bierce

In another game with no bubble impact, Michigan lost at home to Maryland. That is Michigan's third straight home loss to a tournament caliber team after announcing the extension and raise for Dusty May. Indiana succeeded with the major psyche job there.

Xavier spanked Butler 91-78. If it beats Providence Saturday and wins its first game in the Big East tournament, it will get a bid, but here is the kicker--it is now guaranteed to finish either 4th or 5th in the conference. It would get a bye and have to play the other team that finishes 4th or 5th in the second round. So that means a game against UConn, Marquette, or Creighton. It split the season series with each of those teams, but that won't be an easy game. The real question is whether Xavier will get in if it loses that second round conference tournament game and finishes the year with just one q1 win. OU leads Missouri 55-39 with 17:53 left. Ridiculous longshots to get back in Cincy and Pitt both lost. Florida just beat Bama in Tuscaloosa to pretty much wrap up second seed in the conference tournament and more importantly get a huge leg up in the race for the fourth 1 seed in the NCAA tournament.

Mike Wacker blowing out his knee in Waco.

There are a few outliers, but the brackets that updated today not only agree we are either first four out or last four in, most put us in the first two out or last two in. We are the paradigm of a bubble team.

Vinson sighting on the bench maybe. He didn't get in the game. I loved the expression we saw on Presley celebrating what was going on at one point. I don't think we have to win the SEC tournament if we lose to OU Saturday. Making the finals should be enough. That would mean we beat in succession Arky or Georgia, Missouri or A&M, and then Auburn. That would not only get us to 8 q1 wins, it would mean we have 6 wins over top 20 teams. Of course, beating a rested Auburn team in our third game in 3 days, um . . . right.

SDSU might have to face UNLV in the second round of the MWC tournament. Teams 1-5 get a bye. UNM has clinched the 1 seed. Boise State, Utah, State, and Colorado State could wind up in a 3 way tie for second. The only way SDSU climbs out of fifth place will be if it wins against Nevada and Utah State loses at home to Air Force. Not happening. UNLV has already clinched 6th place. It will play Air Force in the first round then draw SDSU in the second round, barring a major upset by Air Force. I bring this up only to discuss whether SDSU might get left out. It beat Houston, UC SD and Creighton in non-conference games, so I think it should feel somewhat safe, but an 0-3 against UNLV could be a significant black mark for a team that is only 4th in the conference in NET ranking. I still don't think Colorado State will get in, but it will have a chance if it wins in Boise on Friday and doesn't lay a bad egg in the conference tournament against the winner of Nevada-Wyoming. On a side note, let me mention that Utah State is treated very differently by NET (40) than Pomeroy (57). Every other team in the top 40 in either ranking system has no more than a 4 spot difference between rankings.

Give the man some slack, Jordan. He had to stew for 12 hours after Texas won last night before he could come up with a gratuitous dig at the coach. That win must had gnawed at his soul badly. But as I said after the Georgia loss, I don't see Texas going on to make the tournament. Chances are much better now after our win last night, but I still think it is less than a 50-50 proposition because at the very least we still have to beat a bubble team in Austin and a bubble team in the SEC tournament, and we maybe will have do more than that. We are not yet on a majority of brackets updating today. I don't think making the tournament will save Terry's job. As I said in the first half of the Auburn game, I don't think he will be retained at the end of the season; however, I do think it is sad that we have so many fans who respond to a great win not by cheering for the team but by crapping on the coach. That off my chest, I will get back into the purpose of the thread, which is as you say--a bubble watch thread. Nebraska lost in 2OT last night. I said after it managed a huge rally to beat Northwestern in Evanston that it was safe so long as it didn't reel off 5 straight losses. Well, it just managed 4 of them. Lose at home to Iowa this weekend and it is out. San Diego State lost at UNLV, giving UNLV a season sweep and SDSU a q2 loss to go with the earlier q3 loss. Cincy still has a prayer. Hosts KSU tonight. OU hosts Missouri. Xavier at Butler. Not a q1 game for Xavier, but it's close.

We still need to win against OU and the SEC tournament first round game. Winning both isn't a 50-50 proposition.

Oregon 73 IU 64, so we just passed the Hoosiers. Nebraska and tOSU in double OT WVU beat Utah by 2

Indiana down 4 with 1:03 left in Salem. tSOU and Nebraska going to OT. Home loss would kill tOSU. Indiana missed and fouled Oregon. Made both to go up 6 with 55.6 left. Arky up 43-37 over Vandy at the half.

And the dynamic just changed to a remarkable degree by our win in Starkville. WVU down 49-48 with 8:00 left. Boise State winning by zillions over Air Force. tOSU 77 Nebraska 71 in a zero sum game Vandy leading arky 29-26 late in first half. UNC won by 32.

Georgia 73 So Car 64 final UNC 60 Va Tech 35 with 13:35 left.

Georgia 40 So Car 29 at the half. It looks like one bubble team knew it had to take of business in Columbia.

Ahh, but the super secret science of jockeying teams around to avoid second round conference intramural and to create compelling storylines for announcers and audiences who don't really know enough about what is happening on court.

I'll believe Few will leave when he announces he is leaving. I wouldn't much mind having him, but I would worry that he'd be an unmotivated guy only in it for the paycheck. He's a hall of famer with or without a title, and he knows it.

And the beauty of both moving away from grown children and taking your 16 year old away from his high school. Give it up, guys. Few is happy where he is.

I'm hoping, too. Not expecting at this point, but hoping. Hey, NC State came from nowhere to win the ACC tournament last year. This after losing its last four regular season games and 9 of its last 13 regular season games with only one of the wins coming over a team better than 71st. And it had to beat both Duke and UNC on its way to the ACC tournament title. It can happen.

Other than being guys who created powerhouses at a smaller conference program, Garrido and Few are nothing alike. Garrido loved wine, women, song, and limelight. Few loves fly fishing and staying out of the public eye. "Augie is a baseball lifer, but he was the life of the party, too. He was dashing and debonair, and loved women, food and booze - not necessarily in that order. He always embraced the spotlight but there was little of it at Fullerton even after all that success. After the 1996 season, when Texas came calling in the wake of the sudden ouster of its legendary coach Cliff Gustafson, Augie jumped at the chance." https://fullertonbaseball.blogspot.com/

Some guys care more about their life away from the basketball court than they do about their legacy as a coach. Few is one of those guys. He's completely happy where he is, three and a half year old offseason dui incident notwithstanding.

I read some opinion pieces by a Blacksburg area writer on that topic. He initially said Mike Young is a goner. Then he quickly wrote a follow-up suggesting Va Tech is currently stuck with him because it doesn't have the money right now to fund his buyout and get a quality coach.

Which is true of most bracketwangers. Every now and then you get a team in the field that was overlooked by nearly everyone (I'm thinking Tulsa 2014 here), but when Texas is included by only 2 of 99 bracketweirdians who have updated since our Saturday loss, then I'm feeling pretty certain we have a lot of work ahead of us. And I think Lunardi is really cool because of all his work at St. Joe's with radio broadcasts and teaching classes. I just don't live and die by his predictions.

We need at least 3 straight wins and probably 4. That will be winning @ Mississippi State, beating a bubble team in Austin, beating a bubble team in Nashville, and probably needing to also beat either Tennessee or Missouri in the second round in Nashville. It's possible, but do you see us doing that with how the team is playing? I sure don't. BTW, Lunardi has always been higher on Texas than the matrix as a whole, and he is not the most accurate bracketwit. He's merely the most visible.

And let's now start talking about getting Wright, Calhoun, and Krzyzewski out of retirement to act as a triumvirate of coaches, why don't we?

I watched only the very end of it. The Southland doesn't have any competition for McNeese this year. SFA has really fallen off. I had hoped UTRVG would do something under Fennell this year, but it collapsed when Abdul-Hakim left the team.

Drake beat Vandy by 11 on a neutral floor, and it beat K-State in OT in Kansas City this year, so it is pretty good. Not good enough to really complete with really good P5 teams, but good enough to compete with P5 bubble teams. MVC is not the strongest mid-major, but it is far from the weakest. It generally runs behind WCC, MWC, and A-10, but it usually has one team that could be deserving of an at-large bid if the committee was a little more receptive to teams that don't get many q1 games. Indiana State was passed over last year. NW Mo State would have made it four in four years had the 2020 tournament not been cancelled. McCollum is a witch of a coach. In some years, his teams lit up the scoreboard. In other years, they didn't score more than 70 in the entire tournament. It all depended on what style of play best suited his players. Anyone who can win a D1 mid-major title by using a team of players he brought over from his D2 team has to be considered someone who can get the most out of his talent. The only question is whether he can recruit talent at a high D1 level, and that's a big question. I, and many others, think he is destined to start a P5 coaching career in the Midwest, because that is where all his contacts are, but I would be extremely interested to see how he might fare outside of the Midwest.