Here's what we're wondering heading into this weekend's games:Saturday's Games
Can both Ohio State (at Illinois) and Kansas (vs. Texas) both make it through the weekend undefeated?
How ready is Jay Wright for this week to be over? Fresh off a last-second loss at Gampel Pavilion, Villanova has to head to the Carrier Dome on Saturday, where 33,000 Syracuse fans await.
What's the over-under on Wake Forest's point total against Duke? 40?
How much of a difference will having Bruce Pearl back on the bench make for Tennessee against UConn?
Can Jimmer and Friends survive a tough road test at Colorado State? Do the Rams deserve a spot in the bracket if they finish off an already big week with a victory over the Cougars?
Will Texas A&M bounce back from its loss at Texas and, in the process, bounce Kansas State from the bracket?
Can Kentucky finally win an SEC road game?
Will Terrence Jones stop being such a SELFISH MOTHERF....?
Can anyone win on the road in the Big Ten? Can Michigan State avoid its seventh loss of the season and win at Mackey Arena?
Can Notre Dame avenge its 22-point beatdown at the hands of Marquette back on Jan. 10 and take care of the Golden Eagles in South Bend?
Will Washington State complete a much-needed 2-0 week and beat Arizona in Pullman? Should the Wildcats be bumped from the bracket in favor of UCLA if they lose?
St. Mary's might be the least talked-about good team in the country, but are they good enough to win at Vanderbilt?
Will the A-10 be back to a three-bid league on Monday? If Richmond wins at UMass, there's a good chance the answer to that question is yes.
Even with a win at Oklahoma, is Colorado (after losing by 12 at Nebraska on Tuesday) going to keep its spot in next week's bracket?
Will a win at Baylor be enough to get Oklahoma State back in the bracket? (If A&M beats Kansas State, yes.)
Is Florida State really the second best team in the ACC? If they are, they should beat BC at home.
How many questions will we have to answer from panicked FSU fans if the 'Noles lose?
Is Virginia Tech in the bracket to stay after their convincing win at Maryland? The Hokies have a pretty easy schedule from here on out, and there's no reason they can't finish in the top four in the ACC.
Will Georgia and Southern Miss be able to bounce back from crushing last-second home losses earlier in the week?
Can Xavier seize control of the A-10 race and beat Temple?
Will the winner of the Memphis-UAB game be the only C-USA team in our next bracket?
Will ODU take care of VCU at home and avoid falling two games behind the Rams in the Colonial?
What happened to UNLV on Wednesday? Will the Rebels regroup and take care of New Mexico in Vegas?
How much longer will the loser of the Cincinnati-St. John's game be in the bracket?
Will the MVC be back to a one-bid league on Monday? After Wichita State's home loss to Northern Iowa on Wednesday, that's a very good possibility.
Will Florida play better against Arkansas than they did against Auburn? Is it possible for them to play worse?
Sunday's Games
Can Northwestern finally get a quality Big Ten win and beat Wisconsin at home?
Is Miami worthy of a bid next week even if they win at N.C. State?
Could West Virginia really lose to Marshall and South Florida in the same week?
Can Belmont continue to tear through the Atlantic Sun? (The Bruins have won their first eight conference games by an average of 29 points.) What seed would Belmont deserve if they finish the regular season 28-3, with their only three losss coming to Tennessee (twice) and Vandy?
Did we really just ask a Belmont question?
28 comments:
What are your thoughts on the FSU-BC game this weekend? Very big game in the ACC as both teams are currently tied for 1st place. Both teams are on the good side of the bracket as of now, but one bad slide and they'll be on the edge.
Will BC's effecient offense be able to keep it up against arguably the best defensive team in the country? Will FSU take advantage of BC's suspect defense? This should be a very interesting game with the winner the most likely team to challenge Duke for the ACC crown.
how about Baylor - OSU?
OSU is squarely on everyone's bubble. Does a road win in Waco get them on the right side?
How about Baylor...who's best victory all year is to #139 Lipscomb....what does Baylor have to do to get consideration?
Oklahoma St looks pretty good for now if they win at Baylor.
For Baylor this is an absolute must win if they want to stay on the radar. Baylor probably has to finish 10-6 in B12 to feel good, 9-7 would be dicey unless they get a couple tournament wins.
Count for panicked FSU fans=1
Glad to see Belmont talked about and if they do finish 28-3 I hope they end up better then a 12 like Cornell with a similar resume was placed at last year.
Also I think its kinda insane to think CUSA will only get 1 bid come Monday. Their are seven teams with five or less losses and many of those teams have picked up some OOC quality wins.
(Whoops...we meant to post a question about the OSU-BU game as a follow-up to the question about Colorado. It's been fixed.)
If Oklahoma State wins and Kansas State loses, the Cowboys will be in the bracket next week.
Baylor's got a long way to go before they get back on the bubble. They did nothing OOC, their RPI is over 100 right now, and they missed a golden opportunity at home against Kansas earlier in the week. The Bears still have to play at Kansas State, at A&M, at Texas, at Missouri, and at Oklahoma State the rest of the way. They are going to have to win a couple of those to get in the mix.
We've already been burned picking against FSU once this week, so we'll take them this time at home against BC.
Since C-USA will probably find a way to get two bids down the road, we might have to stick with two in for now. Two bids is definitely not as certain as it was two weeks ago, though.
It's going a little far to say that many of the seven teams with five losses or less in C-USA have good OOC wins. Out of those seven teams, only three have quality OOC wins - UCF (Florida, Miami), Memphis (Miami), and Marshall (WVU) - and two of those teams (UCF and Marshall) are under .500 in conference.
You get so many FSU questions because
A. They're always on the bubble.
B. They're always getting screwed out of getting into the tourney.
Colorado State is 5-4 vs teams above .500
I have been VERY confused about the Mountain West Conference this year. There seems to be SDSU and BYU as consistent factors at the top, then the craziness happens. First UNLV rises, then falls; New Mexico rises, then falls; now Colorado State is moving up. How do you see this falling out? 3 bids? 4 bids? If it comes down to a close situtation between the three, which gets a potential third bid? Is there a chance it only becomes a two bid league even with the strong OOC wins in the league?
Hasn't Florida State made the tournament the last two years? Doesn't seem like they're "always screwed out of getting into the tourney."
And I will answer one question. Yes, you can win on the road in the Big 10, provided you're playing at Iowa.
Mountain West will be getting at least three unless UNLV just totally falls apart in conference. The question is if New Mexico or Colorado St. can play really well in conference to make the league a 4-bid league.
The most likely scenario is that the MWC gets three bids. SDSU and BYU are locks, and we think UNLV will regroup from its early struggles in conference to snag the league's third bid. With their solid OOC resume (wins against Wisconsin, Virginia Tech, and Kansas State), a third place finish should be enough to get UNLV a bid.
Colorado State definitely opened some eyes with their win at UNLV, but that was the Rams' first notable win of the season. If they beat BYU at home Saturday, we'll entertain the idea of a four-bid Mountain West.
Florida State made it the last two years, but had a string of 4-5 years before that they should've made it but didn't.
So now that Villanova won at Syracuse, what does that do for their seeds, and how big of a win is that for the Wildcats?
What was that about St. John's again?
RPI what?
Cincinnati proves again that they're one of the best unranked teams in the NCAA. They have yet to lose to an unranked team. Unfortunately, they are yet to beat a ranked team. They'll have several more opportunities to correct that before March.
Can Cincinnati now be placed as a 7 or 8 seed in your bracket, as they've deserved all season?
They're clearly not a top 25 team, but they're a consistent and very good team.
Villanova's win at Syracuse and Texas' win at Kansas made things very crowded on the 1 and 2 lines. There are nine teams for eight spots right now: Ohio State, Pittsburgh, Duke, Syracuse, UConn, SDSU, 'Nova, and Texas. We'll have to cruch some numbers tomorrow night to see who gets bumped to the 3 line.
Cincinnati will be an 8 or 9 seed next week.
Wow... Florida State gets it done at home. Last week you said FSU's ceiling was a 6... Do you still feel that way?
Saturday's Answers
1. Nope.
2. He's probably wishing tonight would never end after winning in Syracuse.
3. Over.
4. Not much.
5. Yes, BYU survived. We'll have to wait to see if CSU deserves a bit some other week.
6. Yes, indeed. Bye bye Kansas State, for now.
7. Yes.
8. At least for one game, yes.
9. Minnesota can win on the road, apparently, if it's playing Michigan. Ohio State can win on the road as well, even against a solid Illinois squad. Nope. Michigan State loses again.
10. Yes.
11. Unfortunately, no. Yes—especially after UCLA won against Stanford.
12. Unfortunately not.
13. Looks like it, as Richmond pounded UMass.
14. Probably not.
15. Didn't happen.
16. Maybe, at least for now.
17. I'm glad we don't have to find out.
18. Not if they don't start playing teams better than Longwood.
19. Georgia, yes. Southern Miss, no.
20. Looks like it, for now.
21. Probably, after UCF and Marshall lost in conference again.
22. Nope.
23. Barely.
24. Until Monday.
25. Probably.
26. Absolutely. There was no way they could shoot worse without blindfolds.
What on earth has happened to UCF. Losing at home to Rice??? I've been a big fan of C-USA all year but unless some of these teams can consistently find a way to win in conference they're gonna end up with one tourney team and possibly four teams in the NIT.
The thing about florida State is that half of the battle in a close game is getting stops. Florida State, in my opinion, is the best team in the country at getting stops. Just listening to the commentators talk about the defense, saying of their rotation on defense "that's a good shot against any other team in the country; that's an open shot against any team on bc's schedule, and he couldn't even touch the backboard; this team will be in every game it plays, because they can shut ANYONE down. ". The thing with FSU is that they play a different game than duke, or ohio state, or any of your other top teams. If they shoot 35% against a random team, it's a close game. If they shoot 45%, it's a laugher. Hard to see them losing more than 2 or 3 more.
Where do you predict duke, ohio state, and kansas finishing? I don't see any way duke doesn't get the top overall seed if irving comes back.
Florida State will be in the 6-7 range in tomorrow's bracket.
We still like Duke, Ohio State, and Kansas to ultimately get 1 seeds. The Big East regular season champ (which looks like Pitt right now) will join those teams on the 1 line.
What does Vanderbilt's 19 point blowout win of St. Mary's do for their seed? Am I crazy to think they are the class of the SEC? They very well could be undefeated right now, their 4 losses: 3 point loss to West Virginia, OT loss at Missouri, OT loss at South Carolina, and 3 point loss at UT.
Big East thoughts...
Cincinnati has some good wins... Xavier, Dayton, and @St. John's. Wright State, @Oklahoma, and @Miami(oh) are solid too. I still think 10 Big East wins will do the trick.
St. John's is in trouble with schedule they have ahead of them.
WVU has been hard to figure out but will do enough to get in. They have a bunch of good wins already.
Louisville resume isn't that great, behind both UC and WVU at this point.
Marquette needs some quality wins because they have no wins outside of the league that are going to help them. I believe they will get done at home.
It seems like the Mountain West is a three bid league right now. Would the Mountain West be a four-bid league if someone aside from BYU, San Diego State or UNLV wins the conference tournament or would one of those teams lose a bid?
Vandy will be in the 5-6 range in our bracket tomorrow after their big win over St. Mary's.
If UNLV finishes in third place in the MWC and someone other than the "Big Three" wins the MWC tournament, the league would likely get four bids.
Precisely what are your RS Goldideas on the FSU-BC video game last week? Very big video game inside the ACC seeing that both squads are now attached regarding 1st place. The two teams take the good area of the class recently, only one poor
Cheap Runescape Goldglide and they're going to always be for the edge.
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