The morning games are over and the day’s afternoon games are all well underway. How’s your bracket looking? Are you stocked for beer and munchies for tonight’s matchups? With 11 games on tap you’re going to need some serious grub to keep up with all the action. Here’s what went down earlier today:

Xavier over Georgia 73-61
Georgia controlled the first half of the game but Xavier fought back hard during the second half to win the game 73-61 over Georgia and they advance to the second round to play the winner of the Purdue-Baylor game. Derrick Brown put up 19 points and 11 rebounds, and Josh Duncan scored 20 points for the Musketeers.

Kansas over Portland State 85-61
Brandon Rush scored 18 points and the Kansas Jayhawks easily beat Portland State 85-61 in first round action. By all accounts it looked like an easy win from start to finish. “This is the part of the season where everyone has to be clicking on all cylinders,” senior guard Russell Robinson said. “We’re doing a great job of that so far.”

Michigan State over Temple 72-61
Raymar Morgan scored 15 points and the Spartans beat Temple 72-61 in the first round of the South Regional. This is Michigan State’s 11th straight trip to the NCAA tournament, but they haven’t advanced out of the second round since 2005, when they lost to North Carolina in the national semifinals.

For all your NCAA Basketball Tournament scores and recaps, go to the source at NCAA.com.

Here we are again. It’s the first round of the men’s college basketball Tournament, which invariably means some unfortunate favorite – like Duke last year – is going to get the heave-ho. Millions of brackets will be busted instantly.

Keeping your bracket intact is more than just an exercise in deciding which No. 13 seed is going to advance to the second round. The point is to find which matchups fit the upset profile. Competent low-major champions often get seeded No. 13, and vulnerable big-time programs often fall to the 4-seed. But what about Winthrop-Washington State? I personally don’t see the Cougars (No. 11 in efficiency) in danger of falling to the Eagles (No. 109).

Don’t get too hung up on the low-major thing, either. I’m looking at Kansas State (No. 15 in efficiency) and marveling at how the Wildcats are 11-seeds against USC (No. 20). And they’re playing in Omaha, just up the road from Kansas in America’s heartland.

Everyone’s got a gimmick. Some are right there in your face, like Pamela Anderson’s. Others are less obvious.

My gimmick for filling out my 2008 March Madness bracket is to give added weight to those teams with the most motivation to play well. Not that I’m throwing solid analytical number-crunching out the window. That’s the basis for any sharp bracket. But to separate my bracket from the crowd (and thus have a better chance at winning), I need a gimmick. I need to get emotional.

So who wants it more? Which players are bursting with pride when they slip on their colors? The Memphis Tigers have something to prove coming out of Conference USA. The UCLA Bruins are loaded for bear after two consecutive Final Four appearances. The Duke Blue Devils would love to erase last year’s embarrassing first-round exit. And surely the Wisconsin Badgers are tired of being treated like second-class Big 10 citizens. There’s my Final Four.

Tennessee’s stay atop the college basketball rankings lasted exactly one week. Since beating previously undefeated Memphis as 6.5-point road dogs, the Vols are 0-2 ATS, losing at Vanderbilt and barely squeaking past Kentucky. That was more than enough to knock Tennessee down to No. 2 in the rankings.

Meet the new boss – same as the old boss. The North Carolina Tar Heels have regained their No. 1 spot at a commanding 27-2 SU and 19-7 ATS. But why the Tar Heels? They lost at home to Maryland and Duke and sit in sixth place in team efficiency. Memphis (13-14-2 ATS) still has just the one loss and is third in efficiency.

Not that handicappers care too much about the injustice of the polls – other than profiting from it, of course. Taking back first place should make the Heels that much more fadeable when they play Duke this Saturday at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

That No. 1 spot in the college rankings is proving to be just as slippery for basketball players as it was for their football counterparts. Tennessee beats Memphis (-6.5), then loses to Vanderbilt (+2)? Inconceivable.

Actually, this is what you get when there are so many outstanding basketball programs at the top of the Division I food chain. Sorting out which teams to support and fade during March Madness is going to be a little more difficult this year. Time to get to work.

If you haven’t done so already, parcel some time out of your schedule to get up to speed on the 2007-08 season. Arrange your workspace efficiently in order to pack in as much study as possible; the Internet is, quite frankly, a godsend for research of any kind. But you still have to use it properly. Consider investing in some of those pay services like ESPN Insider; you’re very much in their demographic.

Bobby Knight has moved on. So have six other Division I men’s basketball coaches this season. Kelvin Sampson may be next; at press time, Indiana was reportedly on the verge of purging Sampson over allegations of improper recruiting.

Then you have Tim Welsh. Chances are Welsh will be looking for a new employer soon; his Providence Friars are near the bottom of the Big East standings at 4-10 (13-13 overall, 10-14 ATS), and everyone from the local papers to Athletic Director Bob Driscoll is preparing a pink slip for Welsh after a decade at PC.

Welsh first head coaching gig was at Iona, where he took over for his father, Jerry. That was a successful transition; the same cannot be said in Stillwater, where Sean Sutton’s OSU Cowboys are 13-12 (7-10 ATS) and going nowhere since the living legend Eddie Sutton “retired” two years ago. Let’s hope things work out better for Pat Knight at Texas Tech.

Sure, football is over for another season. But this isn’t the handicapping abyss by any means. The segue between the Super Bowl and March Madness is hardly a chore when there are so many great conference rivalries on the schedule.

Few things burn with more intensity than the ACC’s Battle of Tobacco Road between UNC and Duke. The Blue Devils (+4.5) marched on Chapel Hill last week and beat the Heels by 11 points; how crazy will Cameron Indoor Stadium be when the rematch goes down in the season finale?

Meanwhile, this week’s Big Ten gauntlet sees the Indiana Hoosiers host Wisconsin, Michigan State and Purdue – all ranked teams. The Boilers are Indiana’s traditional rivals dating back to 1901; Purdue leads the all-time series 107-83, although Indiana has been far more successful in modern times. The Hoosiers are always guaranteed a sea of red at Assembly Hall, so ESPN will be there for both Indiana-MSU and Indiana-Purdue.

Easily the biggest college basketball game of the week sees the No. 2 Duke Blue Devils (19-1 SU, 12-6-1 ATS) visit the No. 3 North Carolina Tar Heels (21-1 SU, 15-4 ATS). Odds weren’t available at press time, but judging by the overnight line from Vegas, North Carolina will be favored. Duke, however, is in fourth place in the efficiency rankings, while the Heels are seventh and pessimistic about point guard Ty Lawson’s status following Sunday’s sprained left ankle at Florida State.

While those two storied programs fight it out on ESPN, Saturday’s matchup between the Evansville Aces (6-15 SU, 8-11 ATS) and the No. 15 Drake Bulldogs (20-1 SU, 14-3 ATS at press time) gets squat for television coverage. The Bulldogs are the most profitable team in the nation, but Drake’s run might be getting a little too chalky; the Missouri Valley leaders are No. 24 in efficiency, nine spots below their ranking in the coaches’ poll.

The Memphis Tigers have seized the top spot in the college basketball rankings. They’re undefeated at 19-0, profitable at 10-7-2 ATS, and rampaging toward a No. 1 seed in the Tournament. But they’re not the favorites to win it all; that honor belongs to the Kansas Jayhawks at 3-1. Memphis appears affordably priced at 4-1.

The Tigers have the dubious distinction of playing in Conference-USA, a shadow of its former self at No. 10 in the conference efficiency rankings. That means less mainstream coverage and less respect for Memphis, already one of the smaller markets on the map.

It’s going to be difficult to pass up betting on Kansas, the only other undefeated club in Division I at 20-0 and a scorching 13-5 ATS. The Jayhawks are first in team efficiency; Memphis is second. But in a season with so many potential champions, there might be even more value on Duke (9-1) or Georgetown (18-1) to win it all.

We were more than happy to see the non-conference portion of the college basketball season come to an end. But we’re going to have to revisit those numbers in March, when teams from far and wide will be thrown together at the NCAA Tournament.

You can get an appreciation for the relative merits of each conference by looking at the RPI or, preferably, the Pomeroy rankings. The current leader in RPI is the Atlantic Coast Conference, followed by the Pacific-10 and the Big East. Pomeroy has the Pac-10 on top ahead of the Big 12 and the ACC.

Fans of the Missouri Valley Conference were worried this summer about getting just one berth in this year’s Tournament, and it looks like their fears may have been justified. The MVC has slipped behind the Atlantic-10 on both the RPI and Pomeroy charts. No wonder Drake is 7-0 SU in conference play and 11-2 ATS overall this year.