
![]() Quick early update. I've decided on the last four teams in this morning. I feel pretty comfortable that La Salle and Tennessee are safe. La Salle's three wins against the field are all solid, and one was away from home. They had a decent number of top 100 wins, minimal bad losses, and accomplished something in the out of conference slate against Villanova. Tennessee stuggled away from home, but there are too many quality wins to leave them out. I went with Kentucky as my second to last team in based on the number of quality wins, a decent neutral court win against Maryland, and few bad losses. I gave the last spot to UMass over St. Mary's, Middle Tennessee State and Ole Miss because they racked up nine top 100 wins, had two wins against the field, were 12-7 away from home and had several top 100 out of conference wins. I think Ole Miss is out if they lose today. They had three awful losses, a HORRIBLE out of conference showing, and their best wins are against teams barely in the field. If they win today, they'll bump UMass out of the field. I'll give it one more look in the afternoon and release the final bracket around 5pm Eastern.
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![]() Last night was insane. A lot of the teams on the bubble shifted around after some shocking wins and confounding losses. I feel pretty strongly that 34 of the 37 at-large bids are locked up, with three left spots up for grabs. Kentucky, La Salle, St. Mary's, Tennessee, Middle Tennessee State, Ole Miss, Maryland, UMass and Baylor are the teams vying for those last spots as long as there are no bid thieves. Lets quickly run through them all.
![]() Sticking with Thursday afternoon's theme, we'll quickly roll through the results from last night and how they impacted the bracket. There were several seeding changes, but we'll stick to the top story lines. Things are moving really fast, so try to keep up! Cal will still make the tournament
Iowa could snag the last at-large
Hoyas and Cardinals in a dead heat for the final 1 seed
![]() We're really rolling now. The Big East Tournament is halfway complete and the Pac 12, Mountain West, ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, and SEC are well underway. Lets go through some rather quick bullet points to summarize the Thursday matinees and how they effect the teams that are in or can still make the tournament. A similar update will come in a few hours after most of the night games are done. Cuse stops their slide, but is depth an issue?
Cyclones are a lock
The Vols hold serve
Let's assume for a moment that we have 36 of the 37 at-large teams chosen for the tournament field and there is just one team left to select. Below there will be four resumes, but no team names attached to them. You decide which of these four teams should get a bid, and at the bottom click the "read more" link to reveal the teams. ![]() Team A Record vs RPI top 50: 0-2 Record vs RPI top 100: 2-3 Wins vs teams under consideration (by S-Curve ranking): vs #48 Record vs teams under consideration (by S-Curve ranking): 1-2 Losses to RPI 100+: 2 Non-Con Strength of Schedule: 12 Road/Neutral Record: 13-5 ![]() Team B Record vs RPI top 50: 1-3 Record vs RPI top 100: 6-4 Wins vs teams under consideration (by S-Curve ranking): vs #34 Record vs teams under consideration (by S-Curve ranking): 1-3 Losses to RPI 100+: 2 Non-Con Strength of Schedule: 122 Road/Neutral Record: 11-5 ![]() Team C Record vs RPI top 50: 4-2 Record vs RPI top 100: 8-3 Wins vs teams under consideration (by S-Curve ranking): vs #1, vs #36, vs #42, @ #14, vs 50 Record vs teams under consideration (by S-Curve ranking): 5-3 Losses to RPI 100+: 7 Non-Con Strength of Schedule: 303 Road/Neutral Record: 3-9 ![]() Team D Record vs RPI top 50: 2-10 Record vs RPI top 100: 5-10 Wins vs teams under consideration (by S-Curve ranking): vs #5, vs #15, @ #44 Record vs teams under consideration (by S-Curve ranking): 3-10 Losses to RPI 100+: 3 Non-Con Strength of Schedule: 43 Road/Neutral Record: 6-8 As Selection Sunday draws closer, we're starting to get a better idea of which the top teams will "host" the Second and Third rounds of the NCAA Tournament (although, keep in mind that teams can not play on their home court). For those who are unfamiliar with the process, the Selection Committee will give priority for the top four seeds in each region (or top sixteen teams) to play closest to their campus. For example, it's pretty well known at this point that Duke and Georgetown will likely get placed at the sub-regional site closest to their campus and/or largest alumni base, which is Philadelphia. So if you're a team like, say, Syracuse, hoping to get a top 4 seed and a quick trip to the City of Brotherly Love, you can pretty much forget about it. Let's list the sites that are locked up as of Monday, March 11th: PhiladelphiaSalt Lake CityAuburn HillsDaytonKansas CityLexingtonImportant notes:
![]() After Sunday's stumble against FIU in the Sun Belt semifinals, questions immediately arose as to whether Middle Tennessee State has a legitimate shot at an at-large bid to the tournament. The best comparison is last year's Iona team, who made the field in spite of not having any wins against the at-large field in 2012. But the Gaels did have five wins against the RPI top 100, while the Blue Raiders have just two. They did have a pretty solid win against Ole Miss in December, but that's pretty much all they've done this year aside from having a stellar 12-4 record away from home. At the end of the day, however, it doesn't seem like it will be enough. There are just one or two at-large bids up for grabs at this point, and I would think the selection committee would be more inclined to award the last bid or two to teams like Tennessee or Baylor who have very impressive wins. It's a shame, because MTSU could have done some major damage in the tournament. ![]() This update will be brief because it's 1AM in the East. But I have a few bullet points on the key aspects of Saturdays surprises.
![]() *From this point until Selection Sunday, results will be pouring in day and night, on weekends and weekdays alike. That means bracket updates and blog posts will be coming at least twice daily for the next week. Be sure to check the site frequently, and please share the updates on twitter (@RJTutton)! It's going to an awesome March. Takin care of bidness Congrats to the Eagles of Florida Gulf Coast for clinching the first automatic bid of 2013 and the first in the school's short history. Despite playing on the road at Mercer for the Atlantic Sun tournament final, they controlled the game for the final half. They have several transfers from BCS schools and have plenty of talent. It showed today. This was briefly discussed on Twitter earlier, but the Eagles do NOT need to be concerned about getting sent to Dayton for the First Four next Tuesday/Wednesday. Their early season win over Miami should get them to the 15 line at the very lowest. At the moment they are projected as a 14 seed. Billikens win A-10 Regular Season Crown What an emotional season for St. Louis. Jim Crews gave his squad more autonomy when he took over for the late Rick Majerus, and it showed after Kwamain Mitchell returned from injury. The Billikens have been truly dominant since the start of December, going 21-3 after a 3-3 start. One could make an argument that VCU has been great in A10 play this year, but SLU has been better. They are now 5-2 vs the RPI top 50 and 12-4 against the top 100 (!), and the selection committee will certainly reward them for their accomplishments. Side note: Dwayne Evans should be a lock for first team All A-10 and should get serious consideration for conference player of the year. The 6-5 forward has scored in double figures in 13 consecutive games and has pulled in five double-doubles in his past ten games. He had 16 points and 17 rebounds in the season finale today against La Salle. Those are ridiculous numbers. Big Blue Nation can exhale The 'Cats front court must have channeled their inner Nerlens today, because they drove the Gators crazy in the paint. Willie Cauley-Stein blocked four shots and combined with Alex Poythress for 20 rebounds. Kentucky's guards were efficient enough on the offensive end and forced Florida to take a high number of low percentage shots. Any team that can hold the Gators to 57 points deserves a gold star. What does this mean for the Wildcats NCAA hopes? Barring a large number of bid thieves, Kentucky is in after their win today. Despite only being 2-6 vs the RPI top 50, they now add a Florida to a list of good wins over Maryland-N, Tennessee, and Missouri with only one bad loss to Georgia. *Photo credit to the Fort Myers News-Press. ![]() It's that time of year, folks. The calendar has turned to March and we are now less than two weeks away from Selection Sunday. While the next 12 days will certainly be a frenzy, the range of possibilities is getting narrower by the day. For some teams that's a bad thing (i.e. - Ole Miss, Iowa, Charlotte, UMass), while for some it's a good thing. How could this be a good thing? Well, for an increasing amount of teams, this means that they've accomplished enough to date that even if they took a collective nap they would still get a bid. Lets take a peak at the obvious and not so obvious teams that have a 100 percent chance of having their name called on St. Patrick's Day, even if they don't win their conference tournament. The obvious locks: Arizona Colorado State Duke Florida Georgetown Gonzaga Illinois Indiana Kansas Kansas State Louisville Marquette Miami Michigan Michigan State Minnesota Missouri New Mexico Notre Dame Ohio State Oklahoma State Oregon Saint Louis Syracuse UCLA UNLV Wisconsin The not-so-obvious locks: ![]() Butler: Record vs RPI top 50: 5-5 Record vs RPI top 100: 7-7 Good wins: Marquette - N, North Carolina - N, Indiana - N, Gonzaga, Temple Bad losses: None You can't look at the above good wins and tell me with a straight face this team will get left out of the tournament. Have they played well since A-10 play began? Not really. Rotnei Clarke isn't as efficient offensively as he was in the first part of the season and sporadic injuries have hurt the Bulldogs. But a win in November counts just as much as a win in March, and the fact that almost all of their big wins came away from home will only help their seeding. Butler will be no worse than a 7 seed on Selection Sunday. ![]() Cal: Record vs RPI top 50: 5-5 Record vs RPI top 100: 8-9 Good wins: Oregon, @Arizona, UCLA, @Oregon, Colorado Bad losses: Harvard Who would have thought the Golden Bears would get to lock status after starting 13-8 with one top 100 win through January? Since then they've racked up four wins against tournament teams, two of which were on the road in impressive fashion. Their non-conference performance was pretty awful, but their recent play gives them enough notches to overcome this. With one remaining game at home against Stanford and a Pac-12 Quarterfinal, not even two straight losses would keep Cal out. ![]() Colorado: Record vs RPI top 50: 4-4 Record vs RPI top 100: 9-8 Good wins: Baylor - N, Colorado State, Cal, @Oregon, Arizona Bad losses: @Utah In addition to two very solid out of conference wins and two big wins in conference, the Buffaloes should also get credit for a win at Arizona, because they were completely robbed of that game on January 3rd. At the very least, the selection committee will see that they played the Wildcats to a draw and then beat them convincingly at home. They may not have a great seed in the dance, but there's enough margin of error that they shouldn't worry about getting their name called in twelve days. ![]() Creighton: Record vs RPI top 50: 4-3 Record vs RPI top 100: 8-6 Good wins: Wisconsin - N, @Cal, Wichita State Bad losses: Illinois State, @Drake There's been a lot of chatter about the Jays stumbling down the stretch, especially after losing four of six in the past month. Yet their out of conference wins are pretty impressive. Since their regular season is complete, they can only lose one more game, at worst, before the NCAA tournament starts. Plus, this team passes the eye test, this squad has an experienced roster that is physically big and has great length, which can't be discounted. There's a lot more to Creighton than Doug McDermott. If they win the MVC tournament, they can get out of the dreaded 8/9 slot. Even if they don't, they'll still be dancing. ![]() NC State: Record vs RPI top 50: 3-5 Record vs RPI top 100: 6-7 Good wins: UConn - N, UMass, Duke, North Carolina Bad losses: None See the fourth line of their profile above? Bad losses? None. When you've beaten Connecticut on a neutral floor, taken care of the number one RPI team and supplemented those with a good win against North Carolina, you're in good shape. The Wolfpack could fall a few seed lines if they collapsed in their last three remaining games (Wake, @Florida State, ACC Tournament), but that won't keep them out. ![]() San Diego State: Record vs RPI top 50: 4-6 Record vs RPI top 100: 7-8 Good wins: UCLA - N, Colorado State, New Mexico, Boise State Bad losses: None The Aztecs have sealed their fate with some big wins and no bad losses. The neutral court win against UCLA is looking better with each passing day, and that's exactly what the selection committee wants to see: teams that can win impressive out of conference games in an NCAA tournament type setting. Credit Steve Fisher for getting the most out of his defense this season. That's one heck of an adjustment, because the offense has been underwhelming to say the least. Don't count San Diego State out in March though, they could be a nightmare match up in the round of 32 or Sweet 16. ![]() VCU: Record vs RPI top 50: 3-5 Record vs RPI top 100: 8-6 Good wins: Memphis - N, Belmont, UMass, Butler Bad losses: None There's a clear trend here with the teams on this list. Most of them have few bad losses despite marginal resumes, and the Rams are no exception. The outlook was extremely questionable for VCU early in the second half of the Xavier game just a little over a week ago. They had just gotten pummeled by St. Louis on the road and the Musketeers were doing the same early. But Troy Daniels starting making threes and the defense totally changed the complexion of the game. The win changed everything, as they carried that momentum into the Butler game and gave a very good Bulldogs squad their worst loss of the decade. That 60 minutes of basketball changed the whole tune of the regular season. They have an excellent road record and are above .500 against the RPI top 100. Those accomplishments will guarantee them a spot in the tournament. |
AuthorGrowing up outside of Richmond, Virginia in the heart of ACC Country, college hoops was set into the fabric of Rusty Tutton at an early age. A 2008 graduate of VCU, he lives in the Fan District of Richmond and works full-time in higher education. Archives
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