Post #4

Things are heating up in the mid-major tournaments as the first real at-large caliber teams will take the court today in the MVC and WCC, and we're also less than 24 hours from the first dance card getting punched. Let's take a quick look at where we stand right now. The first group are the locks, teams which don't need to do anything besides not get on probation in the next nine days to go dancing. As I calculate, there are 29 teams from 10 conferences, meaning that this group will have over half (at least 19) of the 37 at-large spots in the tournament.

LOCKS:

Michigan State, Ohio State, Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Purdue, Kansas, Missouri, Baylor, Kansas State, Syracuse, Marquette, Georgetown, Notre Dame, Louisville, Kentucky, Florida, Vandy, North Carolina, Duke, Florida State, UNLV, San Diego State, Temple, Wichita State, Creighton, Gonzaga, St Mary's, Murray State

That leaves a group of 31 teams fighting for what is currently 18 spots. We know that not all of these teams are made equal. Virginia, Alabama, Iowa State, and New Mexico, for instance, probably could easily be bumped up already. One more win would remove all doubt and even two straight losses the next two weekends would probably not knock them out. But we're being conservative, so until we're sure, out they stay. On the other hand, there are some teams on this list that are probably very fringe top at large candidates at the moment - Nevada, Arizona, and Ole Miss - I'm looking at you. Again though, we're being inclusive.

Northwestern, Iowa State, Texas, South Florida, Cincy, Seton Hall, West Virginia, UConn, Alabama, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Virginia, Miami, NC State, New Mexico, Colorado State, Saint Louis, St Joseph's, Xavier, Cal, Washington, Oregon, Arizona, Southern Miss, Memphis, BYU, Nevada, Drexel, VCU, Harvard, and Iona

Realistically, the number dwindles a little due to conference affiliation. The CAA might get two teams, but it won't get three. If VCU and Drexel don't meet on Monday night in Richmond, the team that did make it will sweat out the week and the other can make plans to play in the NIT. Similarly in the Pac-12, there's almost certainly a two team cap. Most likely those two will be Cal and Washington, but Arizona or Oregon make noise or win the tournament this week, I would be very surprised to see both of the top two in that conference still make it (not that they're locks by any stretch right now).

The NCAA Tournament selection committee votes teams in in stages based on how many votes they get from the panel during a given round. For the purposes of this exercise let's put Memphis, Iona, Nevada, Harvard, Drexel, and Washington as conference winners. That leaves 25 teams fighting for 18 spots. We know that there will inevitably be some upsets, but even with the group above being pretty weak, almost all of them make the field. Here's a tiered look at the field, starting with the teams I think are safest right now:

first pass teams - Iowa State, Alabama, Virginia, New Mexico, Creighton, BYU, Cincy, Saint Louis (10 spots for 17 teams)

Then your next tier:

second pass - Texas, South Florida, Miami (7 spots for 14 teams)

So now we have HALF of the below getting spots - Northwestern, Seton Hall, West Virginia, UConn, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, NC State, Colorado State, Xavier, St Joseph's, Oregon, Arizona, Southern Miss, VCU. I think your rank order on the right side of the bubble is something like -

VCU, UConn, Seton Hall (FIRST FOUR CUTLINE) Southern Miss, Colorado State, Mississippi State, Xavier

I don't think that the two Pac-12 teams have much of a shot. I don't think that St Joseph's can overcome being fourth in the pecking order in their own conference with no real heft in the profile. Ole Miss is a fringe team. NC State beat no one. Northwestern did, and came close a few other times, but that's just no quite enough, at least not right now. The toughest call was West Virginia. There's a good case that they ought to be in given the field, but ten teams from the Big East in somewhat of a down year (at least at the top) will hurt one of those schools at the end, and West Virginia, with seven losses in ten games, seems likelier than UConn right now.

Day 4 Begins

I'm watching this battle between VMI and Winthrop in the Big South semis and something struck me about these gold Under Armour uniforms VMI is wearing. Something about them was soothing, familiar...right.





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.

Tournament Time, Leap Day and March 1 Starts

Four more tournaments tip off in the next two nights, including one that could be a potential three bid league if things break right.

Patriot League Tournament (QF Wed, SF Sat, championship Wed 3/7 at higher seed)
*Format: All eight teams play in a single elimination bracket.
*TV: SF and championship (7 PM) will be on CBS Sports.
*At-Large Potential: Patriot League teams have never gotten an at-large.
*Who to Watch: Regular season champion Bucknell and second-seeded Lehigh are the class of the league and the favorites to meet in the finals. Should that happen the game will be in Lewisburg, PA at Bucknell's home court which could be the difference. Bucknell swept the regular season and tournament last year and Lehigh did it the year before. The regular season champ has represented the PL in the Big Dance every season since 2005.

America East Tournament (Play in game Thurs, QF/SF Sat/Sun at Hartford, championship Sat 3/10 at higher seed)
*Format: Bracket. All nine conference teams qualified
*TV: Final is on ESPN2 next Saturday at 11 AM.
*At-Large Potential: America East has never had an at-large team.
*Who to Watch: The top two seeds are Stony Brook and Vermont, both of whom won 20 games overall and at least 13 in conference. The Seawolves are 17-2 since Christmas while Vermont has won 13 of 15. Those two will be the heavy favorites especially as the host for the first two games is about the seventh best team in the conference. Also worth noting is that play-in game between UMBC (4-25) and Binghamton (1-28) could possibly be the worst postseason game ever.

Missouri Valley Tournament (Thurs-Sun in Saint Louis)
*Format: Bracket with all ten league teams.
*TV: Finals are on CBS Sports at 1 PM.
*At-Large Potential: Wichita State is in no matter what. Creighton would do well not to lose a stupid one in their first game, but even if they do, the MVC should get its first at-large since way back in 2007.
*Who to Watch: Arch Madness! The two teams mentioned above are your favorites. They're the only two to finish above .500 in league games, although it's worth noting that the next five teams all finished 9-9. Doug McDermott might be the best player in the country, averaging 23.1/8.1 on 60.7% from the field and 47.9% from three. He, not Harrison Barnes, is the answer to the trivia question "Who is the best college sophomore from Ames, Iowa". Speaking of which how do Iowa State fans feel about those two getting away?

Northeast Conference Tournament (Thursday, Sunday, Wednesday at higher seed)
*Format: How is this even a tournament? No neutral site games, no games on back to back days, and possibly worst of all, the semifinals get reseeded so as if home court isn't enough of an advantage for the higher seeds, a six or seven that pulls a big upset gets to go play on the league champion's home court. 8 of the eleven eligible teams qualified - Mount St Mary's, St Francis PA, Fairleigh Dickinson and Bryant (ineligible) stay at home.
*TV: Final is Wednesday at 7PM on ESPN2.
*At-Large Potential: The NEC hasn't had a seed better than a 15 since 2002.
*Who to Watch: Wagner is only the number two seed after losing their last game of the season, but the computers have them as the best team by far. Danny Hurley's team beat Pitt earlier in the season and have a gaudy 24-5 record. That being said, Long Island is the back to back conference regular season champion and last year's tournament champ, plus they have home court in the finals, so it should be a good one.

345 Alive

It's that wonderful time of the year where we basketball fans are in bracket heaven. Teams large and small fight to the death to first make the NCAA Tournament and then subsequently, once there, to win the thing. Or if you're one of those small conferences that gets a 15 seed every year, fights to win just that first game so you can have your own One Shining Moment. Does anything touch this? Of course not.

First up are the conference tournaments. Two have already started. Three more kick off tonight and four more start on Thursday, which just so happens to be March 1st. By that time Championship Week will have kicked into high gear. Here's a look at the nine conference tournaments kicking off in the first four days of championship week.

Big South Tournament (1st round tonight @ campus sites, QF/SF Wed/Thurs at Asheville, championshp Saturday at higher seed)
Format: Traditional bracket. All ten full DI teams qualified.
TV: Semis are on ESPNU for some reason; tournament finals are noon on Saturday on ESPN2.
At-Large potential: None. The winner is almost certainly headed for a 16 seed.
Who to Watch: UNC-Asheville won the conference by 4 games at 16-2. If an upset happens it's probably by the #2 seed Coastal Carolina which beat LSU and Clemson to start the season.

Horizon League Tournament (1st round tomorrow @ campus sites, QF/SF Fri/Sat at Valpo, championship Tuesday at higher seed)
*Format: All ten teams qualify. The top two get a bye in the first two rounds while the other eight have to play an extra two games just to make it to the semis.
*TV: Semis on are on the U; Championship is at 9PM on ESPN.
*At-Large Potential: None. Cleveland State was 20-4 with a win over Vandy before a late five game skid.
*Who to Watch: Valpo gets the benefit of only playing two games, both at home. Cleveland State is probably the best team (see: win over Vandy). Butler is, of course, the dark horse. They're the fifth seed, although they finished tied for third, but I think Brad Stevens has proven himself in a single elimination format. 7 teams finished above .500 (both overall and in conference games) so this may be one of the more open tournaments.

Atlantic Sun Tournament (Wed-Sat at Mercer)
*Format: The top eight teams qualified for a regular eight team bracket. Sadly, 0-18 Kennesaw State did not get a chance to win the league's bid, nor did Stetson.
*TV: The title game is on the deuce at 7.
*At-Large Potential: None. Belmont is #22 in the kenpom ratings, but I'm thinking that a 7 loss A-Sun team doesn't have much of a shot.
*Who to Watch: Belmont and Mercer should make the championship. The Bruins are the better team, losing in Cameron by a point in their opener, but Mercer isn't bad (they did the impossible and won at Georgia Tech) and they have home court.

Ohio Valley Tournament (Wed-Sat in Nashville)
*Format: Eight of the ten eligible teams qualified, Eastern Illinois and UT-Martin were left out as was provisional DI member SIU-Edwardsville. The top four get byes into the QF and the top two get an additional bye into the SF.
*TV: Murray State's first game will be on ESPNU Friday night, and the title game is at 2 the next day on ESPN2.
*At-Large Potential: Murray State is in. They should be a protected seed with a tournament title, but they're still probably in the 8/9 game at worst if they lose their first, more likely in the 7 range. This is the first true bid thief kicking off. That would be the first at-large for the OVC since Middle Tennessee in 1987.
*Who to Watch: Anyone that watches basketball knows about Murray State and Isaiah Canaan leading his people to the promised land. Tennessee State is the number two seed and beat the Racers at home a few weeks back so they're you're upset pick, but in reality no one should be able to touch Murray.

West Coast Conference Tournament (Wed-Sat. Monday in Vegas)
*Format: Somehow the WCC manages to drag a nine team tournament out for FIVE rounds. There's a Les Robinson game to start with while seven teams get a bye. Four more teams get a second bye, and two of those teams get an unprecedented third bye meaning that if 0-16 Santa Clara goes on a miracle run they'll be playing their FOURTH game in as many days while St Mary's will be fresh. At least everyone in the league gets a trip to Vegas. Brandon Davies may get suspended again if they stick around too long.
*TV: Plenty of action. The quarters are on the U, ESPN2 has the semis, and ESPN has the title game Monday at 9.
*At-Large Potential: BYU, St Mary's, and Gonzaga are all pretty set, although I'm not sure why. BYU in particular went 1-3 against the top two in the league and had two more wins against non DI teams (2) than they did against tournament teams outside of conference, unless you think Oregon makes a run this next couple of weeks.
*Who to Watch: Dellevadova! Brandon Davies! Robert Sacre! It should be a great tournament even if Omar Samhan and Blake Steppe aren't walking through that door. Gonzaga snapped an incredible 11 straight regular season title stretch, but they've been in 14 straight WCC title games and 16 in 17 years. It's probably them or St Mary's if only because BYU plays an extra game, but it would be the greatest story ever if 0-16 Santa Clara won 5 games in a row to take it - sweet loss to them, Jay Wright!