“There are only two kinds of people in the world … the Irish and those who wish they were.” — Irish saying

The inexact science of putting together the NCAA tournament bracket turned out to be pretty exact this time around.No big beefs with the top seeds—North Carolina, Memphis, Kansas and UCLA.

No snubbed bubble teams with shout-it-to-the-mountaintop complaints—even if Arizona State and Virginia Tech do have somewhat compelling arguments.

And no defending champion, either. But not even that was a surprise.

Florida, completely rebuilt after winning two titles in a row, was written off well before Selection Sunday after losing its last four games, including the first round of the Southeastern Conference tournament.

So, let March Madness begin, and call the Tar Heels (32-2) favorites if you must. Led by Tyler Hansbrough, North Carolina earned the overall top seed in the tournament and won’t have to leave its home state on the road to the Final Four in San Antonio. Carolina’s first two games are scheduled for Raleigh, its next two would be in Charlotte.

“It’s an advantage if you play well,” said Carolina coach Roy Williams, trying to lead the Tar Heels to their second title in four years. “Just because the crowd’s cheering for you, I’ve never had a crowd win a game. I know it sounds wacko.”

Only four teams from the Atlantic Coast Conference made it, something of a surprise considering it was the top-ranked conference in the all-important RPI.

But what does the RPI really mean these days?

Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg is certainly no fan. His ACC team got snubbed despite being ranked No. 53 on the list.

“We need to get rid of the RPI totally from people’s train of thought,” he said. “Because one second, the head of the committee says the RPI is inconsequential, and the next second, he says they can use the RPI to eliminate a team.”

That might have been the case with Arizona State, which was 83 on that list despite quality victories over third-seeded Stanford and Xavier and two over rival Arizona, which made it off the bubble for its 24th straight NCAA appearance.

But Sun Devils coach Herb Sendek refused to let the snub get the best of him.

“By playing the role of the victim, you let a great opportunity slide by to learn from the experience,” Sendek said.

Arizona State’s spot might have been taken by Georgia, which won four games at the SEC tournament—including two in one day after a tornado ripped past the Georgia Dome—to complete an inspiring run into the tournament with a 17-16 record.

“We found out we had more than we thought we did,” said coach Dennis Felton, who likely saved his job with this remarkable string. “We kind of persevered.”

Georgia, a 14th seed, opens against third-seeded Xavier in the West region.

The final bubble spots went to Villanova, a 12th seed in the Midwest, and St. Joseph’s, an 11th seed in the East that beat Xavier twice.

Baylor got in as an 11th seed in the West, an impressive rebound for a program that nearly disintegrated after the murder of Patrick Dennehy by a teammate in 2003.

Kentucky made it as a No. 11 seed in the South despite growing pains under Billy Gillespie, who’s in his first year at the school.

Kansas State was an 11th-seeded bubble team, and how could the committee resist bringing freshman-of-the-year candidate Michael Beasley into the tournament—then pairing him against another sensational freshman, O.J. Mayo of Southern California? They’ll play Thursday in a first-round Midwest region game.

The top-seeded teams offered no surprises or outrage, the way, say, Washington did three years ago when the Huskies were No. 1 in the West.

UCLA has been a top team all season and won the Pac-10 tournament to get the nod in the West. Kansas beat Texas in the Big 12 final Sunday, in a game almost everyone agreed would be for top seeding in the Midwest. Memphis is from the less-prestigious Conference USA and lost to Tennessee in the regular season, but the Tigers (33-1) won their conference and the Vols (29-4) helped smooth things out by losing in the SEC semifinals.

Maybe Memphis could quibble with a possible game against second-seeded Texas in the South regional final—in Houston. But the Tigers weren’t backing down from Final Four expectations after losing in the regional finals the last two years.

“We created those expectations before the year even started, and that’s what we’re living up to,” guard Chris Douglas-Roberts said. “We’re not taking that back at all. That’s what we want.”

The tournament begins Tuesday when Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference champion Coppin State, the first team to make the tournament with 20 losses, plays Mount St. Mary’s in an opening-round game. The winner gets North Carolina.

With eight teams, the Big East placed the most schools in the tournament. The Pac-10, Big 12 and SEC followed with six each, while the ACC and Big Ten had four apiece.

Selection committee chairman Tom O’Connor called the RPI “a control point” when it comes to picking teams.

“It’s a data point and it’s a starting point, but it’s not an end-all,” he said. “We don’t look at conferences at all.”

Yet later, he cited Arizona State’s bad numbers in the same RPI as a reason for snubbing the Sun Devils, saying they would have been the worst RPI rating of any team to ever make the field.

“While Arizona State is very good, the committee didn’t feel it was one of the best 34 at-large teams in the country,” O’Connor said. “Also, they were 2-4 against the top teams in their conference.”

For the second straight year, only six of those 34 at-large bids went to teams from smaller conferences. That included St. Joe’s, which earned one of the final spots in the bracket, but didn’t include Illinois State. But how to argue against snubbing a team that lost by 30 points its last time out, in the finals of the Missouri Valley Conference against Drake?

Meanwhile, mid-major George Mason, the team that showed what March Madness is really all about with its incredible run to the Final Four two years ago, is back as a 12th seed after winning the Colonial Athletic Association crown.

Last year’s national runner-up, Ohio State, was also left on the bubble, meaning both of the previous season’s finalists will miss the tournament for the first time since the bracket was expanded in 1985.

O’Connor said the selection committee had eight contingency plans based on the possibilities from Sunday’s five conference title games, but the committee had done lots of advance work to make the last-second decisions less difficult.

“We said from the beginning, when you look at what happens in the NCAA tournament, all the publicity, all the hype, the economics … the real thing is playing the games with the kids on the court,” he said.

No argument there. And not much with the bracket his committee produced, either.

Among the Y Combinator startups we rounded up earlier today is one that finally brings some innovation to the standard Google search bar most of us have set as our homepages.

Wundrbar will remind some readers of YubNub, the so-called “social command line for the web” that we covered a long time ago. Both are smarter than the average bar and will let you prefix your search terms with commands that indicate which type of results you want to see. For example, with both services you can enter “wikipedia john rawls” to get the Wikipedia article for that philosopher.

YubNub has a really long list of commands that appeal mostly to programmers. Want to display the headers for a particular URL? Type something like “headers techcrunch.com”. In contrast, Wundrbar has a much more limited set of commands but they appeal to more general audiences.

Say you want to find and book a flight for next week. Instead of going to Kayak and filling out all of their fields, just type “fly sfo to new york next tuesday to march 30 first class”. Wundrbar will show you below the search bar what it thinks you’re looking for, and when you hit submit you will be taken to a results page from your favorite flight search site (Kayak, Orbitz, Travelocity - your choice).

Similar functionality is possible for car rentals, hotels, trains, movie rentals, movie showtimes, and online retail sites. The full list of commands can be found here. And if you don’t use any commands, you’ll simply be directed to a standard Google results page.

On top of making search easier, Wundrbar can also be used to update and retrieve information from personal accounts. Right now only Twitter and Google Calendar are supported. For Twitter, you can use the command “twitter” to update your twitter status. And you can use different commands for Google Calendar to either retrieve calendar items on Wundrbar (”calendar next tuesday”) or to set calendar items (”create event next thursday dentist appointment”). Neither work perfectly yet; I had problems submitting Twitter messages with URLs and with adding calendar events with specific times. But if Wundrbar manages to iron these kinks out and support substantially more services, it will make for a compelling homepage.

By Jessica Hall
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The emergency rescue of Bear Stearns Co Inc (BSC.N) on Friday left observers from all quarters wondering who would be the last man standing at the Wall Street bank.

When a Bear Stearns analyst moved to ask a question at a biotechnology investor meeting, Genentech Chief Executive Arthur Levinson quipped, “There’s still somebody here from Bear? Let’s give him a hand.”

“I’m still here,” said Bear Stearns analyst Mark Schoenebaum. But pointing to a JPMorgan analyst, he said, “I think I work for Geoff Meacham now.”

The rescue by JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) and the Federal Reserve Bank after Bear said its cash position had deteriorated sharply put the word takeover on the tip of tongues all over Wall Street, with JPMorgan seen as a leading contender to buy out Bear Stearns.

But while Bear’s cheap stock price could attract some suitors keen to buy its mortgage finance and trading assets, its liquidity problems may prevent a deal from being consummated, analysts and bankers said.

Shares of Bear Stearns, the fifth largest U.S. investment bank which has been hard-hit by its heavy exposure to the faltering U.S. mortgage market, fell 45 percent, reducing its market value by $3.2 billion to $3.64 billion.

Bear Stearns Chief Executive Alan Schwartz said the company is working with Lazard Ltd. (LAZ.N) to examine its alternatives, but it will focus on protecting customers and “maximizing shareholder value.”

He said Bear’s first-quarter earnings would meet Wall Street expectations.

CNBC reported that Bear Stearns “is actively being shopped.” While JPMorgan is “the most likely suspect,” CNBC said it was not the only company to receive a pitch to buy the company.

“Our view is it would not be a surprise to see a merger announced over the weekend,” said Andrew Brenner, senior vice president of MF Global in New York.

A person familiar with JPMorgan said the bank, which has previously expressed interest in expanding its prime brokerage business, is interested, at the right price, in buying the Bear division that provides loans and handles trades for hedge funds.

The concern for any buyer would be whether Bear Stearns has fully exposed all of its problems or if there is another debacle in the offing.

“Looking from the outside you have to ask, Are they at the end of their troubles? That’s a very difficult question,” said Anthony Sabino, professor of law and business at St. John’s University, in New York.

Bankers and analysts rattled off a list of potential suitors but suggested them with caution, saying it’s unclear why any company would buy Bear Stearns when they could pursue stronger assets at other banks.

“The question someone would ask if they were in a potential M&A position would be, Shouldn’t we just go after the people? Bring the people in rather than by the firm,” said Michael Holland, chairman of private investment firm Holland & Co.

In addition to JP Morgan, potential buyers include Merrill Lynch & Co Inc (MER.N) and foreign companies such as HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA.L), Barclays Plc (BARC.L) and Royal Bank of Scotland Plc (RBS.L), some bankers and analysts said.

“If you think about a company like Bear, they don’t have hard assets, just computers, office space and people, and one would imagine that people at Bear are polishing up their resumes,” said James Ellman, portfolio manager at Seacliff Capital in San Francisco.

“That’s how Wall Street works — when a firm is in trouble, clients leave and your best employees leave. We’ve seen this story many times before,” Ellman said.

Bear Stearns currently trades at 4.9-times fiscal 2008 earnings estimates, compared with the sector average of 18.5-times earnings.

In addition, foreign banks could face some regulatory problems that would add headaches to the purchase of an already ailing company, analysts said. And U.S. banks could try to buy the bank in pieces instead of as a whole, analysts said.

“As far as who in the U.S. would look to take them over — there are possibilities but I think every American outfit would say, ‘We’ve got our own headaches’,” Sabino said.

Bear Stearns’ problems emerged because it has more exposure to the U.S. bond markets than its competitors and has a large mortgage-backed securities business.

It’s unclear whether Bear Stearns will be able to survive the “run on the bank” that Schwartz described if customers continue to flee and its businesses deteriorate further.

“JPMorgan might buy it for a dollar. I mean you’re going to get a good price. Ultimately you have to ascertain if the assets are worth more than the liabilities,” Barish said.

Bears’ cheap stock price might entice some suitors to take a risk in buying the firm, some investment bankers said. “Just because someone wasn’t interested at $120 might doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be interested at $34,” said one head of investment banking at a U.S. brokerage firm. “Bear Stearns now is under pressure to preserve what assets they have, protect their people, protect their clients.

“They might be forced to sell at a price that would have been unthinkable before.”

(Additional reporting by Jui Chakravorty, Megan Davies, Dan Wilchins and Bill Berkrot in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Samsung’s miCoach music-mobile phone even lives up to its name by encouraging people as they run, telling them to “speed up” if they aren’t keeping pace, and giving them updates on their heart rate, time left in their run, and more.

The system includes a heart-rate monitor, a sensor to attach to a pair of running shoes and a Web workout journal to help people design and keep track of fitness programs.

With miCoach, Samsung and Adidas enter the fray against Apple and Nike, which started offering the Nike+iPod sports kit in the U.S. in July, 2006, also aimed at people with active lifestyles.

The Nike+iPod system also keeps track of workouts, telling runners the distance traveled, calories burned and other information via earphones, as well as on the iPod display screen.

The main differences between the two systems are that the Samsung model is also a mobile phone, while the Apple one is just a music player. Any runner can stop their music and workout by pressing a button on the miCoach, then answer a phone call. But the device has far less music storage capacity than the iPod. The miCoach comes with 1G byte of storage space, while the iPod Nano comes in 4G byte and 8G byte capacities.

The cost of the two systems is also different. Samsung/Adidas buyers will pay around €400 (US$612) for the deluxe kit with the miCoach mobile phone, heart monitor, shoe sensor and more. That compares to a US$328 gift pack offered by Nike for the Nike+iPod system, which includes an 8G byte iPod Nano, a $100 Nike shoe gift card, a 30-minute iTunes card and the Nike+ Sports kit.

One key detail for avid runners is that the Samsung/Adidas system does not tie a user to a specific brand of shoe like the Nike+iPod system does. The sensor sold with the Samsung/Adidas system fits on the laces of a runner’s shoes, while the sensor in the Nike+iPod system is built into the shoe.

The miCoach will be available first in Germany, then the rest of Europe by the end of March, according to Sophia Kim, a Samsung representative. At least two different kits will be sold through Samsung and Adidas stores and mobile phone retail outlets. The basic kit, which includes the miCoach mobile phone and arm band, will cost around €200, while the deluxe kit, which also includes the shoe-sensor, heart monitor and more, will cost about €400.

Prices have not been officially set yet, Kim said, nor has a time frame to enter North America or Asia.

The miCoach mobile phone is a slim, 14.5-millimeter thick slider handset with a 2-inch LCD (liquid crystal display) screen with a textured back to offer better grip. It comes in seven colors, including pink, red, dark gray, sapphire and silver. The handset includes a 2-megapixel camera and can connect to a computer via a USB (universal serial bus) connection or wirelessly with Bluetooth.

Adidas designed the monitoring systems for the miCoach package, as well as the Web-based coaching and training system, Kim said. The two companies are working together on sales and marketing.