Ray Floriani of College Chalktalk is the RTC correspondent for the NEC and MAAC Conferences. 

SOUTH ORANGE, NJ – The postseason brackets are set and the Northeast Conference tournament tips off tonight. The schedule:

Thursday

• Quinnipiac at LIU
• Central Connecticut  at Sacred Heart
• St.Francis (NY) at Robert Morris
• Wagner at Mount St. Mary’s

**Semifinals are Sunday at the home court of the higher seed and the finals are next Wednesday, 8:00 on ESPN2. Again at the home court of the highest remaining seed (see below bracket).

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As part of our ongoing quest to provide you with the best college basketball coverage in the nation, we have enlisted the help of some of the finest team-specific bloggers on the planet to help us. With the NCAA Selection Show coming up on March 15th there are still several teams on the proverbial “bubble”. We figured it might be interesting to see what kind of nonpartisan arguments these bloggers could make for their team deserving a spot in the NCAA tournament. We welcome any discussion of their arguments and praise or criticism of their reasoning in the comment section. If your team is on the “bubble” and you would like to submit something, please contact us at rushthecourt@gmail.com.

Kansas State – submitted by TB at Bring On The Cats.

Kansas State Profile
Record: 19-10
RPI: 72
Record vs. RPI Top 50: 3-5
Record vs. RPI Top 100: 5-7
Best Wins: Missouri (home), Texas (road), Texas A&M (road), and Cleveland State (road)
Worst Loss: Oregon

After Tuesday night’s loss to Oklahoma State in Stillwater, K-State’s chances at receiving an at-large berth in the NCAA Tournament are smaller than ever. Still, because the proprietors of RTC asked me to make K-State’s case, and because I’m an insufferable homer (OK, not really), I’m going to do my best. Also, ESPN’s Andy Katz still has us in consideration, so it’s still worth looking at what K-State needs to do.

As you can probably tell from the profile above, K-State’s non-conference schedule is bereft of, well, anything. The best teams we played in the non-con schedule were Kentucky, Iowa, and Cleveland State, and we only managed to defeat CSU among those teams as we dropped two-point decisions to both UK and Iowa. You might be wondering why I don’t have Iowa listed in the “Worst Losses” category, considering they’re at 105 in the RPI and 14-15 (4-12 Big 10). At the time, Iowa was at full strength, whereas later in the season several key players would lose time to injuries or suspensions. The Hawkeyes were never going to challenge for the Big 10 title, but they were a decent team at 11-4 before Cyrus Tate’s injury, and had decent wins over Northern Iowa and Iowa State.

Anyway, that one loss doesn’t change things for K-State. Given that we inexplicably lost to woeful Oregon and didn’t have a big win in the non-conference, we needed to separate ourselves in conference play. With wins over Missouri, Texas (on the road), and Texas A&M (on the road), we gave ourselves a chance. But with last night’s loss to Oklahoma State, the best we can hope for is a tie for fourth place in the Big 12 at 9-7, a tie we will win by virtue of our head-to-head win over Texas. The problem is, with Texas, Texas A&M and, to a lesser extent, Oklahoma State having more impressive non-con resumes, we needed to have a clearly superior conference resume to even the playing field. While our conference run still stacks up favorably with all our intra-conference bubble competition, we failed to clearly distinguish ourselves.

One thing that plays in K-State’s favor that wouldn’t have been true in the recent past is the strength of the Big 12 North this season. Coming into this week, the unofficial divisions were 14-14 against each other, but after Kansas’s inexplicable loss to Texas Tech and Colorado’s continued woefulness, the South now owns a 16-15 advantage. But with KU owning wins over Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas A&M; Missouri owning wins over every South opponent it has played, and K-State picking up road wins over Texas and Texas A&M, it’s clear the North is not the South’s little brother this season. If you compare the records of the teams from each division, you will notice that the South did not fare markedly worse against itself as compared to its record against the North, indicating the South didn’t beat each other up and pick off easy wins against the North. The divisions actually appear to be pretty evenly matched.

• Oklahoma: 4-2 North, 8-1 South (Oklahoma State remaining)
• Texas: 2-3 North (@ KU remaining), 7-3 South
• Oklahoma State: 4-2 North, 5-4 South (@ OU remaining)
• Texas A&M: 3-2 North (Missouri remaining), 5-5 South

• Kansas: 9-1 North, 4-1 South (Texas remaining)
• Missouri: 7-3 North, 5-0 South (@ Texas A&M remaining)
• Kansas State: 5-4 North (Colorado remaining), 3-3 South
• Nebraska: 5-5 North, 2-3 South (@ Baylor remaining)

(Note: I omitted the bottom two teams from each side because, really, does anyone care what Baylor, Texas Tech, Iowa State and Colorado did? Yeah, me neither.)

So, our last shot at an at-large bid is to impress in the conference tournament. If K-State does manage the four seed, it will likely play Texas in the 4/5 game on Thursday in Oklahoma City. A win there would be a big resume boost and would affirm the earlier win in Austin, not to mention giving the Wildcats a third shot at KU on Friday. The Jayhawks will be the top seed in the Big 12 and are one of the hottest teams in the country right now, Wednesday night’s debacle in Lubbock notwithstanding. If K-State could somehow come away with the win there, they would have two impressive wins on the last weekend and would be playing in the conference tourney finals on Saturday. Of course at that point, you might as well just win the title game and eliminate all doubt, but it would at least give us a chance. Beyond the two impressive wins, our “Last 12” record would be 9-3 at that point, another selling point to the committee.

Undoubtedly, K-State is still in the “Work Left to Do” category, and at this point it’s probably more like “A Whole Lotta Work Left to Do.” However, using the scenario outlined above, I believe it’s possible for K-State to remain in consideration for one of the last at-large berths. A win over Colorado would push K-State to 20-10 overall, and two games in the conference tournament, likely against Texas and KU, could push the record to 22-10 with impressive wins on the last weekend of the season. Given that other bubble teams aren’t exactly making huge statements right now, either, a late run could impress the committee. While we’re at it, it wouldn’t hurt K-State if Texas A&M and Oklahoma State would lose this weekend – their opponents are Missouri and Oklahoma, respectively – and go quietly into the night at the conference tournament in Oklahoma City.

We held off on doing a post about this since every other blog already had a post up about it, but you may have heard that Rick Pitino and Christian Laettner were filming a commercial for Vitaminwater recapturing the magic of the 1992 East Regional Final. Personally, I enjoyed the Kentucky fans reaction the most.

Well today we received an e-mail in our inbox letting us know that the commercial was finally online. Here it is.

Duke fans, feel free to run around your homes or offices like mad men (or women). Kentucky fans will be back in a few hours after they get done puking.

Michael Hurley is the RTC correspondent for the Pac-10 Conference.

News & Notes

• Washington has clinched their first regular season Pac-10 title since 1985 and with a win against Washington State can clinch their first outright conference title since 1953.
• Washington State’s first senior class of Taylor Rochestie, Aron Baynes, Caleb Forest, and Daven Harmeling is its first to defeat all nine Pac-10 rivals since 1989.
• Darren Collison is shooting 91.8 percent (89-for-97) from the free-throw line this year good for second in the nation, and second on the UCLA all-time single-season chart.
• It may not make Oregon feel any better, but Pomeroy College Basketball ranks Oregon’s schedule as the toughest in the nation.

Some three-point information

• California still leads the nation in three-point accuracy, at 43.9 percent.
• Junior guard Jerome Randle is two shy of the team record 68 set by Ryan Drew in 1990.
• Theo Robertson has hit 52.2 percent of his three-point attempts this year which would be the highest in school history, and is first in California career percentage at 44.3.
• Junior guard Tajuan Porter of Oregon is second all time in team history in three-pointers made with 269. The leader is Orlando Williams with 282.

Player of the week: Jon Brockman
Brockman scored 17.5 points per game and pulled down 10.5 rebounds in the two victories for Washington this past week. Brockman came up big in overtime against ASU scoring the first two baskets.

Honorable Mention
Freshman Klay Thompson scored 16.5 points per game this past week fueled in part by 7-for-15 shooting from three-point range. Thompson also pulled down seven rebounds in the victory over Arizona State. Darren Collison scored 14.5 points a game for UCLA in the past week when the Bruins bounced back with two wins. He also posted five assists a game. Arizona was winless this past week, but could not find much fault in Jordan Hill who averaged 21 points, and 9.5 rebounds per game.

Read the rest of this entry »

As part of our ongoing quest to provide you with the best college basketball coverage in the nation, we have enlisted the help of some of the finest team-specific bloggers on the planet to help us. With the NCAA Selection Show coming up on March 15th there are still several teams on the proverbial “bubble”. We figured it might be interesting to see what kind of nonpartisan arguments these bloggers could make for their team deserving a spot in the NCAA tournament. We welcome any discussion of their arguments and praise or criticism of their reasoning in the comment section. If your team is on the “bubble” and you would like to submit something, please contact us at rushthecourt@gmail.com.

Maryland – submitted by “bbroman” at Testudo Times.

Maryland lost last night to Wake Forest in a game that very well could have clinched their NCAA tourney bid. But they’re not done yet, not at all. Our mantra as Maryland fans all year has been 8-8 in conference, plus one in the ACC tourney, and they’re in the NCAAs. Right now, Maryland stands at 7-8 with one game left. Luckily, it’s against Virginia, the worst team in the ACC.

Maryland should get to “8-8 + 1”. They’re better than Virginia and better than NC State, who they’d likely play in the first round of the ACC tourney. They’ve already played against both and won both games. If they close out the way they’re supposed to, I can’t envision them getting left out.

There’s plenty of blemishes on their resume, of course: a loss to lowly Morgan State, a mid-50s RPI, a 41-point drubbing to Duke, a bad road record. But for every negative, there’s a positive that’s just as big. Two huge wins over top 10 teams Michigan St. and UNC, one of which was out-of-conference; a mid-20s strength of schedule; a solid record down the stretch; and of course, the biggest one: a .500 record in the toughest conference in basketball (that’s right Big East, I went there).

In the conference they play in, with the big wins they have, and a good strength of schedule, I can’t see the committee turning them away, provided they get to “8-8 + 1”. If they end up 7-9 in the ACC, there’s almost no chance. If they get to 8-8 and don’t get the win in the tournament, I wouldn’t hold my breath. But with two more wins, it should be a happy Sunday for all the Maryland fans out there.

Running Late.  Apologies to the twelve loyal readers of this nightly update, but we ran into some other issues that got into the way of a fully fleshed-out post tonight.  So we’re just going to do some quick takes and leave it at that.  We’ll be back stronger tomorrow night.

• Northwestern 64, Purdue 61. It’s really quite the shame that NW didn’t get the Illinois and Michigan games; otherwise, the Cats would be a serious bubble team.  Did you know that NW has never made the Big Dance?  Not once.
• Louisville 95, Seton Hall 78. There is no more talented dynamic duo than T-Will (14/12) and Earl Clark (27/14), but does UL have consistent enough guard play to win it all?
• NC State 74, Boston College 69. BC is as tough of a team to figure as anybody this year – they should probably make sure to beat Ga Tech on Saturday to feel safe.
• UNC 86, Virginia Tech 78. Another season, another 17-12 Va Tech team.  Hansbrough with 22/15.
• Georgia Tech 78, Miami (FL) 68. Another major disappointment in the ACC.  Does 7-9 with a 40-something RPI get it done this year?
• Pittsburgh 90, Marquette 75.  The Marquette exposure tour continues.  We thought Dejuan Blair (23/9) was seriously going to Shaq-truct the basket stanchion on one thunderous dunk (start at the 0:29 point).

• Georgia 90, Kentucky 85. Completely unacceptable loss for Billy Gillispie at home at this point in the season.  Georgia hit 11-16 from long range.
• Vanderbilt 75, LSU 67.  LSU was unbeaten at home in the SEC before tonight.  AJ Ogilvy dropped 33/10 on the Tigers, who were clearly looking ahead to next week’s SEC Tourney after clinching the top seed last weekend.
• Memphis 69, Houston 60. For about a half-second, we thought Houston might have a chance in this one.  That’ll be 57 in a row in CreampuffUSA for the Tigers.
• Mississippi St. 80, Florida 71. Another devastating loss for an SEC bubble team.  Is anyone else wondering if the Donovan magic was based solely on his O4s – Noah, Green, Horford and Brewer?
• Minnesota 51, Wisconsin 46.  Huge bubble win for the Gophers to sweep the season series against the Badgers.  If it comes down to these two teams, Minny will have the advantage.
• Texas A&M 72, Colorado 66.  With five straight Big 12 wins to get to 8-7, TAMU is getting in.
• Missouri 73, Oklahoma 64.  Mizzou finished its home slate 18-0 and “held” Blake Griffin to 16/21 in setting up a shot at sharing the Big 12 regular season title with a win this weekend (+ another KU loss).
• Texas Tech 84, Kansas 65.  No explaining this one, but KU is still a team we really like in two weeks.

QnD Conf Tourney Update.

A-Sun.  Only one game where #2 seed ETSU advanced to the semis.

Patriot.  All four quarters were at home sites tonight.  #1 American, #2 Holy Cross and #4 Army advanced.  The upset was #6 Colgate knocking off #3 Navy in OT.  The semis will be Sunday and our RTC correspondent Rob Dauster will be at American to liveblog the game between Am.U. and Colgate.

Sun Belt.  Five games at campus sites also.  Higher seeds North Texas, MTSU, S. Alabama and Denver all advanced.  The only (mild) upset was Florida Intl. over La-Lafayette.  The quarters continue on Sunday.

Upcoming: The MVC gets started with its opening round tomorrow night, and the NEC and A-Sun have their entire quarterfinal rounds tomorrow.  The Big South will have its semifinals, and all of the top four seeds are still alive.  Should be fun.

As part of our ongoing quest to provide you with the best college basketball coverage in the nation, we have enlisted the help of some of the finest team-specific bloggers on the planet to help us. With the NCAA Selection Show coming up on March 15th there are still several teams on the proverbial “bubble”. We figured it might be interesting to see what kind of nonpartisan arguments these bloggers could make for their team deserving a spot in the NCAA tournament. We welcome any discussion of their arguments and praise or criticism of their reasoning in the comment section. If your team is on the “bubble” and you would like to submit something, please contact us at rushthecourt@gmail.com.

Providence – submitted by Dave at FriarBlog.com.

Right now, the Providence Friars deserve an at-large bid for the NCAA tournament. The big reason? 10 conference wins (possibly 11 if they can knock off Villanova on the road Thursday night) in arguably the “Greatest Conference in the History of the Universe” (or something like that). While it’s true the Friars have a few warts in their computer numbers, it can be argued that they have no bad losses. Providence has done a great job beating all the teams it should have, and have also picked up a few signature wins along the way.

Technically One Bad Loss
The one loss that is going to be consistently brought up come Selection Sunday is the Friars’ first game of the season against Northeastern. However, there is a perfectly cromulent reason for this loss. First off, this was the debut of the new Providence coach Keno Davis, who was bringing an entirely new system to a veteran team who mostly played 3 years under former coach Tim Welsh. Things obviously took some time to gel, and I have no doubt in my mind that PC would defeat Northeastern soundly if they came back to THE DUNK today. Another huge turnaround from how this team performed against Northeastern and early on in the season is a healthy Sharaud Curry.

Rust be Gone
Point guard Sharaud Curry missed all of last season due to a broken foot. In most of the non-conference schedule this year, Curry was clearly not himself. His quickness wasn’t quite there, and he had several poor shooting nights (averaged only 8 PPG shooting shot 30% including 1/8 FG and 2 points versus Northeastern). However in Big East conference play, Curry has arguably been Providence’s MVP. In 17 conference games, Curry is averaging 13.9 PPG, ranks #1 in FT% (87%), #2 in three-point FG% (44%), and #3 in assist/turnover ratio (2.5). A healthy Sharaud Curry clearly makes a difference on this team, which is why the early season non-conference losses should not be so heavily weighted.

The 10 Wins
For most of the Big East season, everyone was quick to point out how Providence had not beaten anyone of note in the conference. However, nobody seems to want to give them credit for what they have done on the road. The Friars are a solid 4-4 away from home in Big East games (with a chance to get to 5 Ws against Nova), beating Cincinnati, Seton Hall, USF, and Rutgers. While those teams aren’t the powerhouses of the conference, winning on the road in the Big East always tough — just ask Georgetown and Cincinnati after last night. Combine that with an amazing win versus #1 Pittsburgh and another big home win against #15 Syracuse, PC has performed very well in the BBBE (Big Bad Big East). They are guaranteed to finish in the top half of the standings, which should count for something.

The Biggest Blemish: RPI

• As of Wednesday morning, Providence has an unsightly 69 RPI ranking. The team is hurt by a few things:
• The aforementioned home loss to Northeastern. As BaseLineStats.com recently posted, “Don’t you dare lose at home: The story of the ‘new’ RPI”
• Playing fellow Rhode Island teams Bryant (#304 in RPI) and Brown (#314) are just murder on PC’s RPI. Throw in another team over 300 (Dartmouth at #310), and the RPI is going to take a big hit.
• I don’t trust RPI as far as I can throw it, but hopefully the committee doesn’t put too much stock into it.

The Friars could also be penalized by their 3-7 record versus teams in the RPI #26-100 (which could surely change in the last two weeks as teams move in and out). Four of those losses came early on during the non-conference schedule. However, a 7-5 record over the last 12 Big East games proves just how different this Friar team is than they were back in November/December.

I think it’s clear that this team belongs.

RTC asked its legion of correspondents, charlatans, sycophants, toadies and other hangers-on to send us their very favorite March Madness memory,  something that had a visceral effect on who they are as a person and college basketball fan today.  Not surprisingly, many of the submissions were excellent and if you’re not fired up reading them, then you need to head back over to PerezHilton for the rest of this month.  We’ve chosen the sixteen best, and we’ll be counting them down over the next two weeks as we approach the 2009 NCAA Tournament.

Coppin St. Eagles Fly High – (submitted by JC of HBCU Sports Blog)

Just six days after my 16th birthday, an NCAA tournament game changed the direction of my entire life.

I had grown up around historically black colleges and universities in the state of Maryland, but I was too young to remember the tournament appearances by Alcorn State in the 80s, and Southern’s win over Georgia Tech in 1993 was past my bedtime.

But #15 seed Coppin State was a school right in my back yard, and their 78-65 upset over #2 South Carolina in 1997 came at a critical point in my college selection process, and amidst the ending of a TV-watching curfew.

Two days later, Coppin State missed a chance to go to the Sweet 16, losing to Texas by one point.

Antoine Brockington and Coppin St. Flew High on This Night in 1997 (photo credit: Al Bello)

Two years later, I would enroll in Coppin’s cross-town rival, Morgan State University.  Twelve years later, it’s still the greatest moment in NCAA history.

Midweek bracketology special for the loyal readers here at Rush the Court.

– Three Big East teams in the Final Four. Don’t think it can’t happen, folks.

– Kansas‘ loss to Texas Tech drops them from the highest #2 seed to a #3 seed. Duke climbs up the charts to the final #1 seed, edging out Oklahoma and Michigan State (can’t have three Big East #1 seeds, sorry Cardinals) with their 1 RPI, 4 SOS and 8 wins against the RPI top 50. I just can’t put Memphis on the top line beating up on a bad Conference USA with their mediocre non-conference performance. Oklahoma slips to a #2 seed for the first time in forever. Missouri moves up the #3 seed ranks with their big win over the Sooners.

– Some stunning losses last night: LSU losing at home to Vanderbilt drops them to the last #5 seed. Purdue losing to Northwestern actually didn’t move them at all due to Marquette and LSU losing and a superior overall resume to both Florida State and Xavier. Kentucky‘s unreal loss to Georgia knocks them totally out of the picture at this point, and Florida‘s loss to Mississippi State hurts badly.

– Creighton is an at-large team in this bracket with Northern Iowa capturing the regular season #1 seed in the Missouri Valley. Creighton is the last #10 seed and Northern Iowa the last #12 seed.

– Barely getting in this time around: Providence, Texas A&M, Creighton, UNLV, Arizona, Michigan and Penn State. All of those teams are still on the bubble big time.

Last Four In: Michigan, Arizona, Texas A&M, Penn State
Last Four Out: San Diego State, Maryland, Florida, New Mexico
Next Four Out: Kentucky, Saint Mary’s, Rhode Island, Virginia Tech
Also considered: Miami, Kansas State, Auburn, Tulsa, Washington State, Cincinnati, USC, Temple, Mississippi State, George Mason, Notre Dame

Bids per conference: Big East (8), Big Ten (8), ACC (6), Big 12 (6), Pac-10 (5), SEC (3), Mountain West (3), Missouri Valley (2), Atlantic-10 (2).

Automatic bids: Binghamton, Xavier, North Carolina, Jacksonville, Connecticut, Kansas, Weber State, Radford, Michigan State, Cal State Northridge, VCU, Memphis, Butler, Cornell, Siena, Bowling Green, Morgan State, Northern Iowa, Utah, Robert Morris, Tennessee-Martin, Washington, American, LSU, Davidson, Stephen F. Austin, Alabama State, North Dakota State, Western Kentucky, Gonzaga, Utah State.

Next bracket: Monday, March 9.

You may remember that one of the big stories from last year was Memphis and its inability to hit free throws. John Calipari was routinely questioned about it and shrugged it off essentially saying that his team was winning so it didn’t bother him that much. And with the national title game winding down they were in a position to bring Memphis its first title by knocking off Kansas. Then the unthinkable happened. Following the game Calipari was roundly mocked for his bold proclamations leading up to the game that free throws didn’t matter. You could definitely count us among those who made plenty of jokes at Calipari’s expense. Well it turns out that we may have been wrong. . .

Following up John Branch’s article on the remarkably constant free throw percentages over the past 50 years, Jack Styczynski decided to look deeper into free throw percentages. Styczynski, who was perturbed by Branch’s statement that ““there is little correlation between free-throw percentages and winning percentages”  looked through the NCAA’s basketball database and compared the team free throw percentages to the teams that made the Final 4 since 2000. Here is a summary of his findings:

• In 2005 and 2007, none of the teams in the Final 4 were in the top 50 in team free throw percentage.
• Last year, UNC (#13) was the only team in the Final 4 that ranked in the top 50 in Division I in free throw percentage.
• In 2006, national champion Florida (#34) was the only team in the top 50. Apparently Billy Donovan decided to stop working on free throws the next year (and it didn’t matter).
• Michigan State was the only other national champion to finish in the top 50 (#27 in 2000) during this period.

While all that historical information is nice, we at Rush the Court like to look to the future (namely this March and April) so I broke down the free throw percentages of the top 25 teams in the nation through the games that ended on March 3, 2009. I used the ESPN/USA Today rankings, which are slightly different than the AP rankings, but they have the same teams so we’re looking at the same sample either way. Using the NCAA’s statistics for games through March 1, 2009, the 50th best free throw shooting team (Seton Hall) was shooting 72.6% so I’m using that as the cut-off for this analysis. I have listed the free throw percentages and color-coded the teams into groups: red (<70%), yellow (70-72%), and green (>72%) .

The narrow range of the yellow group (2%) indicates how closely bunched together some teams are, but there are standouts for better or worse. UNC is by far the best free throw shooting team at 2.5% higher than Villanova (76.5% vs. 74.0%), which is the next best FT shooting team in the top 25. Syracuse is on the other end of the spectrum having the worst FT shooting (64.4%) of any team in the top 25, which has to worry Jim Boeheim a little bit. The primary cause of Syracuse’s poor free throw percentage is Arinze Onuaku, who shoots a horrific 31.1% (last in Division I for a player shooting over 100 FTs). The rest of Syracuse’s team isn’t that bad at the line (70% from the FT line). In any case, you can assume that you won’t be seeing much of Onuaku if Syracuse needs to seal a game from the free throw line. If anything, Rick Pitino should be more concerned as Louisville only shoots 64.7% and they lack someone like Onuaku who can be hidden on the bench late in games. For some perspective on these percentages, last year’s much-maligned Memphis team shot 61.4% from the free throw line.

What does all this mean? According to Branch’s article and tournament performance since 2000 it doesn’t mean much, but I do know that John Calipari would like to spend a little extra time in practice at the free throw line if he could go back to last year.