Weekend Wrap, Big Monday Preview

Sorry I didn’t get a chance to post yesterday, and forewarn you about the UNC game. But, I figured you’d know about it. Actually, I was doing a bit of moving, and didn’t get a chance to do this. But I think you'll forgive me.

January 10
Indiana St 75, Illinois St 70:
With this, Illinois St is fully exposed, and we can stop talking about them for a while. But really, you shouldn’t be losing to any team this bad, even on the road. Perfect records only mean something if you had to beat someone to get there.

Louisville 61, Villanova 60:
Louisville showed that they can compete on the road in the tough Big East. Meanwhile, Villanova lost a game that they were expected to win. I’m not sure if Nova is still going to be in the bracket this week.

Nebraska 56, Missouri 51:
It looks like the Cornhuskers slowed down the game, and pulled the upset. This is pretty shocking, actually – Mizzou is supposed to be one of the better teams in the conference, but apparently the entire Big XII North sucks. Just like in football.

UMass 75, Dayton 62; St. Joe’s 92, URI 86:
Dayton and URI realistically needed to not trip up against the lower teams of the A-10 to have any shot at an at-large. Now, on one of the early weekends, they have already eliminated themselves.

Mississippi St 70, Arkansas 56:
Arkansas losing at home, to a not-so-good team, right after knocking off Texas and Oklahoma? Sounds like fun. Their next two games are at Ole Miss and at Florida, so they could very well be 0-3 in the SEC. 10-6 may not be good enough to get them into the tournament, (remember, they have to deal with that loss to Missouri St.) so I’d advise them to stop losing to bad teams.

Texas Christian 80, UNLV 73:
Not too bad of a loss, but one that UNLV probably didn’t want to deal with. They’re already expected to pick up four other in-conference losses, so they wanted this one. I can believe a 10 seed now – sorry reader from earlier. But again, I don’t think this is a crushing blow that will keep them out of the tournament.

California 88, Washington 85:
Cal asserting themselves as the 3rd best team in the conference. Washington is really in trouble now – if they can’t assert themselves as team #4 from the Pac-10, they may not get in.

Washington St. 55, Stanford 54:
Well… so much for Stanford. At this point, they are probably looking at 6th or 7th in the conference, which probably won’t be enough to garner an at-large bid, given that they beat NO ONE in the non-conference slate. Washington St. is still out of the running at this point, although a sweep of the Oregon teams would keep them hanging around.

Michigan St. 75, Kansas 62:
Nothing special here, really. I was pretty sure that the result would be along these lines, so this is a nice confirmation that my relative feelings of these teams was correct.

Big 10/ACC:
I felt proud of myself this weekend – I didn’t need to change a single schedule in either the Big 10 or the ACC (that is, every game turned out as I thought it would). Boston College proved that they are not good. Duke showed that they were good. Wake showed that they were on the level of UNC. Big 10 teams didn’t show anything of note.

Utah St. 77, New Mexico St 67:
The Aggies won their most difficult conference game, and the next tough game they have is on the road at Nevada on February 28th. They just need to not screw up before then.

Texas 75, Iowa St. 67:
The worst team in the Big XII (probably) went on the road, and almost beat one of the best teams. This should be a note of warning for all the Big XII teams.

Duke 66, Florida St. 58:
What a weird game. When I checked the halftime score, it was Duke 19, FSU 14. I guess they decided to play offense in the second half? 2nd half scoring: Duke 47, FSU 44. Nothing of interest here, I just wanted to comment on the disparity in scoring between the two halves.

Butler 54, Detroit 50 (@ Butler):
Is Butler heading for an embarrassing in-conference loss? Perhaps. But I think this is more of a case of Butler looking past this game

January 11
Wake Forest 92, North Carolina 89:
I briefly mentioned this game above, but I’d just like to add that this pretty much assures that two ACC teams will be #1 seeds. End of story. Actually, if the top 4 annihilate the rest of the conference, and the top teams of the Big East and Big XII and Big 10 suffer some bad losses, all four #1s could be ACC. But I don’t see that happening.

Alabama 65, LSU 59:
Let me say it again – the Tigers are overrated (and unranked), and will not be making the tournament. Also, if they can't beat Bama on the road, they have a good shot of going 0-8 on the road in conference.

UCLA 64, USC 60:
I actually thought the Trojans would take this game, not because they are good, but because I figured they would have something to prove after their loss to the Beavers, and they’d like to beat their arch-rival UCLA. But, nevermind, relegated to the bargain bin. UCLA, ASU, Cal are sitting pretty for the tournament at this point.

Big Monday returns, and not much is going on. But there are two awesome games!
January 12
Texas @ Oklahoma:
Unquestionably the two best teams in the conference, despite both losing at Arkansas. Both are nominally still in the running for a #1 seed, although I think that they’ll all go to Big East and ACC teams. Also, they kind of have this rivalry thing you may have heard of, which may or may not have been magnified by the events of this football season. Should be a great game, but I expect OU to run away with it because they have Blake Griffin, and I don’t think anyone on Texas can stop him. However, I think Texas will win the return trip in Austin. Just because of home court and all that

Notre Dame @ Louisville:
This is the first game of a home and home series between these two underachieving preseason elites. Here’s why it will be fun:
Notre Dame Offensive Efficiency Rank: 4
Notre Dame Defensive Efficiency Rank: 162
Louisville Offensive Efficiency Rank: 94
Louisville Defensive Efficiency Rank: 2
An unstoppable attack meets an impenetrable defense on one end of the court, while on the other a horrible shooting team will be trying to score on a porous defense. Either way, these two are matched up well. I fully expect my Irish to lose.

I probably won’t be able to get a bracket up until after tonight’s games. Tomorrow, I’ll post my top 25 (for real this week). I also hope to give my observations of the two big games tonight, as well as making a post about bubble teams and bad losses.
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In Case you Missed It...

Here's what happened last night:

• Three different stories vied for attention last night. The one that had me most intrigued was the Ramblin' Wreck holding tough and ALMOST beating North Carolina. It didn't even look like UNC was struggling, just that GT was able to keep up. I now have utmost confidence that Duke will beat UNC at Durham (and perhaps at Chapel Hill).
• The second story was the two of the three outstanding teams in the A-10 losing - Dayton falling at home to UMass, and Xavier losing by 19 on the road at Temple. The Xavier loss hurt a lot more (as you can see, I had them fall quite a bit). The Dayton loss didn't do much, except serve as the only bad conference loss they could take. Massachusetts, however, used the win to vault back into the bracket.
• The third story was Drake and Illinois St. winning to set up a match of unbeatens this Saturday at Drake.
• Also of note: Virginia lost to Virginia Tech at home. Just when it seems that the Cavs are on track they lose.
• Iowa St. beat Mizzou. Missouri believers - your faith is unrewarded.
• San Diego St. knocked off Utah to take control of the Mountain West. If by some miracle they could get through their conference with only one loss, they could make a case for an at-large.
• Holy Cross scored 39 at HOME to lose to Army. They will NOT win the conference this year. They look like they don't even belong.
• Mississippi beat Florida. No surprises here.

Now for tonight's games:

• Indiana @ Minnesota: Is either team for real? That remains to be seen.
• Marquette @ Louisville: Winning on the road in the Big East has proved nearly impossible so far. Yet this is what Marquette must do to maintain its lofty status.
• Providence @ Connecticut: Two Big East Bubble teams. UConn really needs a standout win, not just a good effort at G'Town and ND.
• Butler @ Cleveland St.: For control of the Horizon League.
• Kent St. @ Miami (OH): Two teams vying for the MAC title.
• Arizona @ Stanford: This game will be crucial in determining seeding for these two.
• Vanderbilt @ Tennessee: Is Vandy for real? If they can win this game, I'll believe in them. However, I suspect that the Commodores are not ready for the challenges of the SEC. This one is my pick for game of the night.
• IUPUI @ Oral Roberts: For control of the Summit League.
• Boise St. @ Utah St.: Yet another crucial game in the battle for the WAC.

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Red Panda Part 2

Now that I have a little more free time, I'll summarize the big games since Saturday:

Saturday:

• North Carolina DOMINATED NC St. in their ACC opener. While this is not a bad loss for the Wolfpack, it will stick in the committee members' minds in March, both as a sign of UNC dominance and NC St. failure.
  
• Meanwhile, Florida St. failed to pick up a big win against Clemson. The Seminoles need something to make their resume stand out.
  
• Kentucky came out of nowhere to upset undefeated Vanderbilt at Rupp. I'd lay money that that sentence was never thought possible prior to this season. Is this a sign that the ship is being righted in for UK, or a sign of troubles down in Vandy?
  
• I was seriously surprised the UConn-G'town game was as close as it was. Perhaps the Hoyas will not have the easy ride to the conference championship that I believed they would. Also, Villanova looks less and less like a tournament-quality team every game. Losing to Cincinnati is not the way to go. (Cincinnati just isn't that good. I don't know how they beat Louisville, but they lost to St. John's by double-digits.)
  
• Kansas St. winning at Oklahoma was key. Both teams will be in the tournament, and this will be the gift that keeps on giving for KSU.
  
• I watched the end of Michigan St. and Iowa, and have determined that Michigan St. is perhaps the worst "good" team in the history of me watching basketball. I really liked them last year, especially Drew Nietzel, but the fact that they are able to play as poorly as they did against Iowa tells me that they have no shot of winning the NCAA Tournament.
  
• Elsewhere in the Big Ten Ohio St. picked up a bad loss at Purdue. Bad in this sense not because PU is horrible, but because they are supposed to be so much better than Purdue. This does not bode well for the Buckeyes.
  
• Arizona came up with a key OOC road win at Houston. Realistically, unless Houston can upset Memphis at least once (out of a probable three chances), they aren't going to make the tournament.
  
• UCLA made their case for being a 1 seed. I watched the end of this game, and the barrage of threes by Washington St. at the end was quite impressive. You probably don't need me to tell you more about this game.
  
• It was not a good day for top teams in low-major conferences. UMBC (America East), Winthrop (Big South), East Tennessee St. (Atlantic Sun), CSU-Fullerton (Big West), and Holy Cross (Patriot) all lost, with all except HC coming at home.
  
• Southern Illinois lost again, this time to Indiana St. I hope everyone (other than true Saluki fans) has gotten off this bandwagon. This is just not their year. This is really the only interesting thing to come out of Saturday from the MVC.
  
• It isn't very far into the conference season, but it appears that the Southern Conference is a two team race between Chattanooga and Davidson.
  
• In the WAC, Utah St. came out victorious over New Mexico St. in the battle of conference leaders. In the MWC, San Diego St. beat New Mexico at New Mexico in the battle of conference leaders. Does anyone else think these two should just merge into a super-conference? (Bonus Point: Another leader in the MWC, UNLV, lost to Air Force. This puts a SERIOUS dent in whatever at-large hopes they had).
  
• Austin Peay won round 1 against SE Missouri St. in a match-up between the two teams most likely to represent the Ohio Valley in the play-in game.
  

Sunday:

• Duquesne showed they belonged at the A-10 party by almost knocking off highly-touted Rhode Island AT RIU. This finally led me to acknowledge that Jeff over at basketballpredictions.blogspot.com may know more about the A-10 than I. (I've been arguing with him for weeks about the A-10, because he believes they will only receive two bids.)
  
• Syracuse showed that they cannot hang with West Virginia. I maintain that Syracuse, like Villanova, is vastly overrated.
  
• IU beat Illinois. Not much news here. I was actually shocked that it was close.

Monday:

• Shocker of the night: Pitt beat Georgetown. It appears that there are several clusters in the Big East: G'town, Marquette, and Pitt at the top, Notre Dame, Louisville, Connecticut, and West Virginia in the high-middle, Villanova, Providence, and Syracuse in the middle, Cincinnati and Depaul in the low-middle, and the other four below them.
  
• Kansas wiped the floor with Oklahoma, showing that they are indeed a (perhaps the) top team in the Big XII.
  
• I've decided that no one truly wants to win the SWAC. I hope some team from that conference uses that statement as motivation.
  
• VMI won to improve to 2-0 in the Big South. They won't win the conference, but by golly I want them to. They are quite entertaining to watch. If you can, find last year's conference championship game between VMI and Winthrop. It was awesome.

Tuesday:

• Miami lost to BC by 10. I believe that this is more an indication that Miami is overrated than the Eagles being a tournament team. However, for BC this is a step in the right direction.
  
• Baylor beat Oklahoma St. I think Baylor is truly going to make the tournament, and I don't think the committee puts as much stock in "name" as people think.
  
• Nebraska lost to Colorado. Ya hear that? That's the sound of Nebraska's at-large hopes falling fast.
  
• Winthrop beat Liberty by only 7 at home. I give it 3:2 odds that Winthrop wins the conference... which isn't good news for them.
  
• Two big games in the Mountain West. UNLV, who lost to Air Force, destroyed BYU. I will say outright that I have not a clue who will win this conference. New Mexico, 14-2 heading into the conference season, lost to a not good TCU team.

This brings us to the games tonight:

• UMass @ Dayton: Massachusetts does not want to fall to 0-2 in-conference, but that is probably what will happen.
  
• North Carolina @ Georgia Tech: Must-win for Georgia Tech. Also won't happen.
  
• Duke @ Florida St.: The Noles are still looking for something shiny to show the selection committee.
  
• Delaware @ VCU: Two of the three teams vying for the conference title.
  
• Drake @ Bradley: Another road test for your MVC-leading Drake. (Note: My roommate couldn't be happier about this.)
  
• Utah @ San Diego St.: The only two teams left undefeated in conference play in the MWC.
  
• Florida @ Mississippi: Game of the night. Mississippi "rebounded" from their tough lost at Tennessee to almost lose at home to not-so-great LSU. Florida is still a mystery, and probably will be until deep into the conference season.

I plan to do another seed list tonight after all the big games are done. I apologize for the long post, and long time since my last post.

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