As we get ready for out last weekend of the regular season, we start with a quick look back at the last few months before we get ready to look ahead to the bulk of March. As such, we asked a simple question:

What has been your favorite moment this season?

Adam Butler: The best moment is one of my favorite questions. Certainly at a time of year (I think I’ve used that as a lead like 200 times thus far in just one week of March) when just a single moment can define so much. But across the course of about thirty games per team, over wins and losses, ups and downs, there have been so many. Cobbs, Gordon, and Drew II have all beat the buzzer. Chen tried to. The conference had its first matchup of ranked opponents since March 2009. Game Day visited the Conference and Bill Walton grabbed the torch (or bullhorn) of touting the Pac’s return. There’s been so much to enjoy all the season long and, to be completely honest, the year’s most memorable moment is yet to come. Something is going to happen inside the MGM, or someone is going to do something in the Dance we’ll talk about for years to come, “Remember when…” But to that effect, I’m going to make the homer pick. Because as Arizona had the improbable opportunity to take the lead at home against Florida, I was squatting on top of my couch. I had two friends locked in arms to my left and an air of tension thicker than Kaleb Tarczewski. The Lyons floater fell and we (in my apartment and in Tucson) went controllably wild. And then the backboard went red and we went uncontrollably wild. My kinda moment.

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Friday was a really active day on the Circle, as 19 more teams bid adieu to the 2012-13 season. We’re now down to 259 teams still alive for the 2013 national championship. And guess what — on Saturday we’ll crown our first automatic bid winner, out of the OVC. The Madness is here…

Teams Eliminated From National Title Contention (03.07.13)

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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:

• As the start of major conference tournaments near, the bubble is starting to take shape. In my Bubble Watch column on Friday, I added Creighton, North Carolina, and Illinois to my growing list of NCAA Tournament locks. In other words, this is a scary time for bubble teams.
• Kentucky is one of the more interesting bubble cases this season. The Wildcats have not been the same without Nerlens Noel, considering they lost to Tennessee by 30 and fell to Georgia on Thursday night. The ‘Cats probably need a win against Florida on Saturday to get into the field as an at-large, barring a trip to the SEC Tournament final.
• Meanwhile, Tennessee survived at Auburn on Wednesday to stay in my field. Virginia wasn’t as lucky against Boston College, but the Cavaliers stay in my field as the last team in. Virginia has six good wins and seven bad losses. If a couple of teams lose in their conference tournaments (Belmont, Middle Tennessee, Creighton), the Cavaliers and teams around them on my S-curve will be sweating on Selection Sunday.
• The race for No. 1 seeds continues to be a headache. Gonzaga appears locked in, barring a loss in the WCC Tournament. If the Bulldogs lose, I’m not sure what the committee will do with them. Indiana and Duke also appear to be No. 1 seeds right now, with the Blue Devils the strongest of the No.1  profiles. Duke hasn’t just been good with Ryan Kelly, they’ve been undefeated. Indiana has hit a rocky stretch, but the Hoosiers still have the look and overall profile of a No. 1 seed. Georgetown’s loss to Villanova on Wednesday makes me more confident that Kansas is the final No. 1 seed. Louisville is the team to watch. The Cardinals are on the move and Florida isn’t too far behind (only two losses when completely healthy).
• I will be updating this bracket more frequently during the upcoming week, so be sure to stay tuned for that. Eight days before Selection Sunday, I’m waiting for the madness to begin. Saturday should be a great start.

BID STEALERS TO WATCH:

• Murray State (OVC — Belmont is a bubble team)
• Indiana State & Illinois State (MVC — Creighton & Wichita State are probably in)
• Loyola Marymount & BYU/San Diego (WCC – Gonzaga is a lock. Saint Mary’s may be in either way).

This file was set for publishing before the BYU-San Diego game went final on Friday night.

LAST FOUR IN: Saint Mary’s, La Salle, Tennessee, Virginia
FIRST FOUR OUT: Mississippi, Alabama, Baylor, Kentucky
NEXT FOUR OUT: Arizona State, Southern Miss, Providence, Maryland

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

(full bracket after the jump)

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When Utah hosts Oregon today at the Huntsman Center, it will not only be a game that has a major impact on our eventual Pac-12 regular season champion, it will also be the day where five Ute seniors will be honored in their final home game. Among that group will be one guy – David Foster – who hasn’t played a minute in either of the school’s two seasons in the Pac-12 (and yet who still will go down as the all-time leader in blocks at the school), another – Ryan Osterloh – who has earned a total of six minutes this season (and in his career), a third – Jarred DuBois – who only played one season in Salt Lake City, after parts of four at Loyola Marymount, and a fourth – Cedric Martin – who spent just two years wearing the Block U and is averaging just 7.4 points per game this year. All of these guys have their own stories and all make for an interesting take (until just moments ago, Foster was going to be the main target of this post), but today we’re going to look at the career of senior center Jason Washburn.

There Hasn’t Been Much Team Success, But Jason Washburn Has Steadily Improved In His Four Seasons

After a redshirt season to start his career with the Utes under then-head coach Jim Boylen, Washburn got his playing time started in 2009-10, at the same time as Foster returned from his LDS mission for his sophomore season, giving those Utes their version of a twin tower frontcourt. That year’s Utah team also featured Marshall Henderson as a freshman in near-constant danger of slipping into meltdown mode and  junior Carlon Brown in the midst of yet again failing to live up to the potential he had flashed as a freshman two years earlier. Washburn was clearly playing second fiddle in the middle to Foster in his first year, earning just a third of the minutes available to him, but flashed plenty of potential in posting a career-high offensive rating (according to Ken Pomeroy), shooting free throws at an unsustainable 86% rate, and blocking better than 6% of his opponents two-point field goals, that last one a number that stayed pretty steady.

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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 33 locks along the right column. Basically, that number means that if none of my “locks” clinches an automatic bid for the NCAA Tournament, there are only four at-large spots available. In most years, an average of around six “locks” win automatic bids, meaning there are 10 unclinched spots for the NCAA Tournament. I also have five teams in the “should be in” category, meaning I project their odds of getting an at-large bid at 70% or higher. If those teams ultimately get in, there are five total spots available for the teams you see below in my bubble watch. Remember that bid stealers will potentially shrink that number.

LOCKS: 33
“SHOULD BE INS”: 5
TOTAL: 38 (minus six for projected auto bid winners = 32)
PROJECTED AT-LARGE SPOTS AVAILABLE: 5

• Odds Improving: North Carolina (now a lock), Illinois (lock), Memphis
• Odds Decreasing: Baylor, Louisiana Tech

BELMONT CAN MAKE THINGS EASIER ON BUBBLE TEAMS SATURDAY

If Belmont wins on Saturday against Murray State, bubble teams can sleep a little better on Saturday night. The Bruins are in position to potentially steal an at-large bid if they need one. If they win the OVC, we can take them off the bubble, leaving a spot that may or may not be there depending on how the committee evaluates Belmont. The Bruins have six wins against the top 100, so they’d probably be right on the cut line.

UPDATED THROUGH ALL GAMES OF MARCH 8, 2013

ACC: Four Locks, Two Bubble Teams

LOCKS:

Virginia (20-10, 10-7; RPI: 64): The Cavaliers have been a strange bubble case all season. They have some of the worst losses a bubble team can have, but they also had six impressive wins.  One of those wins is against Duke. Virginia’s lost to Florida State on Thursday night once again showed how up and down this team can be. The finale against Maryland is now a must win and a few wins in the ACC Tournament are needed as well. AT-LARGE ODDS: 50%Maryland (20-10, 8-9; RPI: 84): Maryland has two great wins (Duke, N. C. State) and absolutely nothing behind them. I have a hard team seeing this team getting an at-large bid without a win at Virginia on Saturday and a deep run in the ACC Tournament. AT-LARGE ODDS: 45%

Atlantic 10: Three Locks, Four Bubble Teams

LOCKS:

La Salle (21-7, 11-4; RPI: 38): La Salle has five wins over the RPI top 100 including victories against Butler and VCU, two of the Atlantic 10’s best teams. The Explorers only have one bad loss, which came in mid-November against Central Connecticut State. The season finale against Butler is gigantic for their at-large hopes. AT-LARGE ODDS: 50% Temple (22-8, 10-5; RPI: 41): The Owls are the kind of team that makes a bracketologist’s job very difficult. A win over Syracuse looks fantastic, but losses to Canisius, St. Bonaventure, Saint Joseph’s, and Xavier cannot be ignored. Six straight wins, including a comeback victory against Detroit, has the Owls on the good side of the bubble right now. The season finale against VCU on Saturday could make or break the Owls’ season. AT-LARGE ODDS: 50% Massachusetts (18-10, 8-7; RPI: 54): Massachusetts lost three straight games before back to back wins against Xavier and Dayton. The Minutemen only have one win against the RPI top 50, but seven against the RPI top 100. Thursday night’s loss to Butler may have sealed this team’s fate though. Massachusetts has some decent wins (as I noted) but nothing that really catches attention. AT-LARGE ODDS: 40% Charlotte (18-10, 6-8; RPI: 70): Six losses in sevens games a few weeks ago pushed the 49ers to the brink of at-large elimination. Wins over La Salle and Butler keep them here, but they have to win their season finale versus Saint Joseph’s and make the Atlantic Ten final. AT-LARGE ODDS: 35%

Big 12: Three Locks, Three Bubble Teams

LOCKS:

Oklahoma (20-9, 11-6; RPI: 25): The Sooners have great wins against Oklahoma and Kansas to go along with six other top 100 victories. If Oklahoma can take of business against TCU in their season finale, they appear to be in great shape. It is hard to see this team missing the tournament at this juncture. AT-LARGE ODDS: 75% Iowa State (20-10, 10-7; RPI: 51): It’s really too bad that the Cyclones could not finish off what would have been a huge upset over Kansas last Tuesday. At least Iowa State did rebound by winning against Oklahoma State on Wednesday inight. There is still work to be done. A must win game at West Virginia ends the season. AT-LARGE ODDS: 50% Baylor (17-13, 8-9; RPI: 61): After a buzzer beating loss to Kansas State on Saturday, Baylor is left with only win against a sure NCAA Tournament team (Oklahoma State) and eight losses against the RPI top 30. This looks like a season of lost opportunities. The good news is a game against Kansas remains on the schedule. Beating the Jayawks on March 9 might be a must win for the Bears to get into the field as an at-large. AT-LARGE ODDS: 40%

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Deepak is a writer for the Big Ten microsite of RTC. Follow him on Twitter for more about B1G hoops at @dee_b1g.

After playing 17 games and beating up on each other for over two months, the Big Ten regular season champion will be determined during the final weekend. Only four teams – Michigan State, Michigan, Ohio State, and Indiana – are in contention for the regular season title, but there are some other match-ups whose outcome will play a huge factor in the seeding for the NCAA Tournament (Minnesota, Illinois) or keep their hopes for a bid alive (Iowa). Let’s review the key games for this weekend.

Trevor Mbakwe and the Gophers need to figure out their issues on the offensive end of the court against Purdue. (AP)

• Minnesota at Purdue (12:00 PM EST, Big Ten Network): Matt Painter should be a candidate for the Big Ten Coach of the Year award because after a rough start during the non-conference season, Painter’s young team has tremendously improved and it may be one of the hottest teams in the league right now. As if winning on the road in Madison wasn’t impressive enough, they almost took down Michigan on Wednesday night in West Lafayette. If Sandi Marcius hadn’t left the game during the second half with an ankle sprain, they may have upset the Wolverines because he was playing terrific defense in the paint against Michigan’s pick-and-roll. Combine their recent intensity along with the emotions of Senior Day in West Lafayette, and D.J. Byrd and company will give the Gophers a tough time on Saturday. The Gophers will enter this game with their own issues on the offensive end as they scored fewer than 50 points against Nebraska on the road. Tubby Smith’s team is a near-lock for the NCAA Tournament but losing two games on the road to finish the regular season against teams that won’t sniff the Dance will hurt their seeding. A loss to Purdue and a 1-1 record in the Big Ten Tournament may put them in the #10 seed range on Selection Sunday. Read the rest of this entry »

Danny Spewak (@dspewak) is an RTC Correspondent. He’ll cover the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament in St. Louis through Sunday. 

Gregg Marshall loves Gatorade. A lot. During the final minute of Friday’s Missouri Valley Conference quarterfinal victory over Missouri State, the Wichita State head coach downed his second whole bottle of the game with a big, frat party-like chug and then immediately received a third bottle from a manager. That’s a lot of sugar, but you can’t mess with routine. Marshall always carefully places a bottle of Gatorade – with the label peeled off, of course — and a white cup on top of the scorer’s table and then pours the liquid into the cup right before tip-off. Always. No exceptions. His stress level appears to determine how much Gatorade he drinks on a given night.

Marshall and Wichita State Move Into the MVC Semis

On Friday, that stress level seemed through the roof— from an outsider’s perspective, at least. It’s impossible to know what actually went through Marshall’s head during his team’s 69-59 victory over the seventh-seeded Bears, but this game seemed like the very definition of a “trap game.” Wichita State, the second seed in Arch Madness after losing to Creighton on the final day of the regular season, simply needed to win. It could win ugly. It could win pretty. It could win any way it wanted, but most self-proclaimed bracketologists had the Shockers somewhere in the vicinity of the bubble. Beating Missouri State didn’t change that, but a loss in the quarterfinals might have sounded the alert system in the National Invitational Tournament offices. Injuries aside – and there have been a lot of them this year for Marshall – the Shockers have simply lost too many bad games already. It’s not easy to win on the road in an underrated league like the Valley, but a loss at Southern Illinois and a sweep at the hands of a decent-but-not-elite Evansville team is indefensible.

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In advance of Arizona’s senior day, Adam Butler of Pachoops.com offers up his thoughts on Arizona’s three big-time seniors getting ready to play their final home game in front of the McKale Center crowd.

I’ll never forget the first time I saw Kevin Parrom play. It was mid-December 2009 and the young New Yorker was tentatively back from a foot injury sustained during preseason practice. He’d played just two minutes in the game prior – his season debut – at NC State. There was significant hype around this one; after all, he was touted as the player Sean Miller had been recruiting the longest who had been released from his Letter of Intent to play for him at Xavier. He followed Miller to the desert and became the first Wildcat in the Sean Miller era. Back to the game, many of the details are fuzzy. I can tell you that I’d finagled phenomenal seats and that the final score was a helluva lot to a little. Jimmer Fredette scored many points and my lasting Parrom memory – one of two memories from this game – was his missing of a banked free throw. He’d go 0-of-5 from the line that night. “Indeed a freshman,” I thought. Oh, and my second memory? The four rounds of projectile vomiting I spread through multiple locations across the McKale Center as a result of a bad – nay, miserable – pastrami sandwich from earlier that day. I’d spend the following 36 hours consumption-less, motionless in bed.

Kevin Parrom Has Helped Bring A Helping Of Toughness To Sean Miller’s Program

OK, so enough about me. Kevin Parrom has lived a life of resiliency. This is the young man that has thrice sustained foot injuries that have kept him out of the lineup for extended periods. That’s rough. But it doesn’t hold a candle to Kevin off the court. The Cliff Notes version will have me tell you that in the course of just a handful of months, Kevin lost his grandmother and mother and survived a murder attempt – a  moment he’s reminded of every day with the bullet lodged in his leg. I can’t do the story its due tragic justice, so please, read this. These events were more than a curve ball. They were a Mariano cutter dealt to break this young man. But it didn’t. Kevin Parrom is still here and he plays basketball for Arizona and he plays it well. His style is a direct extension of his coach: thorough, hard nosed, direct, and competitive. An even more direct extension of the woman who raised him, Lisa Williams. Which is the backstory to one of the toughest Wildcats we’ve ever had the privilege to watch; the off court resilience just confirming the player who won’t quit on it. Parrom has played any and every role for the Wildcats, most recently being moved into the starting lineup to better capture the energy he plays with. He’s been the spark Arizona needed on countless nights and is a basketball enthusiast’s dream. One might call him a jack-of-all-trades, master of none; to which I might not argue (although he holds the 34^th highest ORtg in the nation). But he’s master of knowing which trade his team needs most and when, an asset any coach would want. Whatever Parrom’s legacy is, he’ll be remembered for his guts and his heart. What more could we have asked for from our first – new – Wildcat?

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In this week’s power rankings, we consider each team’s ceiling in the upcoming Big Ten Tournament. This week’s voters were Deepak Jayanti, Joey Nowak and Kevin Trahan.

1. Indiana — Despite their flaws, including two home losses during Big Ten play, the Hoosiers remain in this top spot mostly because no one has made a real good case to claim it from them. Ohio State is the hottest team in the conference right now but doesn’t have the same body of work or depth of talent that the Hoosiers have. If Indiana can beat Michigan this weekend, they’ll leave no doubt that they were the best team in the conference during one of the Big Ten’s all-time best seasons. If they lose, they won’t really have much that makes them stand out above the rest. Ceiling for the Big Ten Tournament: The Hoosiers are built for tournament success. They’re the deepest team in the Big Ten, which makes playing three games in three days much easier to handle. They match up well enough with everybody in the conference and have two of the best players in the Big Ten. Anything but a championship next weekend in Chicago will be a disappointment.
   

   Despite their flaws, Cody Zeller and Indiana remain in the top spot of our power rankings. (Getty)

2. Michigan — It wasn’t pretty, but a win is a win on the road in the Big Ten and that’s exactly what Michigan pulled out this week at Purdue. Now the Wolverines can refocus on their new biggest game of the season, this weekend against Indiana. Both teams are vulnerable, and the Wolverines have the benefit of playing on their home floor, where they have not lost this season. One last chance for Trey Burke to prove he deserves the Big Ten (and/or National) Player of the Year. Ceiling in the Big Ten Tournament: Some of the things that have made the Wolverines great — their three-point shooting and their talented freshmen — are things that can come back to bite you in tournament play. When you rely so heavily on the long ball or inexperienced players, those things can falter when you’re playing every day on a quick turnaround. But Michigan has been steady all season in both departments, and there’s no reason they can’t ride that wave to the championship.
3. Ohio State — Look at where the Buckeyes have suddenly ended up. After seemingly playing their way out of the conference race with three losses in four games, we’ve come to realize that basically every team in the conference has at least one of those stretches this season and it’s not going to determine the fate of their season. So after huge wins against Minnesota and Michigan State and a terrific performance at Assembly Hall against Indiana, the Buckeyes have catapulted themselves back into the mix and shaken things up in the standings. All of a sudden, the tiebreakers indicate the Buckeyes could enter the Big Ten Tournament as the #2 seed. And with the way Aaron Craft is playing, the Buckeyes are defending, and they’re playing even with a subpar Deshaun Thomas, who says they can’t win it? Ceiling in the Big Ten Tournament: Like I said, with things clicking the way they are (the Buckeyes have to be the hottest team in the conference right now), who says they can’t win the whole thing? Of course they could be one-and-done (it’s hard to believe they’ll continue to roll with Thomas not reaching his average), particularly with such little depth, but they have the pieces. It may not be likely, but that’s their ceiling. Read the rest of this entry »

From the moment it was first rumored, the relocation of the conference tournament to Las Vegas has created quite a buzz among Pac-12 basketball fans. Adam Butler (@pachoopsAB) of PacHoops will be here every week as he offers his unique perspective along our March to Vegas.

We set out on this march to get to Vegas to determine a champion. From our armchairs or the stands, we’ve watched and discussed and texted and blogged and done it all over again trying to determine the ins and outs of what’s proven to be quite the march. And if you’ll recall, it all began with Sabatino Chen’s shot. The one where he was frantically trying to not dribble out the clock of a tie game, the ball with him despite having connected on just a handful of career shots, let alone threes. He heaved the ball, right over Kevin Parrom’s outstretched arm – our eyes collectively following its trajectory, our breaths collectively held. Glass. Nylon. The officials would then see something on their monitor replays that perhaps the rest of us did not.

A Season That Started With This Suspense Has Seen Many Surprising Stories.

Which is not unlike the fact that none of us saw Oregon making a run through Pac-12 play as the wire-to-wire conference leader. Projected to finish seventh, the Ducks have spent all of, what, one day not in first place? They’ve received POY-worthy efforts from Arsalan Kazemi and COY-worthy leadership from Dana Altman. Again, if we’re looking into our own monitors, we probably wouldn’t have seen this or even E.J. Singler hitting a season-long shooting slump or Dominic Artis’ MVP value. We also would have missed Arizona’s late season implosion – perhaps a bit steep of a word – but this is a team that was once 14-0 and ranked third among more than 340 D-I teams. Today they’re not third in their own 12-team conference. Never saw that coming. Or that the Wildcats’ own vaunted class of bigs would average just 6.4 PPG and 4.9 RPG.

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