While my preseason projections won’t be available until the end of October, I have cranked out the odds for the holiday tournaments based on my rankings. Today’s column looks at who is likely to win each early season tournament, and what storylines to keep an eye on.

Do not hesitate to print out the tournament brackets and follow along as they happen. It is extremely easy to get busy with the Thanksgiving holidays and miss some of the best games of the season. But if you print out these brackets and fill them in, you won’t miss the upsets. Just click on the handy links throughout this document to find the printable brackets.

Preseason NIT Printable Bracket

I’ve already expressed my doubts about Michigan and my faith in Pittsburgh. But Pitt’s second round opponent will be very dangerous. Both Lehigh (led by NCAA hero CJ McCollum) and Robert Morris (led by super-scorer Velton Jones) have the ability to knock off Pittsburgh. These teams have a real chance to win the Patriot League and Northeast Conference, and this is the type of game that can mean the difference between earning a 15 seed and a 13 seed come March.

2K Sports Classic Printable Bracket

OSU’s Jared Cunningham, Alabama’s JaMychal Green, Purdue’s Robbie Hummel, and Villanova’s Maalik Wayns are gone, and those players were not only their team’s leading scorers last season, they were the heart of their respective offenses. Which rebuilding team will forge a new identity first? Because Anthony Grant has become a dominant defensive coach, while Craig Robinson has not, Alabama is the favorite here.

Charleston Classic Printable Bracket

There are some big name conference schools here, but this tournament is a dream for fans of mid-major squads. Murray St. won’t be able to duplicate last year’s 31-2 record, but with superstar point-guard Isaiah Canaan returning, Murray St. should have enough to beat Auburn and St. John’s. In fact, they might even face the College of Charleston in the semifinals. This offseason Charleston added head coach Doug Wojcik, a veteran coach who hasn’t been able to get to the NCAA tournament, but a coach who has consistently built strong defensive teams. If Wojcik can get Charleston to play great defense this season, he has enough returning talent to make a run at an NCAA tournament bid. Andrew Lawrence is clearly Charleston’s best returning offensive player, but the real player to keep an eye on is Adjehi Baru. Baru was ranked 37^th in the nation out of high school and is one of the highest ranked recruits to ever attend Charleston. And while Baru was a nice complimentary player as a freshman last season, it will be very interesting to see if he can break out as a sophomore.

Of course the clear favorite here is Baylor. Baylor may have lost some key post players to graduation and the NBA, but they have plenty of incoming talent. This will be our first chance to see the highly acclaimed 7’1” freshman Isaiah Austin in action.

Puerto Rico Tipoff Printable Bracket

Oklahoma St.’s odds aren’t poor because Oklahoma St. is a bad team. The Cowboys add Top 10 freshman Marcus Smart alongside former Top 10 recruit LeBryan Nash. That one-two punch will make Oklahoma St. a likely NCAA tournament team this year. But the Cowboys have a terrible tournament draw.  First Oklahoma St. has to face Akron. Akron point guard Alex Abreu may be under-sized, but he’s an extremely talented player, and 7 foot center Zeke Marshall could have played for a number of BCS teams. And while the MAC hasn’t had multiple NCAA bids since 1999, Ohio and Akron are strong enough to break that trend.

Meanwhile Tennessee is a heavy favorite to be the second round opponent. Tennessee may have only finished 19-15 last year, but the Vols played substantially better after Jarnell Stokes joined the team mid-season. And with Trae Golden and Jeronne Maymon becoming efficient scorers for head coach Cuonzo Martin, a lot of people have taken notice. Florida head coach Billy Donovan has gone on the record to say that Tennessee is the team to beat in the SEC this season.

And if Oklahoma St. wins that game, they only have to face NC State in the final, the same NC State team that many people have labeled as the ACC favorite. So no, Oklahoma St. isn’t a bad team. But their path to a Puerto Rico tipoff title is brutal.

Coaches vs Cancer

If you get tired of the sloppy play by all the new players in November, please don’t miss Notre Dame vs St. Joseph’s in the first round of the Coaches vs Cancer tournament. Both teams return all five starters from last season and have plenty of offensive stars. I’m going to keep writing about the shot-blocking CJ Aiken, super-slasher Carl Jones, and the super-efficient Langston Galloway until St. Joe’s gets more love, but this four team field is wide open.

Notre Dame is the favorite, but I do have one question for Irish fans. Given Scott Martin’s middling efficiency numbers in his career, was it a good thing that the NCAA granted him an additional year of eligibility? Martin made just 26% of his threes and 40% of his twos last year, and while injuries may have contributed to that, it is clear he wasn’t an elite player last year.

Paradise Jam Printable Bracket

Despite a host of mid-major schools, this tournament looks very dull. Mercer and Iona might compete for the ASun and MAAC titles this year, but neither looks like a likely at-large bid.

And still Connecticut’s tournament odds are not great. First NCAA tournament sanctions led to a host of transfers this off-season. Then the Huskies lost Jim Calhoun to retirement. And as we’ve seen in recent seasons, UConn has been a different team when Calhoun is out. He’s a special coach who can elevate the level of his players, and he will not easily be replaced.

Steve Alford’s team might actually be a little better on offense this season. The team loses Drew Gordon at the forward position, but New Mexico also loses AJ Hardeman. And as great an offensive player as Gordon was, Hardeman was a black hole on offense. With Alex Kirk returning from injury to provide that shot-blocking presence in the paint, and all the returning talent at the guard spots, New Mexico deserves more preseason praise.

Hall of Fame Tip-Off Printable Bracket

Washington’s Abdul Gaddy has had an injury filled career, but with Tony Wroten leaving early for the draft, this is Gaddy’s team. The senior point-guard will have to integrate some new pieces throughout the Washington lineup. Seton Hall will have a number of new faces as well, including Georgia Tech transfer Brian Oliver and Southern Illinois transfer Gene Teague. Realistically, the winner of this game will probably be headed to the NIT, but a win against Ohio St. would be a fantastic notch on any NCAA resume. While Ohio St. is the clear favorite thanks to the efficient high volume shooter DeShaun Thomas, there are questions about how the Buckeyes offense will run without Jared Sullinger.

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Earlier this spring I presented my “way-too-early” projections for seven major conferences. Due to time and space constraints, I never published my projections for the A10 and CUSA. But with the announcement that VCU will be joining the A10 for the 2012-13 season, I thought it would be a good time to share my projections for that league.

These projections remove all graduating seniors, announced transfers, and early entrants from rosters. My transfer information comes from Jeff Goodman’s list as of May 14th. In these projections, I use the tempo free player statistics to predict how the margin-of-victory numbers will change between seasons. Then I use that information to predict the 2013 conference standings. For now I assume the A10 sticks with a 16-game schedule next season.

PW = Predicted Conference Wins

PL = Predicted Conference Losses

P% = Percentage of Possessions Returning – (Possessions are a more powerful predictor of future offense than minutes, although the model includes returning minutes as well.)

The remaining column headings were described in a previous post, but for a refresher, scroll to the bottom of this page.

VCU brings every key player back except Bradford Burgess. I don’t want to understate how important Burgess was to the Rams. He led the team in minutes, shots when on the floor, and he was one of the two most efficient players on the team. He will clearly be missed. But the four A10 teams that made the NCAA tournament also lost key players. Xavier lost Kenny Frease and Tu Holloway to graduation and Mark Lyons to transfer; St. Bonaventure lost Andrew Nicholson; Temple lost Ramon Moore, Michael Eric, and Juan Fernandez; and St. Louis lost Brian Conklin. None of those players will be easy to replace. I’d feel much more confident if VCU was bringing in a strong recruiting class, but Jordan Burgess was not a consensus Top 100 recruit.

Quite frankly this projection isn’t as much about elite talent as it is about Shaka Smart’s ability to bring his players together the last few years. His team had the top steal rate in the nation last season and as long as he is teaching a unique brand of full court basketball, he can win in the A10. His margin of victory numbers would have been second in the A10 last season, and his team returns 82% of its possessions. That’s a recipe for success. The model likes VCU to finish 3^rd in the A10 next year.

I’m not making a projection for Butler here, because they won’t be in the league until 2013-14, but if they were in the A10 next season, my model would have them at 10-6, right in the middle of the pack. Butler had a disappointing year by their new lofty standards because they simply couldn’t score. But the addition of one of the best three point shooters in the country (transfer Rotnei Clarke) as well as Kellen Dunham, a consensus Top 100 recruit, should help turn the offense around.

I’m looking forward to an annual battle between VCU and Butler where they re-air the highlights of the 2011 NCAA tournament, but the A10 absolutely must improve its television deal. The last few years this league has had a ton of great players who simply haven’t gotten the publicity they deserve nationally because they haven’t been on TV. St. Joseph’s Carl Jones and Massachusetts Chaz Williams are incredibly exciting players to watch, but I rarely saw their highlights on ESPN last year. The good news for those two players is that both St. Joseph’s and Massachusetts bring back their primary rotation and both teams should be in the hunt for the NCAA tournament next season.

I’m a little surprised Richmond isn’t picked higher by the model. Last year’s seniors all had very inefficient seasons and the 1.039 mark in the relative value column says Richmond is bringing back the exact right offensive players. But the Spiders had serious problems on defense last year and it is hard to predict a big turnaround. It isn’t that Chris Mooney doesn’t know what he is doing, but this really appears to be a “size” issue more than an effort issue. Most people remember the guard play during Richmond’s stellar Sweet Sixteen run from a few years ago, including Kevin Anderson’s amazing clutch shot against Vanderbilt. But that team was anchored in the middle by 6’10” Justin Harper, and so far Mooney hasn’t quite been able to find the right replacement in the middle.

Here is why my model likes St. Louis to win the league. Despite finishing second in the standings, St. Louis had far and away the best margin-of-victory numbers in the conference last year. Their defense was Top 10 caliber, and while Conklin will be missed, the biggest factor was having Rick Majerus on the sideline. Majerus reportedly spoke to SMU about their coaching vacancy this spring, but the fact that he stayed at St. Louis should mean the Billikens will have an elite defense once again. And in an A10 without any dominant teams, that should be the difference.

The model currently projects Xavier to go 10-6 in the A10 next season which would be the same conference record as this year. The model isn’t saying that this year’s team is as good as last year’s team on paper. What I am saying is that the Musketeers significantly under-achieved in 2012 and still have a lot of talent. Dezmine Wells should be back, and at times he looked like Xavier’s best player last year. Transfer Isaiah Philmore is a fabulous scorer. And elite PG recruit Semaj Christon should help lessen the blow of losing Tu Holloway.

Of course Memphis is the league favorite because they have the most talent. As I noted last fall, no non-BCS team recruits like Memphis and they will finally be playing in a BCS league in 2013-14. Until then, anything short of another league title will be a disappointment.

Point guard AJ Rompza graduates, but Central Florida hopes that one of two transfers will fill the void. The team adds Calvin Newell from Oklahoma and CJ Reed from Bethune Cookman. Newell might be the more familiar name, but Reed’s statistics at Bethune Cookman were fantastic and he might be the better player. Regardless of who wins the job, they will have three prolific scorers to feed as Isaiah Sykes, Keith Clanton, and Marcus Jordan all return.

If you are looking for a sleeper pick, consider UTEP. The Miners lose two starters but the team gave a lot of minutes to freshmen last year (particularly Cedrick Lang and Julian Washburn) and if those young players make a big “sophomore leap” in production, UTEP could be a surprise.

SMU is tough to project. The problem is that I don’t have any college data for Larry Brown and so it is hard to give him credit for what he can do on the sidelines. Normally when a veteran coach takes over a bad team, he will focus on improving the defense first. But SMU was actually a defensive-minded team last year; it was that the offense that was dreadful. And the offense isn’t going to get substantially better until the talent level of the team is upgraded. Larry Brown’s staff has been hard at work adding transfers to fill that gap, but the goal seems to be to build towards the first year in the Big East, not this season. Sure Illinois transfer Crandall Head might be eligible mid-semester, but will Larry Brown even waste a year of eligibility by playing him in the spring? I won’t be surprised if SMU does a little better than 4-12, but on paper this looks like an offensively challenged team.

Having said all that, a large reason SMU’s offense was dreadful was because SMU’s offensive rebounding was off-the-charts terrible. Perhaps by focusing on those types of skills, Larry Brown can improve SMU’s offense. London Giles was a pretty solid shooter and Jalen Jones has some skills, so the team isn’t completely devoid of hope. But if they do manage to get to .500 in CUSA, Larry Brown deserves credit. It shouldn’t be the expectation with this team.

Overall, Houston and SMU should be thankful they won’t play their first Big East game for 19 months, because neither team is ready. On the other hand, Memphis, Temple, and UCF would be competitive in the Big East this season. UCF might not have a winning record in the Big East, but they wouldn’t be a laughingstock with this year’s lineup.

Column Headings:

PW = Predicted Conference Wins

PL = Predicted Conference Losses

FrP% = Percentage of Freshmen Possessions

T10Fr = Consensus Top 10 Freshmen Recruits

N100 = New Recruits Ranked 11-100 on the Roster – (This includes transfers and redshirt freshmen.)

Total = Total RSCI Top 100 high school recruits on the roster

NC = New Coach

RV = Relative Value = Offensive Rating of Returning Players, Incoming Transfers, and Players Returning from Injury (like UNC’s Leslie McDonald) divided by the Offensive Rating of Last Year’s Roster

MOV12 = Opponent Adjusted Margin-of-Victory in 2012 (see Pythag. rating on Kenpom.com)

The older I get, the more I see that one of the things I love most about sports is the variety of it, the diversity of it and the CHARACTERS. Men’s tennis is at its best in many years because, for the first time in a long time, the top three or four players all have wildly different styles. The Tim Tebow story was fun on so many levels, but one of those levels was that he was just SO DIFFERENT in how he played — I’d say we are entering a great time for quarterbacks, because Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers and Eli Manning and Drew Brees and Michael Vick and Cam Newton and Tebow and others are not really alike at all.

-- Joe Posnanski

As a basketball fan, I’ve never understood the division that exists between fans of the NBA and the NCAA. While the NBA has the best basketball players in the world, March Madness is compelling in its own right and as entertaining as anything that happens on the professional level.

In the NBA, the owners of the 30 franchises consider turning a profit and getting an equal shot at the top players a right, regardless of how well (or how poorly) they run their organization and the respective size of their fan-bases. Since every losing team is a few ping pong balls from the rights to a LeBron James, Kevin Durant or Dwight Howard, personnel determines scheme in the NBA.

In contrast, the vast majority of the 344 Division I programs in college basketball have little chance of ever receiving a commitment from a McDonald’s All-American. But instead of petulantly trying to sabotage the sport in a misguided effort to legislate fairness, schools try many creative ways of leveraging the talents of the players they can recruit. As a result, scheme determines personnel in the NCAA.

At Syracuse, Jim Boeheim has made a Hall of Fame career out of running a contrarian scheme, in his case an aggressive 2-3 zone. The Orange traditionally have rosters full of “1.5’s”, 6’3+ combo guards lacking the quickness to defend elite PG’s and the size to defend SG’s, and “3.5’s”, 6’8+ combo forwards lacking the quickness to defend elite SF’s and the size to defend PF’s. However, because Syracuse never plays man defense, the athletic deficiencies of their players are minimized.

So while nearly every NBA team runs a fairly similar system of isolations, pick-and-rolls and man defense, an incredibly diverse array of styles can be found in the college game. On one end of the spectrum, teams like Missouri play four guards and pressure the ball 94 feet for 48 minutes, on the other, teams like Wisconsin run a deliberate motion offense, trying to minimize the number of possessions and shoot at the very end of the shot-clock.

In the NBA, the players are too good for the “40 Minutes of Hell” system (which Mike Anderson has brought to Missouri and Arkansas in the last few years) to be successful. Like Mike Leach’s bizarre pass-happy offense in college football, Anderson’s system, which he learned as a member of Nolan Richardson’s staff in Arkansas in the 1990’s, has philosophical holes that professional athletes can exploit. Nevertheless, that doesn’t make them any less entertaining on the collegiate level.

And with 68 teams set to compete in the NCAA Tournament, there are a lot more surprises in the college game. Even programs ranked in the top-15 like Murray State have barely been on national TV this season.

We have a pretty good idea of how teams like the Pacers and the 76ers match up with the top of the Eastern Conference but not whether an undersized Murray State squad can handle the size of an elite team from a Power Six conference. It’s an open question how Isaiah Canaan’s speed and athleticism translates outside of the Ohio Valley Conference. Non-conference play in college basketball generally ends in late December, so it’s almost impossible to gauge how younger teams like Texas, Washington and Tennessee who have found their groove in the last two months will fare in March.

In the NBA, it’s hard to envision a scenario where Chicago, Miami and Oklahoma City aren’t three of the final four teams left in the playoffs. In the NCAA, as many as two dozen teams have a legitimate shot at making a run at the Final Four.

Of course, in terms of entertainment, none of this makes the NCAA necessarily better or worse than the NBA, just different. But, as Posnanski writes, there’s something to be said for the concept of “different” in the modern sports world. Basketball fans of all stripes should enjoy March Madness; the NBA will still be here in a few weeks.