Zach Hayes is RTC’s  resident bracketologist.  He’ll regularly be out-scooping, out-thinking and out-shining Lunardi over the next three months.

Bubble Situation
31 Automatic Bids
28 Lock At-Large Spots
6 Open Bubble Spots for Maryland, Minnesota, Penn State, Michigan, Wisconsin, Creighton, San Diego State, New Mexico, Arizona, Auburn, South Carolina and Saint Mary’s

Last Four In: Penn State, Maryland, San Diego State, Wisconsin
Last Four Out: Saint Mary’s, Arizona, Creighton, New Mexico
Next Four Out: Auburn, South Carolina, UNLV, Providence

Bids per conference: Big Ten (8), ACC (7), Big East (7), Big 12 (6), Pac-10 (5), Atlantic 10 (3), Mountain West (3), SEC (2), Horizon (2).

One day away!

Bubble Situation
31 Automatic Bids
27 Lock At-Large Spots
7 Open Bubble Spots for Saint Mary’s, Auburn, Arizona, South Carolina, New Mexico, Creighton, San Diego State, USC, Michigan, Minnesota, Penn State, Maryland, UNLV.

Next Four In: San Diego State, Minnesota, Michigan, Dayton
Last Four In: Penn State, Maryland, Creighton, Arizona
Last Four Out: Saint Mary’s, New Mexico, South Carolina, USC
Next Four Out: Auburn, Virginia Tech, UNLV, Providence

Automatic bids: Binghamton, Temple, North Carolina, East Tennessee State, Missouri, Louisville, Portland State, Radford, Michigan State, Cal State Northridge, VCU, Memphis, Cleveland State, Cornell, Siena, Buffalo, Morgan State, Northern Iowa, Utah, Robert Morris, Morehead State, Arizona State, American, LSU, Chattanooga, Stephen F. Austin, Alabama State, North Dakota State, Western Kentucky, Gonzaga, Utah State.

Bids per conference: Big Ten (8), ACC (7), Big East (7), Big 12 (6), Pac-10 (5), Atlantic 10 (3), Mountain West (3), SEC (2), Missouri Valley (2), Horizon (2).

Next update: Sunday morning.
Last update: Sunday afternoon.

Hello hoops fans, and welcome to our first weekday version of your favorite semi-live journal, Boom Goes the Dynamite.  We’re still feeling the effects of that six-overtime Goliath of a game last night, but we’re caffeinated and ready to rock with you all day while we move through what is traditionally the best day of the conference tournament weekend.  It’ll be hard to top what we saw yesterday, though.  Here are a few of the games you should be tracking; as you can see, today is an absolute blockbuster:

• ACC – UNC vs. Virginia Tech – Noon, Maryland vs. Wake Forest – 7pm, Duke vs. BC, 9:30pm
• Patriot – American vs. Holy Cross – 4:45pm
• Big 10 – Michigan St. vs. Minnesota – Noon, Illinois vs. Michigan – 6:30pm, Purdue vs. Penn St. – 9pm
• Big East – Louisville vs. Villanova – 7pm, Syracuse vs. West Virginia – 9pm
• Big 12 – Baylor vs. Texas – 7pm, Oklahoma St. vs. Missouri – 9:30pm
• Mountain West – San Diego St. vs. BYU – 9pm
• Pac-10 – Arizona St. vs. Washington – 9pm, USC vs. UCLA – 11:30pm
• SEC – Florida vs. Auburn – 9:45pm

Another couple of PSAs before we get started.  Be sure to check the site throughout the weekend, as we’ll be doing these BGTDs each day, in addition to a revised bracketology on both Saturday and Sunday, all leading to a liveblogging of the Selection Show on Sunday.  We’ll also be putting up the information for RTC’s Second Annual Bracket Challenge later this afternoon.

12:20 pm. Let’s get started here.  UNC looks flat so far against Virginia Tech, and they should, given that Ty Lawson is over on the bench sitting next to Roy Williams.  He is dressed, though, so it wouldn’t surprise us if his Big Toe makes an appearance.  That crafty Roy – always using the element of surprise.  Or something like that.

12:27 pm.  Over at the Big Ten, Minnesota is leading Michigan State 22-20 in a high-scoring game.  Yes, we said high-scoring and Big Ten in the same sentence.  Wow, ESPN is already re-showing the Syracuse-UConn game on ESPN Classic.  Tivo time.  If these two games get worthless, we’re definitely moving back over there.

12:33 pm. They’re really hyping that game from last night – looks like they’re going to show the whole thing on ESPNU at 3pm.  Getting back to business here, Virginia Tech looks poised right now, playing like a team that wants to keep playing in March should be playing.  Carolina looks a little flat, but the question will be whether they can still make a patented run with Lawson sitting.

12:42 pm. Most of the ACC people are annoyed with the conference tournament being in Atlanta this year, but we think it’s refreshing that it’s not in the same old tired venue of Greensboro or Charlotte again.  The home-state advantage that Carolina gets in those two building is ridiculous.  Speaking of advantage, it looked like UNC was about to make a run until Va Tech came down and hit two consecutive threes.  Ed Davis is going to be a player someday.  He has really nice touch around the rim, and his per-40 rebounding average is in the 15 rpg territory!

Read the rest of this entry »

As part of our ongoing quest to provide you with the best college basketball coverage in the nation, we have enlisted the help of some of the finest team-specific bloggers on the planet to help us. With the NCAA Selection Show coming up on March 15th there are still several teams on the proverbial “bubble”. We figured it might be interesting to see what kind of nonpartisan arguments these bloggers could make for their team deserving a spot in the NCAA tournament. We welcome any discussion of their arguments and praise or criticism of their reasoning in the comment section. If your team is on the “bubble” and you would like to submit something, please contact us at rushthecourt@gmail.com.

Creighton– Submitted by Patrick Marshall of Bluejay Basketball.

Creighton Profile
Record: 26-7
RPI: 40
SOS: 108
Record vs. RPI Top 50: 2-2
Record vs. RPI Top 100: 7-3
Best Wins: New Mexico (Home), Dayton (Home), Northern Iowa (Road), and Illinois State (Home)
Worst Loss: Drake (Home)

After last Saturday’s blowout loss in the Semifinals of the Missouri Valley Conference to Illinois State, Creighton is one of those teams that is sitting squarely on the bubble. I am going to state my case as to why Creighton deserves to go to the NCAA Tournament over other bubble teams.

Creighton was favored to win the Missouri Valley Conference this season, and even though they had a slow conference start at 5-4, they started playing better as a team and reeled off 10 straight wins (including a Bracketbuster win against George Mason) to tie Northern Iowa for a share of the MVC regular season title. The Bluejays extended their winning streak to 11 with a first round win in the MVC Tourney against Wichita State in dramatic fashion, but then turned around and got blasted by Illinois State.

Last impressions are hard to erase from people’s minds and the Illinois State loss will be a hard one for people to forget. However, statistical history is on Creighton’s side. There has never been a team with 26 wins in the RPI top 100 that missed the NCAA Tournament. Also, the MVC regular season champion has made the NCAA tournament the last 15 years.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ryan ZumMallen of LBSportsPost is the RTC correspondent for the Big West and SEC Conferences.

A lot of people have written off the SEC as an also-ran.  It’s lacked a Top 20 presence most of the season and doesn’t figure to make a lot of noise in The Dance.  LSU, South Carolina and Tennessee are looking like the only teams that have earned themselves a Tournament spot – save, of course, a surprising SEC Tournament champion.  But in a conference boasting the likes of Jodie Meeks, Nick Calathes, Ole Miss’ Terrico White and others, it’s entirely plausible that a middle of the pack squad could pull a Chattanooga and punch themselves a Tourney ticket.

LSU was clearly the best team in the conference this season, posting the best margins of points (+10.1) and rebounds (+5.7) per game.  But the Tigers are not without their faults.  Their three SEC losses were to Alabama, Vanderbilt and Auburn – who boast a combined 25-23 conference record.  Not exactly quality losses, and LSU will need to be wary carrying a two-game losing streak into the conference tournament; lest we forget that many teams need an SEC title more than the #16 Tigers do.

Read the rest of this entry »

Update (03.09):  Zach realized that Butler and VCU were missing, so after we fished him out of the lake, he sent us a revised version.  Apologies to all Bulldog and Ram fans. 

Zach Hayes is RTC’s  resident bracketologist.  He’ll regularly be out-scooping, out-thinking and out-shining Lunardi over the next three months.

Next Four In: New Mexico, Minnesota, Michigan, UNLV
Last Four In: South Carolina, Providence, Penn State, Arizona
Last Four Out: San Diego State, Creighton, Maryland, Saint Mary’s
Next Four Out: Florida, Miami (FL), Virginia Tech, Auburn
Also Considered: Davidson, George Mason, Rhode Island, Temple, Nebraska, Kentucky, Cincinnati, Notre Dame, Tulsa, USC, Kansas St.

Bids per conference: Big Ten (8), Big East (8), ACC (6), Big 12 (6), Pac-10 (5), Mountain West (4), SEC (3), Atlantic 10 (2), Missouri Valley (2).

Automatic bids: Binghamton, Xavier, North Carolina, East Tennessee State, Kansas, Louisville, Weber State, Radford, Michigan State, Cal State Northridge, VCU, Memphis, Butler, Cornell, Siena, Bowling Green, Morgan State, Utah, Northern Iowa, Robert Morris, Morehead State, Washington, American, LSU, College of Charleston, Stephen F. Austin, Alabama State, North Dakota State, Western Kentucky, Gonzaga, Utah State.

Next bracket: Saturday morning, March 14.

Final bracket: Sunday afternoon, March 15.

Read the rest of this entry »

RTC asked its legion of correspondents, charlatans, sycophants, toadies and other hangers-on to send us their very favorite March Madness memory,  something that had a visceral effect on who they are as a person and college basketball fan today.  Not surprisingly, many of the submissions were excellent and if you’re not fired up reading them, then you need to head back over to PerezHilton for the rest of this month.  We’ve chosen the sixteen best, and we’ll be counting them down over the next two weeks as we approach the 2009 NCAA Tournament.

Coppin St. Eagles Fly High – (submitted by JC of HBCU Sports Blog)

Just six days after my 16th birthday, an NCAA tournament game changed the direction of my entire life.

I had grown up around historically black colleges and universities in the state of Maryland, but I was too young to remember the tournament appearances by Alcorn State in the 80s, and Southern’s win over Georgia Tech in 1993 was past my bedtime.

But #15 seed Coppin State was a school right in my back yard, and their 78-65 upset over #2 South Carolina in 1997 came at a critical point in my college selection process, and amidst the ending of a TV-watching curfew.

Two days later, Coppin State missed a chance to go to the Sweet 16, losing to Texas by one point.

Antoine Brockington and Coppin St. Flew High on This Night in 1997 (photo credit: Al Bello)

Two years later, I would enroll in Coppin’s cross-town rival, Morgan State University.  Twelve years later, it’s still the greatest moment in NCAA history.

(OR, Why Rick Pitino Is Like School On Thanksgiving)

John Stevens is a featured writer for Rush The Court.

Kentucky basketball fans are wondering if they might have built their new state-of-the-art basketball practice facility on a Native American burial ground.

As if the Wednesday night emasculation at South Carolina and yesterday’s home-court disappointment against LSU weren’t enough, two pieces of news are currently at the forefront of the collective mind of the Big Blue Nation, as Kentucky fans are known.  First, it looks like Louisville Cardinals head coach Rick Pitino has decided to take a giant crap on any good will he had left in the non-Louisville part of Kentucky by profiting off of one of the worst moments in Wildcat basketball history.  We’ll get to that in a moment.  Second, in addition to the growing possibility of watching this year’s NCAA tournament from their dorm rooms, this weekend the team and their supporters have had to deal with this now well-publicized incident in which sophomore forward A.J. Stewart, sick of watching from the pine as his team loses more games than they should, told everybody where they could go a few days ago and actually quit the Wildcat squad for about 24 hours after the aforementioned South Carolina loss.  He’s obviously been reinstated by his team, since he played in the home loss to LSU yesterday.

Reinstatement or not, Kentucky fans have to be wondering — what on EARTH have we done to deserve all of this?

“This” all started two years ago, specifically when Tubby Smith decided he’d had enough of (whether warranted or not) the second-guessing in Lexington and hit the road for Minnesota, which might have well been any place, as long as NCAA Tournament bids and occasional Sweet Sixteen appearances are acceptable goals there.  If you recall, it was at this time that the one coach in the country that just about every Kentucky supporter considered their Heir Apparent, Florida’s Billy Donovan, flirted very seriously with the Kentucky job before actually accepting the same position with the Orlando Magic…only to back out on THAT commitment 48 hours later to stay at Florida.  At that moment, Kentucky fans had to know — something was up.

Enter Billy Gillispie, not exactly the program’s first choice but a good selection for them since he had earned the reputation as the New Resurrector after his stints at UTEP and Texas A&M.  He made friends early by ensuring that the Tubby Smith-recruited Patrick Patterson would still attend UK, but then dropped games to the likes of Gardner-Webb and San Diego (both at home), causing much head-scratching.  Despite a tough season with injuries and personnel-juggling, Gillispie’s first UK team battled back, made the tournament (and it looked bleak for a while), and Gillispie won co-Coach of the Year honors in the SEC.  About twelve seconds after their first-round loss, Kentucky fans were looking forward to the next season, knowing it would be better once everyone was healthy and some new bad-ass recruits came into the fold.  The Billy Donovan snub was virtually forgotten.

One of those players returning to health in that off-season was versatile point guard Derrick Jasper.  Having gotten over all the physical and mental hurdles that come with microfracture surgery of the (left) knee, the 2008-09 edition of the Wildcats was his to lead.  Jasper was poised to be the floor general of one of the storied programs of college basketball.  It was to be “his” team.  But instead, in a move that nobody saw coming, after a mere two years of living in Lexington — citing “homesickness” — Jasper bailed on his chance to lead the program, choosing relative obscurity over an amazing opportunity.  He transferred to UNLV and left Kentucky high and dry with point guard problems that Gillispie hasn’t been able to solve with junior Michael Porter and freshman DeAndre Liggins.  How big was this loss?  Considering that the point guard handles the ball 60% of the time for any given team, is it a coincidence that Kentucky is 338th out of 341 Division I teams in turnovers per game?  Probably not.

Kentucky fans are left wondering what has happened to the culture in their program.  Their obvious Heir Apparent in Billy Donovan declined to return even though he had been groomed for the job since the Pitino years; with inexcusable losses to comparatively talent-bereft teams (and not too many surprising wins) Billy Gillispie is starting to look like a good example of the Peter Principle; some important players have jumped ship, seemingly preferring oblivion over recognition and opportunity, and others choose unproductive ways to protest lack of playing time; and despite having two lottery picks on the team and some hard-working young role players, the Wildcats find themselves sliding down the bubble’s surface this season and are giving the tournament selection committee every reason to leave them off the bracket two weeks from now with these stretch losses.  This is a program that didn’t exactly weep when Tubby Smith left town; I’m not even saying they’re wrong about that, since after Smith’s 1998 title run with the Wildcats, he never returned to the Final Four in his next nine seasons — would UNC, Kansas, Duke, or UCLA fans put up with such a streak these days? — but keep in mind that, for unknown reasons, Billy Gillispie hasn’t even signed his contract at UK even though he’s basically got two seasons under his belt, now.  Many folks in Lexington wonder if he should even bother, with UK’s performance this year, even if the team slips into the tournament somehow.  And to make matters worse, if Kentucky fans have to watch this tournament without their Wildcats for the first time in 17 years, this is the time of year that a certain shot by a certain former Duke player gets played over and over again…

Oh, but if only that were the end of it for the Big Blue Nation.

Read the rest of this entry »

Zach Hayes is RTC’s  resident bracketologist.  He’ll regularly be out-scooping, out-thinking and out-shining Lunardi over the next three months.

What changed (just from Wednesday night)-

– Connecticut re-acquainted itself with the #1 overall seed by downing Marquette on the road last night. The way this season is going, that will last about a week. With the loss, Marquette drops to a #4 seed and allows Missouri to move up a line after their dismantling of Kansas State.

– Duke picked up a hard-fought road win at Maryland and stayed put as a #3 seed. Elsewhere in the ACC, Clemson’s shocking home loss to Virginia Tech does two things: drops Clemson to a #4 seed and pushes the suddenly alive Virginia Tech  to a #11 seed.

– South Carolina’s sound defeat of Kentucky puts the Gamecocks in a strong position as a #9 seed while Kentucky drops to a #11. They badly need to beat LSU on Saturday at home.

– Oklahoma State made the biggest jump since Tuesday, climbing from the Last Team Out to a #10 seed mostly due to plenty of bubble movement. Their 32 RPI and 15 SOS are certainly helping, but they need to pick up some quality wins down the stretch to feel safe.

– UNLV falls to Utah last night but stays as a #11 seed due to 4 wins against the RPI top 25, a number no other bubble team can come close to matching.

– Dayton‘s last second loss to Rhode Island drops the Flyers to 4th in the Atlantic 10. The wins against Marquette and Xavier are nice, but Dayton is now firmly on the bubble with Temple and Rhode Island making late runs for bids.

1 Seeds: Connecticut, Pittsburgh, North Carolina, Oklahoma
2 Seeds: Memphis, Louisville, Kansas, Michigan State
3 Seeds: Duke, Villanova, Missouri, Wake Forest
4 Seeds: Marquette, Clemson, Washington, Purdue
5 Seeds: Xavier, LSU, Arizona State, Illinois
6 Seeds: West Virginia, California, UCLA, Florida State
7 Seeds: Syracuse, Utah, Texas, Gonzaga
8 Seeds: Arizona, Minnesota, Butler, Boston College
9 Seeds: Ohio State, BYU, South Carolina, Utah State
10 Seeds: Tennessee, Oklahoma State, Wisconsin, Florida
11 Seeds: Siena, Kentucky, Dayton, UNLV
12 Seeds: Davidson, Creighton, Providence, Virginia Tech
13 Seeds: VCU, Western Kentucky, Penn State, Buffalo
14 Seeds: Weber State, North Dakota State, American, Binghamton
15 Seeds: Radford, Cornell, Robert Morris, Sam Houston State
16 Seeds: Jacksonville, Morgan State, Morehead State, Cal State Northridge, Alabama State

Last Four In: Penn State, Providence, UNLV, Virginia Tech
Last Four Out: Saint Mary’s, San Diego State, Maryland, Miami (FL)
Next Four Out: Southern Cal, Kansas State, Michigan, Cincinnati
Also considered: Notre Dame, Temple, UAB, Rhode Island, Northern Iowa, Texas A&M

Zach Hayes is RTC’s resident bracketologist.  He’ll regularly be out-scooping, out-thinking and out-shining Lunardi over the next three months.

We kick off this week’s edition of Your Bubble Has Burst with a fitting segment: teams whose bubbles have successfully burst since last Thursday. These teams can begin making NIT/CBI reservations barring an unprecedented conference tournament run:

Note: all computer numbers prior to Tuesday’s games.

Georgetown– The Hoyas had two great opportunities to get right back into the thick of the bubble race by at least splitting two home games against Marquette and Louisville. Instead, they hung around with Marquette and were dismantled by Louisville, dropping both games and sending the spiraling Hoyas to a 5-10 conference record. Their next game: @ Villanova, meaning the best case scenario is 7-11 in the Big East. They’ll have to reach the Big East Tournament final now. Good luck.

Baylor– The disappointing Baylor Bears finally broke a six-game losing streak at home against Texas A&M before falling to Oklahoma State and dropping to 4-8 in the Big 12. Even if they should win 3 out of their next 4, a 7-9 record in the #4 RPI conference won’t be enough to make the field. They’ll have to make a run in Oklahoma City, but how can anyone expect that the way this team plays defense?

Seton Hall– The Pirates had an outside chance to at least put themselves in a position to earn bubble consideration with a late-season run. That went up in flames with their close loss to St. John’s on Sunday night. They have some bad losses out-of-conference and now welcome Pittsburgh to the Prudential Center. The Pirates should be a threat in the NIT.

Northwestern- The schedule gods were not kind to poor Northwestern, who finishes their Big Ten campaign with four out of five on the road. They were thrashed at Minnesota and trips to Purdue and Ohio State still remain. At 5-9 in the conference, their bubble has officially burst.

Mississippi State– How can a team with a 7-5 record in conference make this list? 1) when you’ve lost your last two games to Auburn and Alabama (home win in the middle), 2) you play in this year’s SEC, 3) you have 1 win against the RPI top 50, 4) you have an 84 RPI. The Bulldogs needed to win at Alabama on Saturday and didn’t. There’s no way the committee considers a team with their resume.

Nebraska– Their computer numbers are horrible and they saw their NCAA chances end last night with the home loss to Texas A&M. Simple as that.

On to the conferences:

Read the rest of this entry »