Sunday, January 03, 2010

B101's Sunday Tweets

Our quick thoughts on Sunday's results:

The news coming out of USC today is just crushing for the Trojans, who were playing arguably the best ball of anyone in the Pac-10. As it always is with these cases, it's the kids who did nothing wrong that get punished. We agree that the school should be punished, scholarships should be revoked, recruiting trips should be reduced, and wins from the season in question should be vacated. But to punish an entirely new group of kids because Tim Floyd cheated is the definition of unfair.

Floyd, pathetically, has never addressed the allegations. Maybe Kevin O'Neill should invite him to the next USC practice so he can tell Mike Gerrity, Dwight Lewis, and Co. why they won't be playing in the postseason this year. It's doubtful Mayo will lose a lot of sleep over this tonight, either.

USC's loss might be Oregon's gain. The Pac-10 is probably going to get three bids when all is said and done, and the Ducks appear right now to be the third best (eligible) team. There's a pretty good chance they make an appearance in our bracket tomorrow.

One of the biggest decision we have to make tonight when putting the bracket together is whether the Valley is still a two-bid league. No one in the league, Northern Iowa included, has an at-large quality resume right now, and Missouri State is on very, very thin ice bid-wise after losing at UNI today.

Florida came up with an improbable escape today at N.C. State, as Chandler Parsons hit a 75-footer at the buzzer in OT with the Gators down two. Here's the video of the shot, which came after N.C. State's Farnold Degand missed the second of two free throws. Wow.

Texas Tech also posted a nice win today at home against a very good UTEP team. We threw the "overrated" tag this week on the Red Raiders after their performance in their last two games, but they responded in a big way Sunday (and may have kept UTEP out out of the bracket in the process). Texas Tech likely won't move much from the 7 line in our next bracket; at worst they're probably an 8.

The Buckeyes have to be counting down the minutes until Evan Turner comes back. They've now lost two straight, and are 0-2 in the Big Ten, after losing at Michigan this afternoon. A 3-4 seed line drop is in their future.

For a while tonight, it looked like we might have to debate the possibility of five A-10 bids, but Wake's double OT win over Xavier ended that discussion before it started. The Demon Deacons needed three OTs to get two wins this week at home, but them got them both - and they might be a top 5 seed as a result.

Of note: Duke beat Clemson at home; Wisconsin won easily at Penn State; St. John's lost by 15 at home to Providence; Georgetown won at DePaul; Miami (FL) won at Pepperdine.

No comments: