Monday Wrap, Tuesday Games

Not too much unexpected happened last night:

Louisville 87, Notre Dame 73 (OT):
I have to say - watching the battle when Notre Dame was on offense was entertaining. The other battle? Pretty sad - Louisville drove the ball at will, and missed dozens of short shots. The Irish actually should have had the last shot in regulation, but they came up with a really bad plan of attack. Note: don't depend on Brey to make good coaching decisions. It'll burn you every time.

Oklahoma 78, Texas 63:
Pretty much what I said yesterday. I'm actually less certain now that Texas will beat Oklahoma in Austin. But not certain enough to change my projections.

Tonights Games:

Kentucky @ Tennessee (9:00, ESPN):
Top two teams in the SEC. Should be a good game.

Florida St. @ North Carolina St. (7:00, ESPNU):
Pomeroy rankings call these two almost equal, and conventional wisdom calls Florida St. the better team. This will help getting a clearer picture of where these two stand.

Kansas St. @ Kansas (8:00, ESPN Full Court):
Rivalry games ALWAYS make for good watching. Especially when both teams are vying for spots in the bracket (well, I suppose KU is more looking for seeding).

Memphis @ Tulsa (7:00, ESPN2):
Memphis is a lot weaker this year, and has beaten exactly no one of note. I'm suspicious that their Pomeroy ranking is inflated by the crappy teams they've beaten, and I think they'll lose a couple of conference games. This is their first road game against a decent in-conference opponent.
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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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First Post of the Day

So I’m trying to get that seed list and bracket out that I promised you all about two days ago. I’m starting this post about noon, and I think the bracket should be done around 4. However, I wanted to get this daily post out of the way first. Also, the Blogpoll Top 25 should be done around 3, and I’ll post my ballot with my comments. So it should be a good day. Also, I’d like to direct your attention over to the link area, which has been re-organized, and features a new addition: The Bracket Busters.

January 5th
Notre Dame 73, Georgetown 67:
Well, if anyone was wondering, there goes any Georgetown claim to supremacy. After two straight losses, they get to “relax” with home games against Providence and Syracuse. Life in the Big East is wonderful. Meanwhile, Notre Dame showed that St. John’s was (probably) an anomaly, and at worst this team is going to go 10-8 in-conference, sweeping the home slate (again) and winning at least one road game. What I saw, however, was even more key – Harangody FIGHTING FOR THE REBOUNDS. He hadn’t been doing that, and the “physical” Irish team was getting beat on the boards. To see him fighting up there against Greg Monroe – who is a whole head taller than him – gave me hope for the rest of the season.

Presbyterian 67, Liberty 66:
Remember a few weeks back, when I said this was a two horse race between Liberty and VMI? Forget it. This is VMI’s show, with the Flames now dropping to 1-3 in conference. Sure, Radford is 3-1, and maybe VMI’s last 2 wins have been by a combined 7 points, but you don’t understand how entertaining it would be for VMI to make the tournament, and force some top team to run with them.

Robert Morris 77, Mt. St. Mary’s 70
I must say, I’m befuddled. The Mount is supposed to be the only halfway decent in the NEC (according to the Pomeroy Ratings), and yet they are 0-3 in the conference. Not that the order of finish actually matters – the tourney champ still gets the Auto Bid to get stomped by a #1 seed.

Tonight, we’ve got a pretty good line-up.

Connecticut @ West Virginia (7:00, ESPNU):
West Virginia is now the #1 team in the Pomeroy ratings, and this is their first matchup against one of the top 8 in the Big East. Show me you deserve a high ranking – I think you deserve one after seeing you stomp all over the Buckeyes, but you need to atone for the losses to Kentucky and Davidson. Oh, the Huskies also want to win this game badly after being embarrassed at home.

Villanova @ Seton Hall (8:00, SNY/ESPN Full Court)
Another Big East game, but this time on the bubble side of things. Nova really hasn’t done anything this year, aside from beating URI. If they want to be team 8, 9 or 10 getting in from the Big East, then they need to take care of games like this one.

Miami (OH) @ Dayton:
Two more bubble teams collide. Two major Ohio mid-majors battling it out. Dayton needs this game to feel comfortable, because otherwise they have two losses to bubble teams. Miami, on the other hand, has 4 losses to excellent teams, but no wins that will garner attention on Selection Sunday. If they can avoid getting more than one loss in conference play, they may have an argument for an at-large. But, as my friend Chris says, “That’s why the MAC is always a one-bid. They ALWAYS beat up on each other”

Ohio St. @ Michigan St. (7:00, ESPN2):
I’d be more excited about this game if I hadn’t already tallied it as a win in the Spartan column. I’ll talk more about this game if it actually surprises me.

Purdue @ Penn St.:
This game has to potential to be a real shocker. The Nittany Lions knocked off Northwestern already, and then shocked everyone (me) by nearly taking it to Wisconsin at Kohl. This will be the most hostile crowd this season for the Boilermakers, and I would not be the least bit surprised to see Penn St. get a win here.

Texas @ Arkansas (9:00, ESPN2):
Heh. Heh. You know, this is funny, because Oklahoma went into Arkansas LAST week, and lost, so what if Texas were to do the same? Actually, this won’t happen, because of that fact.

LSU @ Utah:
Despite being a person who professes to harbor a small desire for the Tigers to do well, I feel like every year I’m too frustrated by those overrating Louisiana St. to even consider cheering for them. This mainly applies in football, but this year, I feel like they need a swift kick in the butt to put them in their place. Then I’ll start supporting them again. I think Utah can accomplish this, where ULL, Washington St, and Mcneese St. could not.
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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!

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Red Panda

I haven't been able to write in a few days, what with moving back to school and all. Therefore, I am splitting this into two posts: Notre Dame since Saturday, and the rest of the (college basketball) world since Sunday.

The game against Marquette was ugly. Really ugly. The fact that Notre Dame was still in the game at halftime was more a testament to the bad play of Marquette than to the good play of the Irish. The only bright spot of the game was Luke Harangody, who still managed 29 points despite 6 turnovers. In all the Irish committed 24 turnovers on 77 possessions - almost a third of the possessions. It wasn't just dumb mistakes like throwing away the ball, although that happened several times. 17 turnovers came from steals, as the Irish big men (Kurz, Harangody, Hillesland) let themselves get trapped and didn't get the ball out of there quick enough. Macalerny also had several turnovers, though he just was not careful enough with the ball. Ryan Ayers, typically a three-point threat, ignored several open looks and contributed only 2 missed attempts to the 4-19 night.

In contrast the game against Cincinnati last night was fun to watch. The Irish started out slow, missing their first 7 field goals before Macalerny floated in a shot 6 minutes into the game. THe Irish would not score until Kurz was fouled nearly four minutes into the game and drained both of his free-throws. 12 of the Irish first-half points came off of free-throws, and the crowd could not get into the game. Going into halftime the Irish trailed by 7, and Harangody had only scored 1 point off of a free-throw. The play that best represented the first half came with the Irish up 19-18 when Kurz had a open look for a dunk, and the crowd cheered as he smashed it through. Those cheers turned to groans as the dunk bounced off the rim to a Cincinnati player, who then took it the other way for an easy two.

Something must have happened at halftime, and I'd like to think it was the performance of Red Panda. Red Panda an Asian lady, on a 8-foot unicycle, who balances bowls on her foot and flipping 1, then 2, then 3, then 4, and finally 5 bowls onto her head, while keeping all previously flipped bowls on her head as she rides around the arena. Her performance whipped the crowd into a frenzy, and much of that energy transferred into the second half of the game. The crowd cheered much louder in the second half, and the team seemed to feed off of that energy. The noise level only increased as Kurz started off the half with a three. Cincinnati missed 5 of their first 6 shots, but after Rashard Bishop finally tipped in a miss, Harangody scored 11 points in three minutes while the Bearcats went 3/9 to bring the Irish within one. Once the Irish took the lead they never surrendered it, and the game never felt close. When the big man guarding Harangody fouled out with about 6 minutes to go in the game, I thought "Game Over". The Bearcats certainly thought they had a chance, but the Irish kept making free throws. Two acts that I thought were unsportsmanlike near the end of the game. The Bearcat coach ordered his players to keep fouling and extend the game - even when down 14 with under 30 seconds to play! Cronin delayed the game even when it was clearly out of reach. That was bad. When Cincinnati turned the ball over with under 10 seconds, the Irish should have run out the clock. Instead sophomore Jonathan peoples took the ball down the court for a dunk. That was also bad. No one tried to contest him because the game was over. Just run out the clock! Obviously the game wasn't perfect. The Irish haven't stayed focused on a game for a full 40 minutes yet. This was, however, a nice win to follow-up the bad loss at Marquette.

Hopefully we can win at G'town, but I am not hopeful. We beat UConn by playing tough and hitting the three; if the three is on, we stand a chance.
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Catch-up

Notre Dame beat Connecticut. This is old news by now. Everyone knows that Tory Jackson got hurt, though it is still questionable whether he was fouled. You don't need my opinion on that. After two Big East games, we have seen Notre Dame two ways. First, against West Virginia the Irish won because Harangody could get physical and score inside. Against Connecticut, Luke got blocked repeatedly, but the Irish still won thanks to the quickness of KMac. I believe that if Luke isn't getting blocked and the Irish can stop having second-half dry spells, then they can beat anyone. Since the tallest starter for Marquette is 6'6", I like the Irish chances this Saturday. They have yet to prove anything on the road, and they still have trouble maintaining a lead. Given the in-conference results this week, however, it seems that Notre Dame could be of the top four teams in the conference.

Elsewhere:

• St. Mary's is still a good team, even if they did lose to Texas. They were playing on the road against a superior team, so it should not be held against them.
  
• Oregon cannot be trusted to win or lose appropriate games. I would not count on them to make the tournament, but they should win some games that they are not supposed to.
  
• How does Villanova follow up a loss to Depaul with a win over Pitt?
  
• After losing to Penn St. on Sunday, Illinois needs a miracle (or three) to make the tournament.
  
• UNC-Clemson was entertaining basketball because Clemson played so well. Cornell-Duke was entertaining basketball because Duke played so poorly. Duke could win this conference, but they could also end up third.
  
• Auburn does not look like a legitimate tourney team. They've gotten blown out in their only games against good teams, and also lost to Tulane. According to the Pomeroy Ratings they are by far the worst team in the SEC, and are predicted to finish with a losing record.
  
• Boston College's at-large hopes took a serious hit last night when they lost AT HOME to Robert Morris.
  
  

Tonight:

• Florida @ Alabama: Both of these teams obtained their outstanding records by beating up weaker teams. They both have an outside chance at making the tournament, but need wins better than Georgia Southern and Missouri St., respectively
  
• St. Mary's @ Fresno St.: The Gaels really need a true road win.
  
• Holy Cross @ Maryland: Holy Cross is clearly the best team in the Patriot League, and has a chance for a nice road win here.
  
• Georgetown @ Depaul: Depaul had an upset over Villanova and are 2-0 in the Big East. They will probably win tonight, but anything can happen in the Big East.

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Big East Opener

Notre Dame looked impressive in their victory tonight over the visiting West Virginia Mountaineers, 69-56. Of particular note was the 29 point, 16 rebound performance of Luke Harangody, both career highs. Near the beginning of the game it seemed like West Virginia would dominate the boards, but somehow Notre Dame managed to neutralize their big guys. Throughout the game it felt like Notre Dame was in control, and the momentum West Virginia gained when they went up 14-11 was quickly neutralized by a pair of Ryan Ayres threes. Tonight was not a perfect game by a long shot - we had more than twice as many turnovers as WVU (20-9), with most of those being coughed up by Jackson, Hillesland, and Kurz. I was afraid that without the student section behind the team the game would play like a neutral-court game, but over 8000 showed up, and were quite vocal in support of the Irish. I encourage all Irish fans to come out and support the Irish Saturday night against UConn.

The other Big East games of the night went as expected, with the exception of Depaul upsetting 16th ranked Villanova. While many people find this shocking, I feel that this validates my refusal to put Nova higher than a 9 seed in my previous bracket. They had not beaten anyone of note, and had a loss to NC St. Although a loss to Depaul will hurt their resume, they still have a shot this year, what will the weakness of the mid-majors.

Speaking of the mid-majors:

• Xavier added an impressive win to its collection tonight. The A-10 will get several bids to the tournament - unless they self-destruct, Xavier, Rhode Island, and Dayton are almost assured of making it, and UMass is firmly on the bubble.
• The CAA has returned to one-bid status, with George Mason inexplicably losing to Georgia St on Wednesday.
• The Horizon could be a two-bid league, if Butler continues to do well and loses in the conference championship. Which could happen.
• The same goes with the WCC and St. Mary's or Gonzaga, though Gonzaga has to do a lot more to end up with an at-large than St. Mary's. I suppose that it could be a 3-bid league if someone else wins the conference tourney, but i don't think that will happen.
• If the Valley elite keep on getting beat, the MVC could send only the conference champion to the tourney this year. After two games, we've learned that Creighton is not as good as believed. Nor is Southern Illinois. SIU needs an outstand conference record to make the tournament, while Creighton needs to just win the games it should. Only Drake seems to be in good position for an at-large bid.
• I admit I was wrong about Georgia Southern in the SoCon. Davidson showed that they will win that conference. However, if they falter in the conference tourney, don't expect an at-large bid.
• I still believe that if UCSB runs the table in-conference, they will receive an at-large level bid. Although they have no outstanding wins, they would have no bad losses. Their RPI and SOS would be pitiful, but the committee might overlook that. However, losing ANY conference game will send their seed plummeting.
• The Mountain West is still a mystery. BYU, New Mexico, or UNLV might be able to garner an at-large... but probably not.

Thus I count only 4 mid-major at-larges: 1 to the MVC, 3 to the A-10. With so few, the MWC might sneak one in, but that still leaves 29 for the 6 major conferences, and the SEC is having a down year.

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Winter Break is Coming Soon

After beating Team Beasley (Kansas St.) in a neutral court game, Notre Dame finally has their significant non-conference game... right? Not if you look at RPI, which, though flawed, will be part of the evidence put before the selection committee come March. Although it will change once we arrive at the conference slate, right now 4-2 Long Island, who has no win better than Hartford, is ranked higher than Kansas State. We still have no wins against teams ranked in the top 100 in RPI. We should finish our non-conference slate 10-2 - according to Ken Pomeroy's (a leader in college basketball statistics), we have a 94% chance of winning those last four games.

Following those game we square off against West Virginia at home. This should give us a great opportunity to start our conference season off with a huge win. There is just one problem - The game is January 3rd. Students aren't allowed to move back onto campus until January 12th. Therefore, unless a whole lot of students live close and plan on driving to the game, it might as well be played on a neutral court. With home-court advantage factored in (and, given some observational evidence from thebracketboard.com, home-court advantage does seem to be real), we are only supposed to have a 14% chance to win. Without the Leprechaun Legion there to support our team, we will lucky to come away with this win. Those of you out there that support the Irish Basketball - Go to this game, and the game against Connecticut on the 5th. While you're there, cheer and cheer loudly.
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Reindeer Roast

I went to the game against Eastern Michigan last night, and was greatly surprised by the final score. It felt like Notre Dame cruised the whole game, and yet the final score was only 76-65. Part of the problem seems to be a tendency to shoot for the home run - rushing in for a spectacular dunk or a spectular jump shot or 3-pointer. Many times when someone is trying to whip a pass under the basket to Harangody or others the pass is errant or is intercepted. Also of concern is that Notre Dame once again let up off the gas before the end of the game. I don't know what is going on, but Brey needs to keep the team mentally focused on the game for 40 minutes.

Harangody and Macalerny have impressed me so far. Harangody has become a dominating presence inside on offense, although he needs to step up his defensive game. Eastern Michigan's top scorer last night, Justin Dobbins, spent most of the game coming inside, backing into Luke, and shooting an accurate turnaround jumper. The game was close until the last few minutes of the first half, mostly due to Luke's inability to stop Dobbins. Macalerny has shown no ill effects from his suspension last year. He's hitting many of the shots he takes, and has almost single-handedly established the perimeter threat.

Next week - Kansas St. on Wednesday. If we play as we have been, we will lose this game. If we stay focused for 40 minutes, we have a shot.

I wil not be publishing a bracket this weekend, as there is not sufficient data to warrant one.

I will not be
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Hands in the Window

The Leprechaun Legion was out in full force tonight, as the Fighting Irish rolled to an easy victory. The 94-63 outcome was never in doubt. Due to the quality of the opponent, I really did not see much worthy of comment in the Irish performance. I was, however, happy to see that the Irish did not have a second-half letdown like they had in the previous three games.

I will (hopefully) be posting a bracket this weekend, although it is quite possible for me to decide that not enough data has been collected and postpone it until the next weekend.
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Victory?

I finally made it to the fifth game of Notre Dame's season, and my fears were confirmed. Although Notre Dame did win the game easily (87-75), it seemed like the players didn't care much for the game. At one point they were cruising, and led by as much as 26 points. Once they built up the lead they started playing sloppy, missing easy shots and letting Youngstown St. steal the ball away. If YSU had been a better opponent, they could have easily come back and won the game.

This seems to be a trend, with disappointing losses to Georgia Tech and Baylor, both games that we should have won. If we continue to ease up when we take the lead, we will continue to lose games against good teams and have a horrible season. Monday we take on Colgate. I will be in attendance.
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