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This is a home game for the Bisons. When North Dakota State played Minnesota in Minneapolis back in November, the Bison faithful filled Williams Arena.  At the Metrodome, the crowd will be full with North Dakota State supporters, which is bad news for a Kansas team that spent the entire season struggling to win in hostile environments.  Who’s the No. 3 seed here again?  Apparently, the selection committee was more concerned with selling tickets than being fair.

Siena having to face Ohio State in Dayton

Most expected Siena to be a No. 11 or No. 12 seed. The Saints got ‘rewarded’ with a No. 9 seed by the selection committee. Then they got screwed by having to face Ohio State in Dayton.  Much like the example above, we know exactly who the crowd is going to support here – this is a virtual home game for the Buckeyes.  Siena played Kansas down to the wire in Lawrence this year, and the team blew out Vanderbilt in its opening round game last year.  And the selection committee can simply say – “Hey, we rewarded this team with a No. 9 seed, we didn’t wrong them.” 

San Diego State getting left out while Arizona got in 

Let’s look at the facts: Arizona was ice cold down the stretch, losing five of its last six games.  The Wildcats went 2-10 on the road, beating only Oregon and Oregon State, two of the three bottom teams in the Pac-10. I thought the selection committee was supposed to reward hot teams down the stretch and teams that won road games.

Steve Fisher’s Aztecs had the best resume of all the mid-majors. Their RPI was 20 points higher than Arizona’s. They won seven road games and lost the Mountain West Conference final by a single bucket. Even though Arizona beat San Diego State earlier this season, I think the selection committee is way off on this decision.

Louisville getting the No. 1 overall seed, but facing the toughest bracket 

How on earth did Louisville get the top overall seed but end up drawing the toughest No. 2, 3 and 4 seeds of any region?  Let’s be realistic here: Rick Pitino’s squad has Michigan State, Kansas and Wake Forest to wade through to reach the Final Four. Pitt has Duke, Villanova and Xavier.  North Carolina has Oklahoma, Syracuse and Gonzaga. UConn has Memphis, Missouri and Washington. 

I’m convinced Louisville got the toughest draw of the four, by a fairly wide margin.

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — Buffalo Bills running back Marshawn Lynch expects to be suspended by the NFL for his latest run-in with the law and added he’s gotten the message that the league “won’t tolerate any more screw-ups” from him.

Delivering a message of humility and repentance — and minus the flashy gold grill he usually wears across his teeth — Lynch vowed Wednesday that he’s ready to change his ways and prepared to accept the consequences for his actions.

“It has kind of sunk in, and I felt that this was the next step to letting you guys know that there will be a change,” Lynch said. “I never had the intention of getting into trouble or anything like that. But along the way my road got rocky, and now you know it’s time to set my pavement straight.”

The former first-round draft pick out of California held a 9-minute news conference in the Bills practice facility a day after meeting with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell in New York. The meeting was part of Goodell’s review into whether to discipline Lynch for violating the league’s personal conduct policy after he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor gun charge in Los Angeles earlier this month.

Lynch characterized the meeting with Goodell as a wake-up call, and said the commissioner’s message has sunk in.

“Something that he stressed throughout the meeting was that he will not tolerate any more screw-ups by me,” Lynch said, noting he expects to be suspended for the start of the regular season because this is the second time he’s gotten in trouble with authorities.

“I honestly see a suspension coming, but that comes with the consequences,” Lynch said.

He expects a ruling to be made within 10 days.

Lynch was arrested near Los Angeles on Feb. 11. In searching a parked car carrying Lynch, Culver City police found a 9 mm semiautomatic handgun inside a backpack in the trunk. Police also found four marijuana cigarettes in the car, but no drug charges were filed.

He pleaded guilty to having a concealed firearm and was sentenced to 80 hours community service and three years’ probation.

It was Lynch’s second run-in with the law in less than a year.

In June, he pleaded guilty to a traffic violation and admitted he was behind the wheel of his SUV when it sped off from a downtown Buffalo intersection after striking a pedestrian, who sustained minor injuries. Lynch wasn’t disciplined by the league for the accident.

“The first time was pretty much like a slap on the wrist,” he said. “I feel this time it really will stick.”

Aware that people might be skeptical, Lynch said the only way to prove himself is through his actions.

“I can only show you. It won’t be nothing that I can say in words that’ll make you out a believer,” Lynch said. “You’re just going to have to see for yourself.”

Lynch’s willingness to speak to reporters was already considered a big change in attitude. Last season, he made himself available to the media only twice, once abruptly ending a news conference and walking away after being asked about the hit-and-run accident.

Lynch was unhappy with how he was portrayed in the media following the accident. His image, though, did take a hit when he invoked his legal right by refusing to speak to authorities for two weeks until Erie County District Attorney Frank Clark issued subpoenas against Bills players and staff.

On Wednesday, Lynch described his decision to delay meeting with authorities as a mistake, and said it was a reason why he prompted the meeting with Goodell.

“I know pretty much that there will be some people looking forward to me messing up again,” he said. “But I’m just going to let them know they shouldn’t hold their breath.”

Should Lynch be suspended, the Bills will be minus the player who’s led them in rushing and touchdowns over the past two seasons. Last year, he had eight touchdowns and 1,036 yards on the ground, enough to make his first Pro Bowl appearance as an injury replacement.

The Bills have a solid backup in Fred Jackson, though the team has interviewed several veteran free agent running backs over the past three weeks.

Interview requests are always hit-or miss; sometimes you never hear back. I was pleasantly surprised, however, and received an immediate response.

Long story short: upon confirmation that he was excited to do an interview (and wanted to include his partner in the interview), I sent along my questions, as the subject’s assistant had agreed to conduct the interview by email.

A few days later, I got an email from the subject requesting a phone interview. I agreed and suggested some options for setting it up.

After that, the subject and his assistant disappeared. I sent several follow-up emails, which have all gone without response.

These things happen and while it’s frustrating to spend time preparing interview questions that disappear into a black hole, I understood that this person is very busy. Interviews that were agreed to don’t happen for many reasons.

While I’m not going to name the person I was to interview (that’s not important), I will say that I was especially surprised since he’s wildly regarded as an expert on using social media to build business. If this is the way he handles PR, I thought to myself, is the reputation deserved?

PR is a valuable tool for any business, especially a new business. It can expose new users/customers to your offering, help you build buzz and lead to other media ‘hits‘.

Although good PR isn’t ‘free‘, when results are achieved, the value of the media you receive can far exceed the amount invested in both time and money. That’s why so many businesses spend lots of time and money on PR.

So you don’t want to screw up your PR, right? Here are 5 valuable tips to ensure that you don’t make the same mistakes my subject made:

Respond. When someone provides you with an opportunity that will expose people to your business, respond. Even if you can’t provide what they’re asking for, a response is a professional courtesy that has a tangible benefit to you: you’ll continue to get contacted. If I request a comment from you, for instance, on a story relevant to your industry, I’m far more likely to contact you in the future if I hear back, even if it’s to say “I don’t really have anything I can add.”

Follow through. If you commit to doing something, whether it be an interview or sending along information, come through. After all everybody likes someone who delivers.

Don’t leave people hanging. If you absolutely have to break a commitment, do it in a professional manner. If you’re busy and need to postpone, say so. If you have to pull the plug, cancel and apologize. Whatever you do, don’t be a flake. It reflects poorly on you and the business you run.

Walk the walk. If you’re known as a social media expert, for example, being as responsive as customer service at Big Company Inc. isn’t going to give someone confidence that you’re really an expert. That reduces the odds that you’ll be contacted as such in the future.

Needless to say, I won’t be asking the subject mentioned here for any more interviews but with this post, I’ve hopefully turned his loss into your gain.

Minneapolis (Vocus) March 17, 2009 — Thiele Technologies, a leader in packaging technology and equipment, recently faced the problem of how to compensate for inconsistent bag dimensions on its popular modular bag filling and sealing system. Thiele serves customers in the diverse bulk-materials processing industries, and the bagging system is designed to measure, fill and seal bags containing anything from pet food to salt, sugar, dirt, seed, fertilizer or animal feed. Many of Thiele’s customers had switched to low-cost bags with irregular dimensions. These irregularly sized bags were slowing the production process, which requires high-speed accuracy to meet manufacturing goals.

Since repeatability is critical to the filling and sealing operation, Thiele engineers sought a solution that would increase accuracy, flexibility and productivity for packagers. They found their solution in four custom electric screw linear actuators from Tolomatic, Hamel, Minn., that precisely position incoming empty bags. The bagging system now automatically compensates for variations in bag dimensions and eliminates manual setup when changing bag sizes.

The original version of the bagging system was automated except for the tray that positioned the empty bags prior to them being picked up and inserted into the filling line. When using high-quality bags with consistent dimensions, the trays required only a simple manual adjustment at the start of a run. However, when customers began switching to low-cost bags, some would not be positioned accurately, resulting in improper filling and sealing.

“Pet food manufacturers were forced to switch from paper bags to woven poly bags because their customers — large retail chains — would reject entire truckloads of product if there was a single ‘leaker’ bag,” says Jon Gifford, R&D manager with Thiele Technologies. “Woven poly bags proved to be much tougher, but because of higher costs, China has become the predominant supplier. With lower cost has come lower quality, however. With bag lengths varying by as much as three-quarters of an inch, bag handling problems occur. To solve this problem, we developed a ‘bag top reference’ mechanism to compensate for these varying lengths.”