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.
Read more!

January 6th Wrap-up, January 7th Lookout

Bradley 56, Illinois St. 52; Northern Iowa 69, Creighton 66:
Two major, major upsets in the Valley. Illinois St was fighting for a bid on the ticket that they could go undefeated – that can’t happen now. Don’t be surprised to see a 3-4 loss Illinois St. missing the tournament all together. Creighton, on the other hand, had looked somewhat legit (minus those two embarrassing losses), so to lose to Northern Iowa AT HOME is just incredible. Mark my words – the Valley will be a one-bid this year.

Arkansas 67, Texas 61:
Well. A middling team in the SEC has taken it to the Big XII. Again. That’s Middling SEC teams 3, Big XII teams 0. More important, however, are the ramifications for Arkansas. Remember, SEC scheduling is such that they only have to play Tennessee, Kentucky, Florida, and SC once each. They should have an easy time coasting to a tournament bid. Well, unless they get upset by Bama or Georgia…

Connecticut 61, West Virginia 55:
UConn came back from their home loss, and won on the road. West Virginia failed to defend their top Pomeroy Ranking. On any given night in the Big East… I’m looking forward to the 24th.

Michigan St. 67, Ohio St. 58; Penn St 67, Purdue 64:
I kind of thought this would be the case. I don’t think Ohio St can really even compete any more. Meanwhile, it looks like Indiana is going to provide the only pushover game in the Big 10.
Dayton 45, Miami (OH) 40:
Bah. What a pathetic score. I’m not sure, but I think Miami played a slowdown game, and it almost worked. But why are you slowing things down against a team that isn’t much better than you?

Utah 91, LSU 61
Yep yep, I’ll just leave this here…

January 7th
Gonzaga @ Tennessee (9:00, ESPN2):
Rematch from a neutral-site game earlier in the year. I fully expect Gonzaga to lose this end of the duel. Which would be their 5th straight loss. Yea, that sucks.

Davidson @ Duke (7:00, ESPN):
Davidson, playing anyone anywhere – and losing doing it. Seriously, Davidson, you need to schedule a little bit better, like not playing Chatt… wait, they are in your conference. Crap, you just need a new conference.

College of Charleston @ North Carolina:
But the College of Charleston can come with you, Davidson. In the 9.5 year history of the Pomeroy ratings, CofC has never finished below 180. Anyways, we can start talking about the College of Charleston seriously if they come within 10 points in this game. How badly does UNC want to look ahead to Sunday? How worried are they about getting caught looking ahead again?
Read more!

What a weekend!

I’ve been confined to bed over the past few days – so sue me for missing a few days.

Anyhow – could I look smarter for projecting Notre Dame as a 7? Could I look dumber for projecting Wake Forest as an eight? Here’s a three-day wrap-up.

Friday 2nd
South Carolina 85, Baylor 84:
Wait, wait, so you’re telling me that the Gamecocks, who look to be a middling team in the middling SEC, can waltz into Waco and come out with a win? Baylor still should have enough to snag a high seed with a decent Big XII season, with their wins over Arizona St. and Washington St. . But South Carolina’s win gives them a signature win heading into the conference schedule. More importantly, however, is what it does for the teams they’ve lost to. Clemson can now count that road win as a decent win, and we can now look at the College of Charleston, who could easily finish 18-2 in the Southern Conference, with two losses against Davidson – 26-4 overall. That should be enough to get them a decent look by the committee.

Arizona St. 90, Stanford 60:
How do you end a team’s perfect start to a season? Absolute demolition. This is what Stanford gets for not scheduling tough teams in the non-conference. I would not be surprised to see them miss the tournament altogether.

California 69, Arizona 55:
Well… hmm… It appears that Cal is indeed tournament quality. Let’s see how they fare against ASU, though.

Pacific 84, CSU-Northridge 78:
Yes, I will insist on putting this game up here. Knowing very little about this conference, I will foolhardily state that Pacific will win this conference.

Saturday 3rd
Pittsburgh 70, Georgetown 54:
It would figure that the one game that I really wanted to see, I would be too sick to get up and watch. I’m now 0-2 on major Big East games. But, Pitt won at G’town. G’town won at UConn. Pitt is the best team in the conference, and if you can’t see that, I can’t help you. Also, Rutgers and Florida St. are the only two teams this season to keep Pitt within 10.

Wake Forest 94, BYU 87:
And there goes the longest active home win streak – 53 games by the BYU Cougars. But, more than that, this game signals the ascendancy of the Demon Deacons. I think that, with the UNC loss to BC, Wake has an outside shot of winning the conference.

St. John’s 71, Notre Dame 65:
At the time, this game was on track to be the biggest upset of the weekend. The Irish came out sloppy, and not even the fire of Luke Harangody was enough to spark a run. It appears that an effective game plan has been made against the Irish, and until they figure out a way to counter that plan, they are going to continue to lose games. It is not outside of the realm of possibility for the Irish to miss the tournament.

Play that epitomizes the game: Harangody pulls down a tough rebound, down by 2 (or perhaps 4). Tory Jackson is right beside him, and Burrell is leaning over his back. Options are: 1) Pass to TJ or 2) Elbow Burrell in the face. You can guess which occurred.

Illinois St. 86, Creighton 64:

Well, I guess we know who the dominant team out of the Valley is. Question: If the Redbirds go 32-0, what seed will they get?

Washington 68, Washington St. 48:
Another game that shocked me in terms of score. I could have expected this score in Seattle, but I expected these two teams to be closer in terms of ability. The Cougars really don’t have any wins this season, and if they can’t beat Washington at home, don’t expect them to do any better than 9-9 in conference, and a trip to the NIT. Washington, on the other hand, looks surprisingly decent.

Minnesota 68, Ohio St. 59; Michigan St. 77, Northwestern 66:
More sorting out in the Big 10. I bet Ohio St really wants Lighty back about now. Also, every Ohio St. loss makes Notre Dame and Butler look worse. And every Northwestern loss calls Stanford's resume more into question.

Kansas 92, Tennessee 85:
My analysis? Kansas just refuses to lose at Phog. This will make Kansas look good for a while, and then they’ll lose on the road, and they’ll end up with mediocre seeding. Meanwhile, this takes Tennessee down a notch. I still think that doing well in the SEC will count for something, and they’ll end up in those top 16 spots.

Mississippi St. 82, Houston 65:
Houston really just doesn’t want a bid, do they? Every year, they seem to be in the talk, and yet they haven’t made the tournament since they got the autobid out of the Southwest Conference in 1992.

Sunday 4th
Boston College 85, North Carolina 78:
Well. Hrm. I don’t think anyone expected this. Certainly not at the hands of Boston College. I don’t really think this will affect UNC’s seed – they are still headed for a 1. But this could be the game that launches the Eagles into the tournament – as long as they don’t fall on their faces the rest of the season.

Michigan 74, Illinois 64
Michigan bounces back from their tough home loss against Purdue to beat the Illini. I have this feeling that the Big 10 will be like this all year – no consistency (well, other than poor, pathetic, soon to be 0-18 in conference IU). This, in turn will make seeding hard to predict.

Louisville 74, Kentucky 71
I was convinced that Kentucky would win this up until the final buzzer. But both teams just made SO MANY DUMB MISTAKES. Especially Kentucky – it was only an outrageously good shooting day that kept the Wildcats close.

Oregon St. 62, Southern Cal 58:
Congratulations to Oregon St. on their first conference win in 22 attempts. At the same time, you to drive a dagger into the Trojan’s tournament hopes – anytime you lose to a team expected to finish below 250 in RPI, you’ve been dealt a crushing blow. Also, you probably aren’t that good, anyways. But the Trojans did it last year, as did Nova and Pitt. But they’ve got a worse resume this year, and will probably need to garner wins against UCLA, ASU, and Cal.

California 81, Arizona St. 71:
With a win here, I was ready to declare the Sun Devils my projected Pac-10 champions. Now, I’m not sure. This could be a more competitive conference than I thought. This also stands to improve the standing of UNLV, Missouri, and Florida St.. That Rebel loss doesn’t look so bad, coming against a contender for the Pac-10 title. Missouri’s blow-out of the Bears lends them some more credence. And Florida St can use all the help they can get – unless they do better than expected in the ACC (read: finish above .500), they’ll be aburstin’ come March.

Stanford 76, Arizona 60:
I don’t know what to make of this game. Honestly, I’m convinced that neither of these teams will make it. I think it is quite probably that Arizona will finish with a better record against teams 1-50 than against teams 50-100 in RPI, while playing non-trivial amounts of both.

Top 25, Response Post, and Bracket to follow!

Read more!

Because I like jumping around... the Big 10

I’m now in the hotel lounge, watching the Wisconsin - Michigan game, and thought it would be an appropriate time to discuss the Big 10. (Note: I finished this around 7:18, and thus could reference all of the day’s Big 10 action). I'll eventually get around to doing all the conferences - just give me about a week or two.

Highly Likely:

Ohio St.: They looked like the team to beat in the Big 10 – at least until West Virginia wiped the floor with them. As it is, the wins over Miami (FL), Butler, and Notre Dame will look very good, probably good enough to get them in with a mediocre Big 10 campaign.

Illinois: As bad as they looked last night, they did beat a good Purdue team. I’m really not sure what to say about the Illini – they beat up Mizzou, and they almost beat Clemson. I would venture to say they aren’t as good as the 2-line I put them at, but they could make it there based on what they’ve done so far.

Purdue: The loss to Illinois was yet another wake-up call to the young Boilermaker team. Although they scored a dominant win over Davidson, they haven’t yet shown they can play consistently with the best. I present to you the destruction put on at Mackey by Duke. I fear for Purdue going into the Big 10 season – if they can’t win at Mackey, how can they hope to win at Kohl?

Michigan: Although they are projected to fare poorest of the five teams I have listed here, they had arguably the best out-of-conference performance of any of the four. Any time you beat Duke AND UCLA, you’re going to get some respect. While the loss to Maryland took some of the luster off, they still should get in, even if they go 8-10 in the Big 10.

Michigan St.: They beat Texas, and they’ve only lost to Maryland and UNC. That same Maryland team that beat Michigan. Perhaps Maryland isn’t so bad. Anyhow, they’ve also ended the undefeated run of Minnesota, and I they should be able to pick up home wins over the Big 10 powers – enough that I’d give them a fairly high likelihood of getting in.

Likely In:

Minnesota: I’ve reversed my thinking on Minnesota vs. Northwestern. While Minnesota did beat Louisville, and was undefeated until today’s earlier loss to Michigan St., they still don’t have that much to support their at-large candidacy, especially if Louisville’s weak season continues into the Big East schedule. Should they break 20 wins, however, it would be tough to keep them out.

Likely Out:

Wisconsin: When all you can hang your hat on out-of-conference is that you played Texas tough, you’ve not done well. However, they kicked off the Big 10 season right with the win over Michigan, and if they can pick up a couple of big wins, they could make it to the tournament.

Iowa: Iowa’s signature win is Kansas St. They have losses against Boston College and Drake, neither of which I project in at the moment. They have the slowest tempo of play in DI basketball, which will score them some upsets, but I’m sure they still won’t do very well in the Big 10 season. Thus, I don't see them making the tournament.

Northwestern: Sure, they haven’t had terrible losses – Butler may be a top 15 team, and Stanford is undefeated so far. But their one decent win – against Florida St. – may not make the playoffs. And that loss today against the Nittany Lions looks bad. I don’t think the Big Ten can get more than 7 teams in, and Northwestern needs to beat one of the better teams to have a hope.

Penn St.: When I started formulating this post a few days ago, I didn’t even have Penn St. as a possibility. I mean, we are talking a team whose best OOC win was against a struggling Georgia Tech team that may not end up with a top-100 RPI. But their win at home against Northwestern led me to look again, and I suppose the losses aren’t so bad that they necessarily couldn’t make it. But that won’t be possible with the 5-13 Big 10 record I am currently projecting.

Definitely Out – Indiana
Read more!

30th Wrap-up, 31st games of import

So, I was hoping to skip a night, avoid paying for hotel internet, and pick it back up this afternoon at home. But I'm travelling with my brother, and he's come down with the flu, so I'll be ringing in the New Year in Lexington, hopefully while watching UNC's perfect season go down the drains - no offense Tarheel fans, but I'd like to think that you'll have some competition for the title this year.

Here's what happened last night:

Illinois 71, Purdue 67 OT
Neither of these teams looked very good, but at a packed Mackey Arena, Illinois showed that they were the better team. Despite having 16 fewer free throws, (27-11) and a phantom foul on Purdue’s last (real) shot of regulation, Illinois managed to pull out a game that was back and forth. One thing I noticed last night is that Purdue still looked young – making bad decisions and so forth. I think they’ll probably lose a game or two that they shouldn’t – which is why Sunday they’ll be moved out of the top four seed lines.

Arkansas 96, Oklahoma 88
I thought this might happen. Oklahoma was looking ahead to the tough Big XII schedule. Arkansas, who is pretty much dead in the water in the weak SEC, is looking to revenge last year’s loss in Norman. I still think Oklahoma will snag a #1 seed – they'll still do very well, and at this point, the other options are 3 Big East teams, or a 2/2 split between the Big East and ACC. However, Blake Griffin will have to step it up in-conference

Butler 72, UAB 68; Dayton 66, George Mason 62
UAB scheduled a tough team, Dayton scheduled a decent team. UAB lost, and still has nothing to show for it, except for the A+ in effort that they’ve received all year. Dayton wins, and lives to see another day.

Wright St. 71, Cleveland State 62; Southern Miss 78, Ole Miss 59; San Diego 64, Mississippi St 61 OT; Chattanooga 99, Niagara 84
Goodbye Cleveland St., Goodbye Ole Miss, Goodbye Mississippi St, Goodbye Niagara. Your outside shots of making the tournament? Gone. The Vikings may still be on the bubble in March, but I doubt they’ll make it in. Moreover, the two Mississippi losses make the SEC a weaker conference, negating the benefits of the Arkansas win. The Niagara loss just assures the MAAC of being a one-bid conference.

BYU 74, Tulsa 68
BYU is known as a team that can’t win on the road. They did here however – probably the reason they scheduled this game.

And tonight's games - a pretty good slate.

North Carolina @ Nevada
North Carolina, showing off their “Anyone, anywhere” philosophy. When I saw this game on their schedule, I mentally noted this as one of a few places the Tarheels might stumble. I still believe this. So far, UNC’s three closest games have been Notre Dame (the best team they’ve played), UPenn (the first game of the season), and UC-Santa Barbara (their only other road game). I expect that the Wolfpack faithful will prove a bit fiercer than those of UCSB.

Gonzaga @ Utah
Gonzaga is on a two game losing streak, but they are still one of the best teams around. However, a loss at a tough Utah team could be devastating to their high seed hopes. Utah, meanwhile, is playing for their lives here. They have almost no shot at winning the Mountain West Tournament, and their projected resume leaves a lot to be desired. A win here would be necessary to even get them back in the tournament discussion.

UNLV @ Louisville
UNLV rocked Arizona at home, could they do the same to Louisville on the road? Probably not, since UNLV enjoys one of the largest home court advantages. But you never know - a win here would be a boon to the Rebels.

Evansville @ Illinois St.
Another matchup of top teams from the Valley. Evansville showed that they are real against Drake. If the Aces can win here, they can relax for a bit.

Iowa @ Ohio St.; Michigan St. @ Minnesota; Northwestern @ Penn St.; Wisconsin @ Michigan
The Big 10 is probably one of the biggest question marks at this point. This might help clear the waters (or muddy them more).

EDIT: Bother. I was just looking at Arkansas (something I should have done substantially earlier), and I was shocked. They might be able to parley the Oklahoma win into a tournament bid. Also, Michigan St. - Minnesota was 2-2 after 6:30. Oh Big 10, how I hate you.
Read more!