The Four Point Play is my nightly college basketball review and preview. Catch it Monday-Thursday in its shorter form and Sunday nights for a weekend review.
Most Important Results from Weekend
Indiana 73, Kentucky 72 – Is Indiana all the way back? Of course not. The Hoosiers are still one or two big recruiting classes away. That said, Christian Watford's buzzer beating three to win this game will be looked at a long time from now as the moment when Indiana's long, bumpy road ended.
VCU 73, Richmond 51 – Richmond surprisingly looked totally out of its league in this game. Not a good sign before A-10 play. As for VCU, the win was needed, but the CAA looks mediocre and one-bid level this season.
Wisconsin 62, UNLV 51 – Pacific timezone teams need to figure out a way to get games like this on the road in better time slots (or schedule all the return games for as late as humanly possible). A sleepy 11am Pacific time tip off meant UNLV never got into this game (neither did Wisconsin other than Ben Brust and his 25 points off the bench).
Michigan St. 74, Gonzaga 67 – Huge win for Michigan St. Teams generally don't play at The Kennel by choice and when they do, they usually end up like Notre Dame did a couple of weeks ago: beaten badly and awaiting revenge the next year.
St. Joseph's 80, Creighton 71 – After a few down years, Phil Martelli looks like he has St. Joe's trending upward again. As for Creighton, the tough road schedule finally got them once.
Kansas 78, Ohio St. 67 – Kansas did what it needed to do with Sullinger not in the lineup. Even without Sullinger, huge win for Kansas. For Ohio St., no big deal unless Sullinger doesn't play for awhile.
Northern Iowa 67, Milwaukee 51 – Best mid-major matchup of the weekend goes to the Missouri Valley. The Valley has recovered from its difficult last few seasons and looks like a three-bid league right now.
Murray St. 76, Memphis 72 – Racers got the huge win needed and are likely to enter the national rankings this week with a 10-0 record. Murray St. also looks good for an at-large, not that it will need it in the OVC. As for Memphis, the Tigers are on their way to underachieving for the 3rd year in a row under Josh Pastner.
Worst Losses from Weekend
Idaho 74, Oregon St. 60 – Mid-major can't lose games like this and make no mistake about it, the Pac-12 looks and feels like a mid-major league this season (more on that later)
Ball St. 58, Butler 55 – Thus the remaining remote chances of an at-large bid for Butler go extinct. Start prepping for the Horizon League Tournament.
LSU 64, Boise St. 45 – LSU is a bad SEC team. Them beating Boise St. by such a margin shows the Broncos good record was entirely weak schedule fueled.
3 Biggest Games for Monday (slim pickins, most Monday's are until the Big Monday package heats up in mid-January)
Oregon vs Portland St. - Nothing more than Pac-12 conference pride on the line here. The Ducks are a middle of the road team in a league that has no possibility of sending middle of the road teams to the NCAA Tournament. Portland St. is much the same in the WCC.
Rutgers vs Monmouth – Rutgers isn't as good as the teams above, but its Big East rivals would surely like to see a win here, if only to ensure Rutgers stay above 200 in the RPI.
Arkansas-Little Rock vs Oral Roberts – When I said slim pickins, I meant it. Arkansas-Little Rock is a bad Sun Belt team. Oral Roberts is a good Summit League team. Both are already playing for the conference tournament, at least as far as the NCAA's go.
Three Thoughts on the weekend in College Basketball
The smoking crater that is the Pac-12 – The Pac-12 continues to lose games at an alarming rate against anyone of significance. In addition, the league continues to lose games at an alarming rate to teams of no significance (see Oregon St. to Idaho above). If this keeps up, there is a possibility the league could fall to one bid if the league champion also wins the conference tournament. While I don't think that will happen and the Pac-12 will end up with three bids (one of them wholly undeserved), the fact that its a possibility is astounding for what has traditionally been one of the best leagues in college basketball. The true measure is that there appear to be no chances to improve computer rankings once conference play begins. Only Stanford, Arizona and Cal appear to have a chance at an at-large bid right now, and all of them come with serious resume warts.
Xavier and Cincinnati brawl – The brawl between these schools was just pathetic and has no place in college basketball (or really any sport at any level except maybe hockey). While Cincinnati should be embarrassed about how its players reacted and Yancy Gates should be suspended a lot longer than the six games he is after his cheap shot knockout punch, the school that really should be in trouble is Xavier. Xavier let Cincinnati's trash talk get to them and in response went way over the line. Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin said he tried to get the officials attention about the trash talk from Xavier and they did nothing other than issue a warning. The most damning thing about all of this is the comments in the post game from the Xavier players. It sounded like this was all premeditated because they felt disrespected, kind of like the goal was to beat Cincinnati, embarrass them and then then goad them into a fight to make them look like horrible people and destroy their season. Well, it worked. Of course if the Xavier administration and the Atlantic 10 weren't looking at their financial meal ticket being thrown away here, the Xavier season would be destroyed too.
Mid-major check in – This season, mid-majors look like the big beneficiaries of the Pac-12 meltdown, especially with the Big 12 and ACC also down from their usual levels. That said, the Atlantic 10 (other than slumping Rhode Island) looks like a Power conference when looking at the records and might be in line for four bids, maybe even five if things break right in conference play. The Missouri Valley has returned to prominence and could take three bids this season. The WCC looks like a two-bid league minimum and could reach three, even without a bid stealer. And the Mountain West has weathered the loss of BYU quite well with everyone in the league carrying a record above .500 (only league in college basketball that can say that right now) and UNLV having spent time in the national rankings after beating North Carolina. These leagues often are multi-bid leagues, but they are all exceeding expectations and past performances, making it more likely we will see a high number of them in the NCAA Tournament come Selection Sunday.
No comments:
Post a Comment