Monday, March 06, 2006

Tuesday's Games To Watch

Conference Championship Games
Western Kentucky vs. South Alabama
The two best teams in the Sun Belt square off for the automatic. Hilltoppers won the overall conference title, and beat UAB earlier in the year, but aren't at-large worthy if they lose.

Oral Roberts vs. Chicago State
Yup, that's 11-18 Chicago State looking for one last miracle against the top-seeded Golden Eagles.

Wisconsin-Milwaukee vs. Butler
Panthers have been the pick in the Horizon all along, but have struggled of late. Can second-seeded Butler sneak in and grab a bid?

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you all think that George Mason is done for with the suspension of Tony Skinn?

Anonymous said...

Granted, Hofstra played a miserable first half but they did beat Mason twice in ten days, had a better record and a higher RPI ranking ... so why would George Mason be in and Hofstra out?

Hopefully, you've missed the mark with that pick ...

Anonymous said...

hopefully you do miss the mark and neither team will make it!!!.....George Mason and Hofstra do not have anything to show for out of conference to steal a bid from a more deserving team....both played lost to the bottom of the acc and big east showing they don't deserve to be in the tourney

Anonymous said...

It is true that George Mason lost to Mississippi State, but so did Alabama and Arkansas. It's also true they lost to Wake Forest. So did N.C. State. Hofstra lost to Notre Dame, but so did Alabama and Seton Hall. Are we going to hold those teams out of the tourney for those losses as well?

Anonymous said...

Hofstra will make it but George Mason will not. Shinn's injury should be taken into account. George Mason is NIT bound

Anonymous said...

well those teams you said lost to Wake, MSU, and ND also beat a lot better teams than George Mason and Hofstra, also, none of them came even close to losing to a team like the Towson Tigers....I mean come on, if you lose to Pat's Cats then you should not be in the tourney

Gabe said...

Skinn's injury? What, did he hurt his hand ounching the guy in the crotch?

Anonymous said...

Nole fan speaking again (not one of the arguing ones) all I can say is that there are a lot of bubble teams around the nation thankful that Gonzaga won last night. What a game! As for my bracket, I don't see any problem for many teams, there seems to be a lot of room openning up: I think the combination of teams playing themselves out of the tourney and the lack of conference tourney upsets is openning up the selection scene. It will certainly be interesting to see what happens in the CAA. I originally had three teams in from the Colonial, but now? Who knows? As for the MVC, I still maintain three teams will get in, but as the days pass I am more and more considering the possibility of a fourth. As for all the teams of the bubble, including FSU (which I believe is more firmly planted than some speculate) we will have to watch the remaining conference championships to see what happens next. On a final note, can anyone remember a year like this one that lacked a truly dominent team? I mean, I know UCONN, Villanova, and Duke are all really good and have a decent chance of winning the NCAA, but none of them is GREAT. Any ideas?

Bracketology 101 said...

Hofstra's two wins over Mason in that 10-day stretch is hard to ignore, but in looking at the entire profile of both teams, Mason is ahead by the slimmest or margains and that is why they are in the field and Hofstra is out. Mason has the big non-conference win that Hofstra doesn't (Wichita), which we think is especially huge given the committee's lack of respect for the CAA in recent years. Ultimately, we have Mason with no Hofstra becasue we think the Colonial right now is a two-bd league, not a three-bid league. It's an indictment of the league, not Hofstra.

That said, if some teams currently in the bracket play their way out (FSU, A&M, Colorado, etc.), Hofstra can play their way back in. If too many upsets happen (Bucknell, Nevada, GW, etc. lose) the Colonial based on history looks like the league that will be hurt the most. In the end, with enough upsets, Wilmington may be the only CAA team dancing.

Bubbleteams said...

You guys finally realize there is a Chicago State making waves in the Mid-Continent ?? Looks like you read about them as a darkhorse this past Saturday on bubbleteams.com

Good to see you staying informed by reading the best bracketology out there.

Anonymous said...

Remember, George Mason's Athletic Director is on the selection committee. This fact makes them a lock! Plus the fact that they won at Wichita State-the MVC regular season champ. Hofstra is NIT bound. sorry Flying Dutchmen

Anonymous said...

What George Mason's Skinn did to Hofstra's Stokes should be enough to put Hofstra IN and George Mason OUT.

Pradamaster said...

I have never understood for the like of me why Digger is up in the studio discussing team's tournament profiles instead of down as a color man discussing game strategy. The guy was an extremely successful coach, but remains unbelievably stubborn in his views and makes it seem like he doesn't do any research. He'd be very good at discussing in-game strategies and the way different teams play. Replace him on Gameday with a guy like Doug Gottlieb or Andy Katz, and the show would be better.

Put Digger in the booth, not in the studio!

Anonymous said...

Digger is the reason people invented the phrase "Teams, not conferences, earn NCAA bids." All his tournament analysis is about how the MVC should only get 3 bids, how the Big XII has earned 4 bids and therefore Texas A&M gets a slot. Apparently, in his world, each conference is granted a number of slots and then it's filled by ranking the teams within the conference.

Anonymous said...

The sad thing is people......as much as i don't like Digger either, he is a much more realist than anyone on this thing....if you were honestly betting on a game between Notre Dame and Whicita St("MVC powerhouse") straight up on a neutral floor, who would you put your money on???....i'd take notre dame any day of the week. Now, they obviously don't deserve to get a bid, nor will they get a bid....thats pretty east to figure out, but my point is....these teams in the MVC wouldn't even be above .500 if they played in the Big East, with half the games at home which everyone cries about. The simple fact is these sup par teams in the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, etc. are much better than just about every MVC team....if money weren't such a factor in the game, maybe they'd actually play each other and prove it once in for all, but that will never happen, nor will we ever see a mid major in the final four.......

Anonymous said...

No I would bet on Wichita State, the team that played Illinois to within 1. People act like the MVC didn't play any teams from power conferences, but they did.

Results:
Illinois 55 Wichita State 54
@Michigan State 83 Wichita State 64
@Arkansas 79 Missouri State 75
@Creighton 70 Nebraska 44
@Iowa State 68 Northern Iowa 61
@Northern Iowa 67 Iowa 63
Northern Iowa 54 @LSU 50
@Bradley 75 DePaul 60
@Iowa 65 Drake 60
@Indiana State 72 Indiana 67

Certainly not all of them, but the only neutral court game resulted in a 1 point win for Illinois. Most of the rest, the home team won, whether it was the MVC or the BCS team.

If you use something like the Sagarin Predictor rating to get point spreads, you see that the Valley is in the same league with these other bubble teams (interestingly, most of them would be underdogs to Notre Dame but favorites over Syracuse).

Anonymous said...

That is a pretty bad reason to take Wichita St., because they lost to Illinois by 1 on a neutral court in a game that barely got over 100 points which probably meant Illinois just had a bad shooting night.......if you want to use the reason of a close loss, then you'd obviously take Notre Dame, who lost close games all season, including an ot loss on the road to UConn...far more impressive, what about the blowout loss to Michigan St., i guess thats not in your reasoning for betting on Wichita St., also the only team that has a win to brag about is Northern Iowa, who has 2...maybe Indiana St, but they went downhill since then anyway....the rest of those games aren't worth mentioning, the DePaul and Nebraska wins aren't much to brag about, if they were key victories every team in each of their conference would have an argument to make it in....and this stupid index you use, this IS NOT COLLEGE FOOTBALL....we have got to stop putting so much emphathis on these stupid formulas, the RPI is the most overated thing out there, yes it can be a small factor in deciding between two even teams, but it shouldn't be the main thing, all that is, is a stupid math formula someone came up with, it doesn't actually look at talent and skills, it just looks at stupid numbers.......

Anonymous said...

I agree that RPI is an ill-conceived formula. However, you have to use something to compare 335+ teams since nobody can watch all of them all the time.

Hence, using comparative scores of games seems reasonable. In fact, using scores of all games I think you can get a reasonable estimate.

One of my favorite sites for sports ratings is this one:
http://www.dolphinsim.com/ratings/
You can look at college basketball and note the various different ways teams are rated, but if you go down to "Rating Details" he'll actually lead through all the formulae and the reasons why they work.

The problem is "talent and skills" aren't all there are to a team. There's also coaching, which can certainly lead talented teams astray or less talented teams farther along.

And, incidentally, the Sagarin predictor rating jibes pretty well with Vegas odds.

Anonymous said...

I wanted to point out that I once catalogued all the 8/9 and 7/10 games between mid-majors and majors in the NCAA tournament. And guess what? The mid-majors actually won more of the games:

http://tinyurl.com/laauy