The whole Kobe maelstrom seems to have had a lasting effect on Chicago GM John Paxson: this coaching search he's working through has been relatively hushed. Just last night, through Yahoo!'s Adrian Wojnarowski and Dan Wetzel, we learn Rick Carlisle has already interviewed for the gig. But the bigger news is the rumor Pax's considering Michigan State coach Tom Izzo.

And Izzo doesn't refuse the proposal outright. In fact, it sounds like he really would like to give the league a shot.

"I go back and forth on (coaching in the NBA)," he continued. "I still think it's the ultimate level. There is something about it. I look at it and say, 'It's a real challenge.' But I love what I do too. I go down and look at what the Pistons (coaches) do in preparation and I think, 'That's insane.'

"But I look at what I do in terms of recruiting and I think, 'That's insane.'"

Basically, being a basketball coach at any of the top levels is insane. Could Izzo succeed in the pros? The old canard about college coaches failing in the NBA is overblown and too general. Reggie Theus seemed to do alright this year. Hiring any first-time pro coach is a crap shoot, whether it's a longtime assistant-in-waiting (Mike Brown or Larry Krystowiak), a recent ex-player (Avery Johnson, Nate McMillan), or a college guy (Theus, Tim Floyd).

These labels -- and that's all the talking heads will focus on today, the question of whether a college coach can succeed -- obfuscate the real question: Can Izzo handle it? I don't pretend to know. But if he wants an interview -- and it sounds like he does -- you give him one. Let him tell you what he can do with Ben Gordon and Luol Deng.

The ACC-Big Ten Challenge will be held again this year, despite the ACC winning all the previous nine.

The headlining game will be North Carolina at Michigan State at Ford Field ... site of the Final Four. The stadium will be set up similar to what it was for the Midwest Region Finals to have a 65,000+ capacity seating.

In other marquee games, Duke will travel to Purdue in what should be a matchup of top ten teams. The Blue Devils have never lost in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge (9-0). Also, Ohio State travels to Miami is what normally would be a jawdropping football game.

The other games:

• Indiana at Wake Forest
• Michigan at Maryland
• Wisconsin at Virginia Tech
• Clemson at Illinois
• Virginia at Minnesota
• Florida State at Northwestern
• Iowa at Boston College
• Penn State at Georgia Tech

Since the ACC has one more member than the Big Ten, NC State will sit out of the Challenge due to their last place finish.

Whether fatigue caught up to them or simply an off night shooting, Pitt struggled miserably on offense. The Panthers shot under 33% and was only 2-17 on 3s as they lost to the Michigan State Spartans 65-54. Bob Knight, who picked Pitt to win the whole thing, has his bracket officially wrecked.

Michigan State struggled holding onto the ball, but when they did, they scored. Drew Neitzel was on this evening with 21 points. He shot 5-8 on 3s which opened things up for Kalin Lucas to attack the basket and Goran Suton was able to clean things up inside (14 points, 9 rebounds).

Both Pitt and Michigan State only had 3 options on offense. Neitzel, Suton and Lucas provided 54 points on 21-38 shooting. Fields, Young and Blair could only counter with 44 points on 14-35.

Michigan State Coach Tom Izzo now improves to 12-2 in second round games. On the short turnaround, Izzo is arguably the best coach to have on the bench.

If you're one of those fans who loves college basketball in March because you love upsets, well, you haven't missed anything if you've been stuck at work all day.

The first half of the first day of the NCAA Tournament is almost completed, and it looks like we're going to have an upset-free afternoon. Xavier beat Georgia, Kansas beat Portland State and Michigan State beat Temple in the first three games. And Marquette is beating Kentucky, UNLV is blowing out Kent State, Pittsburgh is pummeling Oral Roberts and Purdue is destroying Baylor in the second group of four games.

That's not to say there hasn't been any good basketball. Xavier-Georgia was a better game than the 73-61 final score would indicate. And Kentucky could still pull off a fantastic finish and shock Marquette. (UPDATE: Marquette won, 74-66.) So far, it looks like a very good Tournament for people whose brackets are full of safe picks.

You'll be overloaded with expert opinions on filling out your brackets over the next three days. Pick and choose at your own peril, everyone's got their opinions and things they look for, but at the end of the day few people have a foolproof system for winning you the praise of your friends and officemates.

Still, everyone's looking for an edge and, in that spirit, I point you toward Vegas Watch. They've uncovered a pretty significant trend when it comes to home/road splits and what they tell you about a team's chances at success in the tournament. If you're really into the math behind the findings, you should click there or Teamrankings.com, but I'll summarize the findings.

They took the top six seeds from 1999-2006 and found the ones with the biggest split between their home and road power ratings. The results aren't good for teams who did their best work at home. They won 0.5 fewer games than expected while road warriors won 0.24 more games than projected. They also found that five teams since '99 were seeded 1-6 and finished in the top 20 at home and below 50 on the road. None of those teams made it past the second round.

What does that mean for this season?

Conference: Big Ten
Record: 25-8, 13-7 in conference
RPI: 14
How They Got In: At-Large
Seed/Bracket: 5/South

Mascot: Spartans. Sparty has been named "Buffest Mascot" by Muscle and Fitness and is a three-time national champion mascot.

Big Wins: BYU, Texas, Indiana

Notable Losses: Penn State and Iowa, two of the worst teams in the Big Ten, both beat Michigan State.

Player You Should Know: Senior guard Drew Neitzel is by far Michigan State's best player. He's a good passer, a good outside shooter and the unquestioned team leader. If the Spartans make a run in March, Neitzel will be the biggest reason.

Outlook: Six weeks ago, the Spartans looked like a team with a shot at the Final Four. But they haven't played well down the stretch, going 6-6 in the last 12 after starting the season 19-2. Michigan State is good enough to win a couple of Tournament games, but no more than a couple.

The Big Ten Tournament is down to four, and the top half of the bracket has gone as expected, with Wisconsin and Michigan State meeting in today's first semifinal.

But on the bottom half of the bracket, chaos reigns. In the quarterfinals, Illinois upset Purdue and Minnesota upset Indiana, meaning that two teams with losing records in conference play this season will play each other in the conference tournament semifinals today.

And tomorrow, chaos could really reign. The Illinois-Minnesota winner will play the Wisconsin-Michigan State winner in the Big Ten Tournament final. And since the Big Ten Tournament final ends just as the Selection Sunday show begins, that means the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee is going to have a tough task.

Neither Minnesota (RPI 87) nor Illinois (RPI 104) has any business getting an at-large Tournament berth, so the Selection Committee will be forced to work with a contingency plan: Basically, they'll have to make up two brackets, one if the Illinois-Minnesota winner wins the Big Ten, and one if the Wisconsin-Michigan State winner wins the Big Ten. If you're a fan of a bubble team, you're rooting for Wisconsin or Michigan State tomorrow.

If Illinois or Minnesota ends up in the Big Dance, what seed will they get? I'm guessing a 13 or a 14. And if I were a fan of a 3 or 4 seed, I wouldn't want to play them.

Michigan State beat Ohio State today in the Big Ten Tournament, allowing the Spartans to move on and perhaps bursting the Buckeyes' bubble.

And since Ohio State might have needed a win to get into the Tournament and Michigan State didn't, an intriguing storyline emerged: Might the Big Ten referees working the game favor the Buckeyes, on the theory that an Ohio State win would likely put them in the NCAA Tournament and give the Big Ten five teams in the Big Dance instead of four? Joe Sheehan wrote at Basketball Prospectus:

It should be interesting to see how this one is called. Fair or no, it's clear that the Big 11 has a lot invested in the outcome of that game.

It was a plausible idea, but I think the above clip should put that conspiracy theory to bed. The clip shows a Big Ten referee giving Ohio State's Othello Hunter a questionable foul, followed by an even more questionable technical. Almost every questionable call in this game went against Ohio State.

Still, give credit to Michigan State for winning it. Drew Neitzel had an outstanding game, scoring 28 points, and the Spartans are back on track after looking shaky a couple of weeks ago.

Ohio State saved its two best games of the season for the last two games of the season, following up on Tuesday's win over Purdue with a win today over Michigan State, and getting back onto the NCAA Tournament bubble.

Jamar Butler played all 40 minutes and had a game-high 40 points to lead the Buckeyes to today's 63-54 win, and that is enough to at least give Ohio State a shot at an at-large tournament bid. Prior to today's game, Ohio State's RPI was 53, but it's moving in the right direction. And Ohio State deserves credit for its non-conference schedule; the Buckeyes beat Syracuse and Florida and lost to Texas A&M, North Carolina, Butler and Tennessee.

Still, Ohio State needs to win at least one and quite likely two Big Ten Tournament games to get to the Big Dance. The way the Buckeyes have played in the last week, no one should bet against them.

As for Michigan State, the Spartans clinched a Tournament bid some time in January, when they got off to a 19-2 start to the season. But they're 24-7 now, and they don't look much like a Tournament team. With an RPI of 14, the Spartans are obviously in no matter what they do in the Big Ten Tournament, but they're looking an awful lot like a team that will lose in the first round.

Michigan State beat Illinois 59-51 Thursday night to improve its record to 24-7 and 12-5 in the Big Ten. The win, Michigan State's second in a row, puts the Spartans on much more solid footing than they were just five days ago, when I noted that they were coming off a brutal February.

But I'd rather talk about Illinois, which fell to 12-18 and 4-13 in the Big Ten, good for 10th place in the conference. Considering that the Big Ten isn't very good this year, 10th place in the conference is pretty bad, and every Illinois fan agrees that this season has been a mess.

So it's a little jarring to look at the Ken Pomeroy ratings, which are probably the single best snapshot of the college basketball season, and see Illinois ranked 39th in the country. The Illini are the highest-ranked team with a losing record, and they're ahead of teams like 25-5 St. Mary's, 25-5 Vanderbilt and 23-6 Davidson. How is that possible?