Thursday Tournament Previews

Wow what a disastrous loss for LSU.  They dropped one at home against LSU (RPI #106) in a game that would have gotten pretty close to getting them in with a win.  Granted that win might bump Tennessee up into the Top 100, which will help, but with just a road game at Arkansas left and then the SEC Tournament this team is basically guaranteed a nervous Selection Sunday unless they win that roadie against the Razorbacks or do some damage in the SEC Tournament.

Really good night for Bubble Teams in general outside LSU as Ohio State probably locked itself in by not losing at Penn State and Miami picked up a really big win at Pitt, particularly on the road, in a game where a loss might have sunk them.  Michigan State held off Purdue in a game that was definitely more important for the Spartans, and probably puts them in the tournament.  The Boilers are likely still fine and this loss does nothing, other than losing out on a basically ticket punching win.  Oklahoma State righted it's collapse with a win over TCU, Cincy picked up a huge win at Tulsa (an equally bad loss for the Golden Hurricane who are desperate for quality wins), and St. Johns road win at Marquette probably guaranteed them a bid.  On the West coast Oregon, UCLA, and Colorado State all avoided dangerous games they absolutely could not lose (and Colorado State and Oregon were on the road).

Finally, Notre Dame gave themselves a nice boost by waxing Louisville on the road (and that's a yucky loss for Louisville's seeding, and not a ringing endorsement of the post-Chris Jones era).  Two more conference tournaments kick off today, and I guess the Gophers play Wisconsin which always matters, at least a little.  I just wish it mattered more this year.

METRO ATLANTIC:
This used to be my favorite conference.  You see, in season there's a pretty big void on Friday nights when it comes to college basketball and traditionally only the Ivy League and the MAAC played thos evenings.  Back in my pre-blog days my betting partner, Bogart, and I were even more degenerate than I am now and absolutely had to bet every night, and close to every game.  For about a three year span we were absolute experts in the MAAC.  Luis Flores?  One of our favorite players of all time.  Keydren Clark?  Never bet against him.  Now, sadly, life has gotten in the way and I barely know anything about this conference.  I mean, Iona's good now?

FAVORITE:  Iona.  The Gaels are a total offensive beast with two players averaging about 20 points per game in David Laury (20.1) and A.J. English (19.5) and two more in double figures with Schadrac Casimir (15.3) and Isaiah Williams (13.5) - man that is a lot of points - and an offensive efficiency rating in the top 40.  Williams is really the key here as he's just returning from a foot injury.  Iona went 17-3 in the MAAC this year, but one of those losses came in a game Williams missed, the second came in his second game back where he shot just 1-6 with just two rebounds.  That was also the last game Iona played before the tournament, and it was a bad loss.

SLEEPER:  Manhattan.  First off, I love the Jaspers from the old Flores days, and I once stole a Jaspers T-shirt from Bogart that he actually then cared enough to make me send it back to him.  But really, to stand out against a team like Iona you need to have some kind of special skill.  I almost went with Quinnipiac and their insane 41.6% offensive rebounding rate (2nd in nation) but they truly suck at everything else.  There are four factors that greatly influence who wins a basketball game according to Dean Oliver (whose awesome book Basketball on Paper is not to be missed if you're a basketball nerd) and they are shooting, rebounding, turnovers, and free throws.  The Jaspers are #1 in the MAAC at both forcing turnovers and getting to the free throw line - either could swing the Championship game if they can get there.

THE PICK:  Iona.  I mean this is a really good team that really stands out amongst the rest of the conference.  They rank 40th in the country in offensive efficiency and only one other MAAC team is in the top 200, and though their defense is suspect they generally score enough points (along with the efficiency they also play fast, ranking 6th in the country in points scored per game) that it doesn't matter.  This is a legitimately good team, one that is slated as a 13 seed according to ESPN's bracketology.


MISSOURI VALLEY:
This is one of those conferences Bubble teams are going to be watching super closely, given that there are two teams, Wichita State and Northern Iowa, who are absolute locks to get an at-large bid if they don't win the championship and absolutely zero teams remotely close to a bid if they don't win it.  This takes on a bit less importance this year than in year's past since there aren't that many locks among the smaller conferences, but every bid taken is one less bubble team in the tournament.

FAVORITE:  Wichita State.  Not really sure what's left to say about the Shockers.  After beating UNI by double digits last weekend they wrapped up another MVC season, this time at 17-1.  This after going 18-0 last year, running Wichita's four year MVC record to 63-9.  I'd love it if they had more than one marquee non-conference match-up (an OT loss at Utah), but last year's NCAA run proved to me that this team isn't some kind of pretender.  The neutral court loss against George Washington is a bit troubling, but nobody's perfect.  Except Kentucky.

SLEEPER:  Illinois State.  Wichita and Northern Iowa have dominated the conference, but for the most part there's not much in the way of good teams here outside those two.  Illinois State beat bubble team Old Dominion and nearly knocked off VCU.  Those wins, and a slew of wins against mediocre mid-majors, give the Redbirds the only other kenpom top 100 rating in the conference.  Unfortunately it didn't carry over into conference play as ISU went just 11-7, but of their four games vs. Wichita and UNI they kept three of them to single digits.  High praise in the Valley this year.

THE PICK:  Wichita State.  You could just as easily go with UNI here as the team's have had nearly identical seasons in terms of results.  Wichita has the better conference record by a game, but the overall record is the same and Northern Iowa's win over Iowa is better than anything the Shockers managed this year.  The Panthers play that slow, efficient, don't take mistakes but don't take chances style that team's like Wisconsin and Virginia like, which probably means they're ripe for an upset.  Or at least I hope so because boring.

A preview of all the weekend action coming tomorrow.

Sick of the Gophers

First of all, just let me say I have no idea what was going on with Tubby's substitution patterns tonight.  I also don't know what is going on with the Hollinses, but they were inexplicably terrible tonight.  This game was everything we saw against Northwestern, Iowa, Nebraska, and Illinois all over again and reminded me of how frustratingly bad this team can be.  They're probably still in the NCAA Tournament but at this point barring a huge Big 10 Tournament run they'll be somewhere in the 7-10 range which means even if they somehow won their first round game they'll just get smoked in round 2.  Just.  I don't know.  I should write more but I'm sick and after watching that game I really don't feel like it.  So here's what I wrote before the game, previews and stuff. 


MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE
Oddly this is the only tournament kicking off Thursday, particularly since I remember Thursday always used to be the biggest day of the week.  It seems a lot of the conferences have switched to Friday or Saturday starts (particularly the SoCon and the Colonial) in order to maximize their attendance and revenue which makes total sense for them but sucks for me so I hate it.  Anyway, there's no real intrigue here because Wichita and Creighton are probably both in even if they get dropped in the first round, and nobody else has a chance at an at-large (Indiana State was borderline for a while, but dropped 5 of 6 to close out the season).  Even so there should be some good basketball in this one.
FAVORITE:  Creighton.  At the beginning of the year Creighton was the big swinging dick of the MVC, then they hit a bit of a rough patch and all of a sudden Wichita was the bee knees, then the Blue Jays gave the Shockers a nice beatdown to not only reassert dominance, but also to grab the #1 seed in the tourney.  By the way I still haven't figured out how good Doug McDermott really is and I have no idea what I'm going to do with Creighton when the brackets come out - which I guess is the same as every other team because I'm kind of an idiot.
SLEEPER:  Illinois State.  The Redbirds were supposed to be a MVC sleeper this year, and appeared to be good enough to make my top 68 teams preview at #52, but they struggled a smidge in conference play, dropping their first six MVC games.  They finished out at 8-4 and with Jackie Carmichael have the guy who'd be a shoo-in for conference player-of-the-year if Doug McDermott didn't exist, and he's not even the leading scorer on his own team. 
W's PICK:  Northern Iowa.  The MVC is loaded this year (9th best conference) and with the top two squads already assured of NCAA bids you can be the rest of the teams will be in crazy survival mode and that's when weird things happen.  So why not take the team with the experienced coach (Ben Jacobson) and senior leadership (3 senior starters) who finished hot (won 7 of their final 8 conference games which included wins over Wichita, Creighton, and Illinois State)?  Plus weird shit like this always seems to happen to annoying teams like Northern Iowa.

In meaningful games for Thursday night, we have Kentucky (@ Georgia) and Virginia (@ Florida State) both face pretty much must win road games to keep their bid chances alive, while Butler is on the road as well at UMass and even though they seem pretty solidly in at this point they'd be much better off not losing and giving the committee a reason to reconsider.  The best game of the night (bubble wise) is Oregon @ Colorado in the Pac-12.  Both are in solid shape, but the winner of this one pretty much punches their ticket, while the other will need to pick up another win elsewhere.  Of course the real best game of the night is Wisconsin @ Michigan State, which will matter for seedings and all that jazz and should be entertaining as long as Wisconsin doesn't control pace and gets killed.  Pretty slow for a Thursday, but there are games all day starting at 11am with the last one tipping off at 10:30pm, so who am I to complain?  I love March.

Battle 4 Atlantis Mini-Preview

Hey.  Still in Utah.  Ended up computer-less for the last two days due to circumstances you don't really care about.  But with the Battle 4 Atlantis kicking off tomorrow I might as well do a  quick little preview on the teams, starting with Duke since we know that's who the Gophers play in Round 1.

The Blue Devils are always good, but are generally at their best when they share the ball and have a wealth of scoring option rather than a single player who dominates the ball - which is how this team is constructed this year.

Center Mason Plumlee and wing Seth Curry are the two main pieces for the Dukies.  Plumlee leads Duke in both scoring (21.7 per game) and rebounding (8.7) and has been extremely efficient this year hitting from the floor at a 77% clip.  Obviously that's unsustainable, and according to what I've read about Plumlee he's pretty much been converting dunks and lay-ups and doesn't look to make any kind of actual post move very often.  He's not particularly athletic or strong, so if Mbakwe is back to where he was last year he should be able to destroy him in the paint, and there's a non-zero possibility that he literally kills Plumlee with a dunk in his face.  The way I think of it, and I apologize for this extremely nerdy analogy, is if you're playing chess and suddenly your opponent has his queen in your space and you know you're going to get destroyed, you just hope to hold on and minimize the damage.  That's Mbakwe in this game because Plumlee is really the only post player Duke has and he can't handle Mbakwe.  In fact, if I'm Coach K I figure out who Mbakwe is guarding (most likely Plumlee) and feed him the ball as often as possible after telling him his job is to draw fouls.  I can see Mbakwe being so amped up for this game that he won't be able to settle down and two quick fouls is a very real, and very bad, possibility for the Gophers.

Curry, the brother of all-time chucker Stephen Curry, has a bit of chucker in him (he leads Duke in shot attempts) but plays more under control in Duke's system than his brother did.  Between he and Rasheed Sulaimon the Gopher guards are going to have their hands full.  Both can score inside or out and both hit 40% or better from three this season, and Sulaimon is a big-time distributor, averaging 3.7 assists and a total of 11 versus just 4 turnovers - great numbers for a freshman at the beginning of his career.  Add in the mid-range game of Ryan Kelly (40% 3-pt shooter last year) and his ability to find the open man (2.7 assists per game this year for a 6-11 player) and if the Gophers try to play zone this game is already over.

The key for Minnesota will be in their defense, shooting, and taking care of the ball.  That sounds like every game I know, but it's especially meaningful in this match-up.  Duke has won (the three wins:  Georgia State, Kentucky, Florida Gulf Coast) by being an extremely efficient shooting team, whether due to shot selection, dead-eye accuracy, or a little of both.  They shoot 38.4% from 3 this year (67th in the country) and 55.5% from two (33rd), and when combined that makes them the 28th best shooting team in the country.  On the flip side, the Gophers are #1 in the country in opponent's effective field goal percentage, holding teams to 19.1% from three (#9) and 32.7% from two (3rd).  That will likely be the main difference in the game.

The Gophers have big-time opportunities here in offensive rebounding and three-point shooting.  Duke is not a particularly good defensive rebounding team where the Gophers excel at crashing the offensive glass, and Duke really struggles to defend the three (opponents shoot 40.8% behind the arc, 313th in the country).   The Gophers aren't a great shooting team behind the line but they aren't terrible either, the key will be in knocking down those opportunities for open looks that Duke will definitely give up.  The other watch-out for the Gophers is taking care of the ball.  Duke plays a swarming man-to-man that causes a lot of turnovers, something that has been a major struggle for Minnesota so far this year.  If this ends up being a blow-out in Duke's favor this will be the reason why.

All-in-all, the Gophers have an excellent opportunity here to grab a big-time win.  Their strengths have a chance to either neutralize Duke's strengths or exploit a Blue Devil weakness.  The game should be a good one, and Kenpom.com calls it a 1-point Dukie victory.  If the Gophers can take care of the ball, knock down open shots, control the paint, and limit Duke's three-point shooting they can win this game.  To me, that's just too much to ask.  Not to mention if the Gophers end up in a close game or have a small lead Coach K could coach circles around Tubby Smith, and no matter how well the Gophers play I don't know that they can overcome that advantage.

Duke 70, Minnesota 64.

In game 2 the Gophers will face either Memphis or VCU.  Memphis is currently ranked in the high teens while VCU is just behind the Gophers in "others receiving votes", and although the Tigers would clearly be the higher profile win since they're considered a Final Four contender a win over either would go a long way in March.

Memphis has started slowly, winning both of their games so far but by just 15 or 11 against extremely poor competition (North Florida and Samford).  They're not a very good shooting team and that's continued this season (just 29.4% from 3), and rely more on their guards slashing and getting into the paint through penetration - and they're very good at it.  Joe Jackson, Antonio Barton, and Chris Crawford are a very good three guard lineup, but one the Gophers should be able to match-up with pretty well with the Hollins brothers.  The issue lies with that third guard because Joe Coleman is absolutely brutal defensively and Julian Welch isn't quick enough.  Memphis only has one true post player in Tarik Black who Mbakwe should be able to handle on his own, so I'd expect the Gophers to use Rodney on one of the guards and hope they can muster enough help defense so they don't get destroyed down low by Adonis Thomas.  I don't like this match-up for the Gophers and I wouldn't expect them to win this game.

VCU, on the other hand, is a game Minnesota has to have if they want a good seed in March, particularly if they meet the Rams in the losers' bracket.  That's not to say VCU is bad - you'd have to be a fool to overlook a Shaka Smart team at this point and the Rams should end up hovering around the top 25 all season - it's just that if the Gophers are the team I hope and think they can be this is a game they'll win.

VCU does return four starters from last year's team who won a game in the NCAA Tournament and their style makes me very nervous.  VCU plays an attacking style of defense designed to force steals - and it works (VCU led the nation in steals last season with a mark that was the highest of the last four years).  With all the guards the Gophers have on paper they should be able to handle this, but on paper they're also turning the ball over this year at a rate that's one of the worst in the country.  When the Rams have the ball Minnesota should be able to handle them.  Although they're a very athletic and balanced team they rely on those steals to key their offense.  If Minnesota takes care of the basketball they should win - although that's a very big if.

Game three will come against one of Louisville, Northern Iowa, Missouri, or Stanford.  I'd guess it'll be Louisville in the Championship, Missouri in the third place game, Stanford for consolation, and Northern Iowa in the worst case scenario.

Louisville is my pick for National Champ and they play an absolutely suffocating defense.  They've crushed all three opponents this year by at least 26 points and although the competition has been poor their play is what you'd expect in those situations.  While the Gophers play great shot defense and VCU creates a ton of turnovers the Cardinals do both.  Their only real weakness is they aren't a great shooting team, but I don't think that would matter.  I don't think the Gophers would have a prayer and would be lucky to get to 50 points.  If they end up playing Louisville it's a success because it likely means they won two games already.

Missouri would be another extremely touch match-up for the Gophers simply because of their speed and back-court strength.  They're very similar to VCU in style of play and personnel, with both teams playing a pressing, attacking style but not necessarily pushing tempo on offense.  I would be pretty excited for this match-up, simply because I'd love to watch Andre Hollins go up against Phil Pressey, who I think is the best point guard in the NCAA.  Actually, what I'd really love is for Hollins to just sit and watch tape of Pressey and absorb it, but somehow I think getting schooled by him might do it better.  Best case?  Hollins holds his own and is better than expected.  Worst case?  He learns and gets better.  Win-win?  Yes, I agree that's a pretty generous "worst case" but it's my blog so STFU.

If they end up playing Stanford or Northern Iowa something has gone wrong, although say, losing to Duke and then beating VCU wouldn't necessarily qualify as a disaster, but in any case they have absolutely got to beat either of these squads if they match-up.  Stanford, the nerds who beat the Gophers in the NIT last year, have been dreadful this year and are one of the worst shooting teams in the country which you wouldn't expect from a bunch of nerds who should know geometry and angles and stuff.  Maybe they aren't real smart kids but fake smart kids like when Doug was hired to be a lawyer on King of Queens just because he was good at softball.  Northwestern should take notes.  But anyway these dorks just lost to Belmont.

Northern Iowa, long removed from the great days of Ali Faroukmanesh, doesn't necessarily have a blemish on their record, but one of their wins was over a non D-I team and another took overtime to beat Toledo.  Despite that level of competition they simply refuse to cause turnovers which means the one way to really beat the Gophers if you're worse than them is something the Panthers don't do.  To lose this game would be a travesty like Super Bowl XL or Fletch 2.


Here are your acceptable outcomes:

1.  Win the whole thing
2.  Win the first two
3.  Beat Duke (the next two don't matter if you get that one)
4.  Win consolation

That's it.  That means the Gophers, at a minimum, need to win two games or beat Duke in the first game.  Anything else would be a failure.  I don't like failure.

Week in Review - 12.13.2010

 So how about those Minnesota Gophers?  The second half, and specifically that huge run to start the half, was great and all, but this team is just flat, man.  Sampson and Mbakwe played well when they go the ball, and Trevor continues to shock me with the things he can do, but this team is certainly in a bit of trouble.  Up just three points at half to Eastern Kentucky?  And that lead was only because Maverick Ahanmisi hit a half-court shot.  Not to mention how much worst it should have/could have been if the Colonels didn't miss a whole ass-ton of wide open three-pointers.

I know Al Nolen is gone, and he's the "glue guy" or the "catalyst" or whatever, but he's not going to be back until something like three weeks into the Big Ten season and if they don't learn to play better without him they're going to dig themselves a nice hole in the standings.  The Big Ten is deep and very good this year, playing like they have the last three games against any Big Ten team, including Iowa, will result in a quick deficit leading to a quick loss.

I won't say they sucked, because they did win and do a nice job in the second half and pounding the ball in the paint, but I can't say they're awesome either because they won a game they should have won by 25 by just 13.  Just two more games to get their shit together before conference play starts and the Gophers travel to Wisconsin and then Michigan State to open.  Right now I don't see any possible way they aren't starting 0-2. 


WHO WAS AWESOME

1.  Jared Sullinger.  In our Big Ten Fantasy Hoops league, Sullinger went #3 overall to Elk and there was some questioning of the pick by some of the other players.  Although he was putting up good numbers he was outscored in Week 1 by several players who went right after him - Draymond Green, Jon Leuer, Demetri McCamey, etc. which made the pick look even more curious.  But Sullinger turned it on this week with a 40 point, 13 rebound performance against IUPUI and followed it up with "just" 17 and 5 against Western Carolina.  No, the competition wasn't exactly the best, but Sullinger is now 6th in scoring and 2nd in rebounding (to Mbakwe) in the Big 10.  Not bad for a freshman, and not bad for the #3 pick in the fantasy league.

2.  Rick Jackson.  I don't know if you're aware of this but Rick Jackson - the Syracuse power forward - has become an unstoppable monster.  He's like a better version of Trevor Mbakwe - yes, I'm serious.  After putting up a 17 pts./16 reb game against Michigan State during the week he followed it up with an 18 & 10 against Colgate this weekend, and that now gives him 8 double-doubles in the Orange's ten games this year.  With Jackson's development into a stud, Kris Joseph's big-time scoring ability, and solid point play from Scoop Jardine, the Orange are suddenly a contender without having gotten anything from their heralded freshman class.  If those develop as the season goes along, watch out. 

3.  Terrence Jones.  I read somewhere a lot of talk about how this class of Wildcats isn't like the last one, and you shouldn't expect a full-on stripped down roster:  Doron Lamb is almost certainly a 2-year player, Brandon Knight might have to go a second year, etc.  But one player who is basically certain to bolt is Jones, who is basically running circles around every opponent other than North Carolina.  He's had five double-doubles in nine games and has put up some absolutely monster performances including Wednesday against Notre Dame where he put up a 27 point, 17 rebound performance - and that was his second 17-rebound game on the year.  Guy is a beast.  He's also going to be a bust in the NBA.  That's a call, Bert.

4.  Louisville Cardinals.  I don't know exactly how this ended up happening because based on personnel it was looking like a down year in Louisville, but suddenly the Cardinals are 8-0 and extremely relevant after beating an awfully good UNLV team this weekend in Vegas.  Terrence Jennings is finally starting to show some of the Terrence Williams/Earl Clark he was supposed to be, but this is a very balanced team with 9 players who score at least 5.5 points per game and 6 who score at least 8.4, and is led by a dynamic backcourt of Preston Knowles and Peyton Siva.  I don't know if they have enough size to get through in March, but right now kenpom.com has them as the 11th best team in the country and an absolute lockdown defensive squad.  Good back court, balanced scoring, and great defense?  That's basically a blue-print for March success.  Add in Pitino and they could be a nice sleeper team.

5.  Boston College Eagles.  Coming into the year it was supposed to be Duke at the top of the ACC, followed by whoever emerged out of Maryland, North Carolina, NC State, or Florida State, and then a bunch of crap.  While most of the bunch of crap has lived up to it's name, BC has risen to the top and may have had the best week out of anybody this week, beating a pretty good Providence team at home and then going into Maryland and knocking off the Terps.  An embarrassing early loss to Yale has basically been wiped out, because other than those two wins they've also knocked off a bunch of BCS teams - not good BCS teams, but good enough to help out that RPI - Indiana, Cal, Texas A&M (also UMass).  Nice little surprise team here.


WHO SUCKED

1.  Mid-major "dynasties."  If we don't count the Atlantic-10 as a mid-major, and I don't, the two biggest mid-major dynasties are clearly Butler and Gonzaga, and suddenly each of them is facing the prospect of having to win their conference tournament to get into the big dance.  Butler sits at 5-4 and has lost every meaningful game and lost to crappy Evansville.  Gonzaga is 4-5 and in the middle of a three game losing streak, and outside of a win over Marquette they've done nothing, getting crushed by Illinois, Washington State, and Kansas State.  A couple of other really solid mid-majors over the last few years, Siena in the MAAC and Northern Iowa in the Missouri Valley, are looking like they can forget at-larges as well.  Siena is now 2-5 with some really, really bad losses (Albany, Princeton) an dis dead in the water, and Northern Iowa is 4-3 with losses to Iowa and Milwaukee.  Basically the first four teams I think of when I think mid-major are all either already out of the running for an at-large or are facing a major uphill battle.  Weird year.  Not counting the A-10, Mountain West, or Memphis, the Colonial might have the three best mid-major teams in the country.

2.  St. Johns Red Storm.  Wow we wow wow.  Well apparently my sleeper Big East squad is more sleepy than sleeper, because they had an absolute brutal week, losing to two A-10 bottom feeders in St. Bonnie's and Fordham this week.  St. Bonnie's is bad, but they are at least a halfway decent squad, but the loss to Fordham is inexcusable.  The Rams are 5-4, but are still one of the worst teams in the country after winning a total of just 5 games the last two years.  In short, these two losses are hugely embarrassing for St. Johns, and they almost kill their post-season chances.  They play in the Big East so they could go on a run and end up in good shape, but losing these two games says pretty definitively that this team sucks way too hard to do that.  I am awesome and picking sleepers.

3.  Pac-10 Contenders.  There are exactly two good teams in the Pac-10:  Washington and Arizona.  Both played road games against decent, but beatable, teams on Saturday with a chance to show how good they really are.  Both failed miserably.   Washington lost by one to Texas A&M and Arizona got crushed by BYU.  This whole demise of the Pac-10 thing is completely out of control.  I think this is year 3 of them sucking it up.  Get your shit together or we're going to have to replace you with the Mountain West.


4.  The Metrodome.  Nice stadium, lol.  Where are we, exactly?  Bratislava?

5.  Kyrie Irving.  I'm not a Duke fan, not remotely, but Irving's injury and possible out-for-the-yearedness really sucks in a lot of ways.  First, he was incredible and fun to watch.  Like a Ty Lawson who could score, and he was only a handful of games into his freshman year and was just getting better.  Seventeen points per game on 53% shooting and 45% from three with 5 assists and 4 boards as well and a 2-1 assist-to-turnover ratio?  Wow.  And we lose out on a juggernaut Duke team that had a legit shot at going undefeated.  Not that I like Duke, I hate them, but remember how much fun it was rooting against the Patriots their undefeated year?  And how awesome it was when the Giants beat them in the Super Bowl?  We could have had that again in March, but now we will just have to root against Duke with all the regular hate, not super extra hate.  I miss super extra hate.  I wish Favre was still a Packer. 


And about this whole JJ Hardy trade:  I don't get it.  The assumption is that the signing of Nishioka is apparently now imminent, which is fine, but we don't know anything about how his game will transfer.  Ichiro is great, but look at Kaz Matsui - no thanks.  And either way, he can play both middle infield positions, so would you rather roll with a starting tandem of Nishioka and Hardy, or Nishioka and Casilla?  Should be obvious.  With such a pedestrian return for him - two middle reliever prospects of dubious value - this trade doesn't make much sense to me.  I'll let Aaron Gleeman break it down since he does a better job than I and I've already written enough for one day, but Hardy was a valuable piece.  Even if one of the two players they got back becomes a competent reliever that's not as valuable as a quality everyday shortstop.  Not impressed with this off season so far.   Not at all.

Sweet 16 Preview

I know you're probably sick of reading about it by now, but this is a really fascinating Sweet 16 this year.  You have a little bit of everything.  You've got eleven different conferences represented.  You've got your small conference upstarts (Northern Iowa, Cornell, St. Mary's), your big conference upstarts (Kansas State, Baylor), your small conference dynasties (Xavier, Butler), your traditional powers (Kentucky, Duke, Syracuse), your underachieving squads starting to put it together (Tennessee, Washington), team's dealing with injuries old (Purdue) and new (Michigan State, West Virginia), and the best team god ever assembled (Ohio State).

You've got the two best players this year (John Wall, Evan Turner), media darlings (Omar Samhan), precious little white boys with a hometown angle (Ryan Wittman), transfers who flourished (Denis Clemente, Ekpe Udoh, Jordan Crawford), cheaters (John Calipari, Bob Huggins), slime balls (Coach K, Calipari), and spazzes (Izzo, Frank Martin).  You've got lightning quick guards (Jake Pullen, Isaiah Thomas, Terrell Holloway), do-it-all wings (Durrell Summers, David Lighty, Wes Johnson, Devin Ebanks), dead-eye shooters (Farokhmanesh, Jon Scheyer, Scotty Hopson), and monster big men (JaJuan Johnson, Matt Howard, DeMarcus Cousins).

Seriously, I'm really fired up for these next four days.  It should be awesome.  Here are my picks, gambling-wise, ranked from least amount of units vs. most amount of units wagered.

WEST VIRGINIA -4 vs. WASHINGTON:  I'm more than a bit surprised that I'm not more confident in the Mountaineers, but I think the injury to Truck Bryant is going to play a bigger role than you'd think in this particular match up.  WVU has zero answer for Isaiah Thomas, and he can completely control the tempo of a game, as New Mexico found out.  Since WVU likes to play a slower-paced game, that could become an issue.  Still, in the end, Washington doesn't have the athletes to play with WVU beyond Thomas and Quincy Pondexter, so they'll probably run out of gas in the end - assuming Huggy Bear doesn't orchestrate another one of his teams' patented choke jobs.  THE PICK:  West Virginia -4, 1 Unit

SYRACUSE -7 vs. BUTLER:  Another tough game to read.  One of the ways Butler beats more athletic, more talented teams is by being so fundamentally sound, but this year's Syracuse team won as many games as they did by being equally fundamentally sound.  Still, I doubted Butler this year, and that waxing they put on a very good UTEP team tells me I might have underestimated them.  I expect this to be a pretty hard fought, low-scoring affair between two good teams, and in that kind of situation you go with the points.  THE PICK:  Butler +7, 1 Unit (Bonus Pick:  UNDER 138.5, 1 Unit)

DUKE -8 vs. PURDUE:  Not really sure how to call this one.  Duke is the better team, and Purdue can't win on emotion forever, but there are some reasons to believe in Purdue here.  With or without Hummel, they are a very tough defensive squad.  Couple that with a Duke team that relies monster-heavily on the three-pointer for the offense, and one cold night, whether because Duke can't hit or because of tough Purdue defense and the door is suddenly open for an upset.  With the Johnson and Moore it's possible, since they're tough match ups for Duke, and if Kramer can get under Scheyer's skin it could be a long night.  Something tells me this is either going to be a blow out or a Purdue upset, so the spread does me no good.  THE PICK:  Purdue to Win @ +340, 1 Unit.

KANSAS STATE -5 vs. XAVIER:  If you've read this blog leading up to the tournament, you know I'm a big fan of Xavier this year, and not a believer in Kansas State, so this pick is pretty easy.  Nothing has really changed through two rounds, since X has looked good in their two wins while K-State has been less than overwhelming.  Still, any team with two good guards is a danger at this point, so I can't go to heavy.  THE PICK:  Xavier +5, 3 Units (Bonus Pick:  OVER 152, 1 Unit)


OHIO STATE -4.5 vs. TENNESSEE:  The Vols are the kind of team who have been up-and-down all year, and now that they're in the Sweet 16 they probably have you thinking they have it all together now.  Well you're wrong.  They barely beat a San Diego State team that barely bothered to show up, and then lucked into a second round game against the least deserving team in the field in Ohio, and couldn't really get it going until the second half against them.  No my friends, the Vols are doing this with smoke and mirrors and they are about to be exposed.  If you really feel the need to gamble on Tennessee, take the money line, because they have just as good a chance at winning as they do at covering 4.5.  THE PICK:  Ohio State -4.5, 3 Units (Bonus Pick:  OVER 134, 2 Units)

KENTUCKY -9 vs. CORNELL:  I feel a bit weird here, because part of me says that Cornell just got lucky, matching up against two slow-it down, grind it out, non-super-athletic, non-super-quick teams, but another part of me says that this is the kind of team that could take the youngsters on Kentucky completely out of their game.  And it's not like Trevon Hughes or Jordan Taylor are slow.  Not to mention, and I hate referencing something that happened in January and was a loss, but they did hang with Kansas right up until the end and that's a pretty athletic team.  I think this is going to be a fascinating game.  In the end, Kansas probably wins, but those are a lot of points, and Cornell seems to be all business right now.  They don't think they're done yet.  THE PICK:  Cornell +9, 3 Units

BAYLOR -4 vs. ST MARY'S:  I'm still not 100% convinced Baylor is all that terrific, but I think more than anything the Gaels are riding easy matchups.  Well, by beating overrated teams, at least.  Richmond had me convinced, but they didn't even come close to coming close to showing up, and it was clear to everyone, pre-bracket even, that there was no way in hell Villanova was a legit 2-seed.  Maybe more than anything else, and I'm going to bring this up again later, but did it sort of feel like St. Mary's won their Super Bowl already?  Not to mention that Baylor is the same team as St. Mary's, but only if St. Mary's got an upgrade.  Good interior player - but Udoh is better than Samhan - surrounded by good perimeter players - but Baylor's guards are head and shoulders better than St. Mary's guards.  It's hard to see how St. Mary's keeps this much of a game, Baylor should win by ten.  Oh, and the game is in Houston, so it's pretty much a home game.  THE PICK:  Baylor -4, 5 Units (Bonus Pick:  OVER 143, 1 Unit)

MICHIGAN STATE -1.5 vs. NORTHERN IOWA:  Ok, tell me this line isn't fishy and media driven.  First, Kalin Lucas is hurt, and it's being played up as a big story.  Second, UNI just knocked off the major favorite in the tournament, and everyone knows it and can't stop talking about it.  These two facts alone have probably swung this line by about two points.  And there's more.  UNI's coach just agreed to a 10-year deal a couple of days ago, while the tournament is still going on.  Farokhmanesh is the darling of the tournament - hell, the whole team is the darling of the tournament.  It just feels like they're good and done and fat and happy and basking in the glow right now.  Meanwhile, Tom Izzo, notorious advancer in NCAA tournaments, has the team locked down in the gym, going over the game plan without Lucas over and over and over, and making sure his team knows that they haven't accomplished jack shit just yet.  Not to mention Bill Self has clearly established himself as the kind of guy who makes chocking out of the tournament into a routine, while Izzo is the complete opposite, and this feels like the line should be more like 7.  THE PICK:  Michigan State -1.5, 8 Units


I know my bracket picks haven't been doing that well (although I still have all my final four teams left), but the gambling has been successful thus far, so I highly recommend that you follow these picks blindly.

Week in Review - 3/21/2010

 Well, we made it back from Chicago and everyone is still alive.  Sorry for the lateness of this post, but believe me after pulling consecutive days with 12+ hours logged at the bar, the last thing I could manage when I got back on Sunday was writing some stupid crap for this stupid blog.  But now that I'm back, even though I still feel like crap, I figure I should at least put up some kind of half-assed Week in Review (well, more half-assed than usual, I mean.) 

Quickly, two things that stood out from the Chicago weekend:

1)  A Colombian man openly weeping in the middle of the Dayton bar while listening to latin music on his pink Ipod.

2)  Loud, obnoxious Kansas fan yelling "yes" when Kansas hit that meaningless three with 0.4 left in the game.  He either forgot the actual score or has no idea how basketball works, and I'm not sure which way is funnier but I know he had all of us rolling in the back room after we heard him. 

Anyway, on to the usual garbage:


WHO WAS AWESOME

1.  Xavier.  It's hard to blame the Gophers too much for the loss on Friday, particularly when the Musketeers were the far better team, and they continued to show that by beating Pitt on Sunday to advance to the Sweet 16 for the third consecutive season - one of just two teams (Michigan State is the other) who can make that claim.  Sure, there were things the Gophers could have done better/differently, but the entire game it seemed as if the Gophers were doing everything in their power just to keep it close, and I don't really remember ever thinking they had a chance to pull it out.  Jordan Crawford was by far the best player on the court with his 28 point, 6 rebound, 5 assist performance (which he followed up with 27-6-6 against Pitt) and the Gophers had no idea how to keep Love and McLean off the boards.  Xavier has enough talent to take down Kansas State and could advance to the Elite 8 this week.  I don't think they have enough juice to beat Syracuse, but once you get this deep, anything can happen.

2.  Joe Mauer.  Or Bill Smith or Ron Shapiro or whoever you want to give the credit too.  The important thing is that Mauer is signed  Even if he regresses a bit, his downside is probably something like .310/.390/.480 with 15 homers, and from a gold glove catcher even that is probably worth close to what he's getting paid.  Add in his upside, MVP-potential, and what he means to this town, and it had to be done.  I'd say this is all they had left to do, but with Nathan now out for the year I think they need to make another move.  This team is really good and right on the verge, and I'm afraid if they don't do something it's going to be a disaster.  Tell me you don't see them going closer-by-committee, having it become a disaster, and not realizing or trying to make a change until it's too late.  That's exactly something the Twins would do.  I read somewhere that the Padres want Perkins and two "good" prospects for Heath Bell.  Now, if that "good" level means guys like Ben Revere and Wilson Ramos I'd tell the Padres to go screw, but if they're talking like Trevor Plouffe and Steven Tolleson then it's time to run, not walk, to make this deal. 

3.  Ali Farokhmanesh.  The biggest upset of the tournament thus far has got to be UNI's victory over Kansas (well, Ohio over G-Town was probably bigger, but essentially meaningless), and the hero was without question Cedar Falls' version of Jamal Abu Shamala in Farokmanesh.  That monster three pointer he hit with 30 seconds left was the stupidest, dumbest, ballsiest shot I've ever seen, and since it went down and ended up being the game winner, Farok goes down as a hero rather than a goat, and is going to end up being a tournament legend who is talked about long after his playing days are done a la Bryce Drew.  Add in the fact that he also hit a three with under five seconds to go to give the Panthers their opening round win over UNLV, and this kid had one hell of a weekend.  It's just unfortunate that he's a terrorist.

4.  Cornell.  Remember all that "under-seeded" talk?  Well, two wins and a sweet 16 berth says that wasn't just crazy talk.  I still contend the Big Red caught a nice break in running up against two team's that play a similar style and weren't going to out-athletic them, but you can't really talk down to an Ivy League team that ends up playing in the second week of the tournament.  Even though Ryan Wittman gets most of the press, especially here with his Minnesota connection, seven-footer Jeff Foote might end up being the key against Kentucky.  He's not just some big ole seven-footer who plays because he's seven feet tall in the Ivy League, he has some legit skill and good footwork and is going to need it all against Kentucky.  This is going to be a real tester, since Kentucky is playing as well as it has all year.  I'd love to see Calipari go down, no matter how unlikely it may be.

5.  Michigan State.  How annoying are the Spartans?  It's the same thing every year, they look mediocre all through the Big Ten season, end up with a middle-high type seed, you think they're ripe for the upset, and then they just keep winning.  That monstrously entertaining win over Maryland on Sunday gave Michigan State their third Sweet-16 in as many years (meanwhile the Gophers haven't made it that far in over ten years) and showed once again why you never, ever doubt Izzo.  I read that there is a 90% chance Sparty will be without Kalin Lucas against Northern Iowa, and normally I'd say that is a pretty big deal, but it doesn't seem to matter who is there or gone on Izzo's teams, so they'll probably win by ten.  Oh, and Durrell Summers is absolutely going to be a huge star next season.  All Big-10 First Team.


WHO SUCKED

1.  Scottie Reynolds.  There's not much as enjoyable as watching a truly overrated chucker nearly shoot his team to a loss in the first round against a 15-seed and then, after his team manages to escape thanks to an NCAA mandate to the refs that Robert Morris isn't allowed to win, doing the same thing 48 hours later, but this time they couldn't escape and were dropped by the suddenly super popular Omar Samhan and St. Mary's 75-68.  I'm not kidding either.  Your precious All-American shot 2-15 in the first game and was 2-11 in the second, going 4-26 in what has to be a record in futility from someone who idiotic fans love because they're stupid.  He makes Stephen Curry look like Magic Johnson.  I'm almost sad he's graduating, just because he's so fun to root against, but I will enjoy not having to hear about him anymore.  Maybe the most overrated player in history.

2.  The Big East.  Speaking of overrated, what do we think of the Big East?  Eight teams with bids, called the best conference in all the land for the second-year in a row, and yet only two teams (Syracuse and West Virginia) are still alive for the Sweet 16.  It's really not that bad if you think about how they made up 1/8th of the invitees and still make up 1/8th of the remaining teams, but they were set up for a lot more success.  Both Villanova and Georgetown had Final Four aspirations and Pitt was a three-seed, Marquette and Notre Dame as six seeds were picked by some to make the Sweet 16 but lost in the first round, and Louisville was thought to be a challenge for Duke in round two but couldn't even get past Cal.  That's currently a 6-6 record for the conference by my count, which sounds ok until you think about how they had a 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 6, 6, and 9 seed.  Seriously, pretty embarrassing.

3.  The Mountain West.  Well, if we're going to talk about disappointing conferences we can't very well ignore the Mountain West, which had three teams invited, two with a good chance at getting to the Sweet 16, but instead ended up going just 2-3, with their top team (New Mexico) getting bounced hard in round 2 by Washington by 20 and BYU refusing to even show up in their second round guy against Kansas State after just squeaking by a Florida team that probably didn't even deserve a bid.  Not that I necessarily thought these guys were great, but this certainly doesn't help my argument that high-mid-major teams from conferences like the A-10 and MWC can be valid sleepers in the NCAA tournament.  Apparently you have to go to smaller conferences like the Ivy or Missouri Valley to have a prayer.

4.  Richmond.  Hey, speaking of teams that suck and aren't valid sleepers, let's give it up for my most disappointing team of the dance - The Richmond Spiders.  I was so fired up for these guys to make a run.  They closed out winning twelve of their last fourteen including a huge win over Xavier in the A-10 tournament, and even though I knew St. Mary's was a dangerous 10 seed I was still expecting a Richmond win followed by another win over Villanova.  Obviously not.  And they would have beaten Villanova, too, just like the Gaels did, but they decided not to show up for their first game.  Seriously, have to seen this stat?  Richmond was out-rebounded 39-16?  How is that even possible?  The earlier mentioned Samhan had twelve boards all by himself, which means he damned near out-rebounded the Spiders all by himself.  Ridiculous.  And such a good team, too.  I mean, they just had 35 rebounds in a game against Xavier the prior week.  Such a shame. 

5.  Blake Hoffarber. I'm sick of Hoffarber.  Actually that's not exactly true, I'm just sick of an offense that relies so heavily on someone who can't create his own shot.  Hoff is just fine.  He's a great shooter (unless he's too open), he's a good rebounder for his size and lack of athleticism, and he's a smart player.  I'm just sick of watching all these good teams and all these good players and we're stuck watching the Gophers and their two players who can create their own shot, one of whom is likely functionally retarded.  I want better players, dammit.  Get on it, Tubby.  You need to get this program turned all the way around before you bolt to Auburn.  Don't you betray me, too.  I'm still trying to recover from Rico Tucker turning his back on me.

Well that sucked

 Well yesterday certainly sucked.  As you probably inferred from the post directly below this one, we had to put our kick-ass super awesome cat Merlin down yesterday.  He was fine in the morning and near death in the evening due to some pretty serious health issues that suddenly popped up.  You will be missed, good buddy.  You will be missed.

On to the basketball, because life does go on, after all and there are bubbles and tournaments that need attention.  The two biggest bubble games were the Memphis vs. UAB and UCONN vs. Notre Dame tilts, and the big winners were the Tigers and the Irish.  The Memphis win puts them on the same level as UAB, both squarely in the middle of the bubble.  They both close with tough C-USA matchups (Memphis vs. Tulsa, UAB @ UTEP) and then the C-USA Tourney.  It's not hard to imagine a scenario with either both in, or both out.  Notre Dame's big win assures them of at least a .500 record in the Big East, which might be enough to get them in, while UCONN is now 7-10 in conference play and looking very dicey.

Florida State and Rhode Island also picked up big wins (over Wake and Charlotte).  FSU is in better shape than Rhodey (who will probably need to make the A-10 final or big up a big win in the tournament), Charlotte is done, and Wake is suddenly looking like a bubble team instead of a "lock" thanks to a four-game skid.  They really need to win their finale at home against Clemson or the ACC tournament is going to become huge for them.

In the three other games with at-large implications Virginia Tech beat NC State, SDSU crushed Colorado State, and Mississippi State was upset by Auburn.  The Hokies now have nine ACC wins with a game at Georgia Tech left on the schedule.  If they pull that one out and get to ten wins it's going to be hard to keep them out, despite an empty computer profile.  SDSU is still tracking to give the MWC four teams.  BYU, New Mexico, and maybe UNLV are all pretty much in already and the Aztecs might need to pick one of them off in the MWC tournament.  If that upset comes against UNLV things get very interesting between the two teams.  Finally, the Bulldogs' loss to Auburn might have tossed them from the conversation, which sucks because I'd love to watch Varnado in the tournament.  Oh, and I forgot St. Louis lost to Temple which kills their chances.

As usual during this week, there are a few conference tournaments kicking off today:

NORTHEAST CONFERENCE:  Generally, year-after-year, the worst three conferences are the MEAC, the Independents, and the SWAC.  This year the MEAC actually crept ahead of someone - the NEC.  They were hurt by the addition of Bryant who went 1-29, but this is a bad, bad group of basketball teams.  The days of Charles Jones and LIU are long gone.
FAVORITE: Quinnipiac.  The Bobcats finished in a regular-season tie at the top of the NEC standings with Robert Morris, but get favorite status thanks to a better overall record and a win over RMU in their only regular season meeting.
SLEEPER:  Mount Saint Mary's.  The Mountaineers finished three games behind the conference leaders, but come into the NEC tournament with a ten-game winning streak that including wins over both Quinnipiac and RMU.  I started to do some research to see why they got so hot in the last two months of the season, but then I remembered that this is the NEC and I've probably spent too much time on it already.
W's PICK: Quinnipiac.  I almost went with Robert Morris since they won this thing last year, but QP leads the conference in scoring, rebounding, and field goal percentage.  Should be enough to win.

MISSOURI VALLEY:  Once the darling of the mid-major crowd, the MVC has fallen off the face of the earth and now has just one team with a shot at an at-large in Northern Iowa.  Perhaps a great indicator of the drop is Southern Illinois at 6-12 in MVC play.  Once the jewel (along with Creighton) of the MVC, years of sustained high-level play have come to an end, and most of the rest of the conference has followed.
FAVORITE:  Northern Iowa.  I actually think the Panthers are really overrated this year, but they won the conference regular season crown by three games and have an overall record of 25-4.  Of course, those losses are to DePaul (RPI = 191), Bradley (107), Wichita State (51), and Evansville (243) and outside of wins over Siena and Old Dominion (and Wichita) there's nothing here.  This is not a team that will pull an upset in the first round of the NCAAs.  Trust me.
SLEEPER:  Illinois State.  They finished just 11-7 in the conference, but they might be the most talented team.  They have the leading MVC scorer (Osiris Eldridge), rebounder (Dinma Odiakosa), field-goal percentage shooter (Odiakosa), and third-leading assist guy (Lloyd Phillips).  They've won six of their last seven, and this same group has fallen just short of the NCAAs and ended up in the NIT the past two seasons.
W's PICK:  Drake.  Just for our very own Rockies guy.  Plus they have that Josh Young guy, who is probably the best player in Iowa.

AMERICAN EAST: This isn't a highly rated conference by any stretch, but they do seem to produce teams that are tough outs in the tournament (Vermont, Albany).  This year doesn't look like it will it will continue that trend, with no real good teams coming out of the AEC.  Additionally, Binghampton, who had a chance to be a decent sleeper this week, has pulled out of the tournament due to the ongoing legal woes with the program.
FAVORITE: Stony Brook.  They won the conference with a 13-3 mark and had a 5-1 mark against the other top teams.
SLEEPER:  Maine.  They finished in third and were the only upper-division team to beat Stony Brook. 
W's PICK:  Vermont.  The Catamounts have the pedigree and, more importantly, have one of the best players most people haven't heard of in Marquis Blakely, a 6-5 senior forward who does it all for Vermont.  I haven't actually seen him play (Vermont isn't on TV as much as you might think), but ranking second in scoring, rebounding, and field goal percentage and fourth in assists in the AEC is pretty impressive. 



TONIGHT'S BUBBLE GAMES

Seton Hall @ Rutgers - The Pirates are still alive based almost solely on the fact that they are in the Big East, where at 7-9 they can still pull to .500, and that's a possibility with this game and than another one at Providence.  If they can win the last two on the road and then do something in the Big East Tournament they have a good shot at a bid.

Dayton @ Richmond - The Flyers were supposed to be good, but instead find themselves clinging to life.   A win would go a long way towards a bid, but a loss here probably ends the dream.

LSU @ Ole Miss - The Rebels have climbed back into the picture with a late two game winning streak and a quickly weakening bubble (also the reason Lunardi has the Gophers as the fifth team out right now, but don't hold your breath).  Of course, like a lot of other teams right now a loss probably puts them out.

Washington @ Oregon - God the Pac 10 sucks.

USC @ Arizona State - Yep, still sucks.


RIP Merlin.  If there's a cat heaven go ahead and give your Cat God a nice swipe of a claw for me.

And then kick him in his little cat nuts.

Week in Review - 2/22/2010

Well, I gotta give credit where credit is due:  there is very little to complain about in regards to the Gopher hoopsters this week.  A big win over the completely hated dickholes from Wisconsin followed by an absolute destruction of the horribly horrid Hoosiers.  And they've looked great too.  The offense is finally flowing well, and even Westbrook has reigned himself in and begun playing within the flow.  The two best games this team has played all year were the two they played this week.  If they're going to hit a stride now is the time to do it.  Big time games coming up at home against Purdue and then on the road at Illinois this week, and they absolutely have to win at least one and probably both to have a shot at a bid.  Of course, if they had played this way they wouldn't have lost to Indiana, Northwestern, or Michigan and would likely have won at least one of the Michigan State games and we wouldn't have to worry about it.

This is such a depressing year.  Let's just move on.
  

WHO WAS AWESOME

1.  Maryland.  At this point in the season you're rarely going to see a team with three games in a week, but due to a postponement after the great blizzard of "aught-ten" that's what the Terps had this week and they managed a very nice 3-0.  First they beat a tougher-than-expected Virginia squad, then traveled down to NC State and beat the Wolfpack (the same team who beat Wake by 20 this weekend), and then rapped up the week with a buzzer beating home win over Georgia Tech.  The Terps are flying under the radar a bit due to a slow start, but since Professor Dirty Beard, Grievis Vasquez, has shaken off an early shooting slump they are one of the better teams in the country.  Vasquez and Eric Hayes give them a very good, very experienced backcourt, and you know what they say about good guards in March.  The front court might be a little weak, but freshman Jordan Williams is starting to figure it out and has picked up double-digits rebounds in his last three.  Very dangerous team.  I'd hate for the Gophers to have to face them in the second round.

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Kill me.

2.  Northern Iowa.   The Panthers are definitely the team that helped themselves the most over Bracket Buster weekend, going from "probably getting an at-large bid" to "definitely getting an at-large bid" with their win over Old Dominion.  UNI is now 24-3, but didn't have much in the marquee win category.  The beat Siena earlier in the year, but that had been their only win over an RPI top 50 team.  Mediocre wins abounded:  Iowa, Boston College, Iowa State, Creighton, and Wichita State all fell to the Panthers, but the Siena win was the only big victory, and with two losses to sub-100 RPI teams (Bradley, DePaul) they couldn't really feel safe.  Beating ODU now gives them that second big win, and increases their RPI rating to #17, and barring a complete collapse in the final regular season week they should be just fine, regardless of the outcome of the MVC tournament. 

3.  UTEP.  If you're a dork like me and were really curious to see how Conference USA would shake out with Calipari jumping ship, you have your answer:  UTEP is the tops.  Coming into the season there were a bunch of contenders with Tulsa and Memphis the favorites, UAB and UTEP right behind them, and Marshall and Houston the dark horses.  Well, the Miners have staked their claim to #1 after beating Tulsa in Tulsa this weekend, giving them a sweep of the Golden Hurricane.  With Houston sucking and Marshall being meh it's been a four team race, and UTEP has staked their claim to the top by going 4-0 against the other contenders, and even more impressively three of those wins have been on the road.  The Miners still have games left against UAB and Marshall, and have plenty of work to do thanks to a mostly empty non-conference resume, but if they make the tournament they could be a tough out.  They are really balanced and can hurt you both inside and out, and will make somebody work very hard to advance.

4.  Cornell.  When Andy Bernard U lost to Penn two weeks ago it basically killed their at-large chances which would suck because this team can absolutely knock somebody off.  The loss to Penn and their #307 RPI is Cornell's only conference loss, but with a dangerous team like Harvard in the conference, and the Ivy giving their auto-bid to the regular season champion, things can get dicey.  Luckily for everyone who likes basketball, Cornell took care of business this week, winning at Harvard 79-70 (and then following that up by beating Dartmouth).  The loss is the third of the season for Harvard, and with Cornell having swept the Crimson it effectively eliminates them from the race.  Cornell's remaining games are home against Penn (4-5) and Princeton (7-2) and then away against Brown (4-6) and Yale (4-6).  The only dangerous game is against Princeton who is just 1.5 games behind the Big Red, and lost to them by just three last time they met.  Hopefully Cornell can take care of business, because I can't wait to watch them knock off Wisconsin in round 1.

5.  Ian Poulter.  There is enough going on in college hoops right now where we could fill twice as many places with teams that had good weeks, but I can't just ignore the winner of the Accenture Match Play Challenge - which is Poulter this year.  Ian has always had the confidence to be a great player (I believe his quote was something like "There's me and Tiger, and then there's everyone else"), but his game hasn't quite kept up and he's been stuck at that Tier II level.  He's had plenty of success in Europe, with eight wins on the European Tour, but has yet to pick up his first PGA Victory, and he's played well in majors, including a runner-up finish at the British in 2008, but hasn't quite broken through.  Perhaps this win in the Accenture will get him there, as he beat a nice group of players - Justin Leonard, Adam Scott, Jeev Milka Singh, Thongchai Jaidee (who?), Sergio Garcia, and Paul Casey - and the last two wins over Garcia and Casey weren't close.  Guy is a hell of a golfer, hell of a talker, and hell of a dresser (on Sunday he looked like a walking Breast Cancer reminder in a full-pink outfit).  Could it be, dare I say it, the Year of the Poulter?


WHO SUCKED

1.  South Florida.  For all the talk of bracket-busting this weekend, the biggest burst might have been the bubble of the Bulls (how's that for alliteration?).  They weren't anywhere near in just yet, and were probably on the wrong side of the bubble, but would have every chance to play themselves into a bid with games left against Villanova and UCONN.  Winning either of those, while taking care of business against St. Johns, Providence, and DePaul, would leave USF at 10-8 in Big East play and in pretty decent shape.  But, as Gopher fans have seen time and time again, these types of teams are prone to disappointing their fans and the Bulls are no exception, losing at home to St. Johns 74-58 on Saturday and probably killing any at-large dreams.  USF allowed St. Johns to shoot 59% from the floor and were out 30-22.  Add in Dominique Jones shooting 6-18 and their twin towers Augustus Gilchrist and Jarrid Famous combined to shoot 2-10 and you aren't going to win that game very often.  The chances of South Florida coming to the Barn for a first round NIT match up are rising.  Get excited, Gopher fans.

2.  The Colonial Athletic Association.  Going into Bracket Busters weekend, the CAA had three teams fighting for at-large consideration:  Old Dominion, William & Mary, and Northeastern.  ODU would be taking on the top team in the Missouri Valley in Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, W&M would travel to New York to take on Iona, #2 in the MAAC, and Northeastern would welcome Lousiana Tech, the WAC's number three team, to their place.  Overall record:  0-3.  Ouch.  ODU should be ok thanks to their wins over Georgetown and Charlotte and 13-3 conference record, but W&M and Northeastern are in trouble.  The Tribe is in better shape thanks to non-conference wins over Maryland, Richmond, and Wake Forest, but a couple of really bad losses also dot their record (Wilmington, James Madison) and it will be interesting to see how the committee treats them.  Northeastern is in the worst shape despite being tied for first in the conference standings thanks to five losses to RPI sub-100 teams, which is hard to overlook.  Personally, I think both ODU and W&M should get in, but all three teams had a nice opportunity to boost their profile, and all three whiffed.

3.  Siena.  It's kind of tough to tell a team that it sucks after they lose on the road to the 13th ranked team in the country, but the Saints needed to beat Butler if they were going to get an at-large bid and didn't despite having the Bulldogs on the ropes early in the second half.  The Saints had played Butler to a tie at the 16-minutes mark of the second, but Butler went on 16-5 run and never looked back, closing Siena out by the final score of 70-53 and effectively eliminated any chance of an at-large bid for the Saints.  Unfortunately, three major offensive cogs (Ronald Moore, Edwin Ubiles, and Alex Franklin) didn't bother showing up on Saturday, combining to shoot 4-27 (not a misprint) and a 7-7 turnover-assist mark.  Maybe the ten AM start was a bit too early for them on a Saturday.  Siena is still the class of the MAAC and should be able to win the conference tournament and grab a bid that way, but I'm sure it would have been nice for them to not have to.  Way to go, slackasses.

4.  Ole Miss.  This week was basically a clinic in how not to make the NCAA Tournament by the Rebels.  With home games against Florida and Vanderbilt they not only had a good chance to get to third place in the SEC, but they could have done it and grabbed a couple of marquee wins in the process - something their profile is sorely lacking right now.  Of course, they are in the "SUCK" portion of this post, so you can probably guess that they lost both games instead and petty much eliminated themselves from at-large consideration.  This is really too bad, because as much as I complain about the Dayton fans at that Dayton bar in Chicago their is really nothing better than being in a bar dedicated to a team and watching that team get bounced out of the tournament.  Since Dayton is looking less and less likely like a tournament team, we might have to look for someone else, and that bar in Chicago is also an Ole Miss bar (as well as Boston College and Notre Dame).  They might not have a single one of their "teams" make the dance, and then we won't have any fans to laugh at.  Except Iowa fans.  We can laugh at them no matter what.

5.  Cincinnati.  It's time to give up the dream of me cashing on that 200-1 bet, because the Bearcats aren't even going to make the NCAA Tournament, forget about winning it.  After a 0-2 week, they are now 6-8 in the Big East and 15-11 overall and are going to have to go on a huge run to close out the season if they want a chance to reach the big dance.  Two very disappointing losses this week against rival bubble teams (at South Florida and vs. Marquette) are going to make it tough, but Cincy still has every chance to make the tournament.  Their four final games include chances against #3 Villanova, #10 Georgetown, and #8 West Virginia, and I'd bet winning two of those (and their gimme against DePaul) would set Cincy up in pretty good shape for a bid.  Of course, two of those three games are on the road and Cincinnati sucks, so it's more likely they'll close out the year 1-3 and then dip out quickly in the Big East Tournament.  The good news is that they would probably be one of the favorites to win the NIT, so they got that going for them.  Also Lance Stephenson would be an idiot to go pro after this year, which basically guarantees that he will.
 


I'd like to mention one other thing that was awesome, and recommend the book Willie Mays:  The Life, the Legend by James Hirsch.  Let me tell you something, if there is anything you want to know about Mays, this book has it in its 600 pages.  It is very focused, and very detailed, and other than a tendency to drift into mini-essays on the racial issues of the 50s and 60s stays focused on the story of Mays.  I actually wouldn't have minded a little bit more on guys like Marichal and McCovey, but if you are looking for the story of Willie Mays I wouldn't go anywhere else.  Seriously, my appreciation of the guy has gone way up.  Despite all his numbers which I've seen again and again, I never realized how great this guy was.  Hirsch makes it clear that the players, fans, coaches, and media of the day all considered Willie the best player in the world - except of course for the bigots.

Very cool book.  Highly recommended.

Finally, I'm going to debut my own sort of bubble watch thing. It's not fancy, but neither is your mom:


BUBBLE GAMES OF NOTE:

West Virginia @ UCONN -The Huskies looked like they were cruising towards a bid after beating Texas, but hit some road bumps and found themselves on the wrong side of the bubble.  After a successful 2-0 week, including a win over Villanova, they are back in the conversation, and a home win over WVU would go a long way.

And that's it.  So that was pretty anticlimactic.  Ah well, I'm planning on doing a little something like that every day until selection sunday.  But I'm also pretty lazy, so we'll just have to see.