Oklahoma State head coach Travis Ford tried to get his players’ minds off the Kansas win as soon as possible this week, and it seemed to work just fine. They defeated Baylor last night on a last second layup by Markel Brown. According to John Helsley of newsok.com, around 200 fans greeted the Cowboys when they returned to Stillwater Saturday night. “There was no way to shake it,” Ford said of the post-Kansas celebrations. “Every time you turn around, someone’s wanting to talk about it.” Whatever hangover may have existed was gone after the Baylor win, which gives them more wins than all of last season.
The only thing wrong with this piece from the Kansas City Star‘s Sam Mellinger is this line: “Might be worse than anybody Roy Williams lost to, too.” I can’t think of a team worse than TCU that Roy Williams lost to while at Kansas, because I don’t think there was a worse loss. Luckily for Self, his team, and Kansas fans, the loss is awful but wasn’t not in March. The actual loss itself, while possibly costing the Jayhawks a #1 seed, doesn’t ruin their season. Whether it ruined their psyche is a different question, however. A question we won’t know until Saturday at the earliest when Kansas travels to Oklahoma. And if their psyche is ruined, Self will have no one to blame but himself. He obviously felt that blasting a 19-2 team in the media after losing to a team with two future NBA draft picks was the way to go. Maybe he was wrong.
With Oklahoma State firmly in the top 25 and Oklahoma seven games over .500, the Bedlam rivals are experiencing success together for the first time in a number of years. But as Berry Tramel of NewsOK.com states, the duo isn’t what it once was. And while he is correct, his take on the mediocrity of college basketball compared to 25 or 30 years ago leaves a lot to be desired. “OU’s backups in 1988 were better players than what Kruger is winning with 25 years later,” Tramel said. Well, Berry, besides having no way to prove that, Oklahoma was a national runner-up in 1988. This team is on the bubble. It’s a nice way to make your argument, but anybody can cherry-pick.
ESPN’s Joe Lunardi has his latest mock bracket up, and Kansas has dropped to a #2 seed in the South Region. The usual five teams -Kansas State, Iowa State, Baylor, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State- are included as well. Kansas State (#5), Oklahoma State (#8), and Iowa State (#10) all moved up in Lunardi’s latest bracket.There are a few intriguing matchups in the first round: Former conference rivals Oklahoma and Missouri in the first round as well as UCLA vs. Baylor, which would possibly have more talent on the floor than any other first round game. Another exciting possibility is a second-round meeting between Kansas and Iowa State in Kansas City, possibly the fourth time the teams would meet this season.
How much is Oklahoma‘s 74-70 win over Baylor going to help? It will be enough to earn an NCAA Tournament bid, Seth Davis argues in his latest article for Sports Illustrated. The Sooners are in almost every mock bracket I’ve seen lately, for whatever that is worth (probably not much). They are 14-7 (5-4 in conference) and have three games remaining against Texas Tech and TCU, teams that every Tournament-bound team should beat (yes, that was a shot at Kansas). But like Davis notes, the win over Baylor should give the Sooners some breathing room with the Tournament committee.
Tom Izzo‘s teams have traditionally been known for their intensity on the glass but the Spartans head coach is concerned with that aspect of his team this season. The Gophers out-rebounded MSU 38-28 on the glass on Wednesday night during their loss to the Spartans in East Lansing. “It’s a major concern for me,” Izzo said when asked about his thoughts after the game. Branden Dawson is one of the best rebounding wings in the Big Ten with 6.6 RPG but despite this athleticism, the Spartans are only fifth in the Big Ten in terms of rebounding margin.
Speaking of rebounding and presence in the paint, the Wolverines’ best forward may be freshman Mitch McGary. After struggling during the early part of the conference season, McGary has come along very well over the past few games especially after Jordan Morgan’s injury against Illinois two weeks ago. The 6’10” forward is averaging 6.1 PPG and 6.0 RPG but has fit in very well lately in the half-courts sets, primarily being involved with the pick-and-roll plays with Trey Burke. Morgan may not be 100% healthy for a few more days and McGary can take advantage of this time period to further cement himself into John Beilein’s rotation.
Florida’s Will Yeguete will undergo surgery to repair loose pieces of cartilage in his right knee. The devastating news means Yeguete will be out for four to six weeks, meaning it’s possible he could return in time for the NCAA Tournament. “It’s Will’s decision,” coach Billy Donovan said. “He wants to do what he can to play this season.” The forward has been a huge boost for the Gators this season, acting as the second leading rebounder with 6.3 rebounds per game and providing excellent defense. His defensive rebounding percentage is the best on the team and ranks in the top 100 in the nation. This is a bad loss for Florida, which didn’t at all look like itself without Yeguete in a road loss to Arkansas on Tuesday.
That sound you heard last night was the pop of Alabama‘s thin NCAA bubble bursting after a 49-37 loss to rival Auburn. The Crimson Tide managed just 37 points in the game after leading at halftime by the score of 23-13. Coach Anthony Grant had no explanation. “I can’t explain it,” he said. “I can’t. I have no explanation for that.” A performance like that has to bring about disappointment. “I’m concerned about my team,” Grant added. “The opportunities that we had in front of us, to come out – I expect more out of our guys.” Any chances of an NCAA berth just went out the window with this embarrassing loss, and has to be of concern moving forward.
Georgia guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope always finds a way to get his points, but he insists that Georgia’s recent four-game winning streak isn’t about him. “The difference is we’re playing together,” Caldwell-Pope said. “We’re helping each other through adversity when we’re down, when we’re not playing well. Our defense got better. We’ve just been finishing out games.” KCP still found the bucket, scoring 24 on 9-of-12 shooting, but it’s clear he’s now getting help. Tennessee’s Jordan McRae noticed the other players surrounding Caldwell-Pope. “We didn’t expect everybody else to shoot as well as they did,” McRae said. “We knew Caldwell-Pope, he could shoot.” The Bulldogs haven’t won four straight SEC games since winning the SEC Tournament in March 2009 and haven’t put together a streak this long in the regular season since 2003.
One of Kentucky’s undergraduate assistants isn’t just a young college student taking game notes for coach John Calipari, but he has a wealth of experience to draw from and teach Kentucky’s young roster. Former Wildcat Marquis Estill, who played for former coach Tubby Smith at UK from 1999-2003, is finishing up his degree and helping Calipari as an undergraduate student assistant coach. Estill’s relationship with Calipari has the potential to create an eventual opening for him. “I would like to stay around here,” he said, “but Cal knows a lot of people and has great connections.” But perhaps before talking about a job in the future, Estill and Calipari can start at the beginning. “He actually knows my name now, which is a good sign,” Estill joked.
With all of the movement caused by conference realignment it is nice to see schools not move every once in a while even if it is only for one more year as Notre Dame appears to be doing with the announcement that it will stay in the Big East through the 2013-14 season. Now we will not pretend this was some noble gesture as we are aware of the fact that if the Irish had been able to get out of their 27-month notice period they would have. Perhaps more interestingly Notre Dame also says that the other members of the “Catholic 7” also intend to stay in the Big East for one more season making the conference more than just an also-ran even if one for a short period of time.
It has only been 8.5 months since Sports Illustrated came out with its cover story calling Jabari Parkerthe best high school basketball player since LeBron so it is somewhat amusing that they are ready to hype another recruit, Andrew Wiggins, as the best recruit in this class as the “Michael Jordan of Canada”. Some apologists may try to explain this away by noting that Parker recently joined this year’s senior class, but we are having a hard time explaining this coincidence of having the two best players in the past decade in the same senior class as nothing more than useless hype. We have seen Wiggins play on several occasions and while we think he is a better prospect than Parker primarily because of his explosiveness we wonder why the media is so eager to hype someone as “the next big thing”.
Most years the contenders for national player of the year honors are fairly predictable and this year isn’t that different with one notable exception: Victor Oladipo. While it may be hard to make a case for anybody on the preseason #1 team being under the radar Oladipo was not even considered a Big Ten Player of the Year candidate coming into the season as you would not have found anybody outside of his immediate family who would have considered him anywhere close to Indiana’s best player (that distinction would have went to Cody Zeller). Yet with a little over a month left in the regular season Oladipo is up to fourth in ESPN’s straw poll, which is one spot ahead of his more highly regarded teammate. As for the actual award, it appears as if Trey Burke and Doug McDermott with the eventual winner most likely being the one who finishes the strongest over the next month.
Just a few days ago it seemed as if nothing could go wrong for the Florida Gators. They were having one of the most dominant seasons in recent memory before getting blown out by Arkansas on Tuesday. Now they will have to play at least for at least a month without the services of Will Yeguete after they announced that the junior forward will have arthroscopic surgery on his right knee. At this point the Gator are hoping to get Yeguete back in time for the SEC Tournament, but it is possible that he could be out for the season if they expect him to be out that long. Yeguete doess not put up huge stats, but if the Gaotrs are going to make a run in March Yeguete’s contributions on the glass could be key as the Gators lack a significant interior presence outside of Patric Young, who will need some help if the Gators are planning on making a trip to Atlanta.
There was plenty of controversy around National Signing Day with the most prominent ones involving a player who committed to Alabama despite getting an Auburn tattoo and another recruit who had commitment put into limbo after his mother absconded with his National Letter of Intent after she disagreed with his choice. While Jeff Borzello’s “biggest commitment flips in recent history” may lack the absurdity of those two examples it is an interesting reminder not to rely on these commitments until the player has officially signed or in some cases actually arrived on campus. We remember most of these recent flips, but we had forgotten about some of them (particularly those listed in the “others” category).
Yahoo! Sports: In honor of his 50th birthday, Darren Rovell uncovered a letter from Mike Krzyzewski to Michael Jordan from 1980. I’m not sure when Coach K said “you should make an immediate impact on whatever you choose,” he suspected Jordan would go on to be the best player to play the game. It also brings back memories of Jeff Eisenberg’s article a year ago on Jordan’s Letter of Intent and a personal letter from Dean Smith (which sounds very confident despite being a month before Krzyzewski’s letter was written). Always cool to see these things.
Coach K concedes defeat in the recruitment of Michael Jordan. (h/t: Darren Rovell)
Blogger So Dear: John Mundy has put up two of the most interesting articles of the season. The first talked about the difficulties of changing culture. This one is a thought-provoking discussion of Wake Forest‘s struggles with ACC expansion looming. The Demon Deacons don’t dominate any area of North Carolina, not even their home city of Winston-Salem. They have to make their own success, and apathy awaits them if that success doesn’t live up to the hype. Wake Forest could be buried by the incoming powers in the ACC. The school needs another coach like Skip Prosser. A showman in the highest regard, who can make it the biggest show in town again. Instead they have Jeff Bzdelik, the man with the worst public relation skills in the league. It doesn’t matter that the school is improving. They need a show.
Wall Street Journal: Miami may be the newest ACC school in the top-ten, but the Hurricanes still aren’t hard to go see if you happen to be near Coral Gables. Ben Cohen looked at the price of tickets for the schools in the top-ten for college basketball over the last five games. The ACC bookended the list: the cheapest tickets to Miami totaled a ludicrous 78 dollars (that’s less than $16 a game); Duke totaled 1,014 dollars (over $200 a ticket).
Wilmington Star News: The Bob Cousy Award for college’s top point guard released its 12 finalists and two ACC guards made the cut. Lorenzo Brown and Shane Larkin both represented the conference, though beating out Trey Burke is probably too much to ask. Miami would have to make a run to a one-seed with Larkin beefing up his assist numbers. I do think Larkin could make the final five for the award, but it’s Burke’s to lose. North Carolina dominated the award of late with Ty Lawson and Kendall Marshall both winning (Greivis Vasquez also won the award in between the two).
Streaking the Lawn: Here’s a great look at the RPI over the last five years in terms of ACC teams being selected for the Big Dance. It points to the RPI as being more important than the NCAA lets on. For one, no team with a higher RPI has been selected over a team with a lower ranking. The ACC Tournament may hold the key for Virginia. It should reduce the importance of its games against Old Dominion by adding more solid opponents. The Cavaliers cannot afford to lose on Thursday to mediocre team. This is illustrated by the fact that their RPI after going 8-2 in their remaining ten games, Virginia is projected to have an RPI of 67. That’s not good.
The Hartford Courant‘s Paul Doyle came to a similar conclusion that I did after watching Providence’s grind out win against Cincinnati on Wednesday night – the Friars may be in the early stages of becoming a good basketball team. However, the premise of his story veered into interesting territory considering how the game played out. Friar star Bryce Cotton was well-neutralized against Cincinnati, and it was really the play of Kadeem Batts and others that led to the win. Cotton, however, is the model player for the program building that Ed Cooley is currently doing at Providence. Cooley seems to agree with this notion: “As Cooley builds his program, he’s stressing hard work and telling incoming players they can improve if they’re committed. And he’ll be pointing to his shooting guard as Exhibit A. ‘He’s definitely a poster child for that,’ Cooley said.”
Despite popular misconceptions, there will be a Big East basketball conference, and as of late last week Notre Dame will be a part of it, if only for one more season. The Notre Dame-Big East discussions about shortening their 27-month waiting period did not progress quickly enough, and fall sports have schedules to prepare, so at the end of the day there just wasn’t enough time to figure things out for 2013-14. If I were handicapping the situation, I would expect next year to definitely be Notre Dame’s last in the newest version of the conference, so if you’re a big Irish fan in Orlando, I would be sure to get tickets.
Things didn’t look good for Georgetown after losses to Pittsburgh and Marquette and the loss of Greg Whittington, but the Hoyas have done well to bounce back, and have now won six of their last seven games, with the lone loss being the perplexing game against a floundering South Florida squad. The Georgetown Voice‘s Chris Almeida notes that while this is usually a period of the season where the team slumps, this year’s outfit has done well to regain momentum, and look strong entering the end of the season. Unsurprisingly, the key player has been Otto Porter, who is averaging 18.1 points per game over the last seven, and should probably be getting some long conference player of the year looks, but the strong backcourt play from Markel Starks and D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera have also been key for the Hoyas.
I wouldn’t put St. John’s into the NCAA Tournament just yet, but theNew York Post‘s Mike Vaccaro believes that if the Johnnies are selected to dance, they have already exhibited the grittiness to succeed in the one-and-done setting. The Red Storm isn’t exactly dominating teams, but they continue to survive and advance through the conference, and as Steve Lavin states in the article, they don’t give extra wins for style points: “At this point of the year you don’t grade victories in the Big East. You’re grateful, you chalk it up as a W, you move on.” Few would’ve thought that St. John’s would be battling for the top tier of the conference, definitely not a tournament bid, especially with such an inexperienced team that seemed to have major issues earlier in the year.
Few things are as Upstate New York as Jim Boeheim and Hofmann Hot Dogs, so when Boeheim became an investor in the company as it looked to expand nationally, Syracuse ex-pats were very excited at the possibility of getting their favorite dogs across the nation. However, not all is going swimmingly within the Hofmann empire. Boeheim and his partners are accusing Hoffman CEO and Dallas Mavericks president Frank Zaccanelli of misusing company funds. The lawsuit that has been filed includes a number of damning details, including Zaccanelli’s use of company money as a “slush fund” and promoting an apparent girlfriend to an executive salary and backdating her employment records to allow her extra benefits.
Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn.
Tonight’s Lede. Stay Away From Number One. My best advice for teams trying to avoid losses: stay out of the No. 1 spot in the AP Poll. Every team should take the floor on a given night with that underlying objective – winning games is a generally good thing, I’d wager – which makes that logic a really interesting counterfactual. The only way to reach the top is by winning games, but if every team to inherit No. 1 dating back to January 7 (when Duke opened up the week at No. 1 for the fourth consecutive week) has gone on to surrender the ranking in the seven days that followed, it begs the question: are teams better off avoiding the coveted weekly AP crown? Of course not. That preamble was, in essence, a roundabout way to introduce you to the latest slain No. 1. On Monday, upon the AP poll’s customary afternoon release, it will be official – especially if Indiana falls at Ohio State Sunday. The Hoosiers were the main storyline from Thursday night, but they weren’t the only one.
Your Watercooler Moment.A Win Illinois Needed.
There is only one way to go about discussing Illinois’ win over No. 1 Indiana Thursday night. It is a season-defining moment. The Illini were fading fast in Big Ten play, descending into NIT territory far quicker than anyone could have imagined after an excellent nonconference season, but as we’ve seen time and again this time of year, one win can change everything. This win – which saw Illinois rip off a 13-2 run with under four minutes remaining after being down by double digits for most of the second half – changes the conversation around Illinois. It brings renewed optimism to a conference season that, up until Thursday night, had done more harm than good to the Illini’s Tournament chances. The road ahead doesn’t get any easier, and Illinois will need to improve its still-lacking 3-7 league record. But with a win of this magnitude in your back pocket, Illinois’ view on the rest of the season changes considerably. The final eight regular season games and Big Ten Tournament are no longer about hunting upset wins. The Illini got that Thursday night. From here on out, John Groce’s team needs to handle business against equal-to-inferior competition (Purdue, at Northwestern, Penn State, Nebraska, at Iowa), watch the bubble soften up around them and sit back as its solid computer figures and stable of marquee wins carry them over the finish line. Those above games aren’t guarantees – such games don’t exist in this year’s Big Ten. But Illinois is more than capable of handling all of them. Few wins will mean more on Selection Sunday than this one; Illinois is back in the discussion, at the very least, and depending on how the at-large picture shakes out over the next month, the Illini could look back to Thursday as the night they sealed their Tournament fate.
Your quick Hits…
Wolters Goes For 53. Few mid-to-low major players in today’s college game hold as much national appeal as Wolters. Not to the casual post-Superbowl Hoops crowd; rather, he is something of a college hoops nerd’s cult fascination, for reasons understandable and not. On Thursday night, he did something memorable. Something that will stick with Wolters for the rest of his basketball-playing career. He scored a Division-I season-high 53 points. He converted nine three point shots, and 17 total field goals. He expanded the Wolters legend into a tangible and largely appreciable concept for college hoops fans previously unaware of his brilliance. Wolters is an excellent basketball player, but no one – not even the most ardent Wolters’ supporters – saw this coming.
Walker Carey is an RTC correspondent. He filed this report after Wednesday night’s game between Creighton and Indiana State. You can follow him at @walkerRcarey.
Entering Wednesday night’s game, Indiana State was a definitely a bubble team. The Sycamores entered the contest with #16 Creighton at 14-8 overall with a 7-4 record in Missouri Valley play. While Greg Lansing’s squad has some excellent wins – neutral site victories over Ole Miss and Miami and a road victory over Wichita State – it has also suffered some poor losses – most notably road setbacks to Morehead State and Southern Illinois. The same pundits who put the Sycamores on the bubble noted the team had a solid opportunity to find itself on the right side of the bubble come Selection Sunday due to the opportunity to boost its RPI with home contests against Creighton and Wichita State. The Blue Jays, a team that beat the Sycamores 79-66 in Omaha on January 5, came first and the Sycamores took advantage of a poor game from Creighton star Doug McDermott and their home court advantage to notch a dominating 76-56 victory. The following are three thoughts from Wednesday night’s game.
Creighton is Really Reaching For Answers Right Now
Indiana State Played Its Best Game of the Season. Whenever a team commits zero first half turnovers and limits a national player of the year candidate to just eight points, you know that team put forth a tremendous effort. The zero first half turnovers by the Sycamores allowed the team to build an 11-point halftime lead and remaining crisp and efficient on offense allowed the team to increase the lead by as much as 28 in the second half before earning the 19-point victory. The Sycamores’ offensive attack was led by junior guard Jake Odum, who finished with 22 points on a solid 7-of-10 performance from the field. Doug McDermott, who entered the game averaging 24 points per game, was stymied by the defensive efforts of Indiana State forwards R.J. Mahurin and Justin Gant all night and finished with just eight points (zero points in the second half) on a 3-of-10 effort from the field. The exceptionally strong defensive performance prevented the entire Blue Jays team from ever getting into any sort of offensive rhythm. Read the rest of this entry »
You all need a history lesson. You’re laughing at Kansas right now for losing to a historically bad TCU team on Wednesday night, and rightfully so. The Horned Frogs entered the game with one victory over a team with a winning record this season. They ranked below five Ivy League teams in the RPI. Trent Johnson’s team had not won a Big 12 game in its inaugural season yet, half the team was injured and Jerry Palm said on Twitter he’d never seen a bigger upset in terms of RPI since he started tracking the numbers 20 years ago. This was bad. Epically bad. On another planet from NCAA Tournament losses to Bucknell, Bradley, Northern Iowa and VCU.
Don’t Put the Gun to Your Head, KU Fans.
Done laughing? Great. Your history lesson begins now. Allow your minds to drift back to January 16, 2006. That’s the last time Kansas’ basketball program lost a second consecutive game. January 16 was a Monday. Big Monday, to be exact. The Jayhawks, two days removed from a loss to Kansas State, traveled to Columbia to play a Border War game (archaic, right?) against Missouri. They were 9-5, unranked and playing some of the worst basketball of the Bill Self era. On this particular evening, Kansas hit its version of rock bottom. A walk-on named Christian Moody stepped to the free throw line in a tie game with 0.4 seconds left, and he missed both. Wasn’t even close on either attempt. The Jayhawks lost in overtime to their bitter rival, falling to 9-6 and 1-2 in the league. Panic time. That Missouri team, which finished 12-16, would wind up firing coach Quin Snyder a month later.
Daniel Evans (@bracketexpert) is RTC’s new resident bracketologist. According to Bracket Matrix, he ranks as one of the top several bracketologists among those who have produced brackets for more than three years, including two seasons with perfect bracket projections. He updates the field daily on his site, Bracketology Expert, and will be producing a weekly bracket update here at RTC on Fridays. RTC Bubble Watch will publish on Sunday nights and Thursday afternoons for the rest of the season.
Bracket Math: Below there are 25 locks along the right column. Basically, that number means that if none of my “locks” clinch an automatic bid for the NCAA Tournament, there are only 12 at-large spots available. In most years, an average of around six “locks” win automatic bids, meaning there are 18 un-clinched spots for the NCAA Tournament. I also have five teams in the “should be in” category, meaning I projected their odds of getting an at-large bid at 70% of higher. If those five teams do get in, there are 13 total spots available for the teams you see below in my bubble watch.
LOCKS: 25 “SHOULD BE INS”: 5 TOTAL: 30 (minus 6 for projected auto bid winners=24) PROJECTED AT-LARGE SPOTS AVAILABLE: 13
Odds Improving: Iowa State, Indiana State, Oklahoma State, Arkansas (but still not on the “Watch”)
Odds Decreasing: UNLV, Boise State, Air Force, Alabama, Iowa (not on the “Watch”)
Locks That Are Trying My Patience: Missouri, Cincinnati, UCLA
UPDATED THROUGH ALL GAMES OF FEBRUARY 6, 2013
ACC: Three Locks, Four Bubble Teams
LOCKS:
North Carolina (16-6, 6-3; RPI: 31): North Carolina has one great win (over UNLV) and two mediocre ones (Florida State, Maryland), but bad losses against Texas and Virginia are not helping the Tar Heels’ resume. Losing to the under .500 Longhorns by 18 points is inexplicable. The next four games are going to decide the Tar Heels’ fate. First, a game against Wake Forest that would be a big blow to North Carolina’s at-large hopes. Then, back to back trips to Miami on February 9 and Duke on February 13. AT-LARGE ODDS: 75%Maryland (16-6, 4-5; RPI: 60): Maryland has not played well in ACC play and it might end up costing the Terps an at-large bid. Maryland was swept by Florida State, another ACC bubble team. The Terps have also lost at Miami, at North Carolina, at Duke, and at Florida State. Maryland can’t win on the road and it cannot beat good teams, which typically means NIT. AT-LARGE ODDS: 40%
Virginia (15-6, 5-3; RPI: 100): After wins against Florida State and N. C. State moved the Cavaliers into at-large consideration, Virginia fell to Georgia Tech on Sunday. Virginia needs its RPI to rise quickly (by at least 40 spots) and losses like the one to the Yellow Jackets are not helping. Up next are winnable games against Clemson, at Maryland, and Virginia Tech. They better win all three. AT-LARGE ODDS: 30%
Florida State (13-9, 5-4; RPI: 58): Florida State knocked off Maryland on Wednesday to pick up a fifth win against the RPI top 50 and its second win over the Terrapins. Florida State’s resume makes it look more like a mid major than a major though. The five wins over the RPI top 100 are: BYU, Charlotte, Saint Joseph’s, Maryland (twice). Michael Snaer saved the ‘Noles again on Tuesday night with another buzzer beater against Georgia Tech. Florida State needs to make sure they defeat Wake Forest Saturday because a loss would be a severe blow to their at large hopes. AT-LARGE HOPES: 25%
Other ACC teams with an at-large chance: None currently
Atlantic 10: One Lock, Seven Bubble Teams
LOCKS:
Virginia Commonwealth (18-5, 6-2; RPI: 49): I don’t have anything against VCU, but I am convinced more and more every day that 80% of the nation’s bracketologists are overrating the Rams’ resume. This team’s best victory is against Belmont and the second best win is over Memphis. Both of those teams are fringe at-large teams and both had better win their conference tournaments if they want to snag an a NCAA Tournament bid. This week the Rams stopped the bleeding a little bit with wins at Rhode Island and over Fordham. On Saturday, a trip to Charlotte looms large. AT-LARGE ODDS: 65%Temple (15-7, 4-4; RPI: 53): The Owls are the kind of team that makes a bracketologists’ job very difficult. A win over Syracuse looks fantastic, but losses to Canisius, St. Bonaventure, Saint Joseph’s, and Xavier cannot be ignored. Overall, the Owls are 4-4 on the road. A win over Charlotte on Wednesday night gives the Owls another top 100 victory. AT-LARGE ODDS: 50%
La Salle (15-6, 5-3; RPI: 27): La Salle has five wins over the RPI top 100 including victories against Butler and VCU, the Atlantic Ten’s best teams. The Explorers only have one bad loss, which came in mid-November against Central Connecticut State. The next three games on the schedule are all very winnable–Fordham, at St. Bonaventure, Saint Joseph’s–before a huge bubble game at Temple on February 21. AT-LARGE ODDS: 50%
Saint Louis (17-5, 6-2; RPI: 57): The Billikens have made a strong push for an at-large bid over the last week. An upset victory over Butler and a win against Dayton give Saint Louis five straight wins, but now we get to find out how good this team is. Saint Louis will be expected to win at Richmond this weekend games before three straight tough games against Charlotte, VCU, and Butler. AT-LARGE ODDS: 50%
Charlotte (17-5, 5-3; RPI: 51): The 49ers have been in the at-large conversation all along because of a great record and a mediocre RPI, but Charlotte only has two top 50 wins. Wins against La Salle and Massachusetts keep looking better and better and games against Temple, Butler, VCU, and Saint Louis still remain on the schedule. Charlotte has the kind of record you look for in an at-large candidate, but the 49ers need big wins. The upcoming schedule provides plenty of chances for those. AT-LARGE ODDS: 35%
Massachusetts (15-6, 5-3; RPI: 46): It was an up and down week for the Minutemen, who followed a one point win against La Salle with a one point loss to Charlotte. Games against Rhode Island and Saint Joseph’s are up next. If Massachusetts wins both, a game at VCU on February 14 could be huge for both team’s at-large hopes. AT-LARGE HOPES: 30%
Richmond (14-9, 4-4, RPI: 74): The Spiders entered the conversation after a victory over VCU, but a loss at Temple on Wednesday night was a big shot to the Spiders at-large hopes. A win against Air Force continues to look better and a win against Charlotte might end up being important, depending on how the 17-4 49ers finish the season. On Saturday, a game against Saint Louis could be the season for Richmond. All of the Atlantic Ten at-large teams have to begin separating themselves. AT-LARGE ODDS: 15%
Other Atlantic Ten teams with an at-large chance: Xavier (10%), Saint Joseph’s (5%)
