David Changas is an RTC correspondent. He filed this report after Saturday’s OVC Championship in Nashville.

Late in Saturday’s Ohio Valley Conference Championship Game, it looked like the college basketball world would face a week-long debate about whether Belmont, a top-25 RPI team that won the league’s regular season championship, would merit an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament after falling to defending champion Murray State. The Racers appeared to be in control when they led 62-58 with fewer than 40 seconds to play in regulation. But an Ian Clark jumper and a two missed free throws from Ed Daniel set up a Kerron Johnson drive that tied the game with nine seconds remaining. Following some controversy surrounding a clock stoppage issue and Murray State calling timeout before crossing half-court, the Racers could not get a good look for the win. In overtime, after Murray State star Isaiah Canaan dribbled the ball off of his foot in a tie game with 25 seconds remaining — one of 26 Racer turnovers on the night — it was Johnson again playing the hero as he pulled up in the lane and made a high-arcing jumper over Daniel, giving the Bruins a 70-68 victory and the league’s auto-bid in their first year, as well as the 1,000th victory in program history.

It Was Storybook For Belmont Saturday

Belmont is now able to avoid all talk of whether its resume was good enough to earn a coveted at-large spot in the field, and while we may never know whether it was, coach Rick Byrd is more than happy to not have to wonder. “I had thought about that question because I knew we could lose either of these games,” he said. Now, he can focus on getting his team ready for its next opponent, whoever it may be. The Bruins must sit and wait a week before finding out whether their resume was good enough to earn a seed that will give them a reasonable shot at a first-round victory, something that has eluded the program in its first five appearances in the Big Dance. There was the near-miss in 2008 against Duke that put the program on the national map, and the disappointing double-figure losses to Wisconsin and Georgetown the last two years, when the Bruins represented the Atlantic Sun. While they clearly stepped up in competition in the OVC this year, most projections, including our latest, have them in the #12-line, only a spot better than the past two seasons.  So while the RPI may be higher than it has ever been for Byrd’s team, the draw his team gets may look familiar. What likely faces the Bruins is a game against a bigger, more athletic high-major squad that will present match-up issues.

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1. It’s Big 12 Awards time! This has been one of the weirder Big 12 seasons in recent memory even though the team at the top is still the same (hi Kansas!) Perhaps the surprise in this was that neither the league player nor coach of the year originated from Lawrence. Marcus Smart is totally deserving of Big 12 POY as Oklahoma State’s Mr. Everything. Regardless of how many game-winners he’s hit, Smart is the type of player any program covets — talented and selfless. He is the first Cowboy since James Anderson (2009-10) and the first freshman since Blake Griffin (2008-09) to lock down the award. Bruce Weber won Big 12 Coach of the Year in his first season. Despite what happened on last year’s Illinois team, Weber is still a good coach. What may have been the most confusing hire a year ago is now paying immediate dividends for Kansas State.
2. Matt Norlander tells us that despite getting their tails kicked by Baylor, Kansas’ Bill Self is amazing at what he does. Yeah we all know the incredible success he’s had at KU but before he even arrived in Lawrence, Self certainly had his influence in other leagues as well. He won two of three regular season titles at both Tulsa and Illinois which makes 2012-13 his 13th league title in 15 years of coaching. He’s only 50 years old and already has over 500 wins as a head coach — when all is said and done, Self is my odds-on-favorite to eventually catch and pass Coach K in career wins.
3. Speaking of Baylor, with an at-large bid in limbo, they throttled Kansas Saturday in Waco. The Bears are now 18-13 and sport a 9-9 record in Big 12 play, but are probably still slotted for the NIT. How can they change that? They play their first game Thursday against Oklahoma State, and if they were to beat the Cowboys for a second time, it would set up a possible match-up with Kansas State on Friday. If they get past K-State, they’ll then have 20 wins including OSU (twice), KSU, Kansas and Kentucky. But again, these are too many “ifs” for a team currently living on the bubble.
4. When you’re a team like Oklahoma whose fate is pretty much decided, how can you find motivation heading into the postseason? Losing to TCU would just about do it. They fell behind 22 points at halftime and made as many three-pointers as I did on Saturday (0-for-16). OU appears to be a team safely into the tournament with a RPI of 33 and SOS of 18 but a good showing against Iowa State Friday would do wonders for the psyche.
5. What a difference Myck Kabongo makes for Texas. Before he returned for the Iowa State game on February 13, the Longhorns had two conference wins and now they have seven. With that said, is it crazy to think that Texas could make a run in the Big 12 Tournament? If they don’t win it, it would probably be for a run to the NIT but I could see it happening. The chances of Texas winning this tournament, according to TeamRankings.com, are at 1%. So, yes, I’m saying there’s a chance.

1. It’s only fitting that the Big Ten championship came down to a fraction of an inch. That was the difference between the ball falling in or out in the final seconds, which meant Indiana winning or losing in Ann Arbor on Sunday afternoon, which was the difference between the Hoosiers wrapping up the outright title or sharing it with Michigan, Michigan State and Ohio State. Indiana, though, was the favorite entering the year and emerged as the stand-alone champion. They probably have the best overall body of work, but there are plenty of teams that have also proven they could win the conference tournament next weekend in Chicago and/or make it to the Final Four in Atlanta. We’re all in for a treat this week.
2. East Lansing said goodbye to one of the most interesting players of the Tom Izzo era when senior center Derrick Nix kissed the Spartan helmet at center court at the end of Michigan State‘s win against Northwestern on Sunday afternoon. Nix has had an incredible four-year journey, and Detroit Free Press writer Joe Rexrode has a great recap of the ups and downs as well as the relationship Nix has built with Michigan State. The partnership between Nix and Izzo is what makes this so remarkable — from Izzo’s passion about Nix’s education and Nix’s mother to how much the player has leaned on his coach over the years. Stories like these are what make college sports so great to follow.
3. John Groce obviously knows how to win as an underdog. His wins at Ohio as a No. 13 and No. 14 seed is what helped put him on the map and eventually make his way to Illinois. But now, with the Fighting Illini likely bound for the NCAA Tournament, how will he handle life as a higher seed? Depending on how things shake out in the Big Ten Tournament, it’s most likely the Illini will enter the Big Dance on an even playing field with their first-round opponent, or perhaps as the favorite. So how can Groce conjure the March magic he’s used in the past? “The most important thing is that they’re mentally and physically fresh,’’ Groce said. ‘‘And each team’s different. There’s no script. You have to know your guys, what they respond to, what they don’t respond to. But the one steadfast constant is doing the best you can to keep them as fresh mentally and physically as possible.”
4. There have been some serious battles in the Big Ten this season, and perhaps a little bit of bad blood. That seemed to be the case after Indiana’s close win against Michigan, when Tom Crean had a heated exchange with Michigan assistant Jeff Meyer. Crean was pretty tight-lipped about it, saying at his postgame press conference: “It’s a heated game, it’s a heated game. Ask him.” But there were reports that this dates back to some heated recruiting battles over the last few years. Whatever the case may be, with the potential for a third and even fourth meeting between the schools down the road, this is worth keeping an eye on.
5. It has been a maddening season for Minnesota fans. Things started out so well, then fizzled once Big Ten play began, then they sort of flatlined. There were good days toward the end, but there were equally bad ones all the way up until a loss to Purdue in the regular season finale. So now the Gophers are still likely headed for the NCAA Tournament, but with no momentum. And no leadership. There’s plenty of talent and athleticism on this team — that much has never been in doubt. But over the last few months, there have only been a few games where we’ve seen that talent harnessed and applied in games. Can the Gophers turn it around in time to make something of this season?

1. In one of the best weekends of college basketball that we’ve seen this year, the SEC may be able to lay claim to the top highlight. Trevor Releford hit a half-court shot as time expired to give Alabama a 61-58 win over Georgia, keeping the Crimson Tide in consideration for an at-large NCAA Tournament berth. Bama appeared well on its way to an easy win when they took a 14-point lead into halftime, but the Bulldogs stormed back in the second. “I felt like in the second half they really picked their tempo up and really attacked us,” coach Anthony Grant said. “The zone caused us some problems.” Releford put the finishing touches on a strong regular season, adding an iconic moment to his case for SEC Player of the Year.
2. Florida went into Lexington over the weekend looking for its first win at Rupp Arena in six years. A back and forth game had finally swung in the Gators’ favor after Kentucky center Willie Cauley-Stein was forced to bench with four fouls, but even with a seven-point lead with eight minutes to play, Florida went ice cold. The Gators did nothing with their last 14 possessions the rest of the way, committing five turnovers and missing all 11 of their field goal attempts. “In these situations, someone has to step up and make a play,” guard Scottie Wilbekin said. “Someone has to make a shot.” Florida couldn’t get that shot to fall, doing nothing to dispel the notion that they can’t deliver in close games.
3. Kentucky’s win over Florida certainly had a do-or-die feel, but Gary Parrish believes that Kentucky shouldn’t rest easy just yet. The Wildcats’ Tournament resume remains marginal. A 21-10 overall record, a 7-9 record against the RPI top 100, and only two wins against the top 50 doesn’t exactly scream “lock.” “There’s a tendency in college basketball to react strongly to every single thing that happens,” writes Parrish, “and the byproduct is that analysts and fans are constantly punching everybody’s tickets for the Big Dance.” A win over Florida filled a big hole in Kentucky’s argument, but a loss to Arkansas or Vanderbilt in the quarterfinals of the SEC Tournament would cancel out a lot of that progress and put the Cats right back on the fringes of the bubble.
4. The teams at the bottom of the SEC needed overtime to settle their season finale, with Mississippi State beating Auburn, 74-71, putting Bulldogs coach Rick Ray in a celebratory mood. “Just finding a way to gut out a win and to go in the locker room to see so many people happy,” he said after the game. “You read some things were they say we are the worst team in SEC history, so I guess we can’t be that if we finished 13th out of 14.” Touche, Rick. Mississippi State has been ridiculed all season as one of the worst power conference teams in college basketball, but thanks to a strong start and finish to the conference schedule (book-ending that 13-game losing streak), the Bulldogs finished outside of the SEC cellar.
5. Tennessee overcame an eight-point second half deficit to beat Missouri, 64-62, on Saturday, maintaining its status as the conference’s hottest team. The Vols have won eight of nine to turn what appeared to be a lost season into a potential at-large NCAA Tournament berth. Tennessee is currently on the outside looking in according to ESPN’s Joe Lunardi, meaning that the Vols are another SEC team in need of SEC Tournament success. “I feel like we’re an older group,” forward Jarnell Stokes said. “We know that we have to do damage in the SEC Tournament. I’m not going to let another one slip away like we did last year.” A year ago, Cuonzo Martin’s team was in an almost identical position. Tennessee had ended the year winning eight of nine, but were upset by Ole Miss in their first SEC Tournament game, relegating the Vols to the NIT.

1. ACC: The ACC Tournament (#ACCTourney) bracket is set.
   

   The official 2013 ACC Tournament bracket (credit: The ACC).

   Some juicy match-ups to look forward to: Erick Green’s potential last hurrah against a beatable NC State team, Maryland’s potential rubber match with Duke in the quarterfinals, Miami’s likely game against desperate (but good) bubble teams in the semis. It’s looking like a very interesting tournament from all sides. No less than three teams are desperate for marquee wins, Miami still has a very outside shot at a top seed if it beats Duke in the finals, and Duke can gun for the top overall seed.

2. Raleigh News & Observer: This may be the most thorough argument for putting Mason Plumlee ahead of  Shane Larkin for ACC Player of the Year. Laura Keeley uses tempo free statistics to justify voting for Plumlee over Larkin, but overemphasizes team performance when brushing off Erick Green. She has a point that Green plays for the worst team in the league, but without context (and probably a lot of game tape), it’s impossible to know if Green’s numbers are from teams daring him to beat them by shutting down his teammates or whether they’re in spite of opponents looking to shut him down. Without definitive evidence for teams shutting down his teammates and letting him go off, Green has to be this year’s ACC Player of the Year. His volume and efficiency numbers bring to mind JJ Redick.
3. Bear Down Stats: Steven Jung did some interesting research into the last 10 national champions and found some interesting tidbits. Since 2003 no champion has had a defensive efficiency of over 90 points per 100 possessions. More surprisingly, no group has managed to win everything with a tempo below 65.4 possessions a game (slightly below average). On the whole, champions have elite offenses, elite defenses and play with some pace. Only Connecticut in 2011 and Syracuse in 2003 managed to win it all with an efficiency margin of under 30 points per 100 possessions (and both of those teams had elite guys to create shots down the stretch). What does this mean? It means Duke, Indiana and Gonzaga are the only three teams to fit the profile of the last 10 champions (Louisville fits as well if you ignore offense and just look at net efficiency margin).
4. Duke Basketball Report: Al Featherston makes a good case for the ACC Tournament (which does crown the official ACC Champion) based on lopsided scheduling. If you look at Duke and Miami‘s records against common opponents (they played 12 of their 18 games against the same teams on the same floors), Duke actually holds an 11-1 record compared to Miami’s 10-2 mark. The difference between the schools was the games that didn’t fall against the same opponents: Duke lost both its road games (at Maryland and at Virginia, who went undefeated in conference home games), while Miami won both of its road games (at Clemson and at Georgia Tech). All this does is illustrate the problem with comparing small samples of records with unbalanced schedules.
5. Raleigh News & Observer: ACC historian Samuel Walker wrote a gloom-and-doom piece for the News & Observer Friday with some interesting historical nuggets that show the esteem for academics within the ACC. The ACC led the way with minimum academic standards, which actually kept Joe Namath and Pete Maravich from playing at Maryland and NC State, respectively. At the end of the day, Walker’s bone to pick is with conference realignment. He has a very good point that the long term financial gains are still an unknown.

1. Anticipation of a full weekend slate games with massive Big East implications was slightly overshadowed last Friday when a statement from the league confirmed the Catholic Seven would make its exit on June 30, 2013. Realignment savant Brett McMurphy reported that the departing schools would not only inherit the Big East name and Madison Square Garden tournament, but also pocket $10 million of the $110 million in exit fees from prior defections. Most astonishingly, Mike Aresco surrendered the 29 NCAA Tournament units those schools accumulated in the past six years, which Forbes claims will distribute at least $7.25 million in 2013 alone. Conversely, the current Big East finds itself nameless, poised to lose Notre Dame a year early, and displaced from its ancestral roots. The amorphous confederation is exploring the name “America 12,” and Hartford and Memphis are early front-runners in the bid to host its refugee tournament, which would complete its metamorphosis into a Conference USA Touring Edition.
2. UConn played its final game of the 2012-13 season last Saturday in Gampel Pavilion, overcoming Providence 63-59 in overtime to earn its 20^th win of the year. More importantly, on Senior Day and perhaps Shabazz Napier’s final game as a Husky, his team won a measure of vindication after months of being told this season was meaningless. The injured guard’s overtime heroics continued as he battled an injured ankle to put up 16 points and eight rebounds in 44 minutes. If Napier does elect to return next season, his maturation as a junior will have been one of the most indispensable benefits of this year’s dress rehearsal. Speaking after Saturday’s win of his personal development, Kevin Ollie said, “Shabazz used to think he can do it by himself. Now he knows he needs his teammates. When somebody is down, he’s always, always there to pick them up.”
3. Another Saturday rivalry matchup with Big East title implications quickly devolved into a painful juxtaposition of teams speeding in opposite directions, as Georgetown held Syracuse to its lowest point total (39) since 1962. Michael Carter-Williams was the only Syracuse player to reach double digits, but finished with two assists to five turnovers; the Orange as a team had a 4:13 assist-to-turnover ratio (31%). It was a nightmare scenario for the Orange, who will almost assuredly finish the regular season ranked outside the top 20 after reaching #3 in the polls in late January. The Hoyas wrapped up the top seed while Cuse enters the Big East Tournament seeded fifth, having lost four of their last five and seven of 12.
4. The Big East released their regular season player honors yesterday, and Louisville (Gorgui Dieng, Russ Smith, Peyton Siva) and Syracuse (Michael Carter-Williams, C.J. Fair, Brandon Triche) led the pack with six of the 16 players on the All-Big East first, second and third teams. Dieng and Smith represented the first Cardinals to make first team since Terrence Williams in 2009, while Bryce Cotton was Providence’s second selection in three years after Marshon Brooks was honored in 2011. Georgetown’s Otto Porter was the first team’s only unanimous selection and is poised to take home Player of the Year once it’s announced.
5. On the topic of Senior Day vindication, Rick Pitino described Louisville’s 73-57 thumping of Notre Dame as a “a storybook ending” for graduating senior Peyton Siva and junior Gorgui Dieng, who is likely to declare for the draft. The two combined for 33 points on 65% shooting, avenging last month’s five-overtime choke job in South Bend before a KFC Yum! Center record crowd of 22,815. Dieng racked up his second double-double in the past three games, and tallied five blocks as he helped stymie Jack Cooley, who finished with seven points and three defensive rebounds. Siva hit multiple threes in a single game for the first time since mid-January, showing a shooting touch and aggressiveness that had been noticeably absent in Big East play. In the process, the Cardinals claimed a share of the Big East regular season title with Georgetown and Marquette. Moreover, Kevin Ware capped off the afternoon’s euphoria by delivering this subversive number –– deemed saucy by the CBS crew –– after being called for a foul on a dramatic fast break block (h/t Card Chronicle):

Kevin Ware eschewed traditional forms of foul call protest

1. We know that March started 10 days ago, but for college basketball fans the month really gets going once teams start to receive automatic bids for the NCAA Tournament — over the weekend, the first handful of bids were handed out. The first entries into the field of 2013 NCAA Tournament are Belmont, Creighton, Florida Gulf Coast, Harvard, and Liberty. While none of these schools are traditional powers in the sense that the person who wins your office pool will know about them, they do represent a pretty wide range from a “mid-major” power that is the envy of many athletic directors at bigger conferences (Creighton) to a team with 20 losses that up until Sunday was probably most notable for being the former school of Duke’s Seth Curry (Liberty).
2. One of the schools that earned an automatic bid was Creighton, which made it back to the NCAA Tournament after a hard-fought victory against Wichita State that should have showcased the high level of basketball being played in the Missouri Valley Conference. Unfortunately, much of the country was unable to watch the conclusion of the championship game as CBS cut away from the end to show the start of the Indiana-Michigan game. This will not approach the level of infamy of the famous “Heidi” game, but this is a pretty big slap in the face of basketball fans across the country who are not only enticed by big brand names, but who like watching quality mid-major basketball — especially in the closing minutes of a game with an NCAA Tournament bid on the line.
3. With Creighton seemingly on its way to the new Big East, the dominoes in conference realignment have again begun to fall with some analysts speculating that the MVC could go after Belmont or Denver as a replacement for the Bluejays. Of course both teams are new to their current conferences (OVC for Belmont and WAC/Summit for Denver), which would mean that the move would inevitably trigger another cascade with the aggrieved conference pursuing the next biggest fish in the pool. At this point we are just hoping that the Catholic 7/Big East-Big East/America 12 split is the last major move of this cycle.
4. Speaking of that split, there are still a few pieces adrift in that wreckage as Notre Dame has been looking for a way out of the “old” Big East to head to the ACC. Now it appears that they may have a way with the league reportedly asking for at least $2.5 million as an exit fee. The at least modifier gives us some pause, but if that is what the sources are anchoring the discussion on, we doubt that the number would be much higher without football involved in the negotations. If true, it is interesting how far the price has fallen from the previous bargaining where the conference was asking for future football games against its schools, which would bring in much more money than $2.5 million through direct ticket sales, advertising, and television contracts.
   
5. While on the subject of all these Big Easts, the conference in its current form will holds its final conference tournament beginning Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden. We don’t care who carries on the name in the future — a league tourney that doesn’t have Syracuse, Georgetown, UConn and Pitt in it just won’t be the same. The NYT uses the prism of a block that St. John’s star Walter Berry made on Syracuse star Pearl Washington to win the 1986 Big East Tournament to tell the history of the league, and it’s well worth the next 10 minutes of your time. The two former Big East legends, each now approaching 50 years old, plan on attending the event this week — we suspect that they won’t be the only ghosts of Big East past who will be around to relive past glories and celebrate the lifetime of a league that redefined major college basketball.

Chris Johnson is an RTC C0lumnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn. 

The Weekend’s Lede. Regular Season Finale. The end is here. Sad, isn’t it? When I say end, I don’t mean the real end. That comes later, at the end of the greatest tournament in American sports. No, what I’m referring to is the regular season, the five-month long slog that took us through the uncertain fall months of non-conference play, across the New Year into a rugged conference landscape, and finally, into the brink of league tourney season. Other than the official crowning of regular season conference champions, select NCAA bids handed out in smaller leagues and a spate of meaningful bubble movement, nothing really happened over the weekend. It was sort of ordinary – if ordinary means a continuation of the craziness we’ve witnessed all season. So without further ado, I present your final regular season weekend ATB. Let’s have at it…

Your Watercooler Moment. The Big Ten Title Bout. 

A Big Ten Title was just one of the benefits Indiana will enjoy in the wake of a huge win at Michigan (Gettty Images).

The Big Ten regular season championship was up for grabs when the league’s five top teams (Indiana, Michigan State, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio State) began action Sunday afternoon. The basic expectation was that Indiana, after being manhandled at home by Ohio State earlier this week, would lose at Michigan to open up the conference crown to all kinds of contingencies and x-way split scenarios. The Buckeyes wanted a piece of the pie; Tom Izzo’s team didn’t want to be left out; and the Wolverines, well, their fate was in their own hands. The thinking was absolutely on point – the Buckeyes showed Tuesday night in Bloomington what grit and defensive focus and physicality can do to the nation’s most efficient offense, how it can throw Victor Oladipo and Christian Watford into a funk and render the Hoosiers’ hot jump shooters mostly impotent for large stretches. The optics of IU’s postgame celebration – a major national talking point the next day, oddly enough – only increased the wackiness of the entire situation. IU had fallen in a game it was widely expected to win, and the postgame ceremony was expected to include not just a celebration of Indiana’s seniors, but also the official honoring of the Hoosiers’ first outright Big Ten title since 1993. It took another five days before checking that second box, but Indiana got its long-coveted conference title. The Hoosiers sunk Michigan (and its conference title hopes) in the final minute on a debilitating string of missed UM free throws, six consecutive IU points, a crucial layup from Cody Zeller and a whole lot of late-game savvy in front of a deafening Crisler Center crowd.

An outright conference title is just one of the prizes IU shored up Sunday. Another? The inside track on landing the Lucas Oil Stadium (Indianapolis) hosting site for the NCAA Tournament, where red-and-white partisans will turn any IU game into a virtual home court advantage. Then there’s the NPOY implications – the fact that Oladipo, in the biggest game of the season, came up huge with 14 points, 13 rebounds (not to mention Zeller’s 25/10, if you still believe in Zeller’s outside shot at the POY awards) and his usual brand of supercharged defensive disruptiveness, and that Trey Burke just couldn’t get his team over the hump when it mattered most. Yes, Indiana won a lot more than standings supremacy over the nation’s toughest league. Just days after a puzzling loss, the Hoosiers now roll into postseason play with utmost confidence in their ability to make good on the preseason No. 1 ranking.

Also Worth Chatting About. Wildcats Buck up in Must-Win Finale.

The Wildcats seized the biggest resume boost available in the SEC by knocking off Florida at home (Getty Images).

Like any historically dominant sports entity, Kentucky has its share of location-agnostic dissidents within its sport. It is one of two teams, along with Duke, to drown in the national hatred. The Wildcats are blue, well-funded, a self-generating news cycle and in most seasons, good. Kentucky is good; oceans hold water; the sky is blue (you get the point). Making that argument would have seemed a bit silly for much of this season, with the possible exception of a mid-season stretch where the Wildcats tore off five straight wins, watched Nerlens Noel develop into a bona fide defensive star and potential lottery pick, and laid waste to most of the NCAA Tournament doubts heaved their way during an uninspiring non-conference performance. When Noel lost his season to an ACL injury in a road defeat at Florida, the stakes changed. Kentucky needed to show the selection committee that it belonged in the Tournament without its best and most important player. It needed to prove it was good, again. The only sign of goodness prior to Saturday from this current UK team came in an inspired overtime win over Missouri. The rest of the Wildcats’ Noel-less work, including road losses at Arkansas and Georgia, was less than inspiring. Kentucky had work to do before its at-large credentials could be considered even reasonably acceptable by selection committee standards.

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Danny Spewak (@dspewak) is an RTC correspondent. He filed this report from the Scottrade Center following Sunday’s Missouri Valley championship game.

Three Key Takeaways.

Creighton Will Get To Strut Its Stuff In the NCAAs

1. The Last Hurrah: Rumors have swirled all weekend about Creighton’s departure to the Big East, and there’s a widespread feeling here in St. Louis that the Bluejays will never make this pilgrimage to Arch Madness ever again. That’s sad for the nostalgic and sentimental folks in the Valley, but if it’s the last time Creighton ever competes in this tournament, it could not have exited in more memorable fashion. After Doug McDermott shook off a poor first half to help his team open up a double-digit lead late in the second half, Wichita State nearly erased a 13-point deficit with 4:21 remaining in regulation. Malcolm Armstead, the hero of the afternoon with a career-high 28 points for the Shockers, had a chance to tie the game at the buzzer but missed wide left off the rim with a hand in his face. “I didn’t get a good look like I should have,” Armstead said. And so the Creighton faithful stormed the floor, One Shining Moment played a few minutes later, and the Shockers once again walked away from St. Louis without an Arch Madness title — they’ve never won this championship in this city. The Bluejays, on the other hand, have owned this league, and they’ve now won two straight MVC Tournament titles. “It says a lot about how special a group of guys we have,” Creighton’s Gregory Echenique said. “I’m just glad we were able to accomplish this and prove a lot of people wrong.” Heck of a way to say goodbye.
2. Defensive Battle: It’s the old chicken-or-the-egg argument: Was Sunday’s title game a display of good defense or bad offense? The two teams both shot just south of 35 percent from the floor, and the first five minutes of the game were nothing short of brutal on the offensive end. Creighton and Wichita State combined to start 0-of-14 from the field, even though they warmed up after releasing a little nervous energy. The physicality had to have taken a toll. The officials allowed the players to play what looked like a controlled brawl. “To me, it felt like we were Muhammad Ali out there, boxing the whole time,” Wichita’s Ron Baker said. “Went through all the rounds.” That’s a pretty accurate description of the game. Everybody got on the floor. Everybody hacked each other, call or no call. In the end, it facilitated a rough but entertaining basketball game. Read the rest of this entry »

Daniel Evans (@bracketexpert) is RTC’s new resident bracketologist. According to Bracket Matrix, he ranks as one of the top 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.

• New in This Update:
  • Saturday was one of the busiest days of the year. Florida Gulf Coast, Harvard, and Belmont clinched NCAA Tournament spots by clinching automatic bids.
  • Kansas is off the No. 1 line after losing badly to Baylor. Georgetown replaces the Jayhawks after routing Syracuse on Saturday, although it was a close comparison between the Hoyas and Cardinals.
  • Florida is off the No. 2 line after losing to Kentucky. Meanwhile, the Wildcats move into my Last Four In after the come from behind win to defeat the Gators.
  • It seemed like more underdogs won their favorites on Saturday. New Mexico fell off the No. 2 line after losing to Air Force late.  Minnesota continued to slide after losing an ugly game to Purdue. Tennessee knocked off Missouri, Oklahoma lost to TCU, NC State fell at Florida State, and Utah dominated Oregon.

LAST FOUR IN: Colorado, Kentucky, La Salle, Saint Mary’s (last team in)
FIRST FOUR OUT: Virginia (first team out), Mississippi, Alabama, Baylor
NEXT FOUR OUT: Southern Miss, Iowa, Maryland, Xavier

NOTE: Projected conference champions (or auto bid winners) are in capital letters.

(full bracket after the jump)

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