Bubblicious Gopher Wish List (Thursday)

[SelectionSunday]

All in all, not a bad night for the Gophers. Wasn't real thrilled that Penn State won in Champaign-Urbana (Nitts are right there with the Gophers now, and with a more manageable remaining schedule), but some other significant results from Bubbletown helped the Gophers' cause. ... Louisville over Providence, Virginia over Virginia Tech, Florida State over Miami, Wyoming over UNLV & Mississippi State over South Carolina. Figuring out the SEC is every bit as difficult as figuring out the Big Ten.

Wednesday's Good
1. Bowling Green over (MAC leader) Buffalo
2. Florida State over Miami-Florida
3. Georgia State over Northeastern
4. Louisville over Providence
5. Mississippi State over South Carolina
6. The Citadel over Davidson
7. Virginia over Virginia Tech
8. West Virginia over Notre Dame
9. Wyoming over UNLV

Wednesday's Bad
1. Florida over Alabama
2. Georgetown over South Florida
3. Illinois State over Wichita State
4. Nebraska over Colorado
5. North Carolina-Asheville over High Point
6. Oklahoma State over Texas Tech
7. Penn State over Illinois
8. Rhode Island over UMass
9. Temple over Fordham
10. Texas-Arlington over Southeastern Louisiana
11. UAB over Tulane
12. Utah over Colorado State
13. Utah State over CS Bakersfield

Thursday's Wish List
1. Gophers over Michigan (eyes will be upon nation's #1 bubble game)
2. Indiana over Wisconsin (like Gophers, UW has slim error margin; loss to IU could be near fatal)
3. Oregon State over Stanford (Cardinal almost dead & buried)
4. San Diego over St. Mary's (Gaels must win here & beat Utah State in Bracket Buster)
5. Wazzu over USC (Men of Troy headed the wrong way)

 

[inflectionpoint]

Thanks again SS... We were so close to having a nice opponents night as Colorado St came so close to knocking off a quality Utah team and SE LA was (or was it HP) very close to notching a victory. Bummer. However the BG and Virginia games were huge.

Unless you have a forthcoming post, how are we sitting with top RPI top 100 games now? NDSU slid out with that tough loss, do they have a chance to get back in? You made it sound like Virginia is almost locked into top 100. What's our w/l.

And yeah, that PSU game was brutal for us. While anything is possible in our B10 it would appear quite likely they get to 10 or more wins now. Yeesh...

 

[SelectionSunday]

Big 10's muddlin' middle by the numbers

Virginia (#82) likely will remain a top-100 win because of the competition it plays. Cornell (#115) could sneak back into the top 100 if it runs the table in the Ivy (very possible). NDSU (#118) probably doesn't have enough oomph left in its schedule to get back into the top 100. However, it certainly wouldn't hurt the Gophers' cause if both Cornell & NDSU earned their conference's automatic bid.

Here's a capsule look at the #3-9 teams in the Big 10. I've put them in order of their current Big 10 standing/seeding. Keep in mind this only looks at representatives from one conference, but it gives a good idea at the muddled masses the Selection Committee looks at when determining the final few at-large bids. We can judge for ourselves which of these teams has a better resume. The one thing that stands out to me at this point is clearly Illinois has the best resume of these seven.

All stats gathered from CollegeRPI.com.

ILLINOIS
vs. Top 50: 5-4
vs. Top 100: 9-6
Road/Neutral: 8-4
Last 10: 6-4
Overall SOS: 35
Nonconference SOS: 116

PENN STATE
vs. Top 50: 4-6
vs. Top 100: 6-8
Road/Neutral: 6-5
Last 10: 6-4
Overall SOS: 80
Nonconference SOS: 322

GOPHERS
vs. Top 50: 4-4
vs. Top 100: 6-6
Road/Neutral: 5-4
Last 10: 5-5
Overall SOS: 52
Nonconference SOS: 215

WISCONSIN
vs. Top 50: 2-7
vs. Top 100: 8-8
Road/Neutral: 5-6
Last 10: 4-6
Overall SOS: 4
Nonconference SOS: 25

OHIO STATE
vs. Top 50: 4-6
vs. Top 100: 7-7
Road/Neutral: 4-5
Last 10: 6-4
Overall SOS: 34
Nonconference SOS: 123

MICHIGAN
vs. Top 50: 3-8
vs. Top 100: 7-10
Road/Neutral: 4-7
Last 10: 3-7
Overall SOS: 17
Nonconference SOS: 81

NORTHWESTERN
vs. Top 50: 5-5
vs. Top 100: 5-9
Road/Neutral: 2-6
Last 10: 6-4
Overall SOS: 36
Nonconference SOS: 204

 

[youngstowngopher]

If Butler slips up this weekend in bracketbuster vs. Davidson, and drops another Horizon League game....especially at Home vs. Youngstown State next week (better than their record indicates), look for them to be on a big bubble. I will tell you this much....Butler is not winning the Horizon League tournament...look for Cleveland State, UWGB, Millwaukee, Wright State, or Youngstown....those are the athletic more physical teams primed for a tournament formant.

 

[SelectionSunday]

I'll take Cleveland State to win the Horizon tourney

It would be a good idea for Butler to beat Davidson this weekend. They're still in decent shape as an at-large, but I wouldn't want to add many more losses. A loss to a Curry-less Davidson would be especially damaging.