Bubble Watch (February 25)

[SelectionSunday]

Trudge on, Gophers. Keep battlin' 'til the season's over. Despite another tough loss last night there is still some reason to believe. We've seen no repeats of the Michigan game (lack of effort). ... that's a good thing. Beat the Illini.

I know someone's going to ask me, so I'll answer the question. ... In order to even be considered for an at-large bid, the Gophers must rip off 5 STRAIGHT WINS RIGHT NOW. There are no other options, unfortunately. They've backed themselves into this corner. That would get them to the BTT semifinals with a 21-11 record, 4 top-50 wins (a good number for a bubble team), 6 top-100 wins (a suspect number for a bubble team), a 7-8 road/neutral record (a solid record for a bubble team) and a RPI likely in the 60s (not favorable for a bubble team). That still probably wouldn't be enough, but I think it would give 'em a chance.

Wednesday's Results
Bradley 75, Wichita State 73
BYU 82, San Diego State 68
Charlotte 95, Saint Joseph's 58
Cincinnati 74, DePaul 69
Houston 92, Memphis 75
Marquette 63, St. John's 61
Mississippi State 74, Alabama 66
Ole Miss 85, Auburn 75
Purdue 59, Minnesota 58
Temple 49, Dayton 41
Towson 83, William & Mary 77
UAB 53, Central Florida 49
Villanova 74, South Florida 49
Xavier 73, Saint Louis 71

Thursday's Slate
Boise State at #65 Louisiana Tech, 7:05 p.m.
#56 Arizona State at Stanford, 9 p.m.
Pepperdine at #46 St. Mary's, 9:05 p.m.

The Skinny: Five teams fall completely off my at-large board with losses last night -- Memphis, Saint Louis, South Florida, Wichita State and William & Mary. Only USF (if it wins its final 3 regular-season games) has a chance to get back into the mix. ... If you're a Gopher fan still holding out hope, the main thing you're looking for tonight is an Arizona State loss. A loss to Stanford would pretty much crush the Sun Devils' at-large hopes.

 

[Anderson8284]

Wichita State / Northern Iowa /B10 Tourney

Some thoughts - in relative ascendign order of importance....

1) The Wichita State loss to Bradley was just devastating to the Shockers. They are dead, dead, dead.

2) The Des Moines afternoon radio guys were speculating that Northern Iowa had better win their last regualr season game, and also run the table at the Valley tournament, just so as to NOT give the selection committee an excuse not to take them. High RPI, but a weak, weak Valley this year. I agree - entertaining to me, but not especially strong this year. The PAnthers probably are too high in RPI to be dropped from the field, but they should not give the committeee an excuse to think about excluding them!

3) Good job with everything once again this year. A lot of us, certainly me, read your posts with pleasure and look forward to them. The Bubble Watch especially, is great!

4) Another punch in the gut for our Gophers. Tough season. But.....

5) As you say, keep trudging. Breaking that streak at Champaign-Urbana would go a long way toward taking the sting out of this year.

6) As we push toward the tourney, it' s hard to say what the GOPHER attitude will be, but I'm optimistic, and even realtively happy. One thing that jumps out at me last night is that I don't think *any* higher-seeded Big10 team will look forward to drawing the Gophers in the tourney. They've lost a lot of close games, but are certainly due to put it all together in one great game, and if I'm say MSU, tOSU, or the Boilermakers, I do not look forward to trying to beat the Gophers yet again. That's not to say the Gophers *will* get it doen this year, it's jsut that if I'm one of those three teams, I have considerable trepidation in drawing our Rodents in the conference tourney.

 

[SelectionSunday]

Thanks for the comments. My thoughts?

I still think UNI is very safe, despite the 2 recent bad losses. The nonconference wins over Siena and Old Dominion are huge. Plus, they now have their big guy back after his 3-game suspension, right?

Gophers are an enigma, but I've been encouraged by "how" they've played since Michigan. Our inability to finish cost us the Northwestern and Purdue games, but effort has not been a problem since the Wolverines debacle. I'm curious to see how we'll respond at Illinois. Can honestly say I have no idea if we'll bounce back from last night's toughie.

I agree with you that the Gophers (assuming they end up as the #6 seed) could be a handful for Purdue, Ohio State or Michigan State in the quarterfinals. Of the 3 (assuming Hummel's injury is as bad as it looks), Ohio State is the one I'd least want to play. I think we could beat Purdue (sans Hummel) and for sure Michigan State (Sparty tends to underachieve in the BTT), but I wouldn't like our chances to beat the Buckeyes a second time. I don't want to play Evan Turner again.

The flip side of things? If we end up playing Penn State on Thursday, I certainly could see the Nitts beating us. I give Ed DeChellis and his players a ton of credit. They've had a rough season, but I haven't seen that team even once play like they were giving up on the season. Am hoping we draw Iowa or (especially) Indiana on Thursday in Indy. If we play well, there's no way either of those teams should beat us. I still puke every time I think about the IU loss. A few weeks ago I thought the Hoosiers were showing significant improvement, but they've completely gone down the crapper. They're a bad basketball team.

 

[Blizzard]

Can honestly say I have no idea whether they'll bounce back from last night's toughie.

Hasn't it been like 10 years or so since we've won at Illinois?

 

[josh087]

I believe 1997 was the last win there - but since that doesn't count I want to say it was 1990.

 

[SelectionSunday]

(counting vacated games) 1995-96 season was the last win in Champaign. Final game of regular season.

 

[josh087]

Ah, yes. I think that was also Lou Henson's final home game as coach. IIRC Sammy J hit a baseline jumper in the closing seconds to go ahead, and Illinois missed on their final posession.

 

[Blizzard]

(counting vacated games) 1995-96 season was the last win in Champaign. Final game of regular season.

Good. I'll be marking us down for a win then since we're a bit overdue.