Morning Mashups: Bracketology, Harrison Transfer and Italy Signing Edition

August seems like the perfect time to release an updated bracket for March. You know, teams have played so many games since March that you really need to have an update.

OK, </sarcasm>.

ESPN's Joe Lunardi has updated his bracket for this coming March from his super early post-tournament edition in April. This includes the moves by Virginia Commonwealth and Butler to the Atlantic 10, and Belmont's move to the OVC.

The net effect? Butler loses its Horizon championship and its spot in the Tournament. VCU stays in even with the better Atlantic 10 schedule, and Belmont is still on the outside, just looking in for an at-large spot.

The hard part about this is that we still aren't sure who all of these teams are playing in the non-conference season. Look at Drexel, which got slammed for its non-Colonial schedule last year.

The Dragons should still be very good this season. Almost every highly contributing member of that team is back, and they should all be healthy. So does that mean that Drexel is ready to take a No. 9 seed this coming March?

Isn't it possible their schedule could still be an issue? Does having the No. 9 seed mean that Drexel should still be an at-large team even if they lose the in the CAA Tournament? How can you know?

All of this is so premature, and it has already set a lot of the Twitterverse abuzz with complaints about the lack of non-major programs in the list, especially from the Missouri Valley conference which should be even stronger this year.

A lot of basketball needs to go into this before I will be paying much attention to this.

(On a side note, it is quite interesting that Lunardi went with Robert Morris in the Northeast instead of LIU, which grabbed three spots in John Templon's Mid-Major Top 10.)

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BYU's Demarcus Harrison will be transferring to Clemson this season. Based on what I can gather, Harrison chose to delay his Mormon mission and the decision to come back early left him without a spot on the team.

Greg Wrubel from KSL.com sat down with Harrison to talk about the decision.

I asked Damarcus if it's hard to leave BYU after only one season, he said "it is, because I did like the school, but I still get to do my goal and play basketball...and I still get to go on my mission, and now I'm close to some, so I'm calm with it."

Clemson said that they will appeal to the NCAA to see if Harrison can be eligible immediately under the circumstances.

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Italy is looking more and more like the place to be if you are a mid-major graduate.

Oakland's Reggie Hamilton is the latest to ink in the boot with Victoria Libertas.

We are still waiting for information from South Dakota's Charlie Westbrook on his pro plans. It is supposed to come Tuesday.

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In case you missed the news on the major college front, Villanova assistant Doug Martin has resigned after it was discovered that he didn't actually play for Wisconsin-Green Bay.

Not during the years that he said he played for them. Not at all.

Eammon Brennan sums it up pretty well with the ultimate "Duh!" This is the Internet age after all. Pretty easy to check up on someone's resume if you want to do it.

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And finally, it has been rough going for College of Charleston on their preseason trip to Canada. The Cougars have started with two straight losses on the international trip. Considering they are playing against essentially pro players, they shouldn't be too discouraged. But it would be nice to see them walk away with at least one 'W'.