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.

Now that we are within two weeks of Selection Sunday, I will be posting a little more frequently to show how certain games can/will affect the NCAA Tournament field. As usual, Wednesday night is loaded with some gigantic games. Let’s look at three teams that need big wins tonight:

Hoiberg’s Team Would Do Well to Win Tonight

• Villanova (vs. Georgetown): If the Wildcats can get past the Hoyas, a team that seems destined for a top two seed, Villanova will be in pretty good shape. A win tonight would push them to 10-8 in the Big East and give them a nice W to pair with earlier wins over Louisville and Syracuse. Coming off two straight losses, Villanova cannot afford another setback.
• Iowa State (vs. Oklahoma State): If Iowa State loses tonight, the Cyclones could miss the NCAA Tournament. If a call or two had gone differently in one of the losses to Kansas, I probably would not have Iowa State on this list. The Cyclones only have two wins against the RPI top 50 and their best two wins (Kansas State, Oklahoma) probably are not enough alone to get them into the field.  Like Villanova, Iowa State cannot afford a three-game losing streak at this point of the season.
• Maryland (vs. North Carolina): Outside of wins against Duke and North Carolina State, Maryland’s profile is very weak. The Terrapins need this game at home against North Carolina to realistically stay in the hunt for a bid heading into the ACC Tournament. North Carolina is practically locked in right now, but a win over the Terps would sew that up. The Tar Heels won the first meeting in Chapel Hill by 10 points.

No. 1 Seeds in Conference Tournaments in Action Tonight:

• Atlantic Sun: Mercer (vs. Lipscomb)
• Patriot League: Bucknell (vs. Navy)

Nick Fasulo is an RTC correspondent who writes the column College Basketball By the Tweets, a look at the world of college hoops through the prism of everyone’s favorite social media platform. You can find him on Twitter @nickfasuloSBN.

Before I go to bed, I always, always, always put my phone on silent. I don’t want to come out of my slumber for any reason, so part of my nightly routine is to flip that switch on my phone before flipping the light off and hitting the hay. Inexplicably, that critical step to setting my phone to silent was missed the other night, and around one in the morning, my phone started buzzing.

https://twitter.com/BobbyBancroft/status/308805192328048640

And kept buzzing.

https://twitter.com/TroyMachir/status/308805349845118976

Then buzzed some more.

https://twitter.com/RobDauster/status/308805700279230464

I’ll be sure to never make that mistake again, especially in March, when old Syracuse tape seems to always be rolling as late night programming.

Victor Oladipo Blowing Our Minds

The Internet has run out of real words to describe Victor Oladipo’s hops. This, coming after he shocked the heck out of Ohio State’s Shannon Scott in transition Tuesday night. Oladipo took off from two steps within the free throw line, put his head level with the hoop and covered what looked like 100 square feet in the matter of a second for the clean swat.

https://twitter.com/jeffborzello/status/309145175312175104

https://twitter.com/natekotisso/status/309145183377838080

https://twitter.com/ESPNDanaOneil/status/309145195872661504

https://twitter.com/eamonnbrennan/status/309145214965149696

https://twitter.com/ShitHoosiersSay/status/309145177447079936

Ben Howland Plays Beer Pong

Read the rest of this entry »

Nick Fasulo is an RTC correspondent who writes the column College Basketball By the Tweets, a look at the world of college hoops through the prism of everyone’s favorite social media platform. You can find him on Twitter @nickfasuloSBN.

Before I go to bed, I always, always, always put my phone on silent. I don’t want to come out of my slumber for any reason, so part of my nightly routine is to flip that switch on my phone before flipping the light off and hitting the hay. Inexplicably, that critical step to setting my phone to silent was missed the other night, and around one in the morning, my phone started buzzing.

@nickfasulosbn I found Billy Edelin.He’s on ESPN Classic right now.

— Bobby Bancroft (@BobbyBancroft) March 5, 2013

And kept buzzing.

Hahahahahaha RT @bobbybancroft @nickfasulosbn I found Billy Edelin. He’s on ESPN Classic right now.

— Troy Machir (@TroyMachir) March 5, 2013

Then buzzed some more.

Lololol RT @bobbybancroft: @nickfasulosbn I found Billy Edelin.He’s on ESPN Classic right now.

— Rob Dauster (@RobDauster) March 5, 2013

I’ll be sure to never make that mistake again, especially in March, when old Syracuse tape seems to always be rolling as late night programming.

Victor Oladipo Blowing Our Minds

The Internet has run out of real words to describe Victor Oladipo’s hops. This, coming after he shocked the heck out of Ohio State’s Shannon Scott in transition Tuesday night. Oladipo took off from two steps within the free throw line, put his head level with the hoop and covered what looked like 100 square feet in the matter of a second for the clean swat.

Ohmygoladipo.

— Jeff Borzello (@jeffborzello) March 6, 2013

OH-LAH-DEE-PUH

— Nate Kotisso (@natekotisso) March 6, 2013

How does Victor Oladipo do that?

— Dana O’Neil (@ESPNDanaOneil) March 6, 2013

VICTOR OH MY GAWWWW

— Eamonn Brennan (@eamonnbrennan) March 6, 2013

Oladipo say no no no.

— ShitHoosiersSay (@ShitHoosiersSay) March 6, 2013

Ben Howland Plays Beer Pong

Read the rest of this entry »

We dropped the Circle of March from 310 teams to 303 on Tuesday, as the Big South and Horizon League Tournaments both got under way with seven games between them. The list of yesterday’s eliminated teams is underneath the CoM, but suffice it to say that you are unlikely to miss any of them. Today we’ll have five more league tourneys get under way — the Atlantic Sun, the NEC, the OVC, the Patriot League, and the WCC — which means a good number of logos will drop off the Circle in the next 24 hours. Check back Thursday to see how it looks!

Teams Eliminated From National Title Contention (03.05.13)

*Note that with the exception of the Ivy League, which has no postseason tournament, we will remove non-qualifiers for their conference tournaments at the end of the conference’s regular season.

• Radford
• UNC-Asheville
• Presbyterian
• Coastal Carolina
• Loyola (IL)
• Cleveland State
• Wisconsin-Milwaukee

1. One of the fundamental signs of intelligence is being able to learn from your mistakes so you can imagine our surprise when it came out that USC was interviewing Tim Floyd for its coaching vacancy. For those of you who may have forgotten Floyd resigned in 2009 amid accusations of his players (see Mayo, OJ) receiving improper benefits. It hasn’t been four years since that fiasco, but if you need a refresher you can check out our post from June 2009 on Floyd’s departure. In Floyd’s defense, the NCAA did clear him of any wrongdoing even if many nonpartisan observers remain skeptical. Outside of the obvious strange circumstance of USC interviewing a coach many feel it forced out the door a few years ago we also have to question the timing of the announcement as Floyd’s current team, UTEP, is doing well at 16-12 overall and 9-5 in Conference USA with two more regular season games remaining. It is beyond us why Floyd would admit to an interview with his team still playing meaningful basketball.
2. Floyd may steal the headlines from that story, but we might be more interested in the second to last sentence of the story, which mentions that long-time Syracuse assistant Mike Hopkins has also interviewed for the job (confirmed to a local radio show). Although Hopkins is widely acknowledged as the eventual successor to Jim Boeheim the actual date that Boeheim leaves the Syracuse does not appear to be that close no matter how many cantankerous post-game press conferences Boeheim has. While we are disappointed that our #DausterForUSC campaign has failed to take off, Hopkins would appear to be an ideal candidate for the job with his experience at Syracuse and southern California roots. As we have said many times USC seems like it is the type of program that is just waiting for the right coach to make it a competitive national program again.
3. We are a little over a month away from the Basketball Hall of Fame and while this year’s class will not generate the controversy that the baseball class will one potential inductee-Jerry Tarkanian–will raise plenty of issues for voters. We have already discussed the case for and against Tarkanian in this space in the past month and now at least one prominent sportswriter (Dave Kindred) is voicing his support for Tarkanian’s induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame. We are sure that there are some members of the selection committee will hold Tarkanian’s renegade reputation against him, but perhaps the NCAA’s recent public relations struggles will make Tarkanian a more sympathetic figure now.
4. It turns out that the NCAA Tournament is not just big business for the NCAA and television networks. As Chris Smith of Forbes points out John Calipari could make up to $700,000 in bonuses depending on how Kentucky performs in the NCAA Tournament. In Calipari’s case, he is unlikely to collect on those bonuses as the Wildcats are not expected to make a deep run (or possibly not make the NCAA Tournament at all) and the more significant bonuses come in the later rounds. We do not have access to the contracts of other coaches out there, but we would guess that many of them could see a substantial raise above their base salary with deep runs in the NCAA Tournament (Calipari added 21% last year).
5. One of the more heavily discussed topics in March is that of the bubble. There are countless forecasters who give predictions on who will make the NCAA Tournament through their secret formulas, but if you are looking for something more transparent (and simple) then the Easy Bubble Solver might be for you. Created by Drew Cannon it simply adds together a team’s RPI and Ken Pomeroy ranking then takes the 37 highest ranked teams as its at-large selections. Its 94 percent success rate over the past six seasons is impressive so even you think it is too simple it is worth taking a look at to see where there may be some disparities between what the analysts expect and what the EBS predicts.

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

Tonight’s Lede. Conference Tournaments, Y’all. The first conference tournament of 2013 slipped under the radar. If you missed it – and no one’s scolding you for passing on the opening round of the Big South Tournament – you can be forgiven. The smallest minnows of the mid-major world are long conditioned to early-round negligence in their conference tournaments. Just promise me one thing: When the mid-major tourney bombardment begins in earnest tomorrow, for the rest of the week and leading up until the Power Six tourneys, you will at least pretend like you know what you’re talking about when automatic bids are cashed in remote little gyms around the country and the at-large bubble pool inevitably shrinks. This stuff, whether it interests you or not, directly affects your teams’ NCAA hopes. On to the recap…

Your Watercooler Moment. Buckeyes Raid B-Town.

Stingy defense from the Buckeyes hindered Indiana’s vaunted offense (AP).

First things first: Indiana is not invincible at Assembly Hall. Just this winter, Wisconsin went into the vaunted Hoosier Dome, controlled the pace of play and imposed its trademark trodgy style to excellent effect. The Badgers left with a five-point win and a frustrated Hoosiers fan base. Things have changed since, obviously. Indiana quickly righted the ship with five straight wins, building confidence and national acclaim by the week, and amidst all the madness at the top of the college hoops landscape this season, the Hoosiers had built something of a consensus as the number one team in the country (sorry Gonzaga, but this isn’t about you). All that was left in the final week of the regular season, which Indiana – thanks to Michigan’s win over Michigan State on Sunday – began having already claimed at minimum a share of the regular season title, was a home-and-away two-game finish. Those games commenced Tuesday with a visit from Ohio State and finished Sunday at Michigan. The latter was viewed as the biggest road block, and with good reason. Tuesday’s matchup was perceived as a stepping stone of sorts, a tune-up for the regular season finale. The offense would hum, Victor Oladipo would infect the game with positive energy and Indiana would ride a boisterous crowd to a comfortable victory. It was practically a formality.

Ohio State did not take well to the idea of a Hoosiers victory party. The Buckeyes used the stifling perimeter D of not only Aaron Craft but also bouncy sophomore Shannon Scott (who had four steals) and got another big scoring effort from Craft (15 points) to complement one of DeShaun Thomas’s habitually-high scoring marks (18 points) to pull out a nine-point win. As encouraging as it is to see Craft put together another high-scoring effort (he had 21 against Michigan State), the Buckeyes’ key to victory was their defense. Like the Badgers in early January, Ohio State took Indiana out of its offensive comfort zone, and the Hoosiers were too shaken to adjust. Ohio State didn’t just spoil Indiana’s senior night and presumptive full-regular season title clinching. It quite possibly unveiled a defensive blueprint to shut down the nation’s hottest offense.

Tonight’s Quick Hits…

• Bubble Game of the Week. A cursory scanning of this week’s collection of games reveals an odd an utterly mystifying fact: there is only one game between two teams who truly classify as quote-unquote bubble inhabitants. Ole Miss was in danger of falling out of the conversation completely after losing to not just the worst team in the SEC this season, but one of the worst groups in league history: Mississippi State and its ghastly 227 RPI figure. The Rebels needed Tuesday night’s home game against Alabama just to stay in the picture; they got it, and probably dashed Alabama’s fading NCAA aspirations along the way. So Ole Miss isn’t totally dead, I suppose. Not yet. Winning at LSU Saturday would be a good place to start. Read the rest of this entry »

Bennet Hayes is a regular contributor for RTC. You can find him @HoopsTraveler on Twitter. Night Line runs on weeknights during the season, highlighting a major storyline development from that day’s games.

They don’t come much better than this. In fact, they might not come any better than this. Ohio State walked out of Assembly Hall with a convincing 67-58 victory over Indiana on Tuesday night, securing a resume-defining win that could easily be considered the scalp of the year in college basketball this season. Only Wisconsin can join the Buckeyes in saying they walked out of Bloomington victorious in 2012-13, but the Badgers didn’t have to do it on Senior Night, nor with the rights to a Big Ten title on the line. Neither factor seemed to matter much to the Buckeyes, who put together a near-flawless final 10 minutes to earn the win. The loss for the Hoosiers may raise questions about their presumptive status as the NCAA Tournament’s No. 1 overall seed, but it also may serve as a perception-changer for the Bucks. Crazy as it sounds, one massive win may be all it takes to erase from the memory banks a season’s worth of misses versus the Big Ten’s upper echelon. Ohio State suddenly feels like a March contender.

Aaron Craft And Ohio State Did Their Best To Spoil Senior Night At Indiana

It’s been business as usual in Columbus in many ways this season — another 20-win campaign, 12 more Big Ten victories (after tonight), a high seed awaiting on Selection Sunday. But these Buckeyes have flown a course far further off the national radar than Thad Matta teams of years past. Tonight’s startling victory may change that trajectory, but a glance at the Buckeyes’ profile also begs the question of why it took us so long to notice. Sure, the Bucks whiffed in a lot of big spots this season. But when you take inventory of their schedule (a whopping nine games against teams in KenPom’s current top 11), it’s pretty evident that a lot of good teams might have suffered the same fate given the circumstances. A handful of those games were there for their taking, with contests at Duke, Michigan and Michigan State all fitting that bill, so it isn’t as if they did much to embarrass themselves in those defeats. Tonight’s win doesn’t erase all doubts about the Bucks, but it puts previous missteps in a far more forgivable light.

Read the rest of this entry »

Brendon Mulvihill is an RTC contributor. You can find him @TheMulv on Twitter. See bottom of the post for the Official RTC Star System.

For some teams, the Championship Fortnight (as Kyle Whelliston would call it) begins this week. For most others, this is the final week of the regular season. Many teams sit squarely on the bubble and need to impress in their final two contests to show they deserve to be in the Tourney. We’ve waited all year for March. It’s finally here and all indications tell us it’s going to be a wild month. Let’s get to the breakdowns!

Illinois at Iowa – 7:00 PM EST, Tuesday on BTN (***)

It looks like John Groce and Illinois are in but a couple more losses might change the equation

• This is a hugely important game for both teams. At 7-9 in the Big Ten, Iowa is need of two wins to make its case for an at large tournament bid. They close the regular season at home against Illinois and Nebraska. If they can pick up the two victories and get to .500 in conference, Fran McCaffery and company make a decent case to get in. For Illinois, it looks like they will get in however they can ill afford to drop their next two games. In addition to this game at Iowa, they must travel too Ohio State. A loss against the Hawkeyes puts a ton of pressure on John Groce’s team heading into the last game of the season, so this one is critical. Look to see if Iowa’s size bothers the Illini. Illinois is a much better two-point shooting team than they are at three-point shooting team. However, getting points inside against Iowa’s length could be tough to come by. Regardless, Brandon Paul, Tracy Abrams, and D.J. Richardson must be aggressive in taking the ball to the basket and trying to get to the line. If Illinois is settling for jumpers on the outside, they will lose. Iowa needs to win this game with defense. Their offense just isn’t strong enough to win it for them. Protecting the ball and playing good defense without fouling are their top priorities. If they are turning the ball over and fouling, Illinois will win. The team that wins the free throw battle should come out on top in this match-up.

#13 Ohio State at #1 Indiana – 9:00 PM EST, Tuesday on ESPN (****)

• In the first match-up this season between these two squads, Ohio State had no answer for Cody Zeller and Victor Olidipo. They combined to go 16-of-21 from the field and 17-of-21 from the line, grabbed 16 rebounds, and scored 50 of the 81 points. Throw in Christian Watford’s 20 points and IU’s front line obliterated OSU. If the Buckeyes want any chance to win this game in Bloomington, they must get way better defense from Evan Ravenel, Amir Williams, DeShaun Thomas, and LaQuinton Ross. Offensively, they can’t run with Indiana, however OSU’s half-court offense is suspect at best. So while their defense must create turnovers and get out on the break, they must be careful not to turn this game into a track meet. OSU’s ability to win this game sits squarely on the shoulders of their frontline. They need better defense and more scoring. If they can get that, they have a chance to win. Otherwise, this could be a blowout. Read the rest of this entry »

March Madness is here, and as we put this post together on Tuesday afternoon, the first trickle of conference tournament action has already started with the Big South Tournament getting under way in Conway, South Carolina. Over the next 36 days, we’ll celebrate postseason basketball with our annual visual tribute from 300+ teams down to one, the Circle of March. Assuming our math is spot on, there are 310 Division I teams still “alive” for the NCAA title this season — 37 have already been eliminated for a variety of reasons (ineligibility, failure to qualify for or no conference tournament, not in an auto-bid league, independent, etc.). Those teams are listed below the Circle. The rest of the contenders will slowly be whittled away on a daily basis until we’re left with 68 on Selection Sunday and of course just one team standing tall on the morning of April 9.

To make this year’s CoM a bit more entertaining, we’ve built the logos of all 310 teams into a number of spatially-similar groupings within the Circle. For example, in the area approaching 11 o’clock below, there are a number of images that prominently use birds as their school’s logo. See how many of these groupings you can determine (note: make sure to click on the image for a larger view) — the first dozen folks who tweet at us (@rushthecourt) or e-mail us (rushthecourt@yahoo.com) with 12 or more distinct groupings will receive a free RTC t-shirt. For the person who identifies the most distinct logo groupings, we’ll have a grand prize.

Welcome to March Madness…

How Many Distinct Groupings of Logos Are in the Circle of March?

Teams Eliminated From National Title Contention (03.04.13)

Read the rest of this entry »

Brian Otskey is an RTC columnist. Every Tuesday during the regular season he’ll be giving his 10 thoughts on the previous week’s action. You can find him on Twitter @botskey

1. If there is one team that personifies this rollercoaster season of unpredictability, it is probably Virginia. Last week was the Cavaliers’ season in a nutshell as they toppled Duke in Charlottesville before laying an egg at Boston College on Sunday. At 20-9 (10-6), Virginia sits squarely on the NCAA Tournament bubble with two regular season games to play. In my heart of hearts, I believe this is a tournament-quality team. Virginia has impressive victories against aforementioned Duke as well as NC State, North Carolina and a huge road win at Wisconsin earlier in the season. Additionally, the Cavs sport wins over bubble buddies Tennessee and Maryland (on the road). Unfortunately for Virginia, the story doesn’t end there and turns sour rather quickly. Tony Bennett’s team has lost a stunning seven games to sub-100 RPI opponents, six of them coming on the road or at a neutral site. The loss to #315 Old Dominion is particularly puzzling. With just a 2-6 road record in conference play, an RPI in the 60s and an embarrassing non-conference strength of schedule, Virginia is not in a great spot despite its good wins. Joe Harris and the Cavs need to take care of business against Florida State and Maryland before putting together some kind of ACC Tournament run. This is one of the more bizarre NCAA resumes I’ve ever seen and one sure to create a lot of debate in the committee room.
   

   Joe Harris and Virginia haven’t been consistent

2. Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski’s comments after his team’s loss to Virginia created a stir throughout the college basketball world over the last few days. Coach K complained about his team not being able to safely get off the floor while Virginia’s students rushed the court after their team’s big win. While the video does show the Duke team unable to enter the tunnel and head to the locker room, I feel Krzyzewski is out of line. His team was protected by multiple arena security personnel who formed a human wall between the Duke team and the Virginia students. At no time were the Duke players in any danger. I understand why things this man says get noticed, after all he is the sport’s winningest coach. But why does everything Coach K says have to be taken as gospel? Let the kids have some fun and stop with the “get off my lawn!” attitude. Unless your team is in danger of being hurt, comments like these serve as a distraction and quite honestly look like sour grapes to me.
3. After suffering the loss to Virginia, Duke rebounded in a big way by taking down Miami and exacting a measure of revenge for the blowout loss earlier this year in Coral Gables. It was a struggle though as the Blue Devils needed a career-high 36 points from Ryan Kelly (in his first game back since January 8) just to win by three on their home floor. While Kelly clearly sparked Duke offensively in this game, he makes a bigger difference on the other side of the basketball. Kelly is an outstanding defender because he’s a tall, agile forward who can get up into a player on the perimeter and force him to shoot over or pass around Kelly, often going east-west instead of north-south. Kelly’s presence on the floor did not make a huge difference in this particular game when it comes to Miami’s offensive efficiency but he did frustrate the Hurricanes from the three point line. Miami shot just 6-21 from deep and a big reason for that was Kelly and his length. As we head into postseason play, Kelly’s return will make a huge difference on the defensive side of the ball for Duke. Anything he does offensively is gravy for this team. Duke is undefeated with Kelly in the lineup and that bodes well for the Blue Devils as they look to grab a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament and make a run at the program’s 16^th Final Four appearance. Read the rest of this entry »