bierce

Xavier NET 54, 16-10, 1-8 q1, 6-2 q2, no bad losses. I think Xavier has a chance because it is hot, has a favorable remaining schedule, could get to 20 wins, and has a home game against Creighton and a road game against Butler. Both of those are q2 games right now, but they are really good q2 games. Two of the q1 losses are OT losses @ St. John's and @ UConn. Another is a one possession loss at home to Marquette. OOC SOS middling. Two years ago, Xavier finished pretty strongly under Miller. Last year, not so much. Actually not at all.

I think I've made my view clear about SMU for weeks, but in a nutshell--I don't buy it. SMU NET 40, 19-6, but 0-4 q1, 5-2 q2. There's nothing on the resume except the NET ranking that says tournament team. It did recently beat Pitt at home by 20, but Pitt is 1-7 in its last 8 games against top 100 teams. Just that one win over a team in the top 80. Huge losses to Duke and Louisville at home. 15 point loss to UNC in Chapel Hill. OOC loss by 11 to well out of tourney contention Butler. Just . . . no. Ok, if it wins out, beating Clemson along the way, then maybe.

We'll start with the teams on the outside looking in with WF since I think it might be on the inside looking out right now. Wake Forest NET 58, 17-9, 2-6 q1, 5-0 q2, one q3 loss (home to Florida State). Huge win in November over Michigan in Greensboro, which is a neutral site game for NET purposes, even if it was played only 25 miles from WF campus. Not much else on the resume, but it has swept the other ACC pretenders Pitt, UNC, and SMU, but it won single possession games at home against UNC and Pitt. I've said before that I think WF profiles a lot like Virginia last year. Virginia got the nod over Pitt despite a much worse NET ranking mainly because it finished third in the conference. Well, WF is only tied for 4th in the loss column and unlikely to move up. It could move down if SMU can beat Clemson in Dallas, but SMU is 0-3 against top 50 teams in the conference, losing the games by a combined 77 points, and two of them at home. And now you should be getting a pretty good idea of how weak the bubble is. I do think Xavier has a chance to climb back in, and KSU could if it goes on a 5 game winning streak to end the year, so I will chug along.

The last team currently on the 11 line is Georgia. It's easier for me to handle Georgia than WF after Arky because I don't have to switch more than one Kenpom page. Georgia NET 39, 16-10, 2-10 q1, 3-0 q2. That's a problem. It hasn't won a conference road game yet and has 3 of its 5 remaining games on the road. That's another problem. It is 2-8 over its last 10 games, with home games over So Car and LSU being the only wins. That's another problem. Tyrin Lawrence missed the last two games after suffering a non-contact leg injury against MSU. That's another problem, but it does have the week off, so maybe Lawrence can get healed. Next two games are @ Auburn and home against Florida. Florida beat it by 30 in Gainesville, but it played Broome-less Auburn to the last second while losing in Athens. Trending wrong, hurt, bad quad showing. I doubt it will remain in the field. In fact, I think it is already replaced by WF.

Arkansas NET 42, 15-10, 3-8 q1, 2-1 q2. Whether Arky makes it depends more on which Arky shows up over the next 3 weeks than where it is now. Is it the team that beat Kentucky and Texas on the road and rallied to fight Bama to within 4 points in Fayetteville? Or is it the team that lost 6 of 7 to start the conference season including @ LSU and home to OU? It has chances to get more q1 wins. @ Auburn would be a huge win. Home against Missouri is more likely. Home against Texas and against Mississippi State could be q1 wins depending how we and they finish the year. But 4-10 in q1-q2 isn't a good look. Neither is 2-8 against the certain entrants into the field, but 2-0 against the bubble definitely helps.

BYU NET 36, 17-8, 3-6 q1, 4-2 q2. No bad losses. BYU profiles a lot like Texas, just without any guys missing games. No one who plays double digit minutes has missed any game except against OOC dreck. Won 6 of its last 8. But . . . what's the signature win? Over NET 28 Baylor at home in OT? @ DeVries-less WVU? @ NET 75 and in a 6 game losing streak UCF is the 3rd q1 win. BYU could easily be down to one q1 win by the time the committee makes its selections. But it has 4 q1 games left on the schedule, but @ ISU and @ Arizona will be murder. Home against KU and @ ASU look more winnable, especially since KU lost its last three road games (Baylor, KSU, and Utah).

SDSU is right behind Texas in the matrix. NET 50, but 4-4 in q1, 3-1 in q12, 2-1 in q3. Lost to UNLV at home for that q3 loss. Beat Houston on a neutral floor for a huge statement win. Recently finished season sweep over Boise State to make the MWC a likely three bid league while nearly burying the Broncos for tournament purposes despite BSU having a better net ranking. (I know I'd prefer a team that beat Houston on a neutral floor over a team that beat Clemson and St. Mary's in its own state, not to mention BSU having the q4 loss to BC. BSU has a chance with home games against UNM, Utah State, and Colorado State left, but it needs to get it together.) SDSU hosts UNM next week in what will be a must watch game for me (see my comments about Pitino on the coaching changes thread). It also goes to Utah State this weekend for its last q1 game this year and a chance to get back into second place in the conference.

The other team currently on the 10 line in the matrix is Nebraska, and it should be safe. It gets a 9 seed from about 1/3 of the bracketizonks who updated since Saturday, and winning on the road at Northwestern only strengthens its position. Weak Net at 46 due to three losses by staggering amounts (37, 36, and 28), but NU is 6-7 in q1 games and 3-1 in q2. It has one q3 loss at home to Rutgers, but with a schedule that intense that can happen. All Nebraska probably has to do is avoid a skid of losing 5 straight games like it suffered in January when it lost 6 straight. A home win over Michigan or a road win over tOSU at this point would just guarantee a better seed.

WVU is a lot like OU. Strong start and having the season go bad over the last 6 weeks, but WVU does have the season ending injury to DeVries to thank for that. Net 44. 15-10, 5-7 q1, 2-3 q2. Beat Gonzaga and Arizona but lost to Louisville in the Bahamas tournament that played out nearly upside down. Lost by 24 @ Pitt in November. Beat KU in Lawrence to start the conference season. 5-8 since with the home win over ISU being the only good win, and just 2-6 since winning that game. OK, it won @ Cincy. Big whoop. Meanwhile, it has lost to tourney outsiders TCU and Arizona State, the ASU loss coming in Morgantown. It has 8 fewer points than possessions in conference play, so you can see what a struggle it is for WVU to score since DeVries was lost. Four wins against the field looks good, very good when you consider they are all against top 20 teams. Four losses to teams that won't make the field looks very bad. WVU has only 2 q1 games left on its schedule, and both are going to be very tough (@ Tech, and @ BYU and BYU is currently fighting for a spot in the field). This could go either way for WVU. It is likely to finish between 9th and 11th in the conference, meaning it will have a first round conference tournament game against Colorado, OSU, or ASU. A loss there could scuttle the 'Eers. Upcoming home games against Cincy and TCU and road game @ Utah will have a big effect on conference tournament seeding.

I am definitely going to watch UNM @ SDSU on FS1 on 2/25.

Chances are good if we get Kaluma back, but chances are chances.

Vandy is the anti-OU. It has been very steady, playing at a better level than expected at the start of the year, and then losing the games it was supposed to lose and winning the games it was supposed to win. The home victory over Tennessee is about the only exception to that, but Tennessee is the most erratic top 6 team in the country. Kentucky didn't have Carr, so that wasn't that much of an upset, if an upset at all given home court advantages. Vandy is 17-8 overall, 2-7 q1, 4-1 q2. Texas is on the cusp of becoming a q1 opponent for someone's home game, so Vandy could get a 3rd q1 win that way, but the rest of the schedule is rough--5 q1 games and a home game against Arky. It is 1-5 in conference road games and has 3 of those left, two against ranked teams, and a season ender against bubble team Georgia. Vandy doesn't have any bad losses, but it doesn't have any statement OOC wins either. Best team it played OOC was Drake, and it lost by 11 on a neutral floor. Vandy probably needs to finish 3-3 down the stretch to feel at all comfortable about its chances.

I'll start with OU, which started the season 13-0 with neutral site wins over Arizona, Louisville, and Michigan, climbed into the top ten, and then the conference season started. OU is the best example of a team with really high highs and really low lows. Net 52. 16-9. 4-7 in q1 (added the road win over Arky). Recent 3-9 run culminated in a q3 home loss to LSU. Now has 5 q1 games left and a 6th game that could be either q1 or q2 depending on whether Mississippi State stays in the top 30 (it's 29th this morning). OU is 1-7 in its last 8 q1 games, winless in its last 7 games against Pomeroy top 35, and that all it has left on the schedule. Given the size of the last three losses against top 20 teams (28, 18, 24), I don't see OU turning this thing around. OU doesn't even have the benefit of a strong OOC SOS, thanks to playing 6 teams Pomeroy 300+ and Northwestern State. That's always a bad idea.

I think it's time to start the bubble watch. Our season can still go either way, but let's start looking at the competition for the last 12 spots in the tournament. The matrix currently has tOSU as the last 9, and losing a close game to Michigan probably didn't hurt it much. Tens are WVU, Nebraska, OU, and Vandy, but OU and Vandy would be 11 seeds if only the brackets updated since Saturday are counted. Elevens are Texas, SDSU, BYU, Arkansas, Georgia (only 5 since the autobids will spill over into one of the 11 seeds), but Georgia would be replaced by WF if only the brackets updated since Saturday are counted. In the 24 brackets updated since Saturday, SMU, UNC, and Xavier get single mentions. Georgia in on 11, while WF is on 13, so that is a close call right now in the Matrix. Arkansas is on 17. OU and Vandy are on 23. We, and everyone else in the matrix, is on all 24. We have more 10s or better than 11s in those 24 brackets. We even have an 8. As the week goes on, I'll start to break down each contender. Right now I'll only say that I see Xavier as the team with the best chance to climb back in. It is on a hot streak and hosts Creighton for another chance at a q1 win. It is only 1-8 in q1 right now, but 2 losses were in OT and 2 others were in single possession games. If it gets to 20 wins in the regular season and doesn't embarrass itself in the Big East tournament, then I think it might get a bid. On the one hand, the committee caught a lot of flak about snubbing the Big East last year. On the other hand, Sean Miller isn't the NCAA's favorite guy.

I'm going to lay out my reasons for thinking Richard Pitino would be a great hire for someone, including a P5 school in Texas: 1) I think he learned a lot from his dad, including the down-side of being a sleaze-bag. He also was an assistant to Donovan for a couple of years, replacing Smart. 2) Plays uptempo. Didn't do that so dramatically while at Minnesota, but his teams rarely played at a slow pace even there. His teams don't usually shoot a lot of threes, but you can say that about his dad, Self, Otzelberger, and Izzo, among others. 3) Still young. Would come here at the same age Barnes did, so he can be a generational coach. 4) Has 8 years experience in Big Ten. Didn't win the world over at Minnesota, but Minnesota is one of the crappiest jobs in the Big Ten with huge disadvantages in recruiting and poor finances for a Big Ten school. It didn't even have a dedicated practice facility when he got there, and the arena is 100 years old. And it took a brutal rash of injuries to derail his last season from a likely NCAA tournament bid, which would have been his 3rd in 4 seasons not counting the COVID year. It is possible he was hired at too young an age at that point. He was only 30 then and had only one year as a head coach at FIU. 5) Finds talent in a lot of places, like Dallas. See Toppin. Has contacts in Miami area and Florida from his FIU year. Has contacts in Phoenix and So Cal. Has mined international waters. Did a good job of mining the portal as well. While at Minnesota, he locked down the state in the 2016 and 2018 recruiting classes, getting guys like Kalscheur, Coffey, and Oturu. 6) Took over a New Mexico program that was driven down to 294 in Pomeroy by his predecessor. UNM was 2-15 in the MWC before he arrived. 5-12, 8-10, 10-8, and now 14-1 in the last four seasons. Started beating P5 teams this year (UCLA, USC on neutral floors). 7) Negligible buyout and his current contract with UNM maxes at $1.3M per year. I know that money is supposed to be no object, but he supposedly has a coach's buyout of only $750,000. Peanuts. We can sell that to BMDs with the ticket that we can take all the savings throw it at some players. I don't have CBSSN, so I can't watch much of their games, but he definitely has done very well in four years at New Mexico. It makes more sense than throwing $7 million or more a year to blast a P5 coach away from his current gig. OK, the allegedly bad. He was rumored to have had bad relationships with players at UNM. I can't find any confirmation of that. Coffey's dad denied it. Buggs was the only significant player to transfer away while Pitino was there. Mashburn followed him to UNM. So I don't put much stock into those rumors. Mashburn did decide to go to Temple this year for his 5th season, and Toppin took the money, but it's not like UNM has been bleeding players, and turnover is extremely low for UNM given what's going on in the basketball world with the portal. While he did own the state in recruiting in 2018, he didn't show it in 2020, losing Suggs and Garcia to Gonzaga and Marquette. Suggs later claimed Pitino didn't show enough interest in him. I take that with some skepticism because Suggs was claiming he had already agreed to play football from Fleck and just wanted Pitino to show more enthusiasm. So then he goes to a school that doesn't play FBS football? Huh. He was around Louisville 2011-2012 season. That was on of the years the madame alleged McGee was bringing her girls to the players and recruits at the dorms. McGee and Pitino's dad were the only ones punished for that, and as far as I am aware, baby Pitino's name never came up, but I admit that I didn't read her book. And he was long gone before the story broke and even longer gone by the time Louisville was alleged to have dropped a ton of money on Bowen. So I am convinced a P5 program will grab Richard Pitino this spring and probably do very well for itself.

You're really Draymond Green, aren't you?

Rutgers is now 12-14, 5-10, after losing by 18 to Oregon tonight. It has the number 2 and number 3 recruit in the country in the 2024 class, both likely to be top 5 pick in the upcoming draft. I know Rutgers has been next to nothing in basketball since the mid 1980s, but I have to think Rutgers is now regretting giving Pikiell an extension two years ago that locks him in through 2030-31.

New Mexico rallied in the second half and hung on to win 82-79. I wonder if Richard Pitino will now finally start getting some mention in coaching searches.

Northwestern was up 50-32 at one point then spent the rest of the game trying to jam the ball inside and taking ugly off-balance shots in the paint. It made about two of them, and Nebraska came back to take a three point lead in the final minute. NW scored with 32 seconds left and let Nebraska dribble up calmly and burn half the clock before noticing the coach wanted them to foul. So they fouled the best ft shooter in the conference, who made both. NW went down and scored inside without even trying to get a shot at a three, and it fouled again with 9.2. NU made two again. Then a turnover and a breakaway. Great comeback by Nebraska, but unbelievable stubbornness from NW to keep doing what wasn't working for the last 12 minutes of the game. NW wound up with 18 more offensive rebounds and 27 more fg attempts. And lost.

One uncalled hip-check by Michigan followed by an airball by Thornton result in 86-83 victory for Michigan over tOSU, easily the best 11 loss team in the country.

Bobby Hurley might still be safe and can blame future misfortune on losing Quaintance for however many more games he misses, but things are pretty ugly in Tempe with the frequency of player ejections there, the latest of which happened last night in a home loss to TCU, just the Frogs' second win this year away from Schollmaier. Johnny Dawkins signed an extension to keep him at UCF through the 2026-27 season, and he may be safe due to UCF not yet getting full revenue share from the Big 12, but losing yesterday to let Colorado get its first conference win of the year shows his days are numbered, even in that number is over 365. Dawkins coached UCF through its transition from the AAC into the Big 12, but you have to think once UCF will want some better results after it starts getting full P5 money than a single NCAA appearance in 9 seasons, and no, UCF was not going to get in the tournament in 2020. However, UCF doesn't get full Big 12 revenue share until 2025-26, so maybe Dawkins gets one more year. I haven't confirmed the report, but I read somewhere that the Pac 12 imports will receive full shares this year, btw. Moser might have similar protection from firing by OU this year. OU and Texas received partial shares from the SEC in February for the 2023-24 fiscal year.

Someone needs to explain to me how Kansas is still NET 14 after it lost to Utah last night. Kansas did have a very nice November in beating Duke and Michigan State on neutral floors, and it recently evened the score against ISU, but it is 10-8 over its last 18 games, lost a home game to DeVries-less WVU, and is 1-6 against Pomeroy top 50 since November.

BYU beat KSU 80-65 to end KSU's hot streak. KSU may need to nearly win out to climb back in contention for a bid. It is 4-6 in q1 games, but it is only 2-4 in q2 and has a pair of q3 losses (home to LSU by 10 and@ Wichita State by 19). San Diego State beat Boise State 64-47 last night. Boise State is now 0-5 against the other top 4 teams in the MWC, but it has home games left against New Mexico, Utah State, and Colorado State, and it has played demonstrably better at home in conference so far, but it probably needs to win at least two of the three big games to keep hopes alive for an at large bid. MWC looking more and more like a three bid conference (UNM, Utah State, and SDSU). Boise State had very good OOC wins over Clemson (home) and St. Mary's (neutral), but it did nothing outside the state of Idaho, and it had a horrible loss to BC in the Cayman Islands and a bad loss to Washington State in an arena in Boise that the NCAA decided to call a neutral floor. Yeah, sure. New Mexico hosts Utah State today. With a win today, UNM would have a 2 game cushion on Utah State and 3+ game cushion on everyone else. Won't matter much for conference tournament purposes, but getting the likes of Wyoming or San Jose State in your first game is better than having to face someone like Nevada or UNLV. MWC gives five teams a first round bye to winnow the field to 8, and no one gets a double bye. Oh, wait. SJSU is the only team to have beaten UNM in conference so far. A couple of Big Ten games of note today: Nebraska (49) @ Northwestern (59) Nebraska managed to resurrect itself with wins over Illinois, Oregon, and Ohio State, and it is a 10 seed in the matrix despite the poor NET ranking. When Nebraska loses, it has done it in impressive fashion (37, 36, 28). Big games coming up are hosting Michigan on 2/24 and going to tOSU on 3/4. Michigan (20) @ tOSU (27) tOSU is a low 9 in the matrix despite the strong NET ranking. It goes to UCLA next weekend and will host Nebraska in the second to last game of the season.

With that we leap over OU, Vandy, and WVU in the matrix. Feeling much better about our chances to make the tournament now, but we still need to win 3 of our next 5, and we might need a first round conference tournament win too boot.

You should have seen Wisconsin take apart Purdue in the second half today in West Lafayette.