
i) There will be a uniform premium of only 2% to be paid by farmers for all Kharif crops and 1.5% for all Rabi crops. In case of annual commercial and horticultural crops, the premium to be paid by farmers will be only 5%. The premium rates to be paid by farmers are very low and balance premium will be paid by the Government to provide full insured amount to the farmers against crop loss on account of natural calamities.ii) There is no upper limit on Government subsidy. Even if balance premium is 90%, it will be borne by the Government.iii) Earlier, there was a provision of capping the premium rate which resulted in low claims being paid to farmers. This capping was done to limit Government outgo on the premium subsidy. This capping has now been removed and farmers will get claim against full sum insured without any reduction.iv) The use of technology will be encouraged to a great extent. Smart phones will be used to capture and upload data of crop cutting to reduce the delays in claim payment to farmers. Remote sensing will be used to reduce the number of crop cutting experiments.
The new Crop Insurance Scheme is in line with One Nation One Scheme theme. It incorporates the best features of all previous schemes and at the same time, all previous shortcomings/weaknesses have been removed.
The European Union has suspended its direct support to the government of Burundi, saying that the authorities in Bujumbura have not sufficiently addressed the EU"s concerns.
A significant chunkgovernment expenditure is funded by the EU.
The EU says that 400 people have died and nearly 240,000 have fled the country since the political strife began in April last year.
That was triggered by President Pierre Nkurunziza"s announcement that he would run for a third term.
The EU"s foreign affairs commissionerFederica Mogherini said:
The situation in Burundi remains of serious concern for the EU, though we have seen recently some glimpses of hope. Today"s decision makes clear that for our relations to be fully resumed we expect a number of concrete measures to be carried out."
The press release does not lay out exactly what those measures are, but encourages thegovernment tosupport the inter-Burundi dialogue, which is beingmediated by the East African Community.
The EU has said it will continue to fund humanitarian aid programmes.
Despite protests, President Nkurunziza successfully ran for a third term in July last year
College basketball"s regular season was among the most unpredictable in history. Top-ranked teams dropped like flies on a weekly basisto the point it was almost impossible to keep up with the standings from one week to the next.
Now, we"ll get to see if that unpredictability carries over when it counts.
The NCAA selection committee had the unenviable task of sorting through the regular season Sunday, picking the 68 teams that will vie for a national championship. Some of the committee"s picks were obvious. Kansas clearly established itself as the No. 1 overall seed after finishing on a 14-game winning streak, while North Carolina"s run through the ACC tournament gave it an advantage over Virginia.
"Sometimes when you play at a place like Kansas you have to win and that"s their mindset," Kansas coach Bill Self said, per Dennis Dodd of CBSSports.com. "As opposed to, "Let"s just go have fun and play." I think those guys are doing a better job of just going and playing.Pleasure should exceed pressure. A lot of time that doesn"t happen in sports."
Oregon and Virginiaround out the four No. 1 seeds. Villanova"s surprising loss to Seton Hall in the Big East tournament dropped the Wildcats to a second seed, and Oklahoma"s recent string of losses made Lon Kruger"s team a clear No. 2. Michigan Stateand Xavierround out the second seeds.
Michigan State, which many had pegged as a No. 1 seed, was perhaps the biggest surprise at No. 2. Mike Sullivan of 97.1 The Ticket posted a solid meme:
Those decisions, for the most part, were pretty easy. The more difficult ones came at the bottom of the bracket, where the committee had to sort through a drove of teams with similar resumes. Wichita State, Vanderbilt, Michigan and Tulsawere the last four teams in and will play in opening games Tuesday and Wednesday.
Tony Reali of ESPN isn"t enamored with play-in games:
Heading into Selection Sunday, Monmouth and Wichita State presented particularly interesting resumes. Both were clearly the best teams in their respective conferences during the regular season. Monmouth blitzed through the MAAC with a 17-3 record and advanced to the conference final before losing by three points to Iona.
The Hawks didn"t just beat up on a weak schedule, either. They took down Notre Dame and USC in a three-day span during their nonconference slate and posted a solid 13-4 road record. At issue is whether Monmouth deserved to get into the Big Dance over major-conference bubble teams that played stonger schedules overall.
"Thirteen road wins, 17 road/neutral? No brainer," ESPN"s Jay Bilas said, per Josh Newman of theAsburyPark Press. "If they don"t get in, it"s a really bad message in a year SMU and Louisville can"t go. Really bad."
Seth Davis ofSports Illustratedpointed out two more wins on the Monmouth slate:
Wichita State, meanwhile, recovered from a miserable start to the season to put together a solid resume. The Shockers began the season 2-4 in nonconference play, which included a road loss against Tulsa. But they turned things around to go 22-4 the rest of the way, winning a home game against Utah and then posting a 16-2 mark in the MVC.
Unfortunately for coach Gregg Marshall and Co., they put themselves on the bubble with a loss to Northern Iowa in their semifinal matchup. The Shockers were held to 31.7 percent shooting, including 2-of-24 from beyond the arc. It was the second straight year they had to sweat things out on Selection Sunday after a surprising loss in the conference tournament.
Mike Mazzeo of ESPN sympathized with Monmouth"s disappointment:
While in most years it"d be unwise to focus so heavily on the middle of the bracket, the regular season proved nearly every team is beatable. Kansas is peaking at the right time, but this is the same team that took a 19-point road loss to Oklahoma State. North Carolina seems to be finally realizing its talent, but the Tar Heels can"t shoot from three-point range and have a loss to Northern Iowa on their resume.
Two years ago, Connecticut won the national championship from a No. 7 spot. Thirty-one years ago, Villanova set the record by winning as a No. 8 seed. If the regular season is any indication, that record could be in jeopardy.
A number of tweets featured teams reacting to their seeding:
While Kansas is considered by most the best team in the country, it didn"t necessarily get the best draw. Jason McIntyre of The Big Lead offered his thought on the South Region:
ESPN Stats & Info also provided a solid representation of the Jayhawks" excellence:
It also offered insight into Duke being a No. 4 seed:
From an outside perspective, the biggest surprise was the committee favoring the Pac-12 over the Big Ten. Conference tournament champion Oregon landed the No. 1 seed that most expected to go to Michigan, while many other Big Ten seeds were below predictions.
Jon Solomon of CBSSports.com commented from the Pac-12 perspective:
Nicole Auerbach ofUSA Todaydiscussed the Big Ten:
Jemele Hill of ESPN, a noted Michigan State fan, was unhappy:
Bleacher Report provided an appropriate GIF:
Of the teams not selected, Monmouth drew perhaps the loudest chorus of boos. The Hawks went 27-7 during the regular season and had a win over Notre Dame. d**k Vitale of ESPN wasn"t pleased:
Among the at-larges, Tulsa was the most surprising toUSA Today"sDan Wolken:
Still, many were pleased with how the First Four shook out:
Sign up andplay Bleacher Report"s Bracket Challengenow for a chance to win the Ultimate Sports Trip to four events of your choice. And click here forB/R"s Printable Bracket.
