RTC is pleased to announce that we’ll be covering all of the major conference tournaments this year — the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10, and SEC — in addition to the strongest two high-middies, the Atlantic 10 and the Mountain West.  Each day for the rest of this week, we’re asking our correspondents to provide us with a Daily Diary of the sights and sounds from the arena at each site.  Equal parts game analysis and opinion, the hope is that this will go beyond the tiresome game recaps you can find elsewhere and give you an insightful look into Championship Week.

Big East Tournament – by Rob Dauster

• Kemba Walker’s mom can dance. She had a seat in the second row right next to the UConn band, and everytime they played a song that was too her liking, she was up in the aisle leading the cheers. And I kid you not, she didn’t sit down the entire game.
• DePaul has some good young talent on their roster. Brandon Young and Jeremiah Kelly are similar to Shabazz Napier and Jeremy Lamb. You can see their potential, you can tell that there is talent there, its just a matter of whether they put it all together. Throw in freshman Cleveland Melvin, and Oliver Purnell has a promising start.
• Its a shame that Seton Hall’s season had to end like this. That teams had so much potential. Jordan Theodore, Herb Pope, Jeremy Hazell and Jeff Robinson is, on paper, the core on a tournament team. But whatever it is that Bobby Gonzalez ingrained in this team in his time at the helm of the Pirates, its still there.
• I can’t help but root for Rutgers. They aren’t all that talented, but they play as hard as any team in the conference. Mike Rice is quickly becoming one of my favorite coaches in the country. He’s got a team with a lot of upperclassmen right now. It will be interesting to see what Rice can do when he has a roster full of talent.
• Rutgers and Seton Hall are both located in New Jersey, and while neither school has much of a basketball program right now, there is still a healthy hatred. As entertaining as that game was, listening to the fans of both teams scream at each other in Jersey Shore-lite accents was quite enjoyable.
• Anthony Crater averages four points per game for the USF Bulls. He scored the final four points for USF today. Crater has been a massive disappointment. He originally enrolled at Ohio State and was supposed to be Mike Conley’s replacement, but he lasted all of 10 games. Nice to see him succeed.
• Villanova is a disaster right now. And it seems to be mental. The Wildcats dominated the first half tonight. Dom. I. Na. Ted. They were up 49-33, and the only reason USF was that close was because the worst shooting team in the Big East had a kid hit five in the first 10 minutes of the game. In the second half, when USF started applying some defensive pressure, the Wildcats managed all of four field goals. That’s five straight losses, seven of the last nine, and nine of the last 13.  The Wildcats don’t run an offense. The entire second half, the ball was dribbled out front by Corey Fisher or Maalik Wayns until one of them was forced to drive and take a tough shot or force a tough pass.
• Well, it looks like Marquette wanted to make the NCAA Tournament. Coming in, they were probably on the right side of the bubble. After this, they can probably still get in with a loss to West Virginia tomorrow, but it Buzz Williams’ kids would be able to sleep a lot easier on Saturday night in they knock off the Mountaineers.
• Marshon Brooks is lazy. Well, at least he was lazy tonight. Far too many times, Brooks jogged back on defense or stood at half court waiting for an outlet pass. Part of me doesn’t blame him — I mean, this is not a very good Providence team — but he also did not show off a lot of what NBA scouts are looking for.
• Providence fans are ruthless. They were chanting “fire Keno” [Davis] at the end of the game.

If you are interested in participating in our ATB2 feature, send in your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com. We will add to this post throughout the day as the submissions come in so keep on sending them.

Top 25 Games

• #18 UConn 97, DePaul 71: “The five-year hex hovering over the Huskies at Madison Square Garden has been lifted. And all it took was playing one of the worst teams in major college basketball. But as is UConn’s tradition when playing in NYC in March, it wasn’t pretty.” (The UConn Blog)

News/Analysis

• Jalen Rose Discusses Fab Five Documentary: The former Fab Five member talks about the documentary that will premiere this Sunday at 9 PM on ESPN. (UM Hoops)
• Debunking the conference tournament myth: Questioning some common assumptions about conference tournaments. (Card Chronicle)

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David Ely is an RTC Contributor.

Introduction

Congrats are in order for the following teams that locked up automatic NCAA berths this week: St. Peter’s (MAAC), Old Dominion (CAA), Wofford (SoCon), Gonzaga (WCC), Indiana State (MVC), Belmont (Atlantic Sun) and UNC-Asheville (Big South). It’s always fun watching these teams celebrate their conference championships because the excitement just feels more honest than, say, when an Ohio State or a Pittsburgh wins its conference tournament. Championship Week is great for television purposes because there are so many great games to watch, but there usually is less urgency among the teams from the major conferences. For them, conference tournaments are about posturing for seeds and surviving the weekend injury-free. Roy Williams once called the ACC Tournament a big cocktail party, and it’s not surprising that his two title teams both bowed out in the semifinals.  

What We Learned 

Davies Will Obviously Be Missed, But Charles Abouo's Emergence Has Mitigated the Sting

If you’re a big time recruit and have BYU in your top five, you might want to reconsider your stance on the Cougars. Seriously, why would a player with options want to go to BYU now that its draconian honor code system is in the national spotlight. By now, everyone knows Brandon Davies (BYU’s third leading scorer and leading rebounder) was suspended from the BYU basketball team for allegedly having premarital sex with his girlfriend. Davies’ suspension is a crushing blow for the Cougars, who have gone from a sexy popular national title pick to a team some think won’t make it out of the first weekend.

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RTC’s Kevin Doyle, author of the weekly column, The Other 26, and the Patriot League Correspondent, will be providing conference tournament previews for all non-BCS conferences.

With the completion of several conference tournaments over the weekend, the field of 68 is slowly beginning to take shape, but there is still much to be determined. The kicking off of the Atlantic 10, MAC and MEAC conference tournaments later today will weed out even more teams as we approach Selection Sunday. The Atlantic 10 is definitely a multi-bid league—it is just a matter if two or three teams make the field—while the other two conferences will only have one representative in this Tournament.

Atlantic 10

The Favorite: There was little doubt heading into the season that Xavier would be a formidable team in the Atlantic 10 and one that could do some damage throughout the season. They advanced to the Sweet 16 last year and returned do-it-all player in Tu Holloway, but after a rollercoaster non-conference performance that saw the Musketeers go 8-5 questions were raised. All these questions were answered and more as they went 15-1 in the A10. Although Temple and Richmond are right on their heels, Xavier is the team to beat heading into the tournament.

Dark Horse: Richmond concluded their season with four straight wins—all coming by double digits—and Chris Mooney has the Spiders playing some great ball. The dynamic and versatile Justin Harper is capable of taking over a game, and Kevin Anderson is a steady point guard that has the scoring ability of a shooting guard. Currently, Richmond is on the outside looking in of the NCAA Tournament and a strong run in the A10 tournament will be needed to earn an invitation to the Dance.

Who’s Hot: Aside from a fluke four point loss to Charlotte in the middle of their A10 slate, Xavier went perfect in the conference and has only two losses in 2011.

Player to Watch: If there was a player in the A10 capable of putting a team on his back and carrying them to a few wins in the tournament, it is St. Bonaventure’s Andrew Nicholson. The senior from Ontario has scored more than 30 points on four occasions this year and hit buzzer beaters in consecutive games against Buffalo and St. John’s. Nicholson is a scorer and is clutch: watch out for him.

First-Round Upset: St. Joseph’s over George Washington. It took a while for one of the youngest teams in the nation to become acclimated to the college game, but St. Joseph’s youngsters are starting to come around. The Hawks began their A10 schedule with an 0-8 record, but went 4-4 the rest of the way.

How’d They Fare? The Atlantic 10 had a very successful regular season as they placed three teams in the Tournament, but two of them struggled and were unable to get out of the first round. Temple, the highest seed of the three at #5, lost to Cornell in the first round. #7 Richmond struggled to keep up with Omar Samhan and St. Mary’s losing 80-71. The saving grace was #6 Xavier who defeated Minnesota and then upset Pittsburgh in the second round. The Musketeers were very close to defeating Kansas State and advancing to the Elite Eight, but fell 101-96 in double overtime.

Interesting Fact: The A10 has been a multi-bid conference ever since 2005, and that looks to continue this year with Xavier and Temple being safe bets to earn a bid to the Tournament regardless of what happens in the conference tournament.

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Game #175.  Ancient Ivy League rivals meet in the Palestra to determine if there will be a playoff on Saturday for the title.

Rivals Penn and Princeton have both won 25 Ivy League titles, so it’s almost fitting that only Penn stands in the way from Princeton capturing No. 26. With a win tonight at the historic Palestra, the Tigers would earn a share of the Ivy crown and a spot in a one-game Ivy playoff vs. co-champ Harvard to determine the league’s auto bid. For Penn, winning its final game of the 2010-11 season would secure a .500 overall record and a tie for third place in the league — but more important it would send its biggest rival to the NIT while giving Harvard its first NCAA berth since 1946. In other words, for one night, the only people rooting for Penn harder than Quakers fans will be Harvard supporters.

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Despite the dodgy manner with which he left North Carolina, Larry Drew II had at least one thing going for him when he bolted Chapel Hill: he set himself up for a new beginning. He could have merely chosen his next school and concentrated on being a solid contributor and a good student. He may still eventually turn out to be more successful in life than the players he left behind, many of whom weren’t terribly sad to see the back of him.

No, Larry. Just...No.

Because we all know that one of the most insulting and impressive things you can possibly do to inspire fear in your detractors (eyes in full roll) is to blister them with a freestyle rap, Drew II decided to unleash his rhyming hounds on his former program on the occasion of his 21st birthday.

We’ve seen this atrocity mentioned in a lot places today, but our favorite was the article (talk about blistering, wow…but still a bull’s eye) by Mike DeCourcy of The Sporting News. He has more examples of Drew’s, er, skill in his write-up. Our favorite, though, was this little gem: “They tried to tell me just to play my role, but who’s going to stick to a script that’s got typos?” Sure. We wonder if Drew is aware that he’s criticizing a “script” that’s worked pretty well for Roy Williams in the past, and one that’s well-written enough to have worked swimmingly this year…since Drew left.

No doubt you’ve heard that living well is the best revenge. Drew can still do that. But it won’t be as a result of a rap career.

Say goodbye to six more schools after Monday night…  Western Kentucky, Iona, South Dakota State, Charleston, IUPUI and Middle Tennessee State.

Coming Next:   At least sixteen more knockouts on Tuesday…

Joe Dzuback of Villanova By The Numbers is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic 10 Conference. With the A-10 Championship tipping off Tuesday, get up to speed with RTC’s preview and regular season wrap-up.

Postseason Preview

Among the first round games, all played at the campus of the higher seed, the strongest upset candidate is the #8/#9 (of course!) game between #8 host Massachusetts and #9 Dayton. The Flyers have not traveled well this season, accumulating a -0.049 net efficiency in games not played at the UD Arena, but a log5 calculation projects a Dayton win (67%-32% probability). Using overall (unadjusted) offensive and defensive efficiencies, this looks like a close game, +/- 3 points in favor of Dayton. For the other three first round games, the order of probability of an upset is:

• #6 Rhode Island/#11 St. Louis (50.2-49.7)
• #7 St. Bonaventure/#10 La Salle (58-42)
• #5 George Washington/#12 Saint Joseph’s (66-33)

The Xavier/Duquesne side of the bracket looks vulnerable to either a Dayton run or a Duquesne run, though the Dukes, new to the dynamics of a bye seed, may fumble their quarter-final game against (most likely) George Washington. Dayton, a squad that plays inconsistently away from the UD Arena, has nevertheless lost twice to rival Xavier, by margins of five and four points. It is very difficult to beat a closely played rival a third time in the same season. Lacking length in the front court has proven to be a problem lately for the Dukes, but over a short duration tournament like the A-10, it is possible that a series of opponents will become caught up in a pace set by the Dukes and fail to properly exploit Duquesne’s vulnerability. I do not, however, see that as a problem for Xavier, an extremely well managed and prepared team and program.

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Zach Hayes is RTC’s official bracketologist.

Bubble Math

Locks: 36

Non-At Large Automatic Bids: 22

Spots Remaining: 10

Currently In The Field: Marquette, Richmond, Saint Mary’s, Butler, Georgia, Michigan, Michigan State, Clemson, Boston College, Virginia Tech.

Last Four In: Michigan State, Clemson, Boston College, Virginia Tech.

First Four Out: Alabama, Colorado, USC, Baylor.

S-Curve (italics indicate automatic bids)

• 1 Seeds: Ohio State, Kansas, Pittsburgh, Notre Dame
• 2 Seeds: Duke, BYU, Texas, San Diego State
• 3 Seeds: Florida, North Carolina, Purdue, Syracuse
• 4 Seeds: Louisville, Wisconsin, St. John’s, West Virginia
• 5 Seeds: Kentucky, Georgetown, Arizona, Connecticut
• 6 Seeds: Xavier, Vanderbilt, Kansas State, Cincinnati
• 7 Seeds: Texas A&M, Villanova, Old Dominion, Missouri
  
• 8 Seeds: George Mason, UCLA, Temple, Tennessee
• 9 Seeds: UNLV, Utah State, Florida State, Illinois
• 10 Seeds: Gonzaga, Washington, Marquette, Richmond
• 11 Seeds: Saint Mary’s, Butler, Georgia, Michigan
• 12 Seeds: Michigan State, Clemson, Boston College, Virginia Tech, UAB, Belmont
• 13 Seeds: Harvard, Oakland, Milwaukee, Indiana State
  
• 14 Seeds: Bucknell, Morehead State, Wofford, Kent State
  
• 15 Seeds: Long Beach State, Long Island, St. Peter’s, Boston University
  
• 16 Seeds: Northern Colorado, UNC-Asheville, North Texas, McNeese State, Texas Southern, Bethune-Cookman

***** – quit your job and divorce your wife if that’s what it takes to watch this game live
**** – best watched live, but if you must, tivo and watch it tonight as soon as you get home
*** – set your tivo but make sure you watch it later
** – set your tivo but we’ll forgive you if it stays in the queue until 2013
* – don’t waste bandwidth (yours or the tivo’s) of any kind on this game

Brian Otskey is an RTC contributor.

Only two games affect the bubble tonight, but four of the five listed here are for auto-bids or will go towards deciding one. All rankings from RTC and all times Eastern.

Princeton @ Pennsylvania – 7 pm on ESPN3.com (***)

Coach Sydney Johnson Will Gladly Take Another 25 From Mavraides -- As Long As It Results In a Win

The formula for Princeton is simple: win tonight and beat Harvard in a playoff on Saturday (4 pm at Yale) to earn the Ivy League’s automatic bid. Should the Tigers lose tonight, Harvard will claim the title and earn a spot in the NCAA Tournament.

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