2/24 games

[ctt8410]

41 games tonight. Let's see some carnage.

AAC
ECU @ Tulane - Only reason to care is maybe ECU can get back into the top 200? Otherwise, I don't think it matters who wins.
Houston @ UCF - If UCF wins, then we lose a top 100 win.

OOC
Indiana State @ Northern Iowa - ISU's been a huge disappointment this year. Thought this would be a sneaky good win at the time.
Missouri State vs Drake - Drake is 1-15 in the Valley, so hopefully SMS can pick up another win here.
Wichita @ Loyola - Obviously important for us that Wichita keeps winning all the way through the MVC tournament.
Oklahoma State @ OU - Still can't believe these bums couldn't help us out against Texas Tech.
Oregon State vs Washington - This is where it gets tough. Oregon State wins help our SOS, but they're ahead of us on the bubble and hold the obvious trump card. And Washington is still showing up on some brackets.

Bubble teams
Louisville @ Pittsburgh - Louisville's not eligible, so burn it all down guys.
Marquette @ Creighton - Creighton's another one starting to pop up on brackets with their win over Xavier. Marquette's not close.
George Washington @ Richmond - GW is first 4 out on bracket matrix and they're underdogs to 14-12 Richmond.
Northwestern @ Michigan - Michigan has a pretty pedestrian resume, but no bad losses. This would qualify as a bad loss.
VCU @ George Mason - We could use a couple more VCU losses. Unfortunately, Mason's really bad. They're on pace to break records for fewest turnovers forced at 7.3/game (2nd worst is South Florida at 9.2/game).
Wisconsin @ Iowa - The more losses the better for Wisconsin.
Arizona @ Colorado - My least favorite type of game. A win probably locks Colorado in. A loss really doesn't hurt them. And they get the game at home.
St Joseph's @ UMass - Dayton and Princeton are St. Joe's only top 50 wins, but 22-5 keeps them safe for now.

 

[ctt8410]

Also, St Bonaventure vs Duquesne. Bonnies took a terrible loss to LaSalle last Wednesday, but played their way back on the bubble by winning @Dayton on Saturday.

 

[TU_BLA]

Creighton and the Big East (outside of Nova and Xavier) are horrible. I keep watching Providence because everyone thinks they're great...they're not. They're one really good player and 4 other guys to fill out the lineup. Butler is not good either. Why the bracket guys are in love with that conference is beyond me.

 

[bigzit]

No help tonight.... not yet anyway...

 

[ctt8410]

VCU takes a really bad loss to George Mason and drops to 63 RPI.

 

[TU_BLA]

Jorge Mason beat VCU and Marquette up big in Creighton right now

 

[URedskin54]

Wisconsin winning sucks. Lunardi had them as an 8 though so maybe they were safe anyway

 

[ctt8410]

Yeah, Wisconsin and Colorado were probably in. Now they're definitely in. Good news is that Creighton is definitely out and VCU is looking very bubbly.

 

[drboobay]

It is so hard to see how this will play out right now.

There are almost certainly a few bid stealers in the conference tournaments so the last team in is a bad spot to hold.

 

[TU Hurricane Warning]

ESPN gets it wrong on a few teams every year!! They are not the ones who decide even though they invented a ranking system to gain more say so. Most have us in right now. The only insulator we have is to keep winning.

 

[nevadanatural]

Five more wins they can't keep us out. Four more wins we're a lock. Three more wins and I'm concerned. Two wins and its NIT.

 

[URedskin54]

ESPN gets it wrong on a few teams every year!! They are not the ones who decide even though they invented a ranking system to gain more say so. Most have us in right now. The only insulator we have is to keep winning.

Yeah, but I wonder if part of Lunardi's ranking is because he kind of has a gauge on how the people who matter are leaning. Before tonight Wisconsin was 3-5 vs the top 50 and had 4 100+ losses. It's hard to see a legit reason to put them as an 8

 

[jesterondirt]

I was listening to the Oregon state game on the radio, amazing ending.

 

[Tulsafanzz]

The Bracket Matrix site now has Tulsa in. Other than Palm & Lunardi, most others now have us in & Alabama out. Palm & Lunardi are lobbying for P5 teams now, but if Selection Sunday was tomorrow, they'd both have us in their brackets.

However, we're still over 2 weeks away from Selection Sunday & Tulsa still has a lot of work to do. I think we must win at least 3 more, maybe 4, to get an at-large bid.

 

[ba11game]

I just checked and Palm has us in a play-in game and Cincy out. Lunardi hasn't updated since we beat Temple.

I think winning the AAC tourney is still important to get us into the main field. First we have to win in Memphis though.

 

[bigzit]

Need 3 more wins.... (we should only need 2 more wins but the system is biased).
Win these next 2, and then win 1 more in the Tourney and Tulsa should be safe.
Lose Memphis, beat USF, and then Tulsa must get to the Championship game.
Of course, Tulsa could decide to win out and make it a moot point while securing a 7 seed. I have no problem with that!

 

[ba11game]

I can't believe I'm less optimistic than bigzit, but I think we have to win the next two to have any chance at an at-large bid. If we do that and win the tourney, I think we get a 10 seed. I am optimistic about the team's chances to win out, I just don't trust the selection committee.

 

[aTUfan]

Just win baby!

 

[TU_BLA]

I can't believe I'm less optimistic than bigzit, but I think we have to win the next two to have any chance at an at-large bid. If we do that and win the tourney, I think we get a 10 seed. I am optimistic about the team's chances to win out, I just don't trust the selection committee.

After the #1 seed in each region, it becomes more about matchups than how high or low you are. Most TU fans thought we got screwed with a 7 seed in 2000 and a good friend of mine calmed a bunch of people down and said the path was a favorable one for TU to make a deep run...and he was right. It's all about the match-ups...and our shooting. If we're shooting well, we match up pretty well with a lot of teams. We need to avoid the bangers and the teams that play hard nosed physical D. Outside of UNC, I want to play any team in the ACC...they're all soft defensively (and even UNC is soft defensively, there size inside is an issue for us though). We need to avoid teams like Cincinnati...Xavier plays like that too (must be a Cincy thing). 10 seed is not the end of the world for us depending on who is on the #2 line. I'd take my chances with most of the teams they're projecting there right now.

 

[TU_BLA]

Oh...and the whole Wisconsin thing is crap. Iowa is so over-rated in the polls right now it's ridiculous...my guess is the majority of AP voters have not even seen them play, just results and scores. They're near unwatchable (as are most B1G teams this year).

 

[ctt8410]

I was listening to the Oregon state game on the radio, amazing ending.

It was a fun game. He also definitely traveled before hitting the shot.

 

[Tu Geo]

It was a fun game. He also definitely traveled before hitting the shot.

View embedded media

I watched as well.

Ore. State winning was that good or bad?

GO TU!!!

 

[astonmartin708]

I watched as well.

Ore. State winning was that good or bad?

GO TU!!!

They're pretty close to us on the bubble and they have the head to head. But it makes our loss look better.

 

[dfwcanefan]

I watched as well.

Ore. State winning was that good or bad?

GO TU!!!

I think it probably helps us on balance since going into the game there was probably a slightly better chance of both teams getting in than neither. I don't have a feel for where the committee has us but it sure seems like the "bracketologists" are using a double standard between us and the Power 5 schools. Our resume is pretty much exactly the same as Pitt right now (except for our 3-1 advantage in Top 50 wins), but everyone seems to think they're a solid 8 seed. Very frustrating.

As for that shot I don't think the travel is that big of a deal (it happens a lot), but one other thing I noticed is that they started the clock about a full second late off the inbounds pass. If you rerun it and start counting it's between 3.5 and 4.0 seconds before he gets the shot off, and he only had 3.3 when the play started. I heard rumblings about Washington protesting the game, and if they do I'll bet it's because of the clock issue rather than the travel.

 

[TU_BLA]

I think it probably helps us on balance since going into the game there was probably a slightly better chance of both teams getting in than neither. I don't have a feel for where the committee has us but it sure seems like the "bracketologists" are using a double standard between us and the Power 5 schools. Our resume is pretty much exactly the same as Pitt right now (except for our 3-1 advantage in Top 50 wins), but everyone seems to think they're a solid 8 seed. Very frustrating.

As for that shot I don't think the travel is that big of a deal (it happens a lot), but one other thing I noticed is that they started the clock about a full second late off the inbounds pass. If you rerun it and start counting it's between 3.5 and 4.0 seconds before he gets the shot off, and he only had 3.3 when the play started. I heard rumblings about Washington protesting the game, and if they do I'll bet it's because of the clock issue rather than the travel.

The guy took 2 dribble before the clock started, and the clip doesn't show when he first took control of the ball off the inbounds pass. Is the MWC the only conference to use stop watch overlays to fix the outcome of a game?