Your Thursday Bubble Watch Rooting Guide
Now part of a recurring series. Check out jamiemac's Diary on the Bracket Matrix for more breakdowns as they specifically relate to Michigan.
Tales from Last Night
Last night went much better for Michigan than did Monday. The relevant results for the Wolverines:
- Michigan State beat Iowa 85-66. You wanted State to win this game so they'd stay in the RPI top-50. Michigan won't compete head-to-head with them on the bubble, and Saturday's game will effectively be the decider between the two if necessary.
- North Carolina beat Florida State 72-70. Florida State is a fellow bubble team, so losing to the Tar Heels hurt them.
- Miami beat Maryland 80-66. Terps are probably done as a bubble team.
- East Carolina upset Memphis 68-57. This was a huge blow to Memphis and Conference USA's likelihood of getting more than 2 bids.
- SMU fell to UCF 48-51. You wanted SMU to knock the Knights out of bubble contention.
- St. Louis upset Dayton 69-51. This closes the door on Dayton's at-large hopes.
- UAB beat Southern Miss 67-66. Both are bubble teams, and we were mostly indifferent as to the result.
- St. Joseph's lost to Richmond 54-69. The Spiders strengthened their resume by not falling victim to an upset.
- Iowa State beat Colorado 95-90. BUffaloes are no longer a viable bubble team.
- LSU lost to Georgia 53-73. This would have been a huge upset, so there's really not much lost by the Bulldogs staying on the bubble.
- Cincinnati beat Marquette 67-60. That should knock the Golden Eagles behind Michigan in the pecking order.
- Northwestern beat Minnesota 68-57. There were reasons to pull for each team, so we're mostly indifferent to this result.
- Clemson lost to Duke 59-70. We probably wanted Clemson to win this game as a former Michigan opponent, but there were plenty of reasons to pull for the Blue Devils (Clemson is also a bubble team). We'll be pulling HARD for Clemson against Virginia Tech on Saturday.
- Utah lost to Colorado State 65-78. We wanted the Utes to win, as a former Michigan opponent, but this result was expected.
- UTEP beat Marshall 82-74. Both are bubble teams, so we were pulling for the past Michigan opponent.
- I forgot to include this one in yesterday's games to watch, but Kansas beat Texas A&M 64-51. The Jayhawks are a past Michigan opponent.
This was an excellent day of results for Michigan, as the only games that didn't fall the right way were longshots. We also got a couple important upsets.
The Bubble
Looks like The Matrix isn't going to update before tonight's relevant games start, so the table below comes from yesterday's update.
Per the Bracket Matrix:
| Bids | Bubble In | Bubble Out | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Big East | 11 | Marq (10) | Marquette will fall, but maybe not all the way out of the matrix. | |
| SEC | 6 | Tenn (9), UGa (10), Bama (12) | Bama will drop out as soon as the matrix is updated. | |
| Big Ten | 6 | Ill (10), MSU (11), Mich (12) | Minn, PSU | Minnesota is done. Michigan State might move up slightly. |
| ACC | 5 | BC (12), VT (10), FSU (9) | Clem, Mary | Florida State and Clemson were hurt last night. Maryland was probably knocked out for good. |
| Big 12 | 5 | KSU (8) | Neb, Bay, Colo, OkSt | Colorado took a big hit by losing to a bad Iowa State team. |
| Pac-10 | 3 | Wash (9), UCLA (8) | USC, Washington St. | |
| Atlantic 10 | 3 | Richmond (11) | ||
| Mountain West | 3 | UNLV (7) | Colo St | |
| West Coast | 2 | Zaga (12), St Mary's (11) | ||
| Colonial | 2 | Old Domin (8) | VCU | |
| CUSA | 2 | Memphis (11), UAB (12) | USM, UTEP, Marsh, UCF | |
| WAC | 1 | Utah State (9) | ||
| Horizon | 1 | Butler (12) | Cleve St, UW-Mil | |
| Summit | 1 | 1-bid Oakland (13) | ||
| Ivy | 1 | 1-bid Princeton (13) | Harvard |
When the Matrix is next updated (before tonight's games - how inconvenient), I think it will look a liiiittle bit better for Michigan.
Today's Games
Wednesday is a HUGE night for college basketball, so there are going to be tons of games to watch. You're rooting against bubble-ish teams, though things get more complicated when a past Michigan opponent is involved.
- Tennessee @ South Carolina (7:00, ESPN). Pull for South Carolina to drag Tennessee onto the bubble (they're currently in as a 9 seed).
- South Carolina State @ NC Central (7:30). NC Central is a past Michigan opponent.
- Wisconsin @ Indiana (9:00, ESPN). I think you're probably pulling for Indiana, so they don't drop below 200 in RPI and give Michigan a bad loss. Ain't gonna happen though.
- UCLA @ Washington (9:00, ESPN2). The Bruins are the higher seed, and you want them to knock Washington down in the pecking order.
- USC @ Washington State (10:00). USC's resume is worse than Washington State's so you want the Trojans to win.
After a huge rooting list last night, tonight's roster is much smaller. Of course, we're also pulling for 4 underdogs. Considering that only 1 or 2 of these games is actually useful to Michigan (especially in terms of knowing who to root for), it should be a relaxing night.
Or a good one to get on an airplane and not watch any basketball - but I'm also missing the State game. :(
Why are UM and MSU not in competition on the bubble?
The winner of Saturday's game is pretty much in no matter what. Thus, the loser is competing with all the other bubble teams for a spot.
Maybe I'm looking at it through green-tinted glasses, but even if Michigan wins that game it looks to me like the two resumes would be pretty similar. MSU would have the better wins overall (your sweep of us would probably be your two best wins in that scenario) and fewer bad losses (@Iowa, @PSU vs. @Ind, @NW, Minn, UTEP); head-to-head would probably pull you even but not noticeably ahead going into the B10 tourney.
My best guess: If MSU wins, MSU is a lock and Michigan needs at least two in the Big Ten tournament (may have to get to the final, depending on number of surprise auto-bids). If Michigan wins, both teams are probably in barring a bad loss in the first round of the B10 tourney (which Michigan would avoid by virtue of not playing in that round). Right or wrong, the committee tends to look for excuses to put a team with a strong non-conference schedule in, and 9-9 in a very deep Big Ten plus a win over Washington would be such an excuse, so I don't think it's really a must-win for MSU's tourney chances.
Minnesota and UTEP are borderline top-50 teams. Neither of those is anything resembling a "bad loss."
Those were all the losses outside the Kenpom top 50 for both teams (and PSU is not too far from the top 50 either).
Don't feel bad Tim - I'm stuck in China on business the next two weeks. I'm debating whether I want to wake up at 3am and try to listen to the MSU game on MGoBlue.com.
As for Washington, here's another thought on that game. Right now they are MSU's only "big" out of conference win. If we get compared to MSU on the bubble next week it seems like you're comparing our "big" wins of Harvard and @Clemson to their Washington win. The worse that looks for them, the better for us.
The parallels between this and TWIS are eerie.
thank you for putting them together
Really? I didn't see them on ESPN's list of games. Thanks, I'll update the post.
NCCU plays South Carolina State at 7:30.
For the record, the Bracket Matrix has been updated, so the chart changes slightly. Tomorrow's post (which will be a diary, since there are almost zero games of Michigan interest) will include those updates.
Alabama is still included in the field in the bbracket matrix, just fyi, because some idiot had them an 8-seed(!) just before their pantsing by Florida. The next highest seed anyone had them who had updated since the weekend was 11.
Today's Games
Wednesday is a HUGE night for college basketball, so there are going to be tons of games to watch. You're rooting against bubble-ish teams, though things get more complicated when a past Michigan opponent is involved.
Copy and pasting the thing to re-use it as a template makes sense, but you missed that sentence about Wednesday. (Also, between the similar-looking posts and the lack of pictures, it's hard to tell if the page has been updated or not at a quick glance.)
Anyway thanks for the updates!
I know we dont have any but i found Uconn's plan really amusing to honor kemba walker.
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=6179271
i cant post it elsewhere (not enough points)
Has this happened before that a jr gets a senior day if its unlikely he'll be around the following year?
Might have to happen for Morris or THJ in a year, but thats a nice problem to have.
Jay Williams at Duke had a "senior day" at the end of his junior year because he had already announced he was foregoing his senior season to enter the NBA draft.
Does anyone know (or have any clue) on what the committee thinks about road in conference losses to crappy teams? To me if you told me that, say, Texas lost on the road to Oklahoma or OK State or something I'd be far more forgiving than I would be if they lost to, say, La Tech (they suck right??). And beyond that how much weight is there to the fact that it was really early on and after 2 consecutive heart breakers?
I guess really what I'm asking is given our body of work do you think we'll get a semi-pass for the IU embrassment?
if for no other reason than that the rest of the bubble teams are frantically trying to get out of the tournament, as if maybe they thought that winning the NIT was better than losing a first- or second-round NCAA game.
Also, it's not a recent loss. Michigan State's loss to Iowa will likely hurt them more, given that it was in their last 12 games and will remain so (and that Iowa's RPI is lower than Indiana's and will also remain so).
In a normal season, I think Michigan's lack of a marquee win would combine with the Indiana loss to drag them down toward a bubble group ... but even without a semifinal upset (which would provide that marquee win, assuming that Penn State or Northwestern HAHAHAHA I can't even finish that thought), a sweep of MSU and a win over Illinois would add to the 1-50 RPI column, and then 8-4 in the last 12 plus 4-9 against the top 50 (with 5 losses against the top 6 and 8 against the top 15, as of today) would give Michigan about as much of a boost as they'll need.
It's why they're on the bubble.
It'll count against you, but if it were enough to disqualify you on its own there wouldn't be enough eligible teams to select 37 at-larges. I think you need one more decent-or-better win (MSU or a quarterfinal win over Wisconsin/Purdue) to make it.
Down 60-49 with 8 minutes left in the 2nd.
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