The Silver Headed Journalist

That's right - Bobby Cremins - journalist - check it out.

Jim Valvano's philosophy was this: Win 80 percent of your non-conference games, 50 percent of your conference games and at least one conference tournament game to punch your ticket to the NCAA tournament. But Jimmy's formula wouldn't work today. The NCAA selection committee frowns on weak pre-conference schedules. If you play a weak pre-conference schedule, you had better win far more than half of your conference games.

Of course, Valvano's formula still gets it mostly right: Fail to win 80 percent of those non-conference games, and you've likely dug yourself a very deep hole.