Bracket time

ESPN came out with its latest bracket projections, and to no surprise, Notre Dame is safely in. The Irish are a No. 7 seed in the South bracket, according to Joe Lunardi. The Irish, according to Lunardi, would face Gonzaga in the first round with a potential matchup with No. 2 seed Kansas in round two. The bonus for ND, it'd be in Chicago. The other Chicago-based teams, according to Lunardi, would be No. 1 Wisconsin, No. 16 Loyola (Md.), No. 8 Georgia and No. 9 Syracuse. Fun bracket.

Lunardi has seven Big East teams in with Pitt (a No. 2 seed) and Marquette (a No. 3) the highest seeded teams.  On ESPN's Bubble Watch, they list Notre Dame as a "should be in" team, with only Pitt and Marquette being locks. We're thinking road wins over South Florida and DePaul should secure Notre Dame a bid minus a monumental collapse.

Not to bog you down with blogs, but any college basketball person needs to read Luke Winn's blog on CNNSI.com. Dude is funny and insightful about college hoops. Plus, he's got this great Q&A thing going with players across the country.

Oh and the latest Wooden Award candidate list is out. Not surprisingly, no Notre Dame players are on it. Our vote if it was today -- Texas' Kevin Durant.

-By Michael Rothstein of The Journal Gazette