bierce

Jans inherited a strong program from Howland at Miss State, and NMSU was the traditional power in the WAC, so it's not like he ever had to rebuild. He's also 55 and has won no more NCAA tournament games than Pitino.

McCollum plays a slow offense this year because his guys are used to playing that way from last year and moved up from DII with him. A few years back his teams lit up the scoreboard. Sark is not going to pay the basketball coach 80% of Sark's salary, which is probably about what it would take to get Lloyd, who is at one of those few career destination jobs in basketball.

I don't know what is wrong with Kansas, but I jokingly said I was thinking of putting it on the bubble watch if it lost tonight and it lost by 34, so I will. KU, NET way too high, 17-9, 5-8 q1 and 3-1 q2 but just 1-7 against top 50 teams since November. Has to win at least one of its last three games (@ Houston and home against Arizona and Tech) to keep a bid. OK, ok, it's still not at risk, but I can't believe it was still getting 4s from some bracketoozers.

Xavier won 76-63 to start climbing up the ranks. I won't be surprised to see it in the matrix next week, but it will need to beat Creighton the following Saturday to stay there.

Pitt won. Talk to me when it beats a top 100 team on the road, not when it beats a 125 or so team at home.

OU getting murdered 76-49 with 5:38 to go. Looking very much like 4 straight years without a tournament appearance for Porter Moser.

Villanova just met the fork. Was up 53-39 and lost 66-59.

2017. Minnesota offered, but it had a pretty full frontcourt. Sims wasn't going to play as a freshman on a team with Lynch, Coffey, Murphy, and Curry, but then Curry blew out a knee in a pick-up game at the end of the summer and missed all of 2017-18, Lynch was suspended in early January while under investigation for sexual misconduct and was later expelled, and Coffey hurt his shoulder one day after Lynch's suspension and played in only 2 more games. Minnesota finished the season on a 2-14 tear. Yeah, one of those years.

Which is something Pitino did manage to do with 2016 and 2018 recruiting classes.

I don't get why you would be so happy to have McCollum but not baby Pitino. Read the stuff Tyler wrote about his offensive style. Now consider that he built a powerhouse in the MWC which is several steps up from the MVC, where McCollum is a first year coach. Pitino already has recruiting contacts in Texas, having pulled multiple players from the Metroplex including future NBA draft pick JT Toppin, as well as guys from San Antonio and the Beaumont area. Don't know if he has any Houston contacts, but we can always get him to get palsy with TJ for that. For UNM he's mined the portal, the LA area, Phoenix, and internationals. He still has recruiting contacts in the Miami area from his time at UF and his year coaching FIU. He's kind of like McCollum with a nation-wide recruiting network already in place. Is it because he didn't do better at Minnesota, where no one has done well for 25 years? Seriously, the guy who put Gonzaga on the map crapped out there. Tubby Smith is a Hall of Fame coach, and he missed the tournament half the time, never won a tournament game, and never finished over .500 in conference there. Pitino would have made 3 tournaments out of the last 4 if he had not lost 2 starters with three weeks left in the season. His replacement has gone 20-53 in conference since then. That is how bad the Minnesota job is.

There are second round losses that are bad and there are second round losses that aren't. Imagine Texas winds up 8/9 seed and loses in the round of 32 to Duke by 3 or 4 points. Now imagine Texas winds up a 6/11 seed and loses to a 14 seed by double digits in the round of 32. Or by 30 to a 3 seed. One loss is most definitely not like the others. Yes, there is the issue of why we are still futzing around with a relatively poor seed, but the point is winning or losing in the round of 32 can mean a bunch of different things. So too could winning in the round of 32. Measuring success by how many games you survive in any one tournament is dumb. But . . . there are cracks in the program. There has been poor offensive execution. There is a paucity of incoming recruits. We already have a shortage of good P5 talent in some spots in the rotation. Those problems don't go away if we beat a 6 seed and a 14 seed and make the Sweet Sixteen. Or if we beat an 11 seed and a 3 seed to do it. It should put the shame to people who say donors shouldn't waste money on Terry, but it doesn't mean they will suddenly change their attitude and flood the program with contributions or have the guys handling the NIL dollars suddenly decide to give the basketball program a lot more money to retool over the spring and summer, and this roster will need substantial retooling after it loses Johnson, Kaluma, Shedrick, Larry, Kent, and probably Mark.

https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/21913973/louisvilles-pitino-had-controversial-hawaii-ties/

If we aren't hiring Wade, then we surely aren't hiring a 72 year old who has been in trouble with the NCAA since he was the interim coach for Hawaii in the 70s.

I should have mentioned Syracuse @ Pitt (51) Pitt was in the Pomeroy top 15 after torching WVU, going to OT against Wiscy, and beating tOSU in November. Then it lost by 33 @ Mississippi State, and it has never gotten well. Hasn't beaten a tournament team since. Split with bubble UNC, but lost to bubble SMU by 20, lost to bubble WF, and was clubbed at home by out of tournament UVa. Very little meat left on the schedule--a q1 game @ Louisville and q2 games at Notre Dame and NC State. Probably has to win them all at this point.

I guess I should have mentioned Syracuse @ Pitt (51) Pitt was in the Pomeroy top 15 after torching WVU, going to OT against Wiscy, and beating tOSU in November. Then it lost by 33 @ Mississippi State, and it has never gotten well. Hasn't beaten a tournament team since. Split with bubble UNC, but lost to bubble SMU by 20, lost to bubble WF, and was clubbed at home by out of tournament UVa. Very little meat left on the schedule--a q1 game @ Louisville and q2 games at Notre Dame and NC State. Probably has to win them all at this point.

But there are still all those fish in the streams in the Pacific Northwest. Not happening.

Cronin sounded happy to be at UCLA in a press conference yesterday. https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/other/on-the-verge-of-win-no-500-mick-cronin-indicates-hes-content-at-ucla/ar-AA1zhr9Q

A lot of bubble teams in action tonight. Utah beat KSU last night. Both on life support. Both need to win at least 4 of last 5, get a signature win in there, and win a game in the conference tournament to have a chance. Both have a single signature win over Kansas, but take away Kansas's November win over Duke, and it profiles like an 8/9 seed. Since beating Duke, Kansas is 1-6 against the top 50, and two of the games were at home and one of those was against DeVries-less WVU. Tonight's games: OU (52) @ Florida (4) Porter Moser's bunch is 1-7 in q1 games in conference, the sole win being a one possession win @ bubble Arky. This is the first of a 6 game stretch of q1 games leading into the conference tournament. 72% of bracketinkers who updated since the weekend have OU as an 11 seed. Butler @ Xavier (53) Xavier is the team I think is most likely to climb back into the field. It currently has only 3 votes from the 48 bracketwits who have updated since the weekend, but it is 16-10, only 1-8 in q1 but 6-2 in q2, no bad losses unless you count a blowout in November to top 20 Michigan a bad loss, and several of the q1 losses were very close. A chances for another q1 win if Creighton climbs back into the top 30. But Xavier can't afford to lose games like these, even with a chance to get revenge @ Butler in two weeks. Villanova (54) @ UConn I just don't understand Villanova being Xavier's neighbor in NET. Take three of Xavier's q1 losses and turn them into a q3 win and 2 q3 losses. Take one of Xavier's q2 wins and turn it into a loss. Take one of Xavier's q4 wins and turn it into a loss, an unbelievably hideous loss at home to 239 Columbia. Now you have Villanova's record. Doesn't make much sense, does it? Nova has one q1 game left on the schedule--@ Marquette. Kansas @ BYU (36) I mentioned earlier in the thread how BYU lacks signature wins. This would sort of be one, but I'll be tempted to put Kansas on the bubble watch if it loses tonight. Fresno State @ San Diego State (50) Not the sort of game SDSU can afford to lose. Fresno State is 1-14 in conference and NET 276. Would be a horrendous q4 loss. Would be a q4 loss heading into a game @ Utah State, and conference doormat Air Force is the only MWC team SDSU has beaten above 4000 feet in two years.

One more thing about Pitino, and those who complain about non-conference schedule being stuffed with creampuffs will like this--he schedules salty. 2020-21 was kind of an aberration because off season was truncated due to waking up from COVID, so it really isn't a good measure, but even then Pitino scheduled three games against top 100 mid-majors. 2019-20 Ten OOC games. Six were against P5 schools, including 2 away, another in the enemy's state, and one on a neutral floor. Only one game against a Pomeroy 250+ team. 2018-19 Eleven OOC games. Five were against P5 schools. Only 3 were against Pomeroy 200+. 2017-18 Thirteen OOC games. Four against P5 schools. Only 3 games against Pomeroy 240+. 2016-17 Thirteen OOC games. Four against P5 school. Only 2 games against Pomeroy 210+.

WCC has Gonzaga and St. Mary's, the two usual suspects, and nothing else worthy of an at large bid at present. San Fran is NET 60 but only a 1-5 q1 record, the win being a 65-64 home win over St. Mary's. It has a game to play against Gonzaga and visits Oregon State, so there is some room for hope, but it has to win both of those or win one and beat either St. Mary's or Gonzaga in the WCC tournament to have much of a chance. Santa Clara is NET 55 and has a 2-4 q1 record including a great win @ Gonzaga, but it has 5 OOC losses, none to teams in the field, and it has 3 q3 losses, including home against NDSU. Once again St. Mary's has a better NET ranking than its record would support, and the committee has passed it over in the past despite a high NET ranking. Maybe the home win over Gonzaga, neutral win over Nebraska, ass-kicking of USC on a neutral floor, and sweep over Santa Clara will be enough to protect it this year. Upshot--two teams. A third only someone other than Gonzaga or St. Mary's wins the WCC tournament.

I wouldn't sleep on South Carolina. It lost to Auburn and Florida in one possession games. It lost to Mississippi State in OT. It lost to Mississippi in a come from ahead in the last minute fashion. It lost by 4 to A&M. Alabama was the only team to dispatch it easily in Columbia.

The other conferences that could cause trouble if the favorite loses the conference tournament. A-10 A decade ago, the A-10 was trying to position itself as a higher than just mid-major conference in basketball. In 2014 it had 8 teams finish in the Pomeroy top 100, put 6 teams into the tournament, and Archie Miller took 11 seed Dayton to the Elite Eight, even though the rest of the conference managed just one win. Miller and Shaka Smart were coaches P6 schools were drooling over, and Dan Hurley had recently taken over at Rhode Island. But that was then. 2021 was the last season in which the A-10 had two teams worthy of consideration for an at large bid, but it has usually managed to get a second team anyway, because the best team manages to lose the conference tournament. This year we're looking at VCU as the only legit candidate for an at large bid. It is actually in second place in the standings behind George Mason right now, but it will host GMU on Saturday. It is 1-1 in q1 games, with no q1 left until conference tournament. It is 5-3 in q2 with at most two q2 games before the conference tournament. Why are there no other legit candidates for at-large bids from the A-10? Answer--Dayton suffered bad conference losses and the rest sucked in OOC games. George Mason's best win was a road win over Pomeroy 146 James Madison, and it lost to Pomeroy 200 Central Michigan at home and @ 150 East Carolina. St. Joe's is the other top 100 team, and it beat Tech in Brooklyn and Nova, but it lost at home to Central Connecticut, Princeton, and Charleston, 3 q3 losses that are on the verge of becoming q4. Even VCU while it did beat 71 Colorado State on a neutral floor, it lost @ 38 New Mexico and on neutral floors to 204 Seton Hall and 74 Nevada. Dayton had great wins over Marquette and UConn, but it lost to UNC, ISU, and Cincy and managed no true road wins OOC. It then managed to lose in conference @ 184 UMass, @ 110 George Washington, @ 99 St. Bonaventure, and at home to both VCU and George Mason. So I don't see any A-10 teams earning an at large bid unless VCU and Dayton beat all other comers and split the season finale and a conference tournament showdown. George Mason won't survive losing to VCU in the regular season and losing in the conference tournament. If George Mason beats VCU, then it is highly unlikely it could play both Dayton and VCU in the conference tournament and wind up 3-1 against them. I don't think 2-1 against them will earn it a tournament bid when it has nothing else of note on its resume. In sum, if VCU wins out the regular season but loses in the A-10 tournament, then the A-10 is likely to have two entrants. Otherwise it is likely to be a one bid conference.

OK, maybe here is the boil on Pitino's record. Shane Douma-Sanchez, a non-scholarship player, recently sued UNM and Pitino, claiming the coaching staff turned a blind eye after he reported he was punched in the face and then in a previously injured arm after an argument with teammate about seating arrangements on the flight to Palm Springs. https://www.koat.com/article/lobos-basketball-civil-rights-suit-unm-pitino-hazing/63314185

Only game that could affect the bubble tonight is KSU @ Utah. KSU is done with a loss. It can get back in the mix with a win followed by a few more wins, but it was within single digits for less than a minute in the second half against BYU on Saturday.

UNC is the last team to have received at least one vote in the matrix after Saturday's games. UNC NET 47, 15-11, 1-10 (ouch) q1, 5-0 q2, q3 loss at home to Stanford. UNC will get credit for being UNC and having the 6th best OOC SOS. Some of its losses are about as good as losses can get (by 3 @ Kansas, OT against Michigan State on a neutral floor, by 6 to Florida on a neutral-ish floor). It could finish strong, having 4 of its 6 remaining games at home, but the only q1 game in there is hosting Duke, and it hasn't beaten anyone better than Notre Dame on the road, and Virginia is a pretty hot team right now. That is it for anyone with a vote in the matrix from anyone who updated since Saturday's games. I think KSU, Pitt, and Nova deserve a little mention, so I'll get to them later in the week. If KSU loses at Utah tonight, maybe I'll skip it. I'll also take a look at some conferences that may or may not have teams that deserve an at large bid but would cause a squeeze on the field if they lose in conference tournaments. VCU, I'm talking to you.