Michael Vernetti is the RTC correspondent for the West Coast Conference.

Final Standings (through games of 2/27/10)

1. Gonzaga                      12-2 (24-5)
2. Saint Mary’s                11-3 (24-5)
3. Portland                      9-4 (18-9)
4. San Francisco              7-7 (12-17)
5. Loyola Marymount     7-7 (16-14)
6. Santa Clara                  3-11 (11-20)
7. San Diego                   3-11 (10-20)
8. Pepperdine                  3-11 (7-23)

Eyes on the Prize

Although one could reasonably forecast a WCC tournament championship game featuring no. 1 seed Gonzaga battling no. 2 seed Saint Mary’s for the automatic NCAA bid, a lot of interesting basketball will be played before that final matchup on Monday night, March 8 (ESPN, 6 p.m. Pacific) in Las Vegas. The last week of conference play settled the torrid battle for fourth place between San Francisco and Loyola Marymount (San Francisco got the nod and a first-round tournament bye because of a better conference record than LMU, including beating the Lions twice), and also set the stage for the most intriguing tournament contest. Before discussing that, however, here’s a look at the overall tournament schedule:

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Unless half of the Cornell basketball team (the starting half) suffers serious food poisoning or takes a sudden interest in the illicit pleasures of Federal Hill in Providence, we should have our first 2010 NCAA Tournament bid secured at around 9 pm eastern tonight.  With the Big Red’s twelfth Ivy League victory likely this evening, Steve Donahue’s team will have clinched their third straight regular season title (and NCAA bid).

Winning is Gorges (CDS/T. Chou)

In filling the vacuum left by the Penn and Princeton boondoggles, it’s been a phenomenal run for the men from Ithaca as Cornell has won 36 Ivy games over the past three seasons.  Their Ivy scoring margin of +15.6 this year is the best seen in the league since the great Quaker teams at the turn of the millennium, with eight of Cornell’s eleven wins this year virtually in the books by the first timeout.  We’d love to build up some drama about tonight’s game at Brown, but Cornell has defeated the Bears by a 22-point average margin of victory in the last five games between the two teams; given that this is Donahue’s best team of his career, we doubt that tonight’s the night for the 12-19 (5-7) Rhodies to shock the world (ed. note: the previous game this year was closer than the 14-point margin indicates, but we expect Cornell to come strong tonight with their NCAA bid on the line).

The one thing Cornell has so far failed to do in their three-year reign of Ivy dominance is to win a game against an RPI top-50 opponent (0-8), which squares with their 0-2 record in the NCAA Tournament (Ls to Missouri and Stanford).  But they’re getting closer, as a closely-contested January game against #1 Kansas in Allen Fieldhouse showed.  The core group of seniors — guard Louis Dale, forward Ryan Wittman, and center Jeff Foote — have been playing together for so long (and so well) that they know what each other is going to do before they’ve even thought of it yet.  In an era of elite teams led by young players not far removed from the Prom and Selective Service sign-ups, the opportunity is ripe for the Big Red to catch an overconfident, sloppy team in the first round of the Dance this year.

Cornell's Decorated Trio (credit: Cornell Daily Sun)

In Zach Hayes’ latest RTC Bracketology, he has Cornell as a #13 seed playing #4 seed Temple, while Joe Lunardi has the Big Red as a #12 seed playing #5 Georgetown.  While neither of those particular teams fit the criteria as a young, undisciplined team, there are others in that seed range who do (Tennessee in particular comes to mind).  With a little luck in the draw this year, the Ivy League champion could be on the cusp of more than just its third straight trip to the NCAAs but also its first-ever win in Tournament history.

Zach Hayes is RTC’s resident bracketologist.  He’ll regularly be out-scooping, out-thinking and out-shining Lunardi over the next two months.

Last Four In: Saint Mary’s, Rhode Island, Connecticut, San Diego State

Last Four Out: UAB, Dayton, Memphis, Mississippi State

Next Four Out: Mississippi, Washington, Arizona State, Seton Hall

Automatic bids: Stony Brook, Temple, Duke, Jacksonville, Kansas, Syracuse, Weber State, Coastal Carolina, Ohio State, UC-Santa Barbara, Old Dominion, Butler, UTEP, Cornell, Siena, Kent State, Morgan State, Northern Iowa, New Mexico, Quinnipiac, Murray State, California, Lehigh, Kentucky, Wofford, Sam Houston State, Jackson State, Oakland, Troy, Gonzaga, Utah State.

Bids per conference: Big East (9), ACC (7), Big 12 (7), Big 10 (5), SEC (4), MWC (4), Atlantic 10 (4), WCC (2).

Next bracket update: Tuesday, March 9.

More analysis after the jump…

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1. Eddie Sutton made his first public comments about the charges and the future of his son Sean Sutton in an interview with Tulsa World yesterday.  Sean Sutton was arrested back on February 11th and charged with attempting to possess controlled substances, and soon after admitted an addiction to pain killers.  The elder Sutton expressed confidence in his son, saying “He’ll be all right because he’s a strong person who just made a mistake.”
2. Santa Clara sophomore Troy Alexander is impressive.  His stats this season: 1.1 PPG, 0.5 RPG, 0.7 APG in 30 games.  Ah, but his most meaningful stat is found in the “Lives Saved” column.  He’s been raising awareness about the malaria epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa and has been raising money via Facebook and Twitter to buy mosquito-repellent nets for children’s beds.  The nets are draped over the beds so the kids don’t get bitten and contract the disease while they sleep.  The cost of one net?  Ten lousy bucks.  A life saved.  If you don’t think malaria is a big deal, there are some studies out there that say malaria has actually killed one out of every two people who has ever lived.  Alexander initially wanted to raise $1,000, but has already tripled that.  He does this through the Nothing But Nets campaign, an organization jump-started by everyone’s favorite punching bag these days — Rick Reilly.  We won’t post Troy’s Facebook page, but we will link his page at NothingButNets.net.  Bravo, brother.
3. According to the 49 responding journalists in AnnArbor.com’s final player of the year poll, Evan Turner is widening his lead over John Wall.  Interestingly, Turner was the only player named on every ballot.  Three voters didn’t have Wall ranked first, second, OR third, and 32 of them didn’t name Wesley Johnson anywhere.  Wow.
4. The host schools — that is to say, the teams that automatically advance to the “championship rounds,” win or lose — have been announced for next season’s O’Reilly Auto Parts CBE Classic in Kansas City.  Duke, Kansas State, Gonzaga, and Marquette will be the sites for the regional round games from November 14-17, and then will move on to the Sprint Center on November 22-23 to play each other in matchups to be determined later.
5. Are referees working too much?  It’s been a big topic for some time, and especially this year.  Conference bigwigs and coaches may think refs are overworked, but the referees seem to disagree.  ACC referees’ supervisor John Clougherty, though, feels the critics might have a point, saying of his refs, “They are independent contractors.  I can’t tell them how many times to work.”  Interesting piece by Ray Glier of the New York Times.

Close Calls.  In two closer-than-expected games, #12 Michigan State and #18 Pittsburgh held on to their positions in the Big Ten and Big East, respectively, with quite a bit still on the line.  For MSU, it’s a shot at a shared Big Ten regular season title; for Pitt, it was a double-bye in the Big East Tournament next week.

• #18 Pittsburgh 73, Providence 71.  In a closely contested game throughout, it was Ashton Gibbs who saved Pittsburgh from what would have been their worst loss of the season at full strength (the IU loss in December was without several players).  With 3.5 seconds remaining, Gibbs (25/4/3 assts) received the ball at the right hash mark on the opposite end of his basket, took two dribbles before stopping and pulling up from about 28 feet to drain a game-winning three at the horn.  The bucket moved the Panthers to 12-5 in the Big East, and with a win over Rutgers this weekend in combination with a Villanova loss to WVU, the preseason-unranked kids from the Steel City would be the #2 seed in next week’s Big East Tournament.  Simply amazing considering the talent in that league this year.

Ashton Gibbs: "I Got This." (PPG/M. Freed)

• #12 Michigan State 67, Penn State 65.  We’re really not going to fall into this trap that Tom Izzo likes to set for us seemingly every year.  His teams always win a bunch of games, but many of those wins seem to come by a mere point or two, and they also lose a few more than you might expect.  Then the Spartans get into the NCAA Tournament and the very same players who were somewhat underwhelming during the regular season put it all together for another run to the Final Four.  So we’ll reserve judgment on this year’s MSU team until we see what happens later this month.  Tonight Penn State had the ball with five seconds remaining but they were unable to get a shot off to win or tie the game.  With the win, MSU moves to 13-4 in the Big Ten and the Spartans will host rival Michigan this weekend to try to tie Ohio State (and possibly Purdue) for the top record in the league.

Should Washington Join the Bubble Conversation Along With Ole Miss, Dayton and Arizona State?

• Washington 86, Oregon 72.  With an RPI of #53, twenty wins, and a better strength of schedule than its bubble peers Mississippi State and Virginia Tech, shouldn’t the Huskies at least be in the conversation?  They’ve beaten Texas A&M, Portland and Cal, which is a resume of quality Ws at least as good as Mississippi State (best win: Old Dominion), Dayton (best win: Xavier) and Virginia Tech (best win: Clemson).  We’re well aware how down the Pac-10 has been this year, but just because everyone has already seemed to decide that it’s a one-bid league shouldn’t make it necessarily so.  The resumes need to speak for themselves, and we’re having trouble understanding the difference between the above teams.  Quincy Pondexter had 34/10/6 assts in tonight’s win.

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Justin Glover is the RTC correspondent for the Southern Conference.

Southern Conference Championship- Predictions

First/Second Rounds

March 5

(3S) Davidson vs. (6N) Elon – Davidson has had a better year than what people expected after losing Stephen Curry to the NBA draft. The Wildcats should win by double digits against a bad Elon team.

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Ryan Restivo of SienaSaintsBlog is the RTC correspondent for the CAA and an occasional contributor.

There is a lot at stake for what appears to be a one-bid league. BracketBusters did not help (3-9) and the CAA could not capitalize on TV games, winning just one of five. William & Mary used the non-conference slate, winning at Wake Forest and Maryland, to boost their chances as an at-large. Old Dominion won at Georgetown and crushed Charlotte as home to boost their at-large chances early. Northeastern and George Mason are likely to reach other postseason tournaments but have a good chance at making a run at the CAA automatic bid. Ken Pomeroy’s tournament odds give Old Dominion a 45.7% chance, followed by #5 seed VCU (24.4%).  No team has ever won four games in four days to win the conference tournament in CAA history. If you are within the viewing area or able to watch on Sunday, the CAA semifinals of this tournament guarantee to be a great spectacle. However before eleven teams’ hopes are dashed Monday night, the themes that bring these teams together will dominate the tournament talk.

#1 Old Dominion would have to be considered the favorite. They are second in the CAA in offensive efficiency and first in defensive efficiency and have won five of their last six, their only loss in that span at Northern Iowa in the BracketBusters. Gerald Lee has been the focal point of their late season streak, shooting 54% from the field in the last six games. However, they will have a lot tougher path to the championship than ever because of a potential re-match with Virginia Commonwealth. The Monarchs escaped last Saturday with a three-point win at home and were beaten by VCU by 12 on the road earlier in February. There’s a chance the Monarchs’ semifinal game will be their toughest yet.

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

LYNDHURST, NJ – ‘It is a marathon not a sprint,’ the coaches tell you. That analogy of the college season is very true. In the case of the Northeast Conference race, Robert Morris grabbed the early lead and led a good portion of the way. Quinnipiac was at the head of the second pack, trying to keep the pace setter in sight. The Colonials hit the wall about the 24 mile mark (maybe the 25.5 mile as Robert Morris held the lead from January 30 until the season’s final day) and were caught by Quinnipiac. Both teams tied for first but the Bobcats earned the top seed on a tiebreaker.  With the unbalanced schedule Quinnipiac and Robert Morris met once with the Bobcats taking the February 20 road decision. Both teams finished in a tie and that win gave Tom Moore’s team the top seed.

A look at the Quarterfinals

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An article appearing in The Washington Post on Thursday details how Georgetown’s inestimable junior guard Austin Freeman was recently diagnosed with diabetes, and how that is the illness — not a stomach virus, as initially reported — that’s caused him to feel poorly in recent days.  It was this which caused him to play only reduced minutes against Notre Dame and miss the game against West Virginia this past Saturday.  He was, in fact, taken to the Georgetown University Hospital emergency room on Monday at which time the diagnosis was made clear.

The article mentions that Freeman is doing better and has now rejoined his team for practices, but Hoya head coach John Thompson III was reluctant to rule Freeman either in or out for Georgetown’s final regular season game on Saturday against Cincinnati, or even for the Big East Tournament.

Diabetes is pretty common, affecting about 3% of the world’s population.  It’s characterized by having high amounts of glucose (sugar) in one’s bloodstream.  This is a problem because if you go for a long time like this, you can do permanent damage to your eyes, kidneys, nerves, heart, and pretty much any part of your body.  Usually, the pancreas counters high amounts of sugar in the blood by automatically producing insulin, a substance that makes the sugar move out of your bloodstream and into your muscles.  This makes the level in the blood normal again.

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