Oh. Well played Under Armour. Let's hope you didn't charge VMI the full rate for that design.
Last night's bubble battles were good for the Big East and bad for the Atlantic Ten. South Florida got its 12th conference win by winning AT Louisville in the YumDome while Cincy got to 11-6 with a win against Marquette. On the other hand, St Joseph's blew the good will they got from beating Temple this weekend by losing to Saint Bonaventure, Dayton saw its bubble pretty much pop with a bad loss to Richmond, and UMass, which was to be sure a fringe bubble team, blew a lead late in OT to lose to Temple by a bucket.
Colorado State had a huge comeback win over UNLV at home last night and now you'll hear their a lot next week assuming they can win at last place Air Force this weekend. They're an RPI darling, ranking in the top 25 and holding three wins over the top 50 in that metric. The one problem is that they haven't won away from - just 4-10 outside of Fort Collins. To be fair road wins is a little bit of an overrated category. You always hear about how no tournament games are on the road - true enough, but there certainly aren't any on the road. The Rams are 2-0 on neutral courts with a chance to do more damage next week, but they haven't won a league road game yet with just one to go. For a team whose best wins out of conference were Colorado and Montana at home just holding serve at home, albeit against solid opposition, shouldn't be enough. Let's see them make it to the Mountain West Finals before putting them in. Even in a weak year, I'm not sure they've done enough right now.
Three tournaments that we already previewed kick off tonight. Three more are tomorrow:
Colonial Athletic Association Tournament (Fri-Mon in Richmond)
*Format: 12 teams, four days, one winner. Perfection.
*TV: Championship is on ESPN at 7PM on Monday. It seems a little surprising that the semis don't find their way onto the Family of Networks in something other than an online capacity.
*At-Large Potential: Drexel and VCU are both fighting for spots with a final between the two the best chance for the CAA to be a multi-bid conference once again. Drexel hasn't really beaten anyone but a loss in the championship game puts them at 27-6. Past history isn't supposed to matter but after VCU and George Mason went from controversial inclusion to Final Fours, how will that factor in?
*Who to Watch: Those two teams are your favorites, but the league is deep with quality teams. George Mason, Old Dominion, and Georgia State have all shown themselves good enough to win this tournament, although the Panthers will have a tougher time having missed out on getting one of the four byes (they're seeded sixth).
Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Tournament (Fri-Mon in Springfield)
*Format: All ten teams make the trip to Springfield.
*TV: Monday night at 7PM on ESPN2 for the championship game.
*At-Large Potential: Iona's best wins are over St Joseph's, Nevada, and Marshall, so they're pretty fringy despite an RPI of 41, but the win total is gaudy and they have some national notoriety this year. They'll be watching on Sunday if they lose on Monday.
*Who to Watch: Scott Machado, Momo Jones and Tim Cluess' Gaels are your easy favorite. Loyola, Fairfield and Manhattan finished with at least 12 wins and all but Fairfield scored a win over Iona in the regular season so there are some contenders. This isn't a league deep with NCAA Tournament teams, but it's a solid mid-major that has multiple good teams once again this year.
Southern Conference Tournament (Fri-Mon in Asheville)
*Format: The league's 12 schools get together for the oldest conference tournament in America.
*TV: ESPN2 has the title game at 9 on Monday.
*At-Large Potential: Davidson stunned Kansas earlier this year and will be a sexy 13 over 4 pick if they win their next three games, but they don't have much of a shot at anything besides an NIT if they don't.
*Who to Watch: Davidson is a legitimately good team; good enough to play with most anyone in the country, if not win. The other 11 teams; not so much. College of Charleston is probably your next best team, having beaten the Wildcats once already, but they didn't get one of the four byes because of the league's antiquated divisional format. That might mean that Wofford (second in the South) is the best chance to spring an upset even despite a 22 point loss early last month to Davidson.
I haven't addressed last night's debacle in Chapel Hill because the less said about that, the better.
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