Punching The Ticket: A Marathon Saturday Awaits
Michigan could use a little help from Penn State. [Bryan Fuller]
Before digging into the current bracket projections, let's look at how the games listed in Monday's Punching The Ticket (and a couple I forgot to include) turned out. Michigan wanted the teams in bold to win.
- UNC beat Syracuse
- Kansas beat Texas.
- Kentucky beat Florida
- Vanderbilt beat Tennessee
- George Washington beat George Mason
- St. Mary's beat Grand Canyon
- Virginia Tech beat Pitt
- VCU beat Davidson
- Butler beat Seton Hall
- Arkansas beat Alabama
- NC State beat Boston College
- Providence beat Creighton
- USC beat Oregon State
It's a mixed bag, as these tend to be, but two SEC squads—Florida and Alabama—are on the wrong side of the bubble after losses this week.
Michigan's resumé as it currently stands:
Record: 20-10 (19-10 vs. D-I), 10-7 Big Ten
RPI: 57
KenPom: 49
RPI Strength of Schedule: 68
KP SOS: 53
RPI Top-50: 3-8
RPI 51-100: 0-2
RPI 101+: 16-0
Penn State remains just outside the RPI top-100 cut at #105, but they've got a good chance to finish strong and give Michigan a pair of quality wins in the process; the Nittany Lions finish the regular season with home games against Northwestern and Illinois. NC State didn't exactly cover themselves in glory with a one-point victory over winless-in-the-ACC Boston College; they still remain in striking distance at #115. The Wolfpack breaking into the top 100 would give Michigan another quality win. Yes, I still realize the top-100 cutoff is stupid and arbitrary, but that's how it works.
Not that this is a surprise since Michigan hasn't yet this week, but the Wolverines' standing in projected brackets remains relatively unchanged. ESPN and CBS still have them in a play-in game as one of the final four at-large teams to make the field; Yahoo still has them as an 11-seed narrowly avoiding a First Four game. While Michigan is one of the last four at-large teams on the Bracket Matrix, they're included in 94 of the 108 brackets. A victory over Iowa on Saturday night would almost certainly lock up a spot.
Here are your rooting interests for this weekend. You want the teams in bold; teams in italics are on the bubble; other games are included for RPI purposes:
- Memphis at Temple (tonight, 7 pm, ESPNU)
- Georgia at South Carolina (tonight, 7 pm, ESPN2)
- UConn at SMU (tonight, 9 pm, ESPN2)
- Cincinnati at Houston (tonight, 9 pm, CBSSports)
- Northwestern at Penn State (tonight, 9 pm, ESPNU)
- Yale at Cornell (Friday, 6 pm)
- Princeton at Harvard (Friday, 7 pm, ESPN3)
- Vanderbilt at Texas A&M (Saturday, noon, ESPN2)
- NC State at Notre Dame (Saturday, noon, CBS)
- Ohio State at Michigan State (Saturday, noon, ESPN)
- Providence at St. John's (Saturday, 12:30 pm, FS1)
- Syracuse at Florida State (Saturday, 2 pm, ESPN2)
- Pitt at Georgia Tech (Saturday, 2 pm)
- Marquette at Butler (Saturday, 2:30 pm, Fox/FSN)
- Creighton at Xavier (Saturday, 2:30 pm, Fox)
- Kansas State at Texas Tech (Saturday, 3 pm, ESPNews)
- George Washington at Davidson (Saturday, 3:30 pm, NBCSports)
- Alabama at Georgia (Saturday, 4 pm, ESPN2)
- Oregon at USC (Saturday, 4 pm, Pac-12 Network)
- South Carolina at Arkansas (Saturday, 5 pm, SEC Network)
- USF at Tulsa (Saturday, 5 pm, ESPNews)
- Oregon State at UCLA (Saturday, 6:30 pm, Pac-12 Network)
- Princeton at Dartmouth (Saturday, 7 pm)
- Yale at Columbia (Saturday, 7 pm)
- Florida at Missouri (Saturday, 7:30 pm, SEC Network)
- St. Bonaventure at St. Louis (Saturday, 8 pm)
- VCU at Dayton (Saturday, 8 pm, CBSSports)
- Colorado at Utah (Saturday, 9:30 pm, ESPNU)
- UNLV at San Diego State (Saturday, 10 pm, CBSSports)
- Portland at Gonzaga (Saturday, 11:59 pm, ESPN2)
- SMU at Cincinnati (Sunday, noon, CBS)
- Illinois at Penn State (Sunday, noon, BTN)
- UCF at UConn (Sunday, 2 pm, ESPNU)
- Temple at Tulane (Sunday, 2 pm, ESPN3)
Yes, you can conceivably bubble-watch on Saturday for a solid 14 hours. This is not recommended by the Surgeon General or your marriage counselor.
that people who don't think this Saturday is a win and in situation for Michigan are crazy. 21-10 and 11-7 in the BIg with 4 top 25 wins gets you into the tournament.
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And if we lose to Iowa and Penn State we're out. These games feel like they matter if we close L-W-L.
Will Iowa even be a top 25 RPI team if we beat them on Saturday? I knows semantics (top 25 wins would now be top 30 wins), but the quality of that potential win is dropping rapidly.
will be Top 25 when we play them, so I think it would still make the "quality wins" list on selection Sunday. I don't like Iowa coming in with something to prove though. I would much prefer them coming in feeling really comfortable and proud of themselves.
they will be playing a bunch of "opponent and start time still TBD" games in their respective conference tourneys this weekend.
Even MORE games to watch for those who want to risk their marriage and/or health!!!!
Surely you meant root for them - we want them to get the auto-bids from their respective conferences, because if they lose they might still get at-large bids.
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