Our designated bracketologist on the scene.

Sunday was three weeks from Selection Sunday. Three weeks!

I can't believe it! Where did this college basketball season go? Hey, a lot of people would tell you that ACC fans would like the college basketball season to end already.

I'm not one of them. Jerry Palm, our Chief Bracketologist, CBSSports.com, at JPPalmCBS on Twitter. How are you, sir? I'm fine. So when the groundhog said that there were six more weeks of basketball, he wasn't lying.

He wasn't! I love the groundhog. I don't. I'm actually kidding.

I wish the groundhog would go away. Alright, Jerry Palm. I have heard that the ACC is not as good as the Mountain West. Is that true? Oh, I don't know.

That might be a little carried away. The answer's not, I don't know. The answer is, of course it's better than the Mountain West. Well, let's just say that the bottom of the ACC is relatively comparable to the bottom of the Mountain West.

Thank you. I think that, you know, Virginia do. San Diego State is the best team in that league, and that's a good team. They're a top 25 team. But Virginia is certainly better. And of course, you're comparing a 14-team league with a, what, 12-team league. But anyway, I don't know.

What is it? It's 15 because Notre Dame's in the ACC. Yes, it is. For basketball.

Also, it's 15. So it's not easy to compare, but I suppose there are probably metrics that would say the Mountain West is better. Well, that's what has been thrown at the ACC. The Mountain West is ranked higher than the ACC.

And here's... That's because the bottom is dragging it down. Right. And see, if, like, no offense, and I don't mean for you to bear the brunt of the abomination that was ESPN, including our pal, your arch nemesis, Joe Linardi, during the State Carolina game, but through the entire conversation about... Excuse me? It's an arch nemesis. That's hilarious. I know.

I do that on purpose. But all the conversation about how bad the ACC was was all about the top, when it ain't about the top. It's about how tragically bad the bottom is. It really is. And it doesn't have to drag the league down that much for what otherwise would be quad one opportunities to now be quad two. And that's where the ACC is losing a lot. Yeah.

Well, that's unfortunately really, I guess, the only way we can measure. No, I understand that. You know, you're getting to play Louisville doesn't help you any. Getting to play Florida State's not helping you any. You know, those are not just bad teams, but among the worst in any major conference.

Bad. Yeah. I mean, there's, you know, you can count on, you know, one hand with fingers to spare comparable teams in, you know, that part of the rankings in major conferences. So it's, yeah, it's been, you know, there's like five anchors in this league dragging everyone else down.

But, you know, that's, it's a disadvantage, but some people would say, well, you know, you get breaks every once in a while because you get to play these games. You don't have to, you don't have to bang your head against the wall every time you take the court like the big 12 teams do. Right. I would argue that there probably isn't nearly as much difference between the two leagues. I'm not saying the big 12 is not better.

That's not the point. But it's not like, oh, the big 12 has all these great teams and ACC has all these bad teams. That's the way it's being discussed at this point. And it's funny, the AC, in the bigger conferences, it's always been the, well, man, you're, you're, all of your good wins are built in because you just play conference games. We just still have to win.

No, you do. But, but the winning isn't even helping. No, not this year.

Certainly for a good third of the league, winning is not helping. So I would, I would argue that like the teams, like, no offense to Clemson who has three bad losses and nobody can erase the bad losses, which happened a long time ago. Although, no, the Louisville loss was, I can't, we can't, we can't unsee that.

But it did happen. But like Clemson is not even, where are they on your, on your at-large board? They're not in first four out.

I know North Carolina is in first four out and I saw your... And they might be next four out. No, they weren't in that either. Then, then they're, they may not even be on the board at all. Right. At this point. Meanwhile, they're, they're, and I realize they don't look at conference record and all that, but they've won 11 conference games.

They're not all at the bottom. They kicked Duke's ass. They buried Duke and, well, actually, I'm sorry they didn't. It was a Miami game, I think, that Duke got trucked. But they, they were impressive, especially pulling away late from Duke, who's not amazing, but they're good. Clemson's got a bunch of good wins. They've got three quad one wins. Right.

And three quad four losses. That is team, you know. No, no, I understand.

I, nobody's, nobody's on seeing the losses, right? I totally understand that. But the... But the other thing is they've played 11 quad four games and one, two, three, four of them are conference games. That's, see, that's the problem that's dragging the thing down.

Is that... They've got four conference games that are quad three. Yeah. Yeah, I mean... Like most other leagues, most of the other major conferences you might have, like the Big Ten's got one outside of quad. When Wisconsin at home would probably be a quad three game, Minnesota's a quad four game.

So I'll do the, I'll explain it this way. Wake Forest is, I don't know if Wake Forest is on your board anywhere or not. I think they're a good team. I think they could be a tournament team. I haven't ruled them out.

Right. I think if they play well down the stretch and I don't have, actually they've got, they're playing at NC State this week. Notre Dame, Boston College, which are terrible teams, win those two. Win at Syracuse. They go three and, three and one the rest of the way. Win a couple of games in the ACC tournament, they might find themselves in the NCAA tournament.

Just spitballing the whole thing right there. Right now... If they beat NC State, I mean that's a, that's their best win of the season. Right. That would be a great win because I think State's very good. It would also be their second win away from home in quad one and two and half of quad three. But here's my overarching point about Wake Forest specifically.

Is that right now, if you are, like for State, that's a quad three game. Yep. And that's where the bottom of the league, which is historically bad, it doesn't matter whether or not Wake is good or not. Their number is their number.

Right. And their number is, and it doesn't have to be impacted by a lot, but their number is their number because of the five teams at the bottom dragging everybody back a little bit. Duke dropped, Duke won by 17.

You and I were texting yesterday or two days ago. I said, well Duke has Louisville. I mean, there's no way they're going to be positively impacted by that game.

And you said, blow them out. The best that you could do is win by like 35 and try not to hurt yourself. At least in the margin of victory based metrics. They won by 17.

They won by 17. They dropped three spots in the net. That's about right. Yeah, exactly. Because that's what the net does.

And it should include strength of schedule. But what that does now is that puts Duke right on the edge of them not being a quad one win on somebody's home floor. Right. Miami is the same way, by the way. Yes, they are.

31st. Yep. Go right back. As a home game, Miami goes back and forth between quad. North Carolina is either 0 and 8 or 0 and 9 depending on where Miami is at any given morning. So are you going to convince me, Jerry Palm, that the committee will have some discretion when they look at the team sheets?

What do you mean, discretion? Like, okay, this team is 77th. Yes, it's a quad three. But man, we know they're better than that. Well, I think that there is I don't know if that specific example will come, but I do know that, for example, some quad one wins are better than others. Yes. And some quad two wins might be better than quad one wins. Yes.

So and I look at it this way. I think it's more important to the committee that how you perform against teams that they are considering for the at-large pool of the tournament and versus quad one, quad two line. Right. It's really, you know, like if you're six and three against teams in the at-large portion of the thing, but you only have two quad one wins, the six and three, I think is more important.

Okay. So that's kind of where the discretion goes is, is this a team that we think could be a tournament team, whether they've actually got them in the bracket or not? You know, is this a team that we would consider for the at-large pool? How have you done against those teams, you know, other potential NCAA teams?

How have you done against them? I think that's a thing. And then, you know, we talk about quad one and quad two and whatever, because it's an easy way to summarize things. You know, we don't have a five day meeting to talk about it on the radio, but that's why they have a five day meeting because they go through everybody's schedule, you know, in detail.

And that is, you know, the summary is nice, but the devil's in the details. Jerry Palm, CBS Sports dot com, chief bracketologist, my friend. Well, first of all, if Carolina can beat either Virginia or Duke at home, and of course, after they beat Duke, it won't be a quad one win, which they actually lost. Again, not to not to go back to Joe Lenardi from from the game on Sunday, as he was saying, if Carolina loses to NC State, they'll go to 0 and 9 in the net. Actually, they stayed at 0 and 8 because Miami became a quad two loss. Because Miami fluttered down that day. Unbelievable.

Yes. But like I said, the committee isn't going to care whether it's 0 and 8 or 0 and 9 where Miami is, that happens to be whatever day that is, where Miami is. They're not going to care. That's 0, 8, 0, 9, whatever. It's that you can't beat tournament quality opposition. That's what matters for North Carolina.

That's right. That's why beating Duke wouldn't it would be OK if Duke became a quad two win. Virginia probably won't become a quad two win. No. Yeah.

Virginia is pretty light. I mean, unless they completely tank. Virginia is going to be a quad one opponent.

Yes. And the only sure thing in the league. It'll be the own could be the only one in the league that is. But I think that North Carolina to make the NCAA tournament, they don't have to beat Virginia and Duke. But if they don't win at least one of those games, they probably have to win the conference tournament. And even if they win only one of those games, they may need another high quad to quad one kind of game. Another win over, say, Virginia Duke, Miami, the three or NC State. It would be Virginia because they would play Virginia in the quarterfinals of the ACC tournament, assuming they beat Syracuse. Carolina's going to end up being in the 8-9 game. I'm not sure North Carolina's getting in as a one hit wonder is what I'm saying.

No, I don't disagree with you. I think North Carolina, and you said this before, has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they can't beat better teams. Right.

Right now. That's what they've proven. I think there's more in there somewhere.

A couple weeks to go. Yeah. They've got. Well, it's a case where talent's not the problem. Right. They have the talent to be better than they are.

I don't know if they're ever going to be great, but they have the talent to be better than they are. You, sir, have the talent. Well, I'm not going to finish that sentence.

You have the talent. I'll just leave it at that. Jerry Palm.

At JP Palm CVS on Twitter, man. Thank you for your time. We'll talk again. And I know we'll see you at the Final Four. Yeah. Great. See you then. Thanks, man.

Jerry Palm. All right. So, you know, I get the sense there that I just used Jerry to bitch about this more. It's OK. It's very possible that that's exactly what just happened. It's your show. Yeah, but Jerry's, Jerry's nice enough to let me do that. I appreciate it. Appreciate his time.