The final two-part edition of our Top 65 games delves into the exciting stretch run of the final five weeks. These highlighted games should have tremendous implications on seeding and conference standings with heated rivals doing battle in the final push towards March Madness. Here’s a preview of what’s guaranteed to be the best slate of games 2009-10 has to offer (top games of November/December and January in case you missed it):

Note: we are not including projected matchups from the preseason tournaments in these 65 games because those will be analyzed separately.

February 1- Texas @ Oklahoma State (#33 overall)– Hard to imagine you won’t see plenty of scoring in this Big 12 clash. The point guard situation is a bit dicey in Stillwater with Byron Eaton’s departure, but Travis Ford loves to run and James Anderson can score with the best. Expect this to be one of the toughest tests for Texas in their pursuit of a regular season Big 12 title.

February 6- Texas @ Oklahoma (#25 overall)– This could very well be another test. Two freshmen will have to fill major roles for Jeff Capel’s squad with Tommy Mason-Griffin helping out Willie Warren in the backcourt and Tiny Gallon bulldozing opponents in the paint with Blake Griffin in LA. It’s entirely possible defensive stud Avery Bradley could earn the job of trying to lock down the quick Warren.

February 6- Villanova @ Georgetown (#31 overall)– A Big East clash in February between two teams that have top-three aspirations in the conference. The point guard duel is a dandy with Chris Wright of the Hoyas matched up with Scottie Reynolds of the Wildcats. This should prove a worthy test for Villanova’s thin frontline trying to contain Greg Monroe, Hollis Thompson and Henry Sims.

February 6- Michigan State @ Illinois (#37 overall)– The orange-clad students right on top of the floor will be out in full force to support their Illini in hopes of knocking off the loaded Spartans. With Chester Frazier departed, it could be the freshman guard D.J. Richardson trying to contain potential All-American Kalin Lucas. There’s some tremendous outside shooting in this one from State’s Durrell Summers to the Illini’s Demetri McCamey.

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We’d like to apologize for our coverage yesterday. We had some technical/communication issues regarding the post yesterday, but I’ll be back covering the games today so everything should be back to normal. Here’s a quick rundown of the games we’ll be covering today:

Early Games

• 12:15 PM: #14 Stephen F. Austin vs. #3 Syracuse
• 12:25 PM: #9 Tennessee vs. #8 Oklahoma State
• 12:30 PM: #11 Utah State vs. #6 Marquette
• 12:30 PM: #14 North Dakota State vs. #3 Kansas

Afternoon Games

• 2:45 PM: #11 Temple vs. #6 Arizona State
• 2:55 PM: #16 East Tennessee State vs. #1 Pittsburgh
• 3:00 PM: #14 Cornell vs. #3 Missouri
• 3:00 PM: #11 Dayton vs. #6 West Virginia

Evening Games

• 7:10 PM: #16 Morehead State vs. #1 Louisville
• 7:10 PM: #12 Arizona vs. #5 Utah
• 7:20 PM: #10 USC vs. #7 Boston College
• 7:25 PM: #13 Portland State vs. #4 Xavier

Late Night Games

• 9:40 PM: #9 Siena vs. #8 Ohio State
• 9:40 PM: #13 Cleveland State vs. #4 Wake Forest
• 9:50 PM: #15 Robert Morris vs. #2 Michigan State
• 9:55 PM: #12 Wisconsin vs. #5 Florida State

Quite frankly, today’s slate looks a lot more interesting than what was on yesterday. There are 3 games in each of the 4 groups that seem like they will be entertaining except for the afternoon set where only the 6/11 match-ups really catch my eyes. Feel free to leave your thoughts or questions on any of these games or the ones from yesterday in the comment section. I’ll be back around noon to cover the day’s action.

12:15 PM: Ok. We’re about to get underway. I was a little delayed by the fact that the bus to RTC East decided to pick up 3 people in wheelchairs, which slowed down my trip significantly (had to get them in/out during 6 stops). Is anybody rooting for Stephen F. Austin just because they can’t stand Eric Devendorf?

12:20 PM: “The best look the Lumberjacks have had so far”? That was only their 2nd possession of the game. The crows is awful in Miami. I know its early, but there is nobody there. I have to say the NCAA did a pretty poor job with their pod placement. I’ll have to double check, but Miami is probably the worst pod location in terms of distance from the participating schools (and the fact that they don’t care about sports in Miami).

12:30 PM: Rough start for Stephen F. Austin in Miami. Already down 10-2. Hopefully they can keep it close although this was probably the game that was the most likely to be a blowout in this group.

12:35 PM: Did anybody pick upsets in this group of games? I have North Dakota State and Utah State.

12:40 PM: Good game in Dayton (Ok State 14, Tennessee 13 with 12:20 left in the first half). In Boise, Lazar Hayward is up 7-5 on Utah State.

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West Region – by Ryan ZumMallen of LBPostSports

#6 Marquette vs. #11 Utah State
Playing in the Big East must suck sometimes.  The Eagles are currently losers of five of their last six, but lost those five to Louisville, UConn, Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Nova.  The one chance they got against an inferior team during that stretch, they crushed St. John’s by 29.  Give Utah State a chance if you’re brave, but Eagle guards Jerel McNeal and Wesley Matthews will probably prove too much to handle.

#3 Missouri vs. #14 Cornell
The NCAA Tournament is familiar territory to Cornell, entering the Dance as a 14-seed last season.  Missouri, on the other hand, hasn’t been to the Tourney is six years.  So, obviously, Cornell has the upper hand.  Ha!  No, but seriously though, Missouri is as dangerous a team as any in the field, winners of 11 of their last 13 and Big XII Tournament Champs.  Cornell made it here by holding four of their last five opponents to under 60 points, but that won’t happen against the Tigers.

Ed. note – check back often as this post will be updated regularly…

How about those brackets?  If you’re like us, you’ve already figured a way that just about every team will both win and lose its first round game.   For example, Arizona has better talent than Utah, but which Wildcat team will show up – the one from mid-season or the one from the last three weeks?  Decisions, decisions…

To help you think more clearly about your bracket as well as to institute some fun into the analysis that you’re no doubt already obsessing over, we have put together a nice breakdown of each region for you.  We’ll give you the teams that are overseeded, underseeded, and are guaranteed to advance.  The best games to watch in the first round and in the later rounds.  The juiciest match-ups for purists and casual fans.  Some sleeper teams for both the Sweets and the Four.  Upsets.  Thanks to the RTC Region correspondents, basically, you name it, we’ve got it.

We will be doing Boom Goes the Dynamite! all weekend starting with Thursday’s games, as appropriate.  Since our manpower will be lower than usual, we’ll be relying on you guys to help us out in the comments as we move through the first 48 games.

We are also privileged to have RTC Live at the Philadelphia pod this weekend.  The games we will be covering are:

• #8 BYU vs. #9 Texas A&M – 12:30pm Thurs. 3/19

Here are the links for each QnD Region Analysis (+ correspondent), which will take you to another page on the site called 2009 Tourney Previews (which can also be accessed through the handy-dandy tab above):

• East (Dave Zeitlin and Steve Moore)
• South (Mike Lemaire)
• Midwest (Zach Hayes)
• West (Ryan ZumMallen)

We also have Game-by-Game Analysis for the entirety of the First Round…

• East (Thu. games and Fri. games)
  
• South
• Midwest
• West (Thu. games and Fri. games)
  

Here are some of our other features celebrating what we like to call, “Christmas in March“:

Mascot Death Match – First Round (vote for which mascot would win a battle to the death!)

• Thursday Games
• Friday Games
• Day 3
  

The Top 3 Sweetest NCAA Moments

• #1 – The ’79 Tourney – More than Just Magic & Larry
• #2 – The Open Road Leads to the Final Four
• #3 – Loved, Hated But Never Ignored
  

Behind the Lines – NCAA Tourney

• NCAA Tournament Day One
  

Some Hooponomics

• Why You Should Be Wary of Pitt
• Pythagorean Consistency
• Offensive Variation and A Short Word about Defense
  

Columnists

• Beware Bracket Advice! (John Stevens)
• It’s Christmas in March (Dave Zeitlin)
• NCAA Basketball 2009 – the BCS Version (nvr1983)

John Stevens from Las Vegas – coming soon…

… and more.

2009 Team Tourney Previews: We enlisted the help of our legion of correspondents and readers to put together previews for all 65 teams in order to give you the most insightful analysis you will find anywhere. We’ll be uploading previews over the next 24 hours so check back frequently.

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Welcome back to the weekend edition of Boom Goes the Dynamite. First off I’d like to commend rtmsf for his strong work on yesterday’s BGtD. You guys really have no idea how exhausting it is doing a full day’s worth of this is and he managed to do it with only a short break although it almost caused me to give up working on the site after being forced to endure the American–Holy Cross game yesterday. As he outlined in his After the Buzzer post last night/this morning, there are 12 conference championship games today. For the sake of maintaining our sanity and having enough energy in the tank for our huge March Madness preview, we’ll be taking multiple shifts but we promise to coordinate it so you won’t miss anything during our handoffs.

6:00 AM: Yes. That’s actually the time I’m starting this thanks to a “short nap” that ended up going from 9 PM to 5 AM. Obviously my posts will be infrequent in the early morning hours, but I’ll be passing along some news and links to you before the games start at 11 AM. The New York Times has been stepping it up with their college sports blog “The Quad” recently and has an interesting post on Louisville‘s Terrence Williams and his pre-game ritual of the giving himself a pep talk during the national anthem. Before anybody thinks this might be a Chris Jackson Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf situation, it should be noted that Williams actually stands during the anthem and is supposedly talking about family members that he has lost and asking that everyone on the court avoids injuries. Of course, we can’t verify this, but if we have any lip-readers in our vast legion of RTC readers, we would love hear your take on this particularly if you have seen this is in person.

7:00 AM: Before I head out for a few minutes to take care of some errands like stocking up on groceries for the coming storm where I probably won’t leave my apartment for 3 weeks. I thought I would pass along one of my favorite things we are doing at RTC right now. We enlisted the help of our correspondents and got them to send us their favorite March memories. We narrowed down the submissions to the 16 best entries and are counting down to #1, which will be revealed on Wednesday (the day before the tournament starts). I’d encourage you to check out the entries we have so far and keep on coming back throughout the day to see what they selected as their favorite March memories and then chime in with your memories on those moments.

8:45 AM: Ok. False alarm on that grocery run. Apparently Costco doesn’t open until 9:30 so after this post I’ll be on a short break. So today’s RTC East breakfast is brought to you by Flour Bakery and consists of their Bobby Flay-slaying “Sticky Buns” and a twice-baked brioche. Here’s a quick run-down of the games (title game in red–there’s a lot of red) that I will be focusing on today:

Early Games

• UMBC vs. Binghamton at 11 AM on ESPN2 for the America East title
• Memphis vs. #3 Tulsa at 11:35 AM on CBS for the Conference USA title

Afternoon Games

• Mississippi State vs. #16 LSU at 1 PM on ESPN2 and Raycom in the SEC semifinals
• #6 Michigan State vs. Ohio State at 1:30 PM on CBS in the Big 10 semifinals
• #1 UNC vs. #22 FSU at 1:30 PM on ESPN and Raycom in the ACC semifinals
• Tennessee vs. Auburn at 3 PM on ESPN2 and Raycom in the SEC semifinals
• Maryland vs. #8 Duke at 3:30 PM on ESPN and Raycom in the ACC semifinals
• #25 Illinois vs. #24 Purdue at 4 PM on CBS in the Big 10 semifinals

Evening Games

• #23 Arizona State vs. USC at 6 PM on CBS for the Pac-10 title
• Baylor vs. #15 Missouri at 6 PM on ESPN for the Big 12 title
• Temple vs. Duquesne at 6 PM on ESPN2 for the Atlantic 10 title

Late Night Games

• San Diego State vs. Utah at 7 PM on Versus for the Moutain West title
• Morgan State vs. Norfolk State at 7 PM on ESPNU for the MEAC title (Periodic score updates for this one)
  
• Buffalo vs. Akron at 8 PM on ESPN2 for the MAC title
• #5 Louisville vs. #20 Syracuse at 9 PM on ESPN for the Big East title
• Jackson State vs. Alabama State at 9 PM on ESPNU for the SWAC title (Periodic score updates for this one)
• Utah State vs. Nevada at 10 PM on ESPN2 for the WAC title
• Cal State-Northridge vs. Pacific at 11:59 PM on ESPN2 for the Big West title (This one is questionable)

10:55 AM: Ok. I’m back from my extended Costco run and have enough food to last me through the week. A quick summary on the early games. In the America East, Binghamton is a 5-6 point favorite (depending on your gambling establishment of choice). Honestly, I’m surprised that they aren’t bigger favorites since they come in at 22-8 while UMBC comes in 15-16 and the game is at Binghamton. It could be interesting though as they split the season series in the regular season with Binghamton winning the last game of the regular season at home against UMBC 71-51. I’m guessing the America East commissioner is rooting for UMBC to avoid the embarrassment of the CBS announcers having to explain why the conference’s regular season leading scorer (D.J Rivera) was left off the all-conference team. In Conference USA, Memphis is a 14-point favorite against Tulsa. Memphis might be playing for a #1 seed even with their ridiculously easy schedule. We’re hoping this game is more like the first time they met (a 55-54 Memphis win) rather the last time they met (a 63-37 Memphis win). I have a sneaking suspicion that it is going to be more like the latter, but we’ll be following it anyways to get a last look at Memphis before CBS’s new Billy Packer rips the NCAA selection committee for putting them over a Big East team.

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Kevin McCarthy of Parsing the WAC and Sam Wasson of bleedCrimson.net are the RTC correspondents for the WAC.

Note: Rush the Court will be live-blogging tonight’s WAC Semifinals, which starts at 8:30 PM ET.

The quarterfinals of the 2009 WAC Tournament are in the books and the league’s top two seeded teams–Utah State and Nevada–advanced. The #3 and #4 seeds Idaho and Boise State? Not nearly as fortunate. Each session brought its own upset as in the tournament’s first game #5 seed New Mexico State upended #4 seed Boise State. The Broncos had won the first two meetings of the season and were looking to make it three straight and looked to be off to a good start when they built a 30-20 lead midway through the first half. However, New Mexico State found its shot and took a 38-36 lead into the break. Boise State tied the game at 38 apiece less than a minute into the game after a pair of made free throws but that’s as close as they would get the rest of the way. Spurred by an 8-0 run, New Mexico State seized control of the game and timely free throws and a second half barrage of three pointers by junior guard Jonathan Gibson helped the Aggies to advance to the semifinals. Gibson finished with a team high 22 points for the Aggies. Boise State was led by Mark Sanchez who scored a game high 25 points. In all four Aggies finished with double figures in scoring while three Broncos achieved that mark. Boise State finishes the season at 19-12 and will await their postseason fate. The Aggies improve to 17-14 and will face top seed Utah State at 6:00 p.m. PT.

In the first session’s second game the regular season champion Utah State took on #9 seed Fresno State. Most Aggie fans approached this game with a bit of guarded optimism not normally seen in a 1 vs. 9 matchup. However, there was due cause for their concern as Fresno State had pushed Utah State to the brink in both regular season meetings. The Bulldogs had lost by just four in the always tough Dee Glenn Smith Spectrum in Logan and then later took Utah State to overtime before eventually losing. After Fresno State escaped the 8/9 play-in game against Hawai’i, they looked to spring the upset. Unfortunately for the Bulldogs, the Aggies had different plans. Utah State jumped out to a 16-3 lead and never looked back. Utah State hit a season high 13 three pointers en route to an 85-68 victory. Utah State’s Stavon Williams finished with 22 points on 8-11 shooting including 6-8 from three point distance. Gary Wilkinson and Jared Quayle each pitched in 18 for the Aggies. Fresno State had four players reach double figures led by freshman Paul George with 16. Senior Dwight O’Neil, playing in his final game scored 14 points. Utah State rekindles their rivalry with New Mexico State in the first semifinal game at 6:00 p.m. PT.

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Kevin McCarthy of Parsing the WAC and Sam Wasson of bleedCrimson.net are the RTC correspondents for the WAC.

Current Standings
1. Utah State (13-2, 26-4)
2. Nevada (9-5, 17-11)
3. Boise State (8-6, 18-10)
4. New Mexico State (8-7, 15-14)
5. Idaho (7-7, 14-14)
6. San Jose State (6-8, 13-14)
7. Louisiana Tech (6-9, 14-16)
8. Hawaii (5-10, 13-15)
9. Fresno State (3-11, 12-18)

With the WAC tournament looming next week, the only two seeds that have been determined are the 1-seed and the 9-seed. Everything in between is a mess thanks in large part to a Thursday night ambush by the league’s bottom half. Ninth place Fresno State took down second place Nevada 66-64, eighth place Louisiana Tech took down third place New Mexico State 80-71 and seventh place San Jose State took down fifth place Idaho. Only Utah State managed to maintain order with their 20 point victory over Hawai’i. Fourth place Boise State did not play but added to the carnage two nights later when they fell to Louisiana Tech by 14.

Everything will be decided on Thursday and Saturday as the teams wrap up the regular season. 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.

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 »

Michael Vernetti is the RTC correspondent for the West Coast Conference.

Bye-Bye Blues
My, my, what an intriguing set of scenarios is emerging in the WCC’s final week to determine the number two seed in the conference tournament. Oh yeah, Gonzaga wrapped up the conference title – its ninth consecutive – with a pair of routine wins over Loyola-Marymount on Thursday (2/19) and Pepperdine on Saturday (2/21).

The two seed is important because the holder gets a bye straight to the conference semifinals. That means no game on Friday, March 6 or the following Saturday – a chance to watch the lower-echelon teams scramble for position from the comfort of the stands. The top two teams play for the first time on Sunday, with the winners advancing to the championship game and chance for the automatic NCAA bid on Monday night in Las Vegas. At this time of year no team wants to play an extra game, and the thought of playing three games in a row over a weekend is daunting. That’s the kind of thing teams do early in the season, in such balmy climes as Honolulu, when they’re fresh.

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It has been difficult to rank teams this year because it seems like there isn’t any consistency among the top 25 teams outside of the top 5 or 6, which have been consistently good lately (with an occasional off-night, which I’m willing to give college kids. Feel free to leave praise and criticism in comment section.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Pittsburgh	3
2	Oklahoma	1
3	Connecticut	1
4	North Carolina	3
5	Memphis	1
6	Louisville	1
7	Duke	1
8	Villanova	1
9	Michigan St.	4
10	Wake Forest	1
11	Marquette	3
12	Arizona St.	2
13	Clemson	1
14	Missouri	1
15	Gonzaga	6
16	Kansas	2
17	Louisiana St.	8
18	Washington
19	Purdue	3
20	Xavier	3
21	UCLA	1
22	Illinois	7
23	Florida St.
24	Syracuse	2
25	Texas
Last week’s ballot