Thursday, March 13, 2008

The Door Opens


Wow, what a horrible day to be a team on the bubble. The following teams needed a win today to help their NCAA chances:

Florida State
Villanova
Mississippi
New Mexico
Maryland
Oregon
Arizona State
Arizona
Dayton
UAB
Houston
Miami (FL)
Baylor
Temple
St Joe's
Kent State

Florida
UMass
Texas A&M

The teams in bold are the teams who won, which means that teams that needed to win today went 4-14. You know what that means? The bubble is wide open, baby. The door is open and the Gophers just need to step on through and take out Indiana. Even Vegas sees this as a shaky game, installing the Hoosiers as just 5 point favorites, even after a pathetic performance by the Gophers against Northwestern and with the game in Indiana.

The Gophers current RPI is 98, and to get to the finals of the B10 tournament would take wins over Indiana (RPI 17) and probably Purdue (RPI 37). That would give them a 3-9 record agains the top 50, and would get the RPI up, but not high enough for an at-large probably, so we're amending the goal from make the finals to win the whole damn thing. That's right, Maroon and Gold all the way baby.

And the Hoosiers are vulnerable right now. They've lost two of their last three, including a blowout loss against Michigan State and an embarrassing loss against Penn State. Of course, their one win in that time was against Minnesota, but that doesn't count. Plus, I'm starting to think Eric Gordon is kind of a little whiny girl.

It's time to assert their dominance. It's time to take it to the next level. It's time to rise above. Gophers. NCAA tournament. 1 game down, three to go.

It Can Happen.

Minnesota 71, Indiana 66.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sadly, I agree with your prediction.