horizon – Rush The Court

Circle of March: Vol. III

rtmsf — Wed, 04 Mar 2015 17:01:33 +0000

Championship Fortnight got under way last night as the Atlantic Sun, Horizon League and Patriot League tipped off their postseason tournaments. Seven more teams were eliminated from contention for the 2015 National Championship, with Army, Jacksonville, Kennesaw State, Loyola (Maryland), Stetson, Wright State and Youngstown State riding off into the basketball sunset. Those three conferences will take a break tonight, but the starts of the America East, Big South, Northeast and Ohio Valley Tournaments will keep us engaged as another group of eliminations are scheduled. As of this morning, there are still 320 schools eligible for the ring. Note that [...]

Bracket Prep: Mount St. Mary’s, Milwaukee, Gonzaga, North Dakota State

Bennet Hayes — Wed, 12 Mar 2014 15:20:05 +0000

As we move through Championship Week, we’ll continue to bring you short reviews of each of the automatic qualifiers to help you fill out your bracket next week. Tournament dreams became a reality for four more teams last night. Here’s what you need to know about the most recent quartet of bid-winners.

Mount St. Mary’s

Mount St. Mary’s, .500 Record In Tow, Is Dancing. They Are Your NEC Champions.

NEC Champion (16-16, 12-7) RPI/Pomeroy/Sagarin = #216/#207/#220 Adjusted Scoring Margin = -3.6 Likely NCAA Seed: #16 (First Four)

Three Bruce Pearls of Wisdom.

So much for the relative tranquility of the first few days of Championship Week (shouldn’t it really [...]

O26 Weekly Awards: Wichita State, Davon Usher, Gary Waters & Yale…

Tommy Lemoine — Wed, 12 Feb 2014 18:31:08 +0000

With just over a month until Selection Sunday, many teams across the landscape of college basketball are beginning to show their true colors, for better or for worse. Some early conference pace-setters have returned back to the pack, while a number of apparent-disappointments have readjusted and begun to find their way. And others yet just keep on winning. Let’s pass out a few awards to those who took care of business last week.

O26 Team of the Week

Wichita State. The Shockers have been written about and discussed at length over the past several days, so there’s no need to overanalyze the implications of last week’s big road [...]

Checking in on … the Horizon League

Deepak Jayanti — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:06:17 +0000

Deepak Jayanti is the RTC correspondent for the Horizon League. Follow him on Twitter (@10thYearSeniors) for his thoughts on college basketball.

Reader’s Take

Take Our Poll

Halfway Checkpoint

Don’t Bet On It: Parity has been a common term used to describe certain conference races such as the Big Ten, CAA or Pac-12 so far this season. Add the Horizon League to that list after the games this past weekend. Cleveland State and a surprising Valparaiso team sit on top of the standings at the halfway point of conference play. Fans of this league with a gambling itch might want to stay away because there [...]

Summer Updates Wrap-Up

rtmsf — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 19:48:57 +0000

Now that we’ve spent the last six weeks reviewing most of the Division I conferences, let’s take a look back at the entire list with the summer #1 power ranking for each as we head into the fall… [ed note: to see all of the Summer Updates in order of release, click here]

ACC (Matt Patton) – #1 North Carolina America East (John Templon) – #1 Boston University Atlantic 10 (Joe Dzuback) – #1 Xavier Big East (Brian Otskey) – #1 Syracuse Big South (Mark Bryant) – #1 UNC-Asheville Big Ten (Will Green) – #1 Ohio State Big 12 (Evan Pfaff) – #1 Baylor Conference USA [...]

ATB: Mid-Major Tourney Saturday

rtmsf — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 10:34:35 +0000

Wild Saturday. Obviously, there’s a million things to talk about this weekend, but this special ATB Saturday edition will focus exclusively on the thirteen conference tournaments that were going on across the country today. In our usual weekend edition on Sunday night, we’ll discuss all the other games from the bigger conferences who are still finishing up regular season action, including the upsets of #1 Syracuse, #5 Kansas State and so forth. Bear with us, as we’ll be back tomorrow.

Conference Tourneys. The ‘expanded’ NCAA Tourney continued today with another 35 teams eliminated on this glorious Saturday of hoops [...]

ATB: Cornell Shoots Their Way to Third Straight NCAA Bid

rtmsf — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 11:33:43 +0000

Big Red Freshness Lasts Right Through It. Cornell 95, Brown 76. It probably took a little longer than the nervous Big Red faithful hoped to put away the pesky Brown Bears tonight, but in the end, it was simply a formality because Cornell players were so narrowly focused on winning their third straight Ivy League title and NCAA bid that there was no way they were going to lose this game tonight. How focused were they? Try a season-best 57% shooting and an utterly ridonkulous 20-30 from deep tonight. At one point during the conflagration of shot-making by [...]

ATB: Not Michigan State, Villanova or Tulsa? What?

rtmsf — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 08:54:35 +0000

Feeling Title-y. There were three conference championships won tonight around the nation, and you can count the number of people on one hand who had these three picks back in November.

#7 Ohio State 73, Illinois 57. Evan Turner put in his usual work (16/12/5 assts) for the Buckeyes and Jon Diebler rained seven threes as OSU pulled away in the second half to win at least a share of the Big 10 regular season title. Both Purdue and Michigan State will need to win both of their remaining games this week to tie the Buckeyes at the top [...]

Thus Begins Championship Fortnight…

rtmsf — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 10:18:09 +0000

You know why we don’t need NCAA Tournament expansion to 96 teams? The are a lot of other good reasons, but the simplest reason is that we already have it. In fact, about 300 of the 347 Division I teams have an opportunity starting tonight to ‘play their way into’ the NCAA Tournament. It’s easy — survive and advance. As long as you win, you’re still alive. And if you win three or four games in (mostly) consecutive days, you’ll see Greg Gumbel reading your name off the Big Board on Selection Sunday. Keep winning beyond that and [...]

RTC Top 25: Week 17

rtmsf — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:44:05 +0000

Only one more of these after this week, and then unlike our football counterparts, they become completely irrelevant. Analysis after the jump…

QnD Analysis.

With the top three teams losing in last week’s poll, #4 Syracuse ascended to the top spot. #1 Kansas and #2 Kentucky weren’t penalized very heavily for suffering only their second losses of the season, but the Robbie Hummel-less #3 Purdue Boilermakers dropped precipitously after their loss at home to Michigan State on Sunday. In n’ Out. There were three new teams entering the poll this week: #23 Maryland by virtue of its double-overtime win over Virginia Tech, #24 Xavier from its [...]

RTC Top 25: Week 14

rtmsf — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:25:04 +0000

It’s a new week and we’re back with a new Top 25 poll. The usual analysis after the jump…

Note that this week Rob Dauster of BiaH is filling in for one or usual pollsters.

QnD Analysis.

Despite a lackluster couple of games this week, Kansas remains atop our poll with three of the four #1 overall votes. The Jayhawks will be tested tonight in Austin, and if they can pull through safely in that one, they may be primed to finish the regular season with one loss. Syracuse is ready to take over at #1 should KU falter, and has two home [...]

RTC Top 25: Week 13

rtmsf — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 23:02:26 +0000

A good discussion on twitter today about how to rank the top four (all one-loss) teams. Here’s our version, with analysis after the jump:

QnD Analysis.

Kansas’ win at K-State on Saturday moved the Jayhawks to a unanimous #1 in this week’s poll. From there, things get muddled with the two Big East powerhouses tying at second, and Kentucky sliding down to a close fourth. Looking at the KU schedule, if Bill Self’s team can get past struggling Texas next week in Austin, they have a really good shot at running the table the rest of the regular season (next toughest game: [...]

Checking in on… the Horizon League

rtmsf — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 21:09:24 +0000

John Templon of Chicago College Basketball is the RTC correspondent for the Horizon League.

Standings

Butler 6-0 Green Bay 5-2 Detroit 5-2 Wright State 4-3 Cleveland State 3-3 Loyola (IL) 2-4 Valparaiso 2-4 Milwaukee 2-4 Youngstown State 2-5 UIC 1-5

Top Storylines

Local rivalries impacting the standings. Milwaukee handed Green Bay its second conference loss with a victory last Saturday. Tonight Loyola (IL) and UIC play a cross-town game in Chicago that will be televised on ESPNU. Close calls. The evenly matched talent in the Horizon League is making for some emotional games and tough decisions for referees and coaches alike. Even Butler isn’t immune as the Bulldogs had to [...]

Checking in on… the Horizon League

rtmsf — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 08:04:12 +0000

John Templon of Chicago College Basketball is the RTC correspondent for the Horizon League.

Standings

Butler 3-0 Green Bay 4-1 Detroit 3-1 Wright State 3-1 Cleveland State 2-2 Loyola (IL) 2-3 Valparaiso 1-2 Milwaukee 1-3 Youngstown State 1-4 UIC 1-4

Top Storylines

Into conference play to stay. Besides the Bracket Busters event everyone is locked in and focused on conference play in the Horizon League. Butler is still the team to beat. The Bulldogs haven’t been challenged yet in the Horizon League, but every team is gunning for them. There’s a huge game coming up at Wright State on Friday and another at Detroit on Saturday. Parity reigns in league play. Besides the [...]

RTC Top 25: Week 6

rtmsf — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 19:41:48 +0000

Last weekend’s Villanova loss created the only substantive movement in the RTC Top 25 this week, but we weren’t rating the Wildcats as high as everyone else anyway, so the market on Jay Wright’s team appears to have been corrected. Analysis after the jump…

QnD Analysis.

Two Tales. The poll has really tightened up among the top sixteen or so teams, as the highest standard deviation among our four pollsters belongs to Michigan State (one pollster still has the Spartans in the top ten). The top ten is even more tightly wound, with the biggest range [...]