Sunday, March 21 (all CBS)
12:10pm - Syracuse vs. Gonzaga
2:20pm - Ohio State vs Georgia Tech
2:30pm - Maryland vs Michigan State
2:40pm - West Virginia vs Missouri
2:50pm - Wisconsin vs Cornell
4:50pm - Pittsburgh vs Xavier
5:00pm - Purdue vs Texas A&M
5:15pm - Duke vs California
Paul Jordan of Wildcat Blue Blog is the RTC correspondent for the Southeastern Conference. The SEC Tournament begins Thursday at Noon ET.
EAST
Kentucky 29-2 (14-2)
Vanderbilt 23-7 (12-4)
Tennessee 23-7 (11-5)
Florida 20-11 (9-7)
South Carolina 15-15 (6-10)
Georgia 13-16 (5-11)
WEST
Mississippi State 21-10 (9-7)
Mississippi 21-9 (9-7)
Arkansas 14-17 (7-9)
Alabama 16-14 (6-10)
Auburn 15-15 (6-10)
LSU 11-19 (2-14)
Despite all the hype and hoopla over the SEC being a much improved conference this season, at this time the SEC still has as many teams locked into the NCAA Tournament as they did last year — three. Kentucky finished up the regular season with their 44th SEC regular season championship and the number two ranking in both the AP and the ESPN/USA Today Top 25. Tennessee finished #13 in the ESPN/USA Today poll and #15 in the AP top 25. The Vanderbilt Commodores finished the season ranked #20 in the AP Top 25 and #23 in the ESPN/USA Today poll. Other than these three teams, no other SEC school even received votes in either poll so you would figure that if any other teams are to go dancing, they need to get some wins in the upcoming SEC Tournament.
Now that the regular season is over, I am pleased to present my first and second team ALL-SEC roster, as well as my choice for Player of the Year and Coach of the Year:
Folks, it’s March and we’re now approximately eight days until Selection Sunday sets the sports world on fire. By our count, there are about twenty teams fighting for half as many at-large spots, and this weekend’s games will have increased importance in the all-too-important ’sniff test.’ The NCAA Selection Committee is made of humans just like the rest of us, and if they see a couple of teams look great on tv this weekend, it could be the little extra push needed to earn a Dance card next Sunday. But it’s not just about those so-called bubble teams; it’s also about positioning. Which team will step up in the last week to grab the likely one remaining #1 seed, along with Syracuse, Kansas and Kentucky? Who will be able to secure a top four regional seed in order to play closer to home? There are so many questions unanswered still remaining. Today is the last Saturday of the regular season, and as always, we’ll be with you on Boom Goes the Dynamite throughout the day. Below are the key games we plan on keeping an eye on — of special note is that three more automatic bids will be delivered today, in the Big South, Atlantic Sun and Ohio Valley Conferences.
Noon – West Virginia @ Villanova on CBS – RTC Live
Noon -Texas A&M @ Oklahoma on ESPN
Noon – Cincinnati @ Georgetown on ESPN360
1 pm – Tulsa @ Memphis on CBS College Sports
1:30 pm – Maryland @ Virginia on ESPN360
2 pm – Kansas @ Missouri on CBS
2 pm – Syracuse @ Louisville on ESPN
2 pm – Notre Dame @ Marquette on ESPN360
2 pm – UConn @ USF on The Big East Network
2 pm – Notre Dame @ Marquette on The Big East Network
2 pm – South Carolina @ Vanderbilt on ESPN2
4 pm- UCLA @ Arizona State on CBS
4 pm – Texas @ Baylor on ESPN
4 pm – Big South Championship: Winthrop vs. Coastal Carolina on ESPN2
4 pm – Virginia Tech @ Georgia Tech on ESPN360
6 pm – Tennessee @ Mississippi State on ESPN
6 pm – Atlantic Sun Championship: ETSU @ Mercer on ESPN2
8 pm – OVC Championship: Murray State vs. Morehead State on ESPN2
9 pm – UNC @ Duke on ESPN
9 pm – New Mexico State @ Utah State on ESPN360
We will be back at 11 AM for our continuing coverage so check back then and feel free to comment or ask questions in the comment section.
11:00: Nice showing by the Duke student for GameDay. Not going to be Kentucky because of the smaller student body and smaller arena.
11:10: Ugh. Speedo guy segment coming on GameDay. I will be switching the channel for a few minutes when that segment is going to start. Way to show segments that your audience will be interested in. Would they do a “Bikini girl” segment or would that not be PC?
11:20: Coach K does not approve of “Speedo guy”. I think we have finally found something that UNC fans will agree with him on. Seriously ESPN. Why are you featuring this idiot?
11:25: Be back in 5 minutes. Tell me when it is over.
11:30: Back again. Knight does not look amused, which amuses me.
11:45: So Sherron Collins was a great athlete in high school, plays video games, and like macaroni. I’m glad we found that out. Why can’t GameDay do legit segments like the one on the Syracuse zone they did earlier this year?
Noon: Hubert picks UNC. Big surprise. Knight and Bilas are calling for a Duke beat down. I’d go with something in between the two.
12:05: Three interesting games on right now none of which is the FSU-Miami game that ESPN2 decided to show over Cincinnati-Georgetown. The best of the three games is clearly the West Virginia-Villanova game, which we are doing a RTC Live for so be sure to check that out.
12:15: Interesting news: Both Luke Harangody and Austin Freeman will play today according to Seth Davis and Jeff Goodman respectively.
Now it’s getting serious. College basketball teams across the country now fall into one of four camps: bored, because they know their NCAA bid is secure; resigned, because they’ve known for a long time that they’re out; relieved, because they think they’ve played their way in; and downright antsy, because they’ve still got work to do. That last group are the most interesting ones at this time of year, and there are plenty of them out there. We’ll be keeping an eye on all of those games and, of course, commenting on any game we can find on the tube in today’s three-man weave version of BGTD. We hope to hear from you while we’re at it. Here are the games on which we’ll definitely be keeping tabs, though we’ll probably find more throughout the day:
12 PM – Notre Dame @ #13 Georgetown on CBS (regional) – RTC Live
12 PM – #2 Kentucky @ #17 Tennessee on CBS (regional)
12 PM – Michigan @ #9 Ohio State on ESPN
12 PM – Northeastern @ George Mason on ESPN2
2 PM – North Carolina @ Wake Forest on CBS
2 PM – #21 Texas @ #23 Texas A&M on ESPN
2 PM – Mississippi @ Arkansas on ESPN2
4 PM – #1 Kansas @ Oklahoma State on CBS
4 PM – Florida @ Georgia on SEC Network
6 PM – Mississippi State @ South Carolina on ESPN
8 PM – Illinois State @ #22 Northern Iowa on ESPN2
8 PM – Missouri @ #6 Kansas State on ESPN-U
8 PM – Southern Miss @ Memphis on CBS College Sports
9 PM – #8 Villanova @ #4 Syracuse on ESPN
We will start with our coverage at 11 AM. Feel free to drop by throughout the day and ask questions/comment on anything that is happening in the world of college basketball.
11:05: Well it certainly is very orange in Syracuse. And Bob Knight with the first shot of the day mocking fans who would pay $750 to watch this game. Nice. Evan Turner just signed a “Evan Turner” home-made trophy being held by some kid wearing a home-made “Villain” t-shirt.
11:06: Knight just admitted he is rooting for Steve Alford and New Mexico tonight. Not a surprise, but still amusing. I’m sure the BYU players will have something to say to the media after the game.
11:10: We would love to interview the fan who sits in that seat or the row of seats that Erin Andrews just featured. The almost looks like Final Four type seating or what we saw earlier this year for the game at the new Cowboys stadium.
11:17: Hubert Davis calling out the Mountain West and BYU. Can we get Shawn Bradley on the phone to mock UNC? Jay Bilas comes to BYU’s defense by comparing them to and crushing Virginia Tech. He’s not going to be a popular guy the next time he visits Blacksburg. Digger makes the best point of the entire discussion by saying that the reason we are talking up the mid-majors is because the PAC-10 is awful this year.
11:20: “This is the weakest at-large field ever. The weakest at-large field ever.” – Jay Bilas. He should be fun on Selection Sunday.
11:21: Does Digger have a yellow highlighter today? Is this the first time he has went with the traditional yellow for his highlighter?
11:35: Nice feature about Hank Gathers. I still remember hearing about it the day it happened on SportsCenter the night it happened. Still jarring to see the video. Nice shout-out to RTC fan Jeff Fryer. It’s too bad they ran into the buzzsaw that was the 1990 UNLV team. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing that “30 for 30″ documentary.
11:45: I love seeing the replay of the Scottie Reynolds shot. Not because I root for Villanova, but because it is the craziest basketball moment I have ever seen in person. Just the ecstasy of the Villanova fans that followed their utter despair after they had almost blown the game moments before.
The Rematch. Kentucky 82, South Carolina 61. In the locker room before the game, John Calipari told his team, “Guys, before we start, here, I got a recruit here we want to talk to, so make sure you introduce yourself to the recruit.” A moment later, into the locker room walked…Earvin “Magic” Johnson. And honestly, that was about the only unexpected thing that happened this evening at Rupp Arena. To be sure, this looked pretty similar to the South Carolina squad that has ownership of the only bruise on Kentucky’s record; not much has changed. Devan Downey went nuts (26 points on 9-25), and that’s about the whole story for the Gamecocks. This was a different Kentucky team, though, especially when it came to defense and glasswork, and the biggest change was seen in Patrick Patterson. Ticked off after his five point performance in the first game against South Carolina, Patterson blew up for a season-high 23 points on 10-12 shooting, swatted four shots, and yanked down eight boards on this night. South Carolina won the rebounding war in the teams’ first meeting 40-38, and even beat Kentucky on the offensive glass a month ago, 16-13. Tonight, Patterson — whom sophomore Darius Miller called the “unquestioned leader of this team,” in case there was any doubt — along with Miller (7/8) and DeMarcus Cousins (19/11, his 17th double-double), were having none of that. Kentucky owned the glass on both ends, outworking the Gamecocks 44-26 overall and 14-8 on the offensive side. South Carolina had a short 7-0 run in the middle of the second half to cut the Wildcat lead to six, but didn’t really test the Wildcats after that. It’ll be interesting to watch Kentucky in their next one. The postgame interviews tonight didn’t end until around midnight, and Kentucky now travels to Knoxville on Saturday to take on Tennessee in a game that starts at noon — that’s right, a mere 36 hours. Calipari noted how this is “the doldrums, the dog days of the season. We and a lot of other teams are all wanting to get on with it…let’s get on with that other tournament, and I’m not talking about the one in Nashville (the SEC),” and, because of that, revealed some trepidation about the Tennessee game, adding, “They played Tuesday. I think they’re there, just waiting on us.” Magic’s message to the UK team, by the way, was simply to tell them (according to Calipari), “You’re a defensive team. I love it, the way you guys guard, and I love watching you play. Keep rebounding and defending the way that you are now, and stick together.” Looks like the Wildcats got the message.
#20 Vanderbilt 96, Georgia 94 (OT). Vandy survived the post-Kentucky hangover by coming back against the very pesky Georgia Bulldogs tonight in a game they probably should have lost. With 33 seconds left, the Commodores were down five points when Andre Walker nailed a big three to bring his team back within two. After two missed FTs by Georgia’s Dustin Ware, AJ Ogilvy got a key tip-in to send the game to overtime and give Vandy new life. In overtime, the Dores were able to build a small margin, but Georgia still had a chance to tie waved off when a missed FT led to a heave/tip-in that came after the buzzer. Regardless, Vandy stayed one game up on Florida for the second seed in the SEC East and the all-important first round bye in the SEC Tournament. Jermaine Beal was awesome with 28/7 assts and Ogilvy added 16/11 in the winning effort. Vanderbilt is a team that is still slightly under the national radar but they can cause serious trouble for teams in the NCAA Tournament with the right matchups.
Is this a revenge game for Kentucky? You recall that it was South Carolina that beat Kentucky on ESPN near the end of January, giving UK their only blemish on the season and removing them from the #1 ranking to which they had ascended merely days beforehand. The UK players and coaches downplay the revenge factor a bit, but you can’t help but think that the Wildcats would LOVE to get the Gamecocks back…especially after the USC Student Senate sent a rather boastful message to Kentucky after that game. USC is here to prove that first one wasn’t a fluke, and Devan Downey relishes these spoiler roles. He has his critics (is USC really 6-0 when he takes less than 14 shots?), but he’s certainly exciting, and God only knows what the Rupp Arena crowd has in store for him tonight. Should be fun. ESPN2’s got this one at 9pm, and we’ll be there as well. Join us, and join the discussion this evening.
Hello everybody, welcome back to another thrilling edition of Boom Goes the Dynamite. If you haven’t noticed, we’re at the point of the season where every game has a little more intensity, a little more pressure, a little more edginess, as each team tries to attract the eye of the fickle Selection Committee. Whether in an attempt to lock up a high seed or simply to make the darn thing, the next three weeks will present ample opportunities for every team to make its case, for better or worse. As always, we’ll be right there with you throughout the day, checking in on the big games and others of varying importance. While today isn’t a blockbuster day in terms of key games, there are always going to be a good number at this time of year. Below are the ones we’ll be keeping an eye on…
11 AM: Siena @ #13 Butler on ESPN2 – RTC Live
12 PM: Florida @ Ole Miss on CBS
12 PM: Seton Hall @ #8 West Virginia on ESPN
12 PM: Morgan State @ Murray State on ESPNU
1 PM: Louisiana Tech @ Northeastern on ESPN2
1:30 PM: #22 Baylor @ Oklahoma State on ESPN360
2 PM: #17 Texas @ Texas Tech on ESPN
2 PM: Georgia Tech @ Maryland on ESPN360 – RTC Live
2 PM: Xavier @ Charlotte on CSS
4 PM: Illinois @ #4 Purdue on ESPN
4 PM: UTEP @ Tulsa on CBS CS – RTC Live
4 PM: Colorado @ #1 Kansas on ESPN360
6 PM: #2 Kentucky @ #19 Vanderbilt on ESPN
6 PM: #7 Kansas State @ Oklahoma on ESPNU
8 PM: Charleston @ George Mason on ESPN2
9 PM: UCLA @ Washington on ESPN
12 AM: Wichita State @ Utah State on ESPN2 – RTC Live
11:02: And we’re live with another BGTD. Interesting decision by ESPN to keep GameDay at 11 AM with the Siena-Butler game on ESPN2. We already have someone doing a RTC Live for the Siena-Butler game so we’ll focus more on GameDay than we otherwise would. Definitely check out our RTC Live of the game though.
11:07: The ESPN analysts are really going out on a limb saying the Big East Tournament will be the best of the conference tournament. Digger breaks with the group and goes with the Big Ten. Surprisingly Bobby Knight calls out the Big Ten saying the Big East would beat them head-to-head.
11:09: In another surprise, Jay Bilas goes against Coach K by saying that the conference tournaments effectively act as a huge NCAA Tournament and if you win you are into the real NCAA Tournament. Digger agrees with him while Hubert Davis attempts to make a ridiculous argument against the automatic bid saying it penalizes teams like Siena that dominate their conferences, but might choke in the conference tournament. Personally I think if you’re that good you can earn an at-large bid with your play throughout the season. Knight holds the coaching fraternity party line saying that he wants to expand the tournament. Translation: Nobody gets fired ever.
11:15: Just flipped over to ESPN2 where the announcers were comparing Gordon Hayward to Mike Dunleavy Jr. I’m not sure if they are talking about their games or the way they look. Where is the college basketball Spike Lee who will call out these announcers for comparing the two only because they are white guys who look fairly similar? For the record their games are pretty similar. Feel free to call me out in the comment section. . .
11:20: Knight wants “The Committee” to get an ex-coach on there (like him?) and the team’s last 18 games. I have no idea how he decided on 18. Why not 20? The other talking heads rip the RPI. Davis wants to take the strength of schedule component out of the RPI and wants to use an “eye test” to replace it. I’d like to see Professor Davis come up with a quantitative way to come up with the “eye test” score.
RTC contributor and official bracketologist Zach Hayes will update the bubble scene every week until Madness ensues.
It’s been almost two weeks since our last Bubble Watch, so let’s get right to it…
Atlantic 10
(With an incredible six bids if the season ended today and the realistic potential for five come Selection Sunday, I figured it was time the Atlantic 10 earned their own section).
Locks: Temple.
Rhode Island (15 RPI, 73 SOS)- The Rams don’t have a bad loss on their schedule and picked up an enormous split on the Xavier/Dayton trip in late January. Their best non-conference wins against Oklahoma State and Northeastern don’t necessarily stand out, but a top-15 RPI and 19-3 overall record means it would take an epic collapse if the Rams aren’t dancing for the first time under Jim Baron. Seed range: 7-9.
Xavier (26 RPI, 19 SOS)- Xavier’s resume isn’t quite as impressive as those numbers might indicate. Their three best wins all came at home against bubble team Cincinnati and Atlantic-10 foes Dayton and Rhode Island. Emerging victorious in one of their nail-biting losses at Butler and at Wake Forest would have been enormous for their NCAA chances. A win at Florida this Saturday provides another opportunity. Seed range: 8-9.
Richmond (31 RPI, 66 SOS)- The blowout win over Temple last Saturday pushed the Spiders from bubble team to comfortably in. They picked up quality non-conference wins over Missouri, Old Dominion and Florida while a win tonight at Rhode Island would make it awfully difficult to deny them a bid. Seed range: 8-9.
Dayton (#34 RPI, #39 SOS)- The Flyers needed to beat Xavier at home and did the job. Remember, their only three out of conference losses were against top-20 teams. The St. Joe’s loss stands out as ugly but the next four games are all winnable before a clash at Temple on February 24. Seed range: 10-12.
Charlotte (#45 RPI, #151 SOS)- The 49ers still have work to do even on their perch atop the Atlantic 10 standings. They were annihilated in most of their non-conference games against NCAA teams (exception being a destruction of shorthanded Louisville) but they have picked up A-10 wins over Temple at home and by 12 at Richmond. The key stretch could be 4 of 6 at home to end the year with Xavier and Richmond in that mix. Charlotte appears to be in a pretty good position overall. Seed range: 9-10.
ACC
Locks: Duke.
Wake Forest (#16 RPI, #23 SOS)- Wake is inching closer and closer to lock status. Their computer numbers are terrific and they have enviable wins at Gonzaga and against both Richmond and Xavier in overtime. Taking care of business Saturday at home against Georgia Tech would do the trick. Seed range: 5-7.
Georgia Tech (#24 RPI, #13 SOS)- The Yellow Jackets are comfortably in the field with their five wins against the RPI top 50. But they do finish with four of seven on the road including difficult visits to Wake Forest, Maryland and Clemson. A mediocre ACC record might hurt their seed. Seed range: 5-7.
Derrick Favors is the x-factor in Georgia Tech's quest for a high seed
Florida State (#37 RPI, #51 SOS)- After their game tonight in Littlejohn Coliseum against Clemson, the Seminoles end with a schedule that is very friendly. Their road games are all against likely NIT teams Virginia, North Carolina and Miami. Their only RPI top-25 wins have come against Georgia Tech, though, so some resume enhancement is necessary for Florida State to feel 100% comfortable. Seed range: 7-9.
Clemson (#43 RPI, #37 SOS)- At 4-5 in the ACC, Clemson needs to start winning games or their projected seed will keep plummeting. Their only notable non-conference win came against Butler on a neutral floor and their best ACC win was at home against Maryland. They could go 3-0 in this homestand against Florida State, Miami and Virginia to ease the minds of panicking Tiger fans. Seed range: 10-11.
Maryland (#44 RPI, #32 RPI)- A win Saturday at Duke would go a long way towards an ACC regular season title and lock status for the tournament, but that’s a bit much to demand. The sweep of Florida State only slightly makes up for a lack of quality non-conference wins. Still, just getting to 10-6 in the ACC should be enough for a bid. Seed range: 8-9.
Virginia Tech (#63 RPI, #235 SOS)- Their non-conference schedule is an absolute joke and the committee strongly factors that facet of a team’s portfolio. This means Tech needs to compile more and more ACC wins. They’ve done a nice job so far and qualified for my last bracket on the heels of their 5-3 conference mark. Avoiding a slip-up at NC State tonight is vital for their hopes. Seed range: 12-13.
Zach Hayes is RTC’s resident bracketologist. He’ll regularly be out-scooping, out-thinking and out-shining Lunardi over the next two months.
Some quick thoughts going into the last five weeks before Selection Sunday…
Kansas remains the #1 overall seed by squeaking out two games this week against Nebraska and Colorado to remain undefeated atop the Big 12. Both Syracuse and Kentucky took care of business behind them. Despite being romped by Georgetown on Saturday, Villanova slips in as the last #1 seed but must play in Salt Lake City.
Georgetown appeared as though they might slip from the #2 seed line after their loss to South Florida mid-week, but their statement victory against Villanova healed all wounds. Also on the second line are West Virginia and Duke. Losing two games this week still kept Michigan State as a #2 seed slightly ahead of Wisconsin and Purdue due to the Spartans being the projected conference champions.
Wisconsin, Purdue and Kansas State as #3 seeds were obvious, but New Mexico’s impressive portfolio really jumped out at me at 21-3 (7-2) a #10 RPI and six wins over the RPI top 50. Surviving a scare from San Diego State allowed the Lobos to claim this lofty seed and play closer to home in San Jose.
Three big climbers this week were Wake Forest, UNLV and Richmond. The Demon Deacons picked up an underrated road win at Virginia and, with an RPI/SOS in the top 25 and four top-50 wins, they’re building quite the resume. Wake might be the second-best team in the ACC. UNLV destroying BYU in Vegas pushed the Rebels up to a #6 seed while Richmond’s dispatching of Temple moved them up from bubble territory to a much more comfortable #8 seed.
The Big East is incredibly muddled in the middle. Out of the 12 teams in my LFI, LFO and NFO categories, five reside from the Big East. Notre Dame could have been dead with a loss yesterday to South Florida, but an Irish win keeps them very much alive and doesn’t allow the Bulls to inch into the periphery of the bubble. Illinois and Virginia Tech just could not be denied entry due to their conference records despite lackluster computer numbers. Louisville and Cincinnati are also close calls.
Marquette and Old Dominion were extremely close for the last bid, but the Golden Eagles winning their last three while the Monarchs have fallen in two of their last three flip-flopped the schools. Coincidentally, both hold a signature win over Georgetown. One team that needs to watch out is Oklahoma State, now straddled with a losing Big 12 record and just three wins over the RPI top 100.
The recent report from Sports by Brooks relaying information from an insider ESPN source claiming NCAA Tournament expansion to 68 or 96 teams was a “done deal” caused tremendous frustration and anxiety amongst college basketball diehard fans and followers. The complaints are numerous and completely fair: the regular season would be rendered basically meaningless, the conference tournaments utterly ruined, the NCAA tournament field watered down to the point of being a joke. Fans are irate at the thought of destroying the greatest sporting event known to man. To confirm just how ridiculous the bracket would be if the tournament expands by 31 teams, here’s the rough layout of which teams would be dancing in a hypothetical 96-team field if the season ended today:
That's One Sad Bracket
Teams very comfortably in the field (#65-#73)
#65: Connecticut- 13-9 (3-6), 0-5 in true road games, 2-6 vs. RPI top 50
#66: South Carolina- 13-8 (4-3), losses to Miami and Wofford, 1-4 vs. RPI top 50
#67: Maryland- 14-6 (4-2), best non-conf win at Indiana, 1-6 vs. RPI top 50
#68: Wichita State- 19-4 (8-3), #164 SOS and #330 non-conf SOS, 3 losses vs. sub RPI top 100
#69: Tulsa- 17-4 (6-1), #62 RPI and #178 SOS, 1 win vs. RPI top 100
#70: North Carolina- 13-8 (2-4), #75 RPI, 1-6 vs. RPI top 50, only road win at NC State
#71: Mississippi State- 16-5 (4-2), #65 RPI and #167 SOS, 3 wins vs. RPI top 100, lost to Rider
#72: Illinois- 14-8 (6-3), #79 RPI, 2-4 vs. RPI top 50, losses to Bradley and Utah on neutral courts
#73: William & Mary- 15-6 (7-4), four losses in CAA including UNC-Wilmington, lost 3 of 4
Teams fairly comfortably in the field (#74-#82)
#74: Minnesota- 13-8 (4-5), #61 RPI, 3-7 vs. RPI top 100, losses to Indiana and Portland
#75: San Diego State- 16-6 (5-3), 2-5 vs. RPI top 50, losses to Pacific and Wyoming
#76: Virginia- 13-6 (4-2), #87 RPI and #118 SOS, losses to Penn State, Auburn, USF and Penn State
#77: South Florida- 14-7 (4-5), #207 non-conf SOS, 1-4 vs. RPI top 50
#78: Seton Hall- 12-8 (3-6), #174 non-conf SOS, 1-5 vs. RPI top 25, 8 losses overall
#79: Northwestern- 15-7 (4-6), 3-7 vs. RPI top 100, #246 non-conf SOS, 6 losses in Big 10 play
#80: Virginia Tech- 16-4 (3-3), #74 RPI and #255 SOS, #345 non-conf SOS, 0-2 vs. RPI top 50
#81: UTEP- 15-5 (6-1), #72 RPI and #141 SOS, 1-3 vs. RPI top 50, best non-conf win at NM St.
#82: Texas Tech- 14-7 (2-5), 0-7 vs. RPI top 50, best non-conf win vs. Wash, best conf win vs. Oklahoma
Zach Hayes is RTC’s resident bracketologist. He’ll regularly be out-scooping, out-thinking and out-shining Lunardi over the next two months.
Some quick bullet points regarding this week’s bracket:
Despite the loss at South Carolina, Kentucky remains a #1 seed but drops in the pecking order behind Kansas (#1 overall), Syracuse and Villanova. Kentucky still had some distance between them and the highest ranked #2 seed in Michigan State.
Georgetown looked like they would fall to a #3 seed with their blowout defeat the hands of Syracuse, but a big time rebound at home against Duke keeps the Hoyas on the second line. Despite the OT loss at home to Kansas, Kansas State reaches the #2 seed plateau. Remember they picked up a huge victory earlier in the week at Baylor.
Texas drops to the lowest mark they’ve been in weeks to a #3 seed. I had about six or seven teams vying for the final #3 seed after Texas, Purdue and West Virginia. Vanderbilt’s overall portfolio and strong RPI gives them the nod over the likes of BYU, Wisconsin, New Mexico and Baylor.
One at-large stealer this week: Arizona. The Wildcats knocked off California at home Sunday afternoon and earn the Pac-10 automatic bid with the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Bears. They received a #12 seed and would hypothetically keep their consecutive NCAA Tournament streak alive.
Keep in mind that the committee doesn’t factor in how many teams receive bids from a conference. Each team is judged on their own portfolio as if they were an independent. Nine Big East teams can occur if all of those nine teams deserve bids. With the Pac-10 pathetic and Big 10 disappointing, it could happen. Marquette and Louisville were two of my last teams to make the bracket and Connecticut not far behind.
Hope you guys enjoy my Houston bracket. It’s a dandy.
Welcome back, everyone! Boom Goes the Dynamite returns for the fourth weekend of the year with a blockbuster Saturday of games that are so good that we’re getting them up today as a reminder to join us tomorrow afternoon. With noon-to-night coverage and the fact that most of the country is completely frozen over again, we expect that you’ll be right there with us on the couch, eating a bunch of bad food and breaking down zone offenses. We hope to see you then!
Here are the games we plan on keeping an eye on…
12 PM: La Salle at #15 Temple on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com
12 PM: Marquette at #19 Connecticut on Big East Network HD and ESPN Full Court
12 PM: Louisville at #9 West Virginia on ESPN and ESPN360.com
1 PM: #7 Duke at #11 Georgetown on CBS – RTC Live
2 PM: #4 Syracuse at DePaul on Big East Network and ESPN Full Court
2 PM: Indiana at Illinois on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com
3 PM: FSU at Boston College on Raycom and ESPN Full Court
3 PM: #25 Northern Iowa at Missouri State
4 PM: Baylor at #6 Texas on Big 12 Network and ESPN Full Court
4 PM: #23 Vanderbilt at #1 Kentucky on ESPN and ESPN360.com A 4 PM: Arkansas at #20 Mississippi on SEC Network and ESPN Full Court
6 PM: Notre Dame at Rutgers on ESPN2 and ESPN360.com
6 PM: New Mexico at TCU on CBS College Sports
7 PM: #2 Kansas at #13 Kansas State on ESPN and ESPN360.com
7 PM: Georgia at South Carolina on Fox Sports (regional) and ESPN Full Court
7 PM: Northwestern at #5 Michigan State on Big Ten Network
8 PM: Providence at Cincinnati on ESPN U
9 PM: Utah at #10 BYU on Mountain Network
9:30 PM: #8 Gonzaga at San Francisco on Fox Sports (regional)- RTC Live
We will be dividing the day into three shifts with nvr1983 starting things off then rtmsf will handle the afternoon games before John Stevens takes you into the night with late night coverage of all the day’s big games.
10:50 AM: Apparently ESPN forgot to pay the electricity bill as the lights just went out on Jason Williams. (As a college basketball fan, I refuse to call him Jay. Jason Williams was a great player. Jay Williams crashed his motorcycle.)
11:00 AM: Dear College Students of America, This is how you show up for a College GameDay. I don’t want to call anybody out, but the Kansas State fans are crushing what I saw when I went to GameDay at UNC last year. To be fair, a game against in-state rival Kansas is much, much more important than a disappointing Miami team. This seems more like a College Football GameDay and that’s what we need for the basketball version too. Right now the pressure is on Illinois, Kentucky, Washington, Syracuse, and Duke to match this atmosphere when GameDay comes to town later this year.
11:10 AM: Does anybody have a link to where we can buy one of those Frank Martin t-shirts?
11:15 AM: According to the Kansas State website, the previous record for College Basketball GameDay attendance was 6,700 at Clemson last year before they played Duke. I haven’t heard an official number for today. Bramlage Coliseum holds 12,528 and I would think they are well over half full.
11:20 AM: Is Coach K advocating for abolishing the requirement for players to spend one year in college or wanting them to stay in school for more than one semester, which is all they really have to do to be eligible to play in their freshman year? It sounds more like the former. Jay Bilas is right that this issue is more a NBA/business issue.
11:22 AM: If you’re wondering who Hubert Davis and Digger Phelps are going to pick to win the Kansas-Kansas State game, their clothes might be a pretty good clue. Hubert is wearing a purple shirt and a purple tie. Digger is wearing a purple shirt and a purple tie and he he has a purple highlighter. . .
What was going on up in Seattle on Tuesday night with the ridiculous number of fouls in the Washington vs. Seattle game, which UW won 123-76? Cameron Dollar’s Seattle Redhawks were hit with FORTY-FIVE personal fouls, and actually had to play the last 1:32 of the game with only four players on the floor. Folks, they had more fouls than rebounds. Soooo, let’s put this in perspective… the same team that defeated Oregon State by 51 just lost by 47 to Washington, and both Pac-10 teams are basically sharing space at the bottom of the conference standings.
Jim Boeheim: stand-up comedian. Yeah, everything is funny when you’re 20-1 and ranked in the top five.
As if there was ever any question about this, we noted something a little odd about a television glimpse of Dookie V’s grandson who was attending the Duke-Florida State game at Cameron Indoor Stadium last night. We’ve obscured the little guy’s face to protect the young/innocent, but given this outward display of partisanship by his family, how can Dick Vitale ever again say with a straight face that he’s capable of calling a Blue Devils game fairly?
You may not remember this exercise, but as part of the season preview over at Vegas Watch, we pitched in on an analysis of each BCS conference team + a few others using the 2008-09 Pomeroy ratings and manually adjusting each team based on returnees and recruiting classes. Here are some of our notable misses that we overshot — UNC, Washington, Iowa, Auburn, LSU, Oregon State, UCLA and Oklahoma. Coming next will be some of the teams we undershot.
Is Friday night’s game between Harvard and Cornell in Ithaca, NY, the game of the year in college basketball? The WSJ thinks it might be.
Stewart Mandel is back from football to ask where all the great hoops dynasties have gone? Not sure how much we agree with this assessment, though. Carolina and UCLA are clearly down, but Kentucky and Kansas are clearly up. There’s always a power vacuum and someone can fill it (usually one of the traditional powers).
BYU will ‘go pink‘ in Saturday’s home game against rival Utah to support Coaches vs. Cancer, of special interest to the Cougar program because of head coach Dave Rose’s battle over the summer with pancreatic cancer. Here is a visual representation of what the jerseys and shoes should look like.
The Obama Curse. South Carolina 68, #1 Kentucky 62. First the Chicago 2016 Olympic bid, next Martha Coakley’s Senate race, now Kentucky’s short-lived reign at #1. Just hours after President Obama had telephoned the Wildcat team to congratulate them on reaching the top ranking and raising over a million bucks in their Hoops for Haiti telethon, UK got lit up by South Carolina’s Devan Downey in Columbia to give the Gamecocks their first-ever win over a #1-ranked team. Much like the president over the course of the last year, John Calipari and his team tonight learned the hard way that it’s considerably tougher playing the game with a giant blue target on your back. Now, about this Downey kid. Last weekend he was spectacular in a shoulda-been-win at Florida. His one-on-five dribble drive to get through the entire Gator defense and make a running bank shot to give his team the lead was legendary. Tonight he had three of those. Or at least it seemed like he did. What we do know for a fact was that there was nobody on the Kentucky defense who could stay in front of the guy (can anyone in America?), as he sliced, diced, and spiced his way through Wildcat defenders for 30/5/3 assts like Heidi Montag’s plastic surgeon with a scalpel in his hand. He didn’t shoot well (9-29 FG), especially in the first half, but when it counted, it was Downey who appeared to be the best player on the floor (real estate shared tonight by at least three lottery picks). UK’s superstar guard John Wall did his best to bring the Cats back late in the game, as Downey and he went mano a mano, but his 19/4 was too little, too late, and the result is that there will be another new #1 team next week. So what can we take from this loss by Kentucky? Well, we wrote last week that there was a large disconnect between Kentucky as top team in the human polls and Kentucky as a top 10-15 team in the computer numbers. But the two areas that concerned us — three-point defense and forcing turnovers — weren’t the root cause of tonight’s loss. The defense was good enough (.941 PPP holding SC to 34% from the field and 25% from three), but it was the Cats’ second-worst offensive performance of the year that made this happen. The stat ESPN kept quoting was that Kentucky’s freshmen were scoring all of the second-half points, but what it really should have said is that DeMarcus Cousins (a dominant 27/12/3 blks) and John Wall were putting in the work. Fellow freshman Eric Bledsoe (4/5 assts) is a helluva player in his own right, and he had the only other two second-half points, while UK’s junior all-american, Patrick Patterson, was completely forgotten the entire game (five points on four shots). When Calipari’s offense is clicking, Kentucky puts four or more players into double-figures; tonight it was only two. If Kentucky has aspirations to reach the top spot again this season (and we think they do), the key to making that happen will be impressing upon the youngsters to get more touches to one of the most versatile and efficient players in America, Patterson. When all three of he, Wall and Cousins are clicking, few teams have the ability to match that kind of firepower. Final note: beautiful, well-executed RTC by the Gamecock students — security can put up all the yellow tape they want, but RTCs on nights like tonight can’t be suppressed (start at the 1:20 mark).
Call 1-866-rtc-wins For Our Tip Hotline. And there are no unbeatens left. Just a quick aside, but three weeks ago we posted an article examining when we thought were the most likely games the four remaining unbeatens would lose. 3-1 ain’t bad. The lone miss we had was Kansas’ stumble at Tennessee a couple of weekends ago, and we’re ok with that.
A few hours before their game at South Carolina this evening — you’re sure to see a clip of this on ESPN’s coverage and probably on SportsCenter — John Calipari and his Kentucky team were summoned to the phone for a call from a fairly famous fan of college basketball — President Barack Obama. The call was one of gratitude to Calipari and his boys as a result of their efforts in helping to raise over a million dollars in aid money (that dinner with Ashley Judd at Calipari’s house going for a hundred grand didn’t hurt) through Calipari’s Hoops For Haiti initiative.
I spent my college years like a great number of people who are fortunate enough to get to go at all. You know, organizing my schedule so I didn’t have to get up before 2 PM, eating a lot of pizza, hitting on co-eds, doing the Greek thing, maximizing my time in pubs and on golf courses, that kind of thing. And that’s when I wasn’t watching college basketball, or tapes (yes, freaking VHS tapes) of games in the off-season. One thing I wasn’t doing was taking calls from the President and joking with him about how we needed to play horse or how I’d hopefully get to chill with him in the summer. Of course, I wasn’t raising over a million bucks for natural disasters with a group of my friends, either, so there we are. Despite their status as BMOCs on the Lexington campus — and pretty much the rest of the state save for small parts of Louisville — even that can’t compare with conversations with world leaders, especially when they’re giving you some serious props. You can see some nerves on the part of the players, and definitely from John Calipari.
Once again we find ourselves with another stacked weekend of college basketball. 142 games in Division I today, and quite a number of those are somewhere on the tube. It’s getting interesting. Some of the big names are starting to come back to the pack a little, and some teams we’d all forgotten about are starting to put some wins together. We’ll be here all day, watching it, commenting on it, enjoying it. We’d like to know what you’re watching and what you think of it all, too, which is why we’re back with another version of BGTD today. We’ll start off checking out Michigan State vs Minnesota and Villanova vs St. John’s, and head for points south and west after that. We’ve even got a man on the ground for RTC Live at the latter game, there, as well as a few more spots today. By all means, join us for a bit. We’ll kick it off in about 10-15 minutes!
12:11 PM ET: Greetings from us to you on this big hoops day. JStev here, starting it off with you. My goodness, Villanova sure has wasted no time in jumping on the Johnnies. Up by seven early and they’ve already forced SJU into five turnovers. We’re just now at the under-16 TVTO. Over on the Big East Network we have Georgetown/Rutgers, with the Hoyas trying to avoid a letdown after their impressive performance at Pittsburgh a few nights ago. Against Rutgers at home that should be no problem, and I’m thinking G’town will have quite a jump in the polls, come Monday. Hoyas up by three early, and Rutgers is already standing straight up in their zone. Minnesota has also shown up early and taken a quick nine-point lead against Michigan State…and ladies and gentlemen, say hello to MR. GUS JOHNSON on the call on CBS. I’ve found my primary game.
12:28: Gus Johnson could comment on the progress of a slug slithering along a rain gutter and, if you heard it, it’d be the most exciting thing you did that day. We’ve said that — or something similar — about a gazillion times on this site and it’s always the truth. He’s showing you why in this game, even this early. Minnesota’s kept their lead in this one despite a little comeback from MSU. Still up seven under seven minutes to play. Dwight Hardy has come out on fire, hitting 5-6 against the Hoyas, and the Johnnies have looked like a different team in the last ten minutes. They’re up by TEN on ‘Nova, now! It’s physical, and if St. John’s wants to have a shot at pulling this off, they better be ready to grind it out against Villanova. They’re glad to bang it out with anyone.
12:46: Great point by Doris Burke as they go to commercial in the ‘Nova/SJU game. When it comes to pulling an upset, you can’t expect to play on an equal footing in ANY aspect of the game. You have to OUT-do your opponent in EVERY aspect of the game. You can’t just hustle as much as them, you have to OUThustle them, etc. That seems like an obvious point, but I bet coaches out there have a harder time getting that across to their teams than you might think. Oh, and Scottie Reynolds just hit a running bank shot off glass that was so gorgeous it almost brought tears. It’ll bring him millions of bucks. Soon.
RTC contributor and bracketologist Zach Hayes will deliver ten permeating thoughts every Tuesday as the season progresses.
1. More than the countless Big East tournament runs at the Garden, or the contention for conference regular season titles on a yearly basis, or reaching upper-echelon status in college basketball playing with no flashy All-American recruits, Jamie Dixon is proving his worth as a coach this year more than ever. Few teams lost as much talent, leadership, and production as senior point guard Levance Fields, dominating big man DeJuan Blair and outside threat Sam Young. The departure of these three mainstays plus two projected starters for 2009-10, Jermaine Dixon and Gilbert Brown, beginning the year MIA prompted many preseason prognosticators (including myself) to deem Pittsburgh a non-contender in the rugged Big East. My mistake, Jamie. The Panthers just finished one of their most difficult Big East road stretches of the year with two statement victories at previously undefeatedSyracuse and at fringe-ranked Cincinnati. Sophomore Ashton Gibbs is taking his experience from playing under Dixon at the U19 Games to good use, running the Pitt offense with superb efficiency, shooting the ball lights out from deep and breaking the all-time Pitt record for consecutive free throws made in the process. Brown has his academics in order and used his athleticism to make a few back-breaking baskets against Cincy last night. Dixon provides stellar defense and outside shooting. It remains to be seen whether Pitt can stay at the top of the Big East with less talent than the other squads, but we do know that Dixon’s team will play smarter and tougher than any opponent. And that always gives them a fighting chance.
2. The most significant win this New Year’s week had to be Purdue running away fromWest Virginia to remain unblemished and surpass the Mountaineers as a projected #1 seed at this stage of the season. Purdue and coach Matt Painter have constructed their program unlike many of their other counterparts atop the rankings on a weekly basis. There’s no Xavier Henry, Avery Bradley, Devin Ebanks or John Wall walking through the doors of Mackey Arena to play for the Boilers for one or two years; instead, their 2009-10 highly ranked squad features a group of players that have been together for three straight seasons, such a rarity in the age of one-and-done players and the glorification of NBA riches. This specific group of players- Robbie Hummel, Chris Kramer, JaJuan Johnson, E’Twaun Moore, Keaton Grant- have practiced and played together for three straight years now, stepping up the ladder slowly but surely in the college hoops landscape. They took the Big Ten by surprise in 2007-08 before falling in the second round to Xavier and climbed up another step by reaching the Sweet 16 a season ago. This year they hope to reach the top and cut down the nets in nearby Indianapolis with a group of kids that have been through the ups and downs of a college basketball season together more than once- a group of lightly-recruited but tough-minded individuals that will utilize defensive intensity and offensive efficiency to reach the ultimate goal Hummel, Johnson, Moore and others been striving for since arriving in West Lafayette.
3. Think about this for a second: Despite losing three four-year starters that all played 30+ MPG and notched 10+ PPG, Marquette coach Buzz Williams would probably tell you that his Golden Eagles should be staring at a 12-2 (2-0) record with wins over top-ten Villanova and West Virginia and another top-25 team in Florida State. Typical of young, inexperienced squads, Marquette has simply been unable to close games this season against stellar competition. If Darius Johnson-Odom and Jimmy Butler don’t miss two front ends of 1-and-1 opportunities, Da’Sean Butler’s game-winning shot never happens and Marquette has the second most impressive road win in the country this season (just behind Pitt stunning Syracuse). Up two Saturday against Villanova, Johnson-Odom again stepped to the line up two points and 2:35 left on the clock. Both of those attempts bricked, and, couple that with a bunny missed by Butler at the buzzer, the Golden Eagles again fell just short. Rewind back to November in the Old Spice Classic where Marquette held a 30-18 lead at half against FSU and a 10-point cushion midway through the second half, but squandered the lead. I haven’t even included the NC State game where Marquette lead by 11 at the intermission. Closing out games has been a devastating problem for Buzz Williams’ squad this season, and these close losses could very well cost Marquette a spot in the field come March if they’re sitting on the bubble.
Over the long holiday weekend, Syracuse and West Virginia fell from the ranks of the unbeaten, leaving only four teams — Kansas, Texas, Kentucky & Purdue — with a shot at the holy grail of a perfect season. None of the coaches will admit to it on the record, but they all hate losing, and each of them would welcome a chance to become the first team since Indiana in 1976 to win every game put in front of them. There’s only one problem. It’s collectively called the Big 12, SEC and Big Ten gauntlets schedules.
As you’re well aware, there have only been two schools in the last two decades who have run the regular season table — UNLV in 1991, and St. Joseph’s in 2004 — and of course the aforementioned Hoosiers a generation ago were the last to go unblemished throughout. There are many reasons for this, especially given that it’s difficult to win every single game with a growing target on your back, but the primary reason that Tark’s Rebels and Martelli’s Hawks were able to do it when so many other great teams were not was because they played in mid-major conferences (the Big West and Atlantic 10, respectively). This is not to say that those conferences are cakewalks, because they’re not. Every league has its share of rivalry games, other good programs and rattlesnake pits disguised as home gyms that make life difficult on favorites. But what those conferences provide that is often missing among the BCS conferences are the true bottom-feeders that give elite teams such as UNLV/St. Joe’s breaks on a given night. Have a tough shooting night at Vandy or Baylor? You’re going home with your first L. A tough shooting night at Fordham or Long Beach, though? You’re probably still ok.
With the clear knowledge in mind that all four of the remaining unbeatens are going to lose a regular season game (or several), let’s take a look at the remaining schedules to pinpoint exactly when and where that might happen. First, let’s see what Pomeroy has to say. He provides percentage odds on every future game, and if you extrapolate out over the rest of the year, you can start to pinpoint the true likelihood of when that first loss might occur.
This is a good starting point, as Purdue appears to be the most likely candidate to lose next (@ Wisconsin on Saturday), while Kansas seems to be the most likely team to run the table (10.2% isn’t exactly a lock, though). The statistical analysis Pomeroy provides only tells part of the story, though, so we’re going to break down each team’s likelihood of its next loss using another analytical tool – our brain.
Zach Hayes is RTC’s resident bracketologist. He’ll regularly be out-scooping, out-thinking and out-shining Lunardi over the next three months.
The biggest note: this is the most subjective bracket of the process. With RPI still evolving into a tool worth considering substantially, I had to construct this bracket primarily on 1) quality wins and bad losses in non-conference play, 2) non-conference SOS and 3) simple W-L record. Even conference RPI can’t be factored in yet because teams have played, at most, three conference games. With RPI rounding into form as January progresses, the bracket will switch from a more subjective process (had to use the eye test a few times, which I despise) to a more objective compilation.
The #1 and #2 seeds were fairly straightforward. Due to Syracuse tripping up at home to Pittsburgh Saturday, the process became much easier and the four undefeated teams remaining earned the #1 nod. Three Big East teams earned nods as a #2 seed, all with one loss: West Virginia, Villanova and Syracuse. Duke was the other obvious choice for the second line.
One of the more interesting cases was Ohio State. How much do I penalize them for the loss of Evan Turner? I was fairly harsh in the opening bracket following a discouraging defeat to Michigan and a blowout loss at Wisconsin. I’m fairly sure the Buckeyes will be moving further up the bracket when Turner is back in the fold a few weeks from now, but a #11 seed at 0-2 in the Big 10 and wins over California and Florida State seemed appropriate.
USC will not be included in any of my brackets this year. It’s a shame because they have strong computer numbers and are building a handful of quality wins including Tennessee and UNLV. Like the Pac-10 needed to be hurt any further.
Some notable snubs were Miami, Oregon and Saint Mary’s. The point is pretty straightforward: I’m not going to reward you for playing a soft schedule. Miami is 14-1 but has the #85 RPI and #328 SOS in the nation with only notable wins against Minnesota and South Carolina. Oregon may be 2-0 in the Pac-10 but they have some BAD losses and need to do more to find their way into the bracket. The win at Oregon is looking stronger for St. Mary’s, but they still need to do more.
Since we’re so early, I did factor in “quality” losses for some teams. For example, Dayton lost by under 10 to both Villanova and Kansas State (both top-10 teams) and by 2 at New Mexico (top-20 team). They deserve some credit for those close losses.
Since we’re early in conference play, I determined the automatic bids among undefeated squads by which team had the highest RPI. I figured I should stay consistent with this throughout the season.
Last Four In: Northwestern, Richmond, Missouri State, Vanderbilt.
Last Four Out: Oklahoma State, Miami (FL), Saint Mary’s, Oregon.
Automatic bids: Vermont, Temple, Duke, East Tennessee State, Kansas, West Virginia, Weber State, Radford, Purdue, Pacific, William & Mary, UAB, Butler, Cornell, Siena, Western Michigan, Morgan State, Northern Iowa, New Mexico, Quinnipiac, Murray State, California, Army, Kentucky, Western Carolina, UT-San Antonio, Texas Southern, Oakland, Western Kentucky, Gonzaga, Louisiana Tech.
Bids per conference: ACC (7), Big East (7), SEC (6), Big 12 (6), Big 10 (6), Mountain West (3), Atlantic-10 (3), Pac-10 (2), Missouri Valley (2).
RTC contributor and bracketologist Zach Hayes will deliver ten permeating thoughts every Tuesday as the season progresses.
1. While the slate en route to West Virginia’s 8-0 start hasn’t been laced with eventual NCAA Tournament participants (the exception being a neutral court win over Texas A&M), the start is nonetheless impressive for a Bob Huggins-coached squad expected to remain near the top-10 from start to finish. While Da’Sean Butler plays the role of go-to scorer and senior leader, it’s sophomore forward Kevin Jones that’s been the stabilizing force behind the undefeated start. Jones has scored in double-figures every single game for Huggins, including 23 on a wildly efficient 9-10 from the floor in the squeaker against Cleveland State last Saturday. Jones also leads West Virginia in rebounding and has upped his FG% nearly 10 points from his up-and-down freshman campaign. As long as Jones keeps playing consistent basketball, he should complete a formidable frontcourt along with Devin Ebanks, Wellington Smith, John Flowers and Cam Thoroughman.
2. Yes, I realize it’s only December, and talking about awards handed out in April seems like a waste of time. Still, just for fun, it’s not out of the question to give Northwestern’s Bill Carmody the early nod for National Coach of the Year. Many preseason prognosticators felt this could be the year the Wildcats break their embarrassing streak of never reaching the NCAA Tournament. When all-Big Ten performer Kevin Coble and complimentary piece Jeff Ryan both went down with season-ending injuries early, all hope was lost. Fast forward to late December and Northwestern has resurrected their season behind the 1-2 punch of Michael Thompson and Jeff Shurna (who should both be back in 2010-11 along with Coble). Carmody’s bunch fell to Butler in November, but have rebounded with wins in Chicago against Notre Dame and Iowa State, a victory at NC State and a home win vs. Stanford.
3. Each and every year, college basketball fans debate which conference holds the mantle as the strongest in the land. A season ago, the Big East clearly garnered that honor. Heading into 2009-10, many felt the ACC or Big Ten would prove the strongest, while the Big East emerged in the early weeks as the frontrunner behind five top-15 teams in Syracuse, West Virginia, Connecticut, Georgetown and Villanova. After that elite group, one can debate eventual in/out status for the rest of the conference. But from top to bottom, no conference tops the Big 12 this season. The best two teams in the nation, Kansas and Texas, reign are supreme at the top. Kansas State is climbing the ranks and Texas A&M appears on the fringe of the top 25. Texas Tech’s first loss came on Saturday at Wichita State following a 10-0 start. Oklahoma State has only one falter and Oklahoma should hit their stride as the season wears on. Even the lower squads like Baylor, Iowa State and Missouri are dangerous. The early nod goes to the Big 12 as the premiere conference in college basketball. Playing the best individual basketball in the conference is not Aldrich or Collins or James or Warren, but Kansas State’s Jacob Pullen.
No Comments » | 
2010 conference tournaments | Tagged: alabama, arkansas, auburn, chandler parsons, chris warren, courtney fortson, demarcus cousins, devan downey, florida, georgia, jarvis varnado, john calipari, john wall, kentucky, lsu, mississippi st, ole miss, patrick patterson, sec tournament, south carolina, tasmin mitchell, tennesse, trey thompkins, vanderbilt | 
Permalink
Posted by rtmsf
