bierce

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.

Tre? Why?

And Kentucky hires Tyrese Hunter to make the inbound pass!

9-0 run down the stretch to take control of this one. Finish it, guys.

I suspect you are right. Most of the time he's gone to the floor, it's because his legs are taken out.

Shedrick spends more time on the floor than any near 7 footer in the history of basketball. More power to him for the effort, but I'd like to see him stay upright.

Or a violent collision in the paint. Williams was back.

Williams right over Shedrick for that board.

Carr's fifth

And is Tre serious with that 30 footer?

We REALLY could have used this version of Mark against Vandy and Arky.

Since we got to the double bonus, we've made no attempt to get the ball in the paint and draw contact.