Your Daily Bracket -- Friday

Still no change for Notre Dame in Joe Lunardi's latest NCAA projections. The Irish remained a No. 6 seed, remained against No. 11 Illinois and in Columbus, Ohio. Notre Dame also remained a lock in the latest Bubble Watch and moved up to a composite No. 8 seed in The Bracket Project.

Lunardi also discussed the Big East and NCAA Tournament scenarios with Syracuse Post-Standard Syracuse beat writer Mike Waters, saying the Irish have a chance to move up to a No. 5 seed with a good showing in New Jersey and New York.  Waters also announced his participation in the Jerome, which is a contest that is rapidly gaining attention.

Speaking of the Jerome, Yahoo! Sports columnist Dan Wetzel wrote a column about the group and offered up his first week picks. And if you haven't been paying attention, read up on The Jerome from an earlier blog entry.

Jerome co-founder and New York Times national college basketball writer Pete Thamel also has a blog for March about the NCAA Tournament. We highly recommend it.

Key Jerome games today (and in some cases big bubble games):  In the Missouri Valley: Bradley-Northern Iowa, Creighton-Indiana State and Missouri State-Wichita State; in the Horizon: Loyola (Ill.) vs.  Illinois-Chicago;  in the Southern: Davidson-Furman and Appalachian State-Charleston and in the Atlantic Sun: East Tennessee State-Lipscomb and Belmont-Campbell. Also, the Colonial Athletic Association, West Coast Conference, MAAC and Ohio Valley Conference tournaments are underway.

And a quick preview for tomorrow -- check out Winthrop-VMI in the Big South final. VMI knocked off No. 3 Liberty and No. 2 High Point to reach the finals with the most prolific offense in the country. The Keydets are fun to watch and Winthrop's advancement to the final secured us our first points of The Jerome.

-By Michael Rothstein of The Journal Gazette