Gopher Basketball
Here’s a look at my “Field of 68” projection as we head into college basketball coach’s most heartburn-inducing month. Perhaps of most interest to Midwest basketball fans, I currently have the Big Ten with a season-high 7 bids and the Big 12 with a season-low (4). All RPI references are courtesy of Jerry Palm at collegerpi.com. An * denotes the conference leader and/or best RPI in a multiple-bid league.
FIELD OF 68 (1/31/11)
America East (1): Maine (139)
ACC (5): *Duke (12), North Carolina (15), Boston College (38), Florida State (52), Virginia Tech (68)
Atlantic Sun (1): Belmont (76)
Atlantic 10 (3): *Xavier (18), Temple (40), Richmond (61)
Big East (10): Georgetown (5), UConn (6), *Pitt (7), Notre Dame (8), West Virginia (13), Villanova (14), Syracuse (21), Louisville (23), St. John’s (24), Marquette (59)
Big Sky (1): Montana (94)
Big South (1): Coastal Carolina (79)
Big Ten (7): *Ohio State (3), Purdue (9), Gophers (20), Wisconsin (27), Michigan State (36), Illinois (39), Penn State (46)
Big 12 (4): Kansas (1), *Texas (11), Texas A&M (17), Mizzou (28)
Big West (1): Long Beach State (103)
Colonial (3): Old Dominion (31), George Mason (33), *VCU (51)
Conference USA (1): Memphis (35)
Horizon (1): Cleveland State (29)
Ivy (1): Harvard (50)
Metro Atlantic (1): Fairfield (111)
MAC (1): Kent State (78)
MEAC (1): Bethune-Cookman (200)
Missouri Valley (2): *Missouri State (45), Northern Iowa (54)
Mountain West (3): *BYU (2), San Diego State (4), UNLV (32)
Northeast (1): Long Island (140)
Ohio Valley (1): Austin Peay (109)
Pac 10 (4): *Arizona (22), Washington (25), UCLA (47), Wazzu (64)
Patriot (1): Bucknell (91)
SEC (6): Kentucky (10), Tennessee (16), Florida (19), Vandy (26), Georgia (43), *Alabama (116)
Southern (1): Wofford (147)
Southland (1): McNeese State (154)
SWAC (1): Jackson State (180)
Summit (1): Oakland (73)
Sun Belt (1): Florida Atlantic (101)
West Coast (1): St. Mary’s (34)
WAC (1): Utah State (30)
Non-BCS At-Larges (7): San Diego State (4), Old Dominion (31), UNLV (32), George Mason (33), Temple (40), Northern Iowa (54), Richmond (61)
Last 4 In: George Mason (33), Northern Iowa (54), Wazzu (64), Virginia Tech (68)
First 4 Out: UAB (37), K-State (41), Cincinnati (44), Duquesne (77)
Others on the Radar: Butler (42), Colorado State (48), Wichita State (49), Valpo (55), Oklahoma State (57), Cal (58), UTEP (62), New Mexico (63), Clemson (69), Maryland (70), Michigan (74), Nebraska (81), Baylor (86), Gonzaga (88)
BCS Teams in the Field: 36 (52.9%)
Non-BCS Teams in the Field: 32 (47.1%)
STREAMS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
(1) The 11 televised games (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU) for the February 18-20 Bracket Busters event will be announced at 5:30 p.m. tonight on ESPNU. When it gets down to brass tacks, only about 5 of the 57 games will have significant impact on who gets selected or who significantly improves their seed for the NCAA Tournament. Here’s my prediction for the 5 best matchups, in order of importance:
1. WAC leader Utah State (30) @ WCC leader St. Mary’s (34)
2. Missouri Valley co-leader Missouri State (45) @ Old Dominion (31)
3. George Mason (33) @ Missouri Valley co-leader Wichita State (49)
4. Horizon leader Cleveland State (29) @ Northern Iowa (54)
5. Colonial leader VCU (51) @ Valpo (55)
(2) For all the Gophers’ ups and downs this season and the “sky is falling” mentality that sometimes permeates this forum, the truth is the Gophers have been a model of consistency since Midnight Madness. With or without Joseph, with or without Nolen and with or without Walker (or some combination thereof), the Gophers (16-5) were 6-1 in November, 5-2 in December & 5-2 again in January. I think most of us on GH — at least those that don’t expect the Gophers to win every game — would take another 5-2 (or even 4-3) mark in the month ahead.
(3) Penn State cracked my Field of 68 for the first time this week, and the way Ed DeChellis’ guys are playing I don’t expect the Nittany Lions to go away anytime soon. Based on the way teams are performing right now, an argument could me made the Nitts are the third best team in the Big Ten, behind only Ohio State and Purdue.
(4) Speaking of Penn State. … unlike Illinois, Michigan State and the Gophers, the Nitts don’t have a single out-of-conference win that stands out on their resume. That could be their sticky point if they end up on the NCAA Tournament bubble. However, there is a potential glimmer of help in the form of Duquesne. The Nitts defeated Duquesne 77-73 in early December, which at the time didn’t seem like a big deal. But now the Dukes, one of the “first 4 out” in today’s NCAA projection, are 14-5 overall and share the Atlantic 10 lead at 7-0 with Xavier.
(5) It’s really difficult to name only 5 guys (so I’ll take the easy way out and add a 6th), but at roughly the mid-point of the Big Ten season here would be my All-Big Ten First Team, regardless of position: Talor Battle (Penn State), JaJuan Johnson (Purdue), Jon Leuer (Wisconsin), David Lighty (Ohio State) and POY Jared Sullinger (Ohio State). I have Leuer edging out the Gophers’ Trevor Mbakwe for the final spot, not any easy call.
(6) Looking for a name on the rise? Try Louisville sophomore guard Peyton Siva. Bullet quick, and a fantastic finisher at the rim.
(7) Another crazy weekend in the Big Ten dropped the Gophers two spots in our updated Big Ten Tournament bracket projection. … back to the first round the Gophers go. A win over the Buckeyes on Super Bowl Sunday would help the Gophers on so many levels, perhaps most importantly with regards to BTT tiebreaking procedures. Here’s the latest.
Thursday, March 10 (!st Round)
1:30 p.m. — #8 Michigan (3-6) vs. #9 Northwestern (3-7)
3:55 p.m. — #7 Illinois (4-4) vs. #10 Indiana (2-7)
6:30 p.m. — #6 Gophers (5-4) vs. #11 Iowa (1-8)
Friday, March 11 (Quarterfinals)
11 a.m. — #1 Ohio State (9-0) vs. Michigan/Northwestern winner
1:25 p.m. — #4 Penn State (5-4) vs. #5 Michigan State (5-4)
5:30 p.m. — #2 Purdue (7-2) vs. Illinois/Indiana winner
7:55 p.m. — #3 Wisconsin (5-3) vs. Gophers/Iowa winner (call it the Axe/Floyd/Heartland Bracket)
You’ve Got Mail
From the Buzz Clips mailbag. …
Question: What are the most important performance indicators (rankings/ polls) used in determining NCAA tournament selection? What does the committee use? What do you use? For example what is most important? AP/Coaches poll? Overall record? RPI? Sagarin? Pomeroy? Conference standing? Good wins? Bad losses? Recent performance, etc.? — Gopher in Texas —
Answer: I can’t speak for the Selection Committee, but I can tell you what I do and don’t emphasize when selecting the at-large teams. I DO NOT look at rankings at all, either AP or ESPN’s Coaches Poll. Those rankings never enter into the picture for me. Also, I put only marginal empahsis on recent performance (i.e. last 10 games). A quality win is a quality win, whether it occurred in November or February. The Selection Committee made that a point of emphasis a couple years ago, and to their credit they’ve followed through with it (see Arizona 2009).
I do use the RPI as a measuring tool, but not as a be-all and end-all. I use it primarily for grading teams on how they’ve performed vs. the top 50, top 100, etc. A team’s individual RPI isn’t important to me, so long as it doesn’t slide into the 70’s. If it’s that high it pretty much means that team has a lot of warts, even if they have quite a few quality wins (see #74 Illinois last year, the one at-large I whiffed on).
In a nutshell, I emphasize 6-7 criteria, in no particular order:
1. Record vs. RPI Top 50
2. Record vs. RPI Top 100
3. Road/Neutral Record
4. Best 3 Wins (totaling the RPIs of each team’s 3 most impressive wins) — when it gets down to final few teams, I refer to this the most.
5. Overall strength of schedule
6. Nonconference strength of schedule
7. Bad losses
Question: Why in the world doesn’t Penn State ever have an outstanding team? The location (which I probably factor in too much for recruiting) seems favorable. I’m not exactly sure how far they are from Philly, Baltimore, D.C., N.Y.,etc., but they’re certainly closer than Minnesota. Obviously, the football team has had great success. Maybe I’m answering my own question, there are so many programs in the area it’s hard to recruit basketball players and not many football programs. Anyways, it always blows me away that they never seem to have a truly great team. — fan of Ray Williams —
Answer: A good question Ray, and indeed I think you did a sufficient job answering your own question. I’ve wondered the same thing. I’ve never been to the Bryce-Jordan Center, but I’ve heard it’s a nice arena. When watching Penn State games on TV, 99% of the time it’s sad and pathetic how poor their crowds are, how little they seem to care about the game and their basketball program. Ditto for the sparse gatherings they have every single year at the Big Ten Tournament.
From my experiences Penn State is one of the classier schools in the Big Ten, but their men’s basketball program deserves better treatment/support from their fans. It’s very obvious the basketball team is second fiddle to JoePa’s high-profile football program. The winter is simply something to pass the time until spring football starts, and that’s too bad because this particular Penn State squad deserves so much more.