We’re back with the second annual review of how the major conferences are doing after one weekend of the NCAA Tournament.  As we all are aware, the Dance eliminates the pretenders – that means you, Wake and Washington – so that the teams with legitimate chops remain standing.  Chalk has predominantly ruled this tournament so far, but that doesn’t keep us from evaluating which conferences are performing better or worse than expectations.   We review the conferences with multiple bids below…

Big East  (7 bids, 5 remaining, 11-2 record)

The Big East was the most powerful conference all year and they are proving it in the postseason.  West Virginia was the only first round loser, and Marquette was outlasted by a tough-as-nails Missouri team in the second round.  All other Big East teams advanced to the Sweet Sixteen, setting a new record for the total number from one conference (5).  What’s more is that each of these teams are F4-caliber; there isn’t a single Cinderella in the group.  It wouldn’t surprise us if this league managed to get 75% of the F4 entrants this year, and we fully expect all five to play into the national quarterfinals.

Verdict:  A.  The Big East’s expected # of wins for the tournament is 16.2, and there’s a solid chance that the league will bust through twenty wins this season in setting another new record.

Big 12  (6 bids, 3 remaining, 9-3 record)

For the second consecutive year, the Big 12 had another great first round (6-0), culminating in their three best teams making it to the Sweet Sixteen.  The league hasn’t had an upset yet, and the three losing teams – Texas, Oklahoma St., and Texas A&M, acquitted themselves nicely in five of their six games (lone exception: TAMU vs. UConn).  Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma all have tough but winnable games if they play well, and the Big 12 should reasonably expect to see one of them playing into next weekend.  For a “down” year in the league, this is a great performance.

Verdict: A.  The Big 12 already has nine wins against an expected performance of 10.57 wins, which basically means they’re doing really well so far.

Atlantic 10  (3 bids, 1 remaining, 3-2 record)

The A10 got three teams into the Dance and made the most of its opportunity, winning two first round games (one an upset with #11 Dayton over #6 WVU), and sending Xavier to yet another Sweet Sixteen.  We don’t feel that XU has much of a chance to advance the league’s banner further against Pitt, but never count out a Sean Miller team.  Xaviercruised to the Sweets against two good teams.

Verdict: A-.  The league was expected to win 2.52 games and they’ve already won three, so anything beyond that is gravy.  How pathetic is it that the A10 is outperforming the SEC by a country mile?

Horizon (2 bids, 0 remaining, 1-2 record)

The Horizon had a chance to make some serious noise in this Tournament, but typically-solid Butler couldn’t hold up its end of the bargain when it lost to #8 LSU (who was probably underseeded).  However, Cleveland St. so far has had the upset of the Dance with its throttling of #4 Wake Forest, so we’re going to give them the benefit of the doubt here.

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First Weekend Storylines. Like most of you guys, we figure we watched approximately 38 hours of basketball last weekend over the first four days of the NCAA Tournament.  Since we were in Vegas taking advantage of the sportsbooks’ multiple huge-screen tvs, we pretty much saw pieces of every game on the dance card.  Here are some of our thoughts and observations based on the sensory overload (speaking of sensory, that chick making bedroom eyes at the burger in the McDonald’s commercial is ridiculously difficult to remove from the internal hard drive).

Coach K, Your Filet o’ Sole Has Arrived.  From our point of view, at least in terms of the elite teams of each conference, there was never any question that the Big East was much stronger than that of the ACC this year.  The fact that anyone was even questioning this seemed odd.  This year, the Big East had six teams (of seven bids) with a reasonable shot to make a run at the F4 – UConn, Pitt, Syracuse, Louisville, Villanova and Marquette, and the first five of that group is still standing (the most ever by a single conference in the Sweets, btw); the ACC had three (of seven bids) – Duke, UNC and Wake Forest, but only the twin towers of Tobacco Road royalty are left dancing.   The simple fact of the matter is that the ACC’s middle – comprised of Clemson, Florida St., Maryland, BC and Virginia Tech (NIT) – were only “solid” teams that had significant weaknesses due to personnel or other issues.  Conversely, the equivalent caliber teams from the Big East (with the notable exception of WVU) were left out of the Big Dance.  This group includes Providence, Cincinnati, Georgetown and Notre Dame, and there shouldn’t be any dissent as to the fact that each of these teams would have competed for the middle of the ACC with the above group and several would have also earned bids on the basis of the occasional upset (see: Maryland and BC).  Sitting where we are now, with five Big East teams a mere two wins away from the F4, it wouldn’t shock us to see all four slots filled by a BE team.  This is still an unlikely scenario, but keep in mind that only Villanova is considered an underdog to reach the next round (Syracuse is a pick’em against Oklahoma), and all five of these teams are more than capable.

#1 Seeds. UConn looked absolutely dominant in its two games, and while not much can be discerned from a 56-pt dismantling of Chattanooga, the 92-66 beatdown of a Texas A&M team that was coming on strong must be viewed with awe.   The Huskies will get the best team in the Big Ten next – Purdue – but we have trouble believing that the Boilers will challenge Jim Calhoun’s team at this point.  Suddenly a #1/#2 matchup against Memphis in the regional finals looks very appealing.  UNC bombed Radford in its first round game before riding a partisan crowd’s energy and Ty Lawson’s toe to a breakaway win over LSU in the second round, 84-70.   The Heels should put away Gonzaga easily in the next round (we doubt Heytvelt will dominate Hansbrough this time around), but a regional final against either Oklahoma or Syracuse could present all kinds of problems for the Tar Heels.   Louisville and Pittsburgh both struggled to put opponents away in both their first and second round games.   Both of these teams sometimes have trouble scoring, and we have to wonder when a prolonged scoring drought against a good team will be enough to end their run to the title.   Pitt should have a relatively easy go of it with its next game against Xavier, but we’re looking at Louisville’s next game against Arizona and wondering what might happen if the trio of Budinger, Wise and Hill are all making shots.

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Continuing on into the second round of the Mascot Death Match…  you can continue to vote on these throughout the early part of this week, and we’ll have the Sweet Sixteen Matchups up on Thursday. 

For the 2d Round Saturday Matches, click here. 

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Florida State (#5, East, Boise pod)

vs. Wisconsin (#12)
Mar. 20 @ 9:55pm

Vegas Line: Florida St. -2.5

Thanks to Vegas Watch for providing these graphs that measure the moving average of a team’s spread (moving avg.) over time vs. the spread for each individual game (indiv).  If a team’s moving average is higher than zero, then Vegas currently has a higher opinion of them than Pomeroy, and vice versa.

General Profile

Location: Tallahassee, Florida
Conference: ACC, at large
Coach: Leonard Hamilton, 125-90 (as of 3/10)
08-09 Record: (25-9), 10-6)
Last 12 Games: 8-4
Best Win: 73-70, North Carolina, 3/14/2009
Worst Loss: 73-59, Northwestern, 12/3/08
Offensive Efficiency Rating: 105.3 [106]
Defensive Efficiency Rating: 88.0 [8]

Nuts n Bolts

Star Player: Toney Douglas – 20.8 ppg/3.0 apg
Unsung Hero: Toney Douglas – He could be an All-America candidate if he played at UNC or Duke, and has good reason for feeling left out after losing the ACC POY to Ty Lawson.
Potential NBA Draft Picks: None
Key Injuries: No injuries to report
Depth: 36.5% (#49)
Achilles Heel: Turnovers – the Seminoles are 290^th in the nation when it comes to turnover percentage.
Will Make a Deep Run if: They take good care of the ball on offense. On defense, FSU could be a big problem for teams like Wake Forest and UConn that can’t, or don’t, shoot the three ball well – FSU’s defense is strongest when opponents are inside the arc.
Will Make an Early Exit if: Douglas goes cold – the other Seminoles are much better defenders than scorers.

NCAA History

Last Year Invited: 1998 – Round of 32
Streak: 1
Best NCAA Finish: 1972 – National Runner-Up
Historical Performance vs. Seed (1985-present): n/a

Other

Six Degrees to Detroit: Current Pistons Assistant Coach, Dave Cowens, is the highest drafted Seminole in NBA history, going 4^th overall to the Celtics in the 1970 draft.
Distance to First Round: 2,432 miles.
School’s Claim to Fame: It isn’t surprising that FSU’s most famous alumni played football for the Seminoles. However, the fact that that alumni happens to be the mustachioed actor that your mom still swoons over, Burt Reynolds.
School Wishes it Could Forget: FSU wishes we would all forget the NCAA report that recently said 61 Seminole student-athletes from the football, baseball, softball, men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s swimming, men’s and women’s track and field and men’s golf teams committed academic fraud during 2006 and 2007.
Prediction: FSU is coming off the school’s best showing ever in the ACC tournament, and could definitely take Wisconsin and then four-seed Xavier to make the Sweet 16. However, Toney Douglas & Friends would likely meet Pitt at that point, and although their big men could make things interesting for Blair, expect FSU to fall to Pitt in the Boston.

Major RTC stories: None.

Preview written by... Matt the Intern

When Ben Allaire isn’t drumming up meaningless college basketball statistics, he’s writing about the Virginia Cavaliers over at Dear Old UVa.  RTC appreciates having Ben stop over this week to make some numerical sense of this year’s NCAA Tournament field.   

A great man once said, “Our offense is like the Pythagorean theorem: There is no answer.”

Unfortunately, that man was Shaquille O’Neil and it’s funny because he couldn’t be wronger… er, more wrong. 

The Pythagorean theorem does have an answer and it’s going to help us examine which teams are most consistent on offense and defense together.  Last time, I gave you a scatterplot of all 65 teams’ consistency on offense and defense.  Using the Pythagorean theorem (or you might say Euclid distance), I’m calculating the distance between each point on the plot and the origin (0,0).  We’ll call this distance: Pythagorean Consistency (PC for short).

This will combine the two measures into one and tell us exactly how consistent a team is.  Now, remember as I said last time, this isn’t necessarily a measure of who’s best.  If you want that, kenpom.com has a myriad of ways of determining it.  It’s a measure of who performs according to expectation.

Let’s glance at the top and bottom ten list:

Note: Conference in parentheses; seed in brackets.  Data source: kenpom.com

I find this to be a fascinating list. 

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EAST REGION PREVIEW (by Dave Zeitlin and Steve Moore)

Favorite
Pittsburgh, 1, 28-4 – DZ: We at RTC love the upset. But let’s be honest: Pitt has a relative cakewalk. SM: No argument here. I’m a man of few words (not really).

Should They Falter
Villanova, 3, 26-7 – DZ: Upperclassmen guards own this tournament. And in that department, Scottie Reynolds is as good as they come. SM: I agree here, as well. Dave and I wouldn’t work well on ESPN First Take – too much agreement. DZ: Could this be because we agreed on mostly everything before we started writing? Maybe.

Grossly Overseeded
DZ: Xavier, 4, 25-7 – The Musketeers have lost five of their last 10 against only average competition. SM: Texas, 7, 22-11 – It’s hard to call a seven seed grossly overseeded, but count me among the non-believers when it comes to the Longhorns. A.J. Abrams can shoot the lights out, but he can also disappear in big moments. Texas feels more like a 9-to-11 seed to me.

Grossly Underseeded
DZ: UCLA, 6, 25-8 – A No. 9 Pomeroy rating should have outweighed a bad loss to USC in the conference tourney. SM: Minnesota, 10, 22-10 – It’s hard to ask for more than a 10 seed when you’re 9-9 in conference, but it’s easy to forget Minnesota’s win over Louisville back in the fall. And Tubby Smith in March is a pretty good bet. The Golden Gophers are the fourth team Tubby has taken to the Dance.

Sweet Sixteen Sleeper
DZ: Portland State, 13, 23-9 — Realistically, No. 12 Wisconsin probably has the better chance to get to the second weekend, but we like the little guy here. Portland State has an impressive win over Gonzaga on its resume, too. SM: Binghamton, 15, 23-8 – OK, so it probably won’t happen, but I’ve gotta show the America East some love. My alma mater (Boston University) hasn’t gone dancing since 2002, so I have to support my low-major conference brethren.

Final Four Sleeper (#4 seed or lower)
Florida State, 5, 25-9 – DZ: Coming off an impressive run in the ACC tournament – but a tough loss, too – the Seminoles will be hungry to make a deep run. Let’s just hope they leave the tomahawk chop at home. SM: I agree the Seminoles can make noise in the second weekend. Whether those wins will be vacated in 10 years or so? That’s a different story.

Carmelo Anthony Award
DZ: DeJuan Blair, Pittsburgh (15.6 ppg, 12.2 rpg, .599 FGP) – Everyone knows how strong Blair is. And everyone who doesn’t should watch this. SM: Toney Douglas, Florida State (21.1 ppg, 4.0 rpg, 38% 3-point pct.) – Senior guards are critical to March success, as Douglas proved during the ACC tournament last week.

Stephen Curry Award
DZ: D.J. Rivera, Binghamton (20.1 ppg, 6.9 rpg, 1.8 spg, .468 FGP) – The Philadelphia product and St. Joe’s transfer is legit – though he’s not quite as cherubic as last year’s Mr. March, Steph Curry. SM: Jeremiah Dominguez, Portland State (12.9 ppg, 3.2 apg, .437 3-pt. pct) – The Vikings could give Xavier some trouble, and yet another senior point guard will be key. Dominguez dropped 22 on Montana State in the Big Sky final just to get into the dance.

Home Cooking
(3) Villanova, 16 miles from Wachovia Center; (2) Duke, 56 miles from Greensboro Coliseum – DZ: Villanova plays plenty of games at the Wachovia Center, so this will feel like a home game for them. And, of course, Duke in Carolina is always a tough matchup. SM: It’s likely that most Philly-area residents who bought tickets months ago for this site are Villanova fans, anyway, which gives the Wildcats a huge advantage.

Can’t Miss First Round Game
UCLA vs. VCU, Thursday – DZ: Darren Collison and Eric Maynor will battle for acronym bragging rights in this intriguing contest between a perennial giant and a strong mid-major. SM: Far and away this is the game I’m most looking forward to. The large Nova-heavy crowd will gravitate toward the underdog anyway, and Maynor should bring them to their feet.

Don’t Miss This One Either
Duke vs. Binghamton , Thursday – DZ: We love how this game pits the squeaky clean program from the ACC against the thugs and retreads from the America East. SM: As an alum of the real BU, I hate that the Bearcats try to use that moniker. But I’ll be rooting for them anyway.

Lock of the Year:

SM: Villanova cruises to the Elite 8, and is never really challenged along the way. With two games in their quasi-home gym, and a Sweet 16 date with perennial disappointment Duke, this bracket fits the Wildcats better than Jay Wright’s three-piece suit. I understand that hating on Duke is easier than getting away with a travel at Cameron Indoor, but Villanova has an experienced leader in Scottie Reynolds, and a nearly extinct collegiate species in Dante Cunningham: A big man who can consistently drill 16-footers. Want another East Region lock? Wright will edge out Bruce Pearl as the bracket’s best-dressed coach. But it’ll be close. DZ: Are you talking about Pearl’s orange blazer or his bare chest, because either way his outfits would make even Lloyd Christmas blush. I agree with a deep run for ’Nova but I’m a bit wary of its second-round matchup. Also, based on what I just wrote, I clearly don’t know what the word lock means.

Juiciest Potential Matchup – purists
Duke vs. UCLA, Sweet 16. SM: Two traditional powers with some of the most talented recruits in the nation and a bevy of devoted (and often annoying) fans. It would also bring two coaches face to face with their recent reputations for premature exits. Coach K vs. Jamie Dixon – they wouldn’t both be able to fail (there’s no ties in the Big Dance, right Mr. McNabb?). DZ: I think John Wooden deserves to see another deep tournament run before he turns 100. And I think Duke needs to be fined every time they slap the floor on defense.

Juiciest Potential Matchup – media
SM: Pittsburgh vs. Villanova, Regional Final – It’s a long way off, but this one would send the suits at ESPN into a downright tizzy. Not only would it reaffirm the Worldwide Leader’s obsession with the Big East this year (they happen to ignore the atrocities that are St. John’s, South Florida, Depaul and Rutgers), but it would provide a handful of incredible individual matchups: Blair vs. Cunningham, Fields vs. Reynolds, Wright vs. Dixon. Plus, it would further infuriate the Penn State fans to see two Pennsylvania teams fighting for a Final Four spot while they get bounced from the NIT. And as anyone who knows me can tell you, anything that makes Penn State fans cry and complain is fine with me. DZ: Pittsburgh vs. UCLA, Regional final – If UCLA makes it to the regional final against Pitt that would make for an intriguing matchup, as well. Could Howland, Pitt’s former coach, stop his old team, and good friend Jamie Dixon, from making its first final four? UCLA did beat Pitt in the 2007 tourney, but this is a much stronger Pitt team and a far worse UCLA team.

We Got Screwed
UCLA, 6, 25-8. SM: I’m no geography major, but I don’t think Philadelphia is around the corner from Pauley Pavilion. Not only do the Bruins have to fly across the country to face a trendy upset pick in Virginia Commonwealth, but they would likely face Villanova in the second round. That game would take place nearly 3,000 miles from UCLA’s campus, and about 18 miles from Villanova. UCLA may be the only team who would have rather been placed in Boise. Congratulations to the Bruins on three straight Final Fours – now that’ll be $15 for each checked bag. DZ: Agreed. UCLA has made three straight final fours, has a kickass trombone section and once made Adam Morrison cry. The committee clearly didn’t take any of this into account.

Strongest Pod
Philadelphia – Villanova, American, UCLA, VCU. SM: I don’t want to focus entirely on the lower half of the region – and especially this pod – but there’s no denying the talent at the Wachovia Center. A perennial Final Four contender in UCLA, a possible Final Four team in Villanova, a trendy upset pick in VCU, and … well … American University. Three out of four ain’t bad. The other pods in the East Region include too many first-round walkovers to be taken seriously. And who wants to go to Boise in March, anyway? DZ: Definitely. And American comes into the tourney on a 10-game win streak. Don’t sleep on the Patriot League!

Wild Card, Bitches
Like Charlie, we’re going rogue in our Green Man suits (not really). Here are some other things to watch for over the next three weeks. …

• Easiest Sweet 16 to (Literally) Write Into Your Bracket: ETSU, FSU, UCLA, Duke (there’s Duke screwing up the all-acronym thing again).
• Second-Round Rivalry Game That Will Never Happen: East Tennessee State vs. Tennessee. They’re huge rivals, like Duke-North Carolina. Right?
• Thank Goodness for NCAA Bracketing Rules: Fortunately, the committee won’t pair conference foes against each other in the first round. If they did, we could have had another 5 seed – Illinois – facing No. 12 Wisconsin. What’s the only way to make a Big Ten slugfest less entertaining? Play it in Boise, Idaho.
• Mr. & Mrs. Curry Award for CBS Parental Crowd Shots: Ralph Sampson III, Minnesota. Yes, they’re related. We don’t get to see the wonder and beauty that is Mrs. Curry this year. So we’ll have to deal with endless shots of this draft day trivia answer.
• Year of the Sophomore: With plenty of star sophomores roaming this year’s Dance, we could see a potentially good matchup in the second round pitting Pitt’s Blair against Oklahoma State’s James Anderson.
• Rookie hazing: Of the 43 rookie head coaches this season, five made the tournament and one is in the East Region – Travis Ford of Oklahoma State.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: East Tennessee State head coach Murray Bartow once coached at UAB, while American head coach Jeff Jones once roamed the sidelines at Virginia.
• Minnesota’s Miracle Man: Not since Gordon Bombay has a sports figure in Minnesota produced more miracles than the Golden Gophers’ Blake Hoffarber. Can he make a third miracle shot this month? Stay tuned.
• All-Name Team: Nikola Dragovic, UCLA; Uche Echefu, Florida State; Larry Sanders, VCU; Moussa Camara, Binghamton; Teeng Akol, Oklahoma State.

So-Called Experts Prediction
Who cares? We’re just happy Dickie V didn’t cry. Or did he?

Vegas Odds to Win Region

Some very quick food for thought after the big reveal…

• At least in the #1-#4 seed positions, the Midwest (Louisville, Michigan St, Kansas, Wake Forest) appears to be the toughest region.  It gets weaker at the lower seeds, but among the top teams, this is a beast (3 BCS regular season champs + a second-place team).   That said, Louisville having to play Ohio St. in Dayton in the second round is an interesting game.
• The weakest appears to be the South after #1 UNC.  Oklahoma is falling off, Syracuse is up-and-down, and Gonzaga is softer than toilet paper.  Arizona St. and Clemson are darkhorses in this region.
• Cannot believe that #3 Villanova in the East will get to play essentially at home for the first two rounds.  That’s even more egregious than the annual UNC/Duke games in Greensboro/Raleigh/W-S/Charlotte.
• How about a Cinderella #13 Portland St. playing in Boise vs. #4 Xavier (slumping) and then the #5 FSU/#12 Wisconsin winner?  Or a WAC team, #11 Utah St. playing #6 Marquette in the same location?
• We have a feeling #11 VCU over #6 UCLA is going to be a very popular upset choice.  The Bruins don’t travel that far east very well in recent years.  Or #4 Wake, a team that has proven they only get up for “name” teams, losing to #13 Cleveland St. in the first round in Miami?
• Most vulnerable teams in the first round by seed:
  • #1 – none
  • #2 – Oklahoma (Morgan St.)
  • #3 – Kansas (North Dakota St.)
  • #4 – Xavier (Portland St.)
  • #5 – all of them?  But probably Illinois (W. Kentucky)
  • #6 – UCLA (VCU)
  • #7 – Boston College (USC)
  • #8 – LSU (Butler)
• Best Games by region (first round):
  • East – #8 Oklahoma St. vs. #9 Tennessee – very up-and-down high-scoring game.
  • South – #7 Clemson vs. #10 Michigan – will the Beilein style frustrate the Tigers?
  • Midwest – #7 BC vs. #10 USC – can the athletic Trojans keep it going?
  • West – #8 BYU vs. #9 Texas A&M – Let’s do this again…
• Best potential games by region (second round):
  • East – #3 Villanova vs. #6 UCLA – if the Bruins survive, this would be a fun guard-oriented game.
  • South – #3 Syracuse vs. #6 Arizona St. -two teams coming on at the right time.
  • Midwest – #1 Louisville vs. #8 Ohio St. – in Dayton.
  • West – #2 Memphis vs. #10 Maryland – the Terps have proven they can beat top-level teams.
• QnD Final Four (subject to change):
  • Pittsburgh (East) vs. Syracuse (South)
  • Memphis (West) vs. Kansas (Midwest)

Much more later as we get ourselves steady for the rest of the week…

TBL, BIAH, CHJ and RTC have a little bet going where we both will choose the 34 at-large teams with the blog picking the most right getting access to the other’s vast collection of “cinema verite.”  Faces will be obscured to protect the innocent enterprising.  So here goes…

*we’re also sick of using the word “bubble,” so we’re starting a new one – the Globule.  Until further notice, that’s our word.

At-Large Teams

The Globule aka Enjoy the NIT, Fellas: Providence, San Diego St., Dayton, Boston College

A10 (1)

Xavier

ACC (5)

UNC, Wake Forest, Florida St., Clemson, Maryland

Big 12 (5)

Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma St.

Big East (6)

Connecticut, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Villanova, Marquette, West Virginia

Big Ten (6)

Michigan St., Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Purdue/Ohio St.

Horizon (1)

Butler

Missouri Valley (1)

Creighton

Mountain West (1)

BYU

Pac-10 (5)

Washington, UCLA, Arizona St., California, Arizona

SEC (2)

LSU, Tennessee

WCC (1)

St. Mary’s

So we got through yesterday, where twelve auto-bids were handed out, and now we’re down to four remaining conference championships today.  Let’s give our brief synopsis on each as they day moves on…

#28 – Stephen F. Austin (23-7, 16-3 Southland).  SFA got 20/6 from their center Matt Kingsley as the Lumberjacks (there are trees in Texas?) defeated UT-San Antonio 68-57 to advance to their first-ever NCAA Tournament today.

Projected Seed: #14

Something to Remember: #2 nationally in defensive efficiency – these guys get after it.  They held Texas A&M to 34% shooting earlier this year, one of their worst outputs of the season.

#29 – Duke (28-6, 14-5 ACC).  Duke ran all over Florida St. today to win their seventeenth ACC title this afternoon, tying UNC for the most all-time.   Jon Scheyer and Gerald Henderson were superb today, combining for 56 pts on 15-27 FG and 8-13 from three.

Projected Seed: #2

STR: You may have heard this team’s name once or twice before. The perception is that the Devils are great three-point shooters, but that’s only a perception.  At 34.4% on the year, they are middle of the pack nationally in that statistic (#154).  However, because Duke plays such stifling defense on the perimeter, when they do hit a fair number of threes (like today), they’re very difficult to beat.

#30 – Mississippi St. (23-12, 13-7 SEC).  MSU outlasted Tennessee 64-61 in a game that saw not one, two, three, but FOUR straight turnovers on an out-of-bounds play with ten seconds remaining.  And that coming off of a mishandled rebound off a missed FT.  Great basketball there.  The SEC will definitely get three teams in this year, and it’s a league that has made itself easy to pile on, but all three of these SEC squads are extremely athletic and well-coached.  Nobody will want to play these guys.

Projected Seed: #12

STR: Jarvis Varnado.  His 4.6 blocks per game leads the nation, even ahead of Hasheem Thabeet at UConn.  MSU’s overall defense isn’t as good as it usually is, but Varnado can change a game by himself.  Keep an eye on MSU as an upsetter if they play an undisciplined team that won’t work the ball for the best available shot (someone like FSU or USC, for example).

#31 – Purdue (25-9, 14-7 Big 10).  Purdue fought hard in a typical bruiser of a Big 10 game to get their first Big 10 Tourney win in the decade-plus of the event.  Robbie Hummell is just outstanding – he had an all-floor game of 9/11/5 assts, but it was E’Twaun Moore’s five threes, including several timely ones in the mid-second half that led to the Boilers coming back from a deficit and taking control of the game.

Projected Seed: #3

STR: Like most Big 10 teams, Purdue is driven by its defense, but in our eyes, unlike most of the others, Purdue can actually boast several offensive playmaking options in Johnson, Moore and Hummell.  Plus, they’re balanced – their offense mostly comes from the point, the wing and the post.  This will be a difficult team for most to handle, and Matt Painter has proven that his teams are tough (Purdue gave 2007 Florida its toughest game in the back-to-back season, for example).

#32 – #65. That’s it.  Everyone else has to get an invitation to the Dance.  Join us over at RTC Live for the Selection Show right now, and let’s talk about it.

Story of the Night. Tonight was an absolute bloodbath for bubble teams hoping to finish strong to entice the fickle eye of the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee next week.  No fewer than four teams that couldn’t afford another L took it on the chin tonight, and after Notre Dame last night, we don’t want to hear the word “Georgetown” again this year.

JT3 Has No More Excuses.  St. John’s 59, Georgetown 56 (OT). #1 SOS?  Don’t care.  Toughest conference in America?  Doesn’t matter.  Georgetown had every chance in the world to finish strong with games against St. John’s and Depaul this week, and they couldn’t even get that done, which is a microcosm of their season.  The Hoyas went down in particularly frosty fashion, blowing a 15-pt lead with just over ten minutes to go in the game and putting the ball through the net just one more time from the field during that stretch.  At 15-13 and now 6-11 in the Big East, we don’t want to hear about this team again unless they win five games in a row next week in New York.  Biggest disappointment of the year.

Take OSU Off the Bubble. Oklahoma St. 77, Kansas St. 71.  Oklahoma St. heads into its battle against Blake Griffin and rival Oklahoma this weekend riding a six-game winning streak and a progressively stronger NCAA Tournament resume.  With a current RPI of #31 and a shot at a first-round bye in the Big 12 Tourney, OSU is looking more and more like a lock for the Big Dance.  Byron Eaton led the Pokes with 25 pts, including 15-15 from the line.  K-State, on the other hand, needed this one; the Cats have a much worse RPI (#72) but their bigger problem is that they managed to lose in the out-of-conference slate to teams like Kentucky, Iowa and Oregon of all teams.  They picked it up in the Big 12 season, but we’re not sure that 9-7 (if they beat Colorado on Saturday) will be good enough.  K-State will need a run in the Big 12 Tourney to get back into the serious bubble conversation.

Did USF Burst Cincy’s Bubble? S. Florida 70, Cincinnati 59.  Cincy was primed to finish with a surprising 10-8 Big East record if they could have only won their last two games of the year against USF (tonight) and Seton Hall (this weekend).  With a #53 RPI and now facing at best a 9-9 record, it appears that the Bearcats will have some work to do next week in NYC.  USF’s Dominique Jones dropped thirty on Mick Cronin’s team, who couldn’t throw it in the Gulf of Mexico for most of the night (37%).  The Bearcats have now lost four of five.

The Terps are Staggering. Wake Forest 65, Maryland 63.  Maryland continued their frustrating run of playing extremely well against top opponents but faltering late. The Terps led by seven points at the half, and even had a six point lead with about 8 minutes left in the second half thanks to a trio of threes from Dave Neal on senior night. But in the end, Wake’s athleticism, length, and size advantage were just too much. The stats really speak for themselves. The Demon Deacons out-rebounded Maryland 46-27 including 18 offensive rebounds that resulted in a ton of second-chance points. Wake Forest’s length on defense gave Maryland fits, especially Landon Milbourne who had just two points while being guarded by either Al-Farouq Aminu or James Johnson all night. The lack of production of Milbourne made Maryland almost entirely reliant on Greivis Vasquez offensively with the exception of Neal who had 19 points and was 5-6 from downtown. Vasquez looked like he was pressing, especially in the second half where he forced too many bad shots and finished 7-24 from the field. Not all is lost for the Terps however. A win probably would have put them on the inside looking out, but now they have to win Saturday at Virginia if they want to finish .500 in the ACC and remain in the bubble conversation, and a win the ACC tournament wouldn’t hurt either.  Wake was led by Jeff Teague’s 17 pts, but he should have been awarded ten for this particular Teague-bag.

A Closer Look at Two Contenders.

Duke 84, Florida St. 81.  We’ll hand it to Duke – without Gerald Henderson, they would have lost tonight’s game against Florida St.  “G” has averaged 23/6/4 assts in the last five Duke games, all wins, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that if Duke is going to do anything in March this year, it will largely be because of the skills and athleticism of their newfound star.  Normally this time of year we’d be talking about how FSU really needed this win to bolster its bubble argument, but not this year – we think the Seminoles are in.  Their RPI is #16 and the worst they can finish in the ACC is 9-7, so Nole fans should rest easy.  This is a good team that could make the Sweet Sixteen with the right matchups.

Michigan St. 64, Indiana 59. This game is an exhibition as to why we cannot get on board with Michigan St. as a F4 team this year.  They simply don’t click well enough for our liking, especially against teams they should be dominating.  All due respect to Tom Crean’s Hoosiers, but Northwestern decimated IU in Bloomington, and MSU has three times the talent that NW does (we’ll ignore that one of MSU’s three B10 losses was to NW).  But that goes to our point, MSU shouldn’t be losing to Northwestern; they shouldn’t be getting beaten by Penn St.; and they shouldn’t be barely defeating IU.  Maybe it’s a problem with focus or motivation, but there’s something not exactly “right” with this team, and we’re tired of hearing about the injuries/illnesses/etc.  We’ll be happy to retract our opinion of Izzo’s boys prove us wrong in a few weeks.

Other Games of Interest Tonight.

• New Mexico 77, Utah 71. The Mountain West has been crazy this year.  New Mexico rode its homecourt advantage and Tony Danridge’s 29/5 assts to a victory over Utah, forcing the Utes into a two-way tie for first place in the conference for at least one night (until BYU plays tomorrow night).  There’s some really good ball in this conference this year – let’s hope the MWC gets at least three teams into the NCAAs.
• Syracuse 70, Rutgers 40.  At least one Big East team took care of business tonight.  Syracuse shook off a no-doz first half where the Orange actually trailed at the half 20-19 to blow up on Rutgers in the second half, winning going away behind Jonny Flynn’s 18/9.
• Gonzaga 90, USC Upstate 40. Why does this game even exist?
• Ohio St. 60, Iowa 58. The Buckeyes really needed this win, and they got it in Iowa City tonight.  Evan Turner’s 22/9 assts led OSU, but his missed FT left the door open for Iowa to take and miss a three that would have won the game (and possibly knocked OSU off the bubble).
• Clemson 75, Virginia 57. Clemson pulled away in the second half behind its own personal dunk contest (six in that half) to keep the pace with Wake Forest for the #3 seed in the ACC standings, who the Tigers will play this weekend in the final regular season game for both teams.

QnD Conf Tourney Update.

Big South.  No upsets.  The four higher seeds all advanced, including Seth Curry’s (30/6 assts) Liberty squad.  Liberty will play VMI and UNC-A will play top seed Radford on Thursday.

Horizon.  Cleveland St., UIC, Wright St. and Milwaukee all advanced, and will play each other Friday (respectively) for the right to play Butler and Green Bay in the semis.

OVC.  The top four seeds all advanced to the semis, where Austin Peay will play Murray St. and UT-Marting will play Morehead St. Friday night in Nashville.