Stop Slacking!

Major games from the weekend:
Saturday:

• Maryland defeats UNC. This is a huge lift for Maryland, and lessens the aura of dominance surrounding the Tar Heels. However, for all intents and purposes this loss did nothing to the Tar Heels, as they maintained their seeding in many seed lists (mine include).
• USC defeats UCLA. Much more important for USC than the UNC win was for Maryland, as USC only had one bad loss. This also hurt UCLA, as they already had one loss. This game allowed Tennessee to sneak in as a 1 seed.
• Speaking of the Vols, they have an astounding 7 wins against the top 50 RPI teams. Thats three more than any other team. However, they only beat the Buckeyes by 5. Is this a sign of weakness, or a sign that the Buckeyes are good?
• Fordham defeats Duquesne. Duquesne's whole tournament resume was based around the fact that they had no bad losses, and this game ruins that.
• Miami (FL) is a pretender. Miami (FL) is a pretender. (Repeat as necessary)
• Baylor picks up a road win. Baylor is for real, and they will make the tournament. This makes me happy, since this improves the Irish chances.
• Texas A&M is not good. They cannot win big games on the road. However, they are not bad. But unless they start winning some road games, they are done for. Same goes for the Irish.
• Kudos to Nova for picking up a road win in the Big East. Through Saturday, home teams in the Big East are 34-9, with only Rutgers having more than one home loss.
• Kudos also to Cincinnati for beating Pittsburgh. Cincinnati needs to continue knocking off top teams so they can overcome their pathetic non-con schedule.
• Drake beats Illinois St. in the battle for the Valley. Drake is now the master of the universe.
• BYU beats Utah in the only significant Saturday MWC action. This probably drops Utah out of the running for an at-large.
• Stanford beat Arizona St. Stanford is moving off of the bubble while ASU is moving closer to the bubble.
• California needs to win a game every so often, or they will miss the tournament.
• Davidson and Chattanooga squared off, and Davidson resoundingly showed that they will win their conference.
• Mississippi loses to Auburn? Inconcievable! This could shove Auburn back into NIT level.
• IUPUI followed up the tough loss at ORU to an unthinkable loss at Centenary. IUPUI went from one-bid stud to one-bid dud in the span of a week.
• Still searching for SWAC teams that want to win.

Sunday:

• Marquette got shellacked on the road by UConn. No one in the Big East is going to end up with a good road record, which will hurt seeding a lot. On the other hand, West Virginia's road win at USF will look very good, even if USF isn't the best team.
• Wake Forest beats Florida St. Enough said.

Monday:

• Syracuse ALMOST beat G'town, which would have pushed them into the tournament. But they didn't, and now they must suffer the consequences.

Big Matchups for Tonight and Tomorrow:

• Wake Forest @ Clemson: Big game for each. A win for the Deacons might push them into the tournament and send the Tigers tumbling out.
• Drake @ Creighton: Jeff from basketballpredictions.com says that Drake will falter once they're in the spotlight. Here they are, on the road, against one of the best teams in the conference. A win here will solidify their position, while a loss will leave many doubts for the Drake.
• Utah @ New Mexico: Another important game regarding the MWC. Quick story: yesterday a friend was going through conference-by-conference, asking me who could realistically win each one. We got to the MWC. I looked at it for a second, then told him "Everyone except Colorado St. and Wyoming"
• UNC @ Miami (FL): The Cane's can show me here that they are not pretenders.
• Virginia @ Florida St.: Bubblicious ACC game.
• Baylor @ Texas A&M: Road win will push Baylor above the bubble, but Texas A&M will be looking for someone to beat after two embarrassing losses sent them tumbling.
• Iowa St. @ Kansas: The Cyclones have been surprising solid at home, but so far do not have a stellar road win.
• UConn @ Cincinnati: The Bearcats are 8-3 at home with wins over Pittsburgh and Villanova and losses to Belmont and Bowling Green. Which team will show up?
• Akron @ Kent St.: For control of the MAC bEast.
• San Diego St. @ BYU: See previous comments regarding MWC.
• Bucknell @ Lafayette: For control of the Patriot League.

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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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