Saturday was a ridiculous elimination day with a total of 42 teams dropping off of our Circle of March. Granted, four of those schools were simply Great West teams finishing up their regular season, and another six were A-10 and SWAC schools who did not qualify for their respective conference tournaments. But 32 other teams were beaten in knockout games from 15 conferences in one of the busiest days of Championship Fortnight. We won’t list them all here, but the biggest name off our CoM is the two-time national runner-up, Butler, who was taken apart by Valparaiso in the Horizon League semifinals yesterday. We are now at 216 teams still alive for the 2012 national champoinship, which means that in just over six days, we’ve already eliminated over 100 schools from contention.

Sunday is a bit less busy than yesterday with eight tournaments in action and the MVC the only one among those to have a championship game. More importantly, we’re now only one week from the best hour in American sports — the revealing of the official bracket.

The first three NCAA Tournament bids were earned on Saturday afternoon, so as each of the 31 automatic qualifiers plays their way into the Dance over the next week, we’ll take some time to give you an analytical snapshot of each team that you can refer back to when you’re picking your brackets next weekend.

UNC Asheville

UNCA Was the First Team to Dance This Year (E. Brethauer/Citizen-Times)

• Big South Champion (24-9, 19-2)
• RPI/Pomeroy/Sagarin = #108/#123/#128
• Adjusted Scoring Margin = +4.7
• Likely NCAA Seed: #16 (First Four)

Three Bruce Pearls of Wisdom.

1. UNC-Asheville is one of the smallest teams in America, sporting a starting lineup that goes between 6’1″ and 6’5″.  Their next three players off the bench are roughly the same size, which means that UNCA’s primary objective each night is to make the game into a full-court running affair. The Bulldogs are among the top 35 fastest tempos nationally, and you might expect them to rely heavily on the three-ball, but that’s not the case. Asheville’s offense instead seeks to drive the ball into the paint to shoot twos (52.5% 2FGs) and pick up fouls (77.4% FTs).
2. The straws that stir the Bulldog attack are the backcourt duo of JP Primm and Matt Dickey, both all-Big South selections (Dickey was the conference POY). The pair of seniors are both capable shooters and distributors who played well in last year’s First Four win against Arkansas-Little Rock and subsequent loss to #1 seed Pittsburgh. They’ve played enough high major teams in their careers — North Carolina, NC State, Connecticut, Tennessee in just this year — so that they’re unlikely to get rattled.
3. The best matchup for the Bulldogs would be another undersized First Four team that does not defend well, allowing the uptempo guards of Primm and Dickey to pick their spots and make things happen. Their next round game against a #1 seed is unlikely to matter in terms of a favorable matchup, but clearly bigger teams would be more difficult for Eddie Biedenbach’s team to handle. The Bulldogs were competitive with each of the power conference teams mentioned above.

Murray State

• OVC Champion (30-1, 17-1)
• RPI/Pomeroy/Sagarin = #24/#47/#41
• Adjusted Scoring Margin = +10.6
• Likely NCAA Seed: #4-#6

Read the rest of this entry »

Friday was a massive day of conference tournaments around college basketball nation, with 22 more teams ultimately losing their shot at the 2012 national title. The unlucky group includes: Canisius, Tennessee Tech, Indiana State, Drake, College of Charleston, James Madison, The Citadel, Towson, Northern Iowa, William & Mary, East Tennessee State, Youngstown State, Samford, St. Peter’s, Chattanooga, Milwaukee, Hofstra, Mercer, Loyola Marymount, Morehead State, Missouri State and San Diego. We also removed two Ivy League teams, as Princeton and Yale were eliminated as that conference closes out its regular season schedule this weekend (but for one game Tuesday). Note that William & Mary ended its 74th season in a row without an NCAA bid tonight, and Towson’s miserable 1-31 season mercifully came to an end as well. Better luck next year, guys.

Saturday is a HUGE day of tournaments, with no fewer than 15 mini-Dances occurring all around the country, including three championships that will result in the first three automatic bids for this year’s NCAA Tourney. Also, if Harvard wins and Penn loses, the Crimson will join the Dance for the first time since 1946. We’ve got an exciting day ahead of us…

Last night 14 more teams were eliminated from National Championship contention from seven different conference tournaments. Those schools were: Bradley, Charleston Southern, Jacksonville State, Monmouth, North Florida, Pepperdine, Portland, Sacred Heart, South Carolina Upstate. Southeast Missouri State, Southern Illinois, St. Francis (NY), UMBC, and Winthrop. The one surprise team among this group was #2 Big South seed Charleston Southern seeing its season end at the hands of VMI. From 296 down to 282…

Three more conference tourneys tip off today — the CAA, MAAC, and SoCon — with four others starting tomorrow. Gonna be a fun weekend throughout mid-major land.

And now after three nights we start to see some holes forming in the Circle of March, as a total of 14 teams were eliminated from national championship contention. Say good bye to the following 13 schools who lost in their conference tournaments last night — Army, Austin Peay, Campbell, Coastal Carolina, Colgate, Eastern Kentucky, High Point, Holy Cross, Jacksonville, Liberty, Lipscomb, Navy, and Santa Clara. We also removed Longwood, an Independent, because the Lancers finished their season with a loss at Seattle last night. It was a tough Wednesday for the service academies and the ghost of Jerry Falwell, we suppose.

Tonight three more conference tournaments tip off — the Missouri Valley, the NEC, and the America East — while the A-Sun, OVC, Big South and WCC continue, which means it will be a big knockout evening for the Circle. As of this moment, though, there are still 296 schools alive for the 2012 national championship.

It’s the third day of “March” and already we’ve eliminated 10 teams from our Circle in just the first two nights. On Tuesday, the Horizon League opening round tipped off with all four home teams winning their games, leaving Wright State, Loyola (Chicago), Illinois-Chicago and Green Bay on the outside looking in this year. Furthermore, the Big Sky Conference finished off its regular season last night, so the three teams not invited to next weekend’s tournament were also eliminated — Northern Arizona, Northern Colorado, and Sacramento State. Better luck next year, fellas.

Tonight is the first big night of Championship Fortnight. The Atlantic Sun, OVC, Patriot League, and WCC all tip off with opening round games, and the Big South returns for its quarterfinal round. The Horizon League won’t be back in action until Friday for its quarterfinal round, hosted by top-seed Valparaiso.

The first night of Championship Fortnight went off without a hitch, as the Big South Tournament began its opening round Monday with Radford and Gardner-Webb the first victims of elimination through tournament action (grayed out below). Four more teams will be knocked out tonight as the Horizon League tips off its tournament at various home sites.

One programming note since we received a methodology question yesterday. Since Cornell, Columbia, Brown and Dartmouth were already mathematically eliminated from the Ivy League’s regular season “tournament,” those four teams were excluded originally along with several other ineligible schools (due to APR, transitional, etc.). With no automatic bid to the NCAA in place, we decided to provide the remaining Great West Conference schools and Independent teams the courtesy of staying in the CoM until their regular seasons were complete. As such, we also eliminated Cal State Bakersfield in this version.

It may still read February on your calendar, but the Big South Tournament tips off tonight and therefore it’s time to start the 35-day journey from 321 teams alive to only one left standing — colloquially known around here as The Best Time of the Year. As we did last season, we’re going to represent this visually with our 2012 version of the Circle of March. We’ll remove teams each day as they’re eliminated from contention.