Saturday, February 04, 2006

Weekend Recap

West Virginia 66, Cincinnati 57
Bearcats' freefall continues.

Duke 97, Florida St. 96 OT
Could have been a huge win for FSU. Might have been if not for the refs.

Louisville 89, Notre Dame 86 OT
Gotta feel for those kids at ND.

Wichita State 71, Southern Illinois 63 2OT
SIU might need some help to stay in this week's bracket.

Alabama 67, LSU 62
Tide losses the game they were supposed to win (Georgia) this week and wins the game they were supposed to lose.

UConn 88, Indiana 80
Huskies looking very strong.

Virginia 75, Wake Forest 73; Miami 70, Georgia Tech 53
Cavs and 'Canes look like they will be battling down the stretch for a 6th bid out of ACC.

Butler 63, Wisc.-Milwaukee 60 OT
Any of the Panthers hopes for an at large were destroyed this week.

Kent State 63, Akron 57
That's 10 of 11 for the streaking Golden Flashes.

BYU 65, Air Force 59
Losses like this don't help your at-large chances.

Utah State 62, Louisiana Tech 62
Tech's hold on the WAC's top spot is slipping away pretty fast.

UCLA 84, Arizona 73
Tough to argue a 13-9 team deserves to be in the bracket - unless they have an RPI like Arizona's.

LaSalle 62, Temple 56
Temple stubs its toe again.

Washington State 77, Washington 64
Huskies need some home cooking in the worst way.

Georgia 74, Vanderbilt 73
So much for the Vandy in-or-out argument.

Iowa 94, Michigan 66
The Hawkeyes are due for a nice seed bump.

Arizona State 68, USC 65
Trojans blew their chance at a bracket cameo.

George Mason 69, UNC-Wilmington 62
Patriots win the battle for Colonial supremacy.

California 62, Oregon 60
Cal has gone from Bubbleville to a game out of first in the Pac-10 in no time.

Stanford 71, Oregon State 64
Welcome to the field, Cardinal.

Penn State 66, Illinois 65
Looks like 'Nova was a better choice for that last No. 1 seed after all.

Purdue 70, Wisconsin 62
First North Dakota State, and now this?

Missouri State 70, Bradley 62
Good start for the Bears; they need a few more games like this to get back in the conversation.

Nevada 90, New Mexico State 81
Wolfpack avoid the upset bug and move into a tie for first in the wacky WAC.

Georgetown 61, Pittsburgh 58
Rough week on the road for the Panthers.

Seton Hall 73, Rutgers 67
Hall handles its business at home.

Kansas 59, Oklahoma 58
Impressive comeback win for the Jayhawks.

NC State 62, Maryland 58
Maryland will be a tough call this week.

Saint Louis 61, Xavier 47
A-10 is back to being a one-bid conference.

Iowa State 96, Colorado 79
Huge statement made by the Cyclones.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Miami should be ahead of Maryland in the race for at large bids. Miami beat Maryland handily & also won at UNC. Maryland lost at home to UNC. at least Miami played 4 tough non-conference games. they lost all 4. However, Maryland only played GW & lost. Maryland should NOT be rewarded for playing a cupcake schedule. Also, why would you put Maryland ahead of Miami? did the head to head game mean nothing to you?

Anonymous said...

what do you guys make of the PAC 10 mess? have Cal and Stanford moved ahead of Washington on your board? the huskies are in 6th place after all. USC's home loss to ASU could kill them. i realize zona is ranked in the top 20 of the rpi, but they are 13-9 & in a tie for 4th in the conference. Arizona has 0 wins vs. RPI top 50. on the flip side, they have 3 losses to teams outside top 100. can you please explain why zona is ranked so high in RPI. i know they have played many tough games. but they have lost them all

Bracketology 101 said...

As of right now, it's hard to argue that Maryland is ahead of Miami, especially considering their head-to-head win. The problem with Miami is their remaining schedule. With eight losses already, and with games against NC State, North Carolina, at BC and at Duke upcoming, not to mention a matchup at Maryland the second to last game of the season, Miami needs to play extremely well down the stretch to stay on or near the bubble. Maryland's schedule is a little easier down the stretch, and if the teams split, the Terps might have a better case in the end.

Tha Pac-10 is a disaster. Washington is in a freefall and Arizona is only saved by an 18 RPI (their RPI actually went UP a spot with their loss at UCLA). Arizona's RPI is so high thanks to their playing the third toughest schedule in the country, and losing the majority of their games against those top teams on the road. Good RPI or not, though, it's hard to ignore the fact that the Cats lost to all of the top 50 teams they played, which eventually has to start really hurting their seed.

We will have to crunch the numbers tonight, but Cal and Stanford both might leap over Washington in terms of seeding. Their conference records are much better (8-3 vs. 5-5) and they are playing much better of late. Washington had an RPI advantage and a win over Gonzaga to hold their hats on for a while now, but the way they have played lately has cancelled some of that out. Washington supporters will argue that the Huskies' losses to Cal and Stanford came on the road, and that Washington has rematches with both at home still on the schedule. We will look at all of these factors Sunday night when figuring out this week's bracket.

USC's hopes all but evaporated with a home loss to last-place ASU. Their RPI (103) is way too low, and they have not shown the ability to string together a kind of win streak they would need down the stretch. Wins over UNC and Arizona are nice, but losses to ASU at home, and CS-Northridge and Oral Roberts early in the year are huge negatives.

Anonymous said...

Seth Davis said he thinks the PAC 10 will get 5 teams in. I am thinking they will get 4 but wouldn't be shocked if they get five.

Anonymous said...

I am a huge Maryland fan, and sadly agree with the argument of Miami being ahead of Maryalnd....Miami struggled early, but now they are a team, with deadly 3 point shooting that can beat anyone......despite Maryland losing 3 straight, I don't think anyone should be in panic mode on them just yet....they lost at Temple where Temple just played lights out, and Strawberry missed 2 front ends of a 1 and 1 in a row, which made a 3 point game, a 7 point game in 30 seconds.....Strawberry is absolutely killing us from the free throw line, he's not even close, and as a point guard, you gotta make those down the stretch, and then MD just played an awful 6 minute stretch against UNC, and the same against N.C. State, but they were in the game until the end on the road against the #2 team in the ACC with Caner-Medley battling the flu, so that was promising.....I still believe they can be a dangerous team if they can just find more than 1 guy a night who can actually shoot well....there's still half the ACC schedule left, and if they can just go 4-4, beat Duke at home, and win a game in the ACC tourney, they should be a lock.......I honestly thought it was a joke they didn't make it last year, how can you beat a #1 seed twice and not make it, they just got unlucky and ran into a Clemson team that just matched up so well against us and beat us 3 times....i thought that was an unfair snub