Seedwatch & Stuff: Don't Lose To Penn State
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Seedwatch
The moral of last week: don't lose to Penn State, you guys. Providing the Nittany Lions their only win of the conference season was sufficient to knock Michigan out of one-seed contention for now. Despite the Michigan State win, Michigan has fallen into a mass of teams duking it out for spots on the 2 and 3 lines on the Bracket Matrix, a hair behind Louisville and Florida for the final twos. This isn't a lag effect; brackets updated today are evenly split, with guy-whose-job-this-is Jerry Palm declaring Michigan a 3.
Crashing the Dance also has Michigan in the 3 range, though they're significantly closer to the last #1 seed than dropping to a 4. Kansas and Gonzaga are the main beneficiaries, with Miami hanging on the cusp of a one after a narrow defeat at Cameron. I still think Gonzaga's schedule should disqualify them from a one seed but since Michigan's not in line to replace them, whatever man.
Could Michigan get back in the conversation by winning their last two? It's not out of the question. Indiana is by far the #1 team in all these ranking systems and a win over them would at least vault them up to a solid 2. But they'd have to jump a half-dozen teams at this point, one of whom is the extremely-unlikely-to-lose Gonzaga. Getting back on the top line is not entirely out of the question, but it requires a closing streak that is, to put it kindly, unlikely.
Projected ones: Duke, Indiana, Kansas, Miami
Nonconference Watch
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i changed the pictures. run, BJ, run!
RPI-effect-only Teams
Last win for IUPUI: December 27th. Binghamton: January 19th. Central Michigan: won! Against Northern Illinois, but still. IUPUI is done with the regular season and has a Saturday matchup with SDSU that will probably end them. Kenpom gives Binghamton a 1% chance of advancing past Stony Brook in the America East tourney, also on Saturday.
Cleveland State lost their final game and enters conference tourney play at 5-11; their season probably ends tonight. Bradley remains a 500-ish MVC team. Eastern Michigan beat Western in a 50-49 OT Wisconsin special. Both teams have a couple of games before their conference tourney kicks off.
Big sorts of teams
Pitt (23-7)
USF: W 64-44. Villanova: W 73-64 (OT)
Crushing rebounding and defense against one of the worst teams in the Big East to start their week, then a home escape against 'Nova in which the stats are close to identical save a burst of OT scoring from the Panthers. With just DePaul left, Pitt is likely to enter the Big East tournament as the #4 seed.
The Panthers are going to be a trendy upset pick in the second round what with their sterling Kenpom numbers, but I've watched them enough to be wary of them against any team that can match their size and rebounding. If Pitt isn't crushing the glass it's hard to see them taking out a 2 or 3 seed.
SEEDWATCH: A strong six on Bracket Matrix; a seven on Crashing The Dance.
Kansas State (24-5)
@ Baylor: W 64-61
Scraped by the Bears thanks to excellent two-point D (38%) and a slight TO advantage in a game with lots of offensive rebounds and a swingy win graph:
That's some high leverage right there. May all tourney games not involving Michigan look like that.
K-State has a gimmie against Texas Tech tomorrow and then a season-ender against high-flying Okie State that could spring them to the three line if they perform reasonably in the Big 12 tourney. That one's on the road.
SEEDWATCH: Narrowly a 3 on Bracket Matrix; four on CTD. Jerry Palm says 4.
North Carolina State (21-8)
Boston College: W 82-64. @ Georgia Tech: W 70-57
Given NC State's defensive struggles this year two solid wins over not-great teams is actually a positive step. This is a team that lost to Maryland and Wake Forest, and BC and GT are hovering around 100 in the Kenpom rankings.
BC actually scored just over a PPP in their matchup but could not compete with an NC State team hitting 62% inside the arc and rebounding half their misses. GT shot horribly and turned it over 15 times; NC State got easy distance despite going 1/11 from three thanks to excellent twos and a lot of FTs.
MCHOBBIT UPDATE: 16 minutes against BC, four points on three shots, 5 to 1 A:TO. 11 minutes, 8 points on five shot equivalents, 2 A, 0 TO.
SEEDWATCH: 7 on Crashing The Dance, 8 on Bracket Matrix. Drawing these guys in the second round as a 1 or 2 seed would be awful.
Arkansas (18-11)
@ LSU: L 65-60. Kentucky: W 73-60.
Arkansas keeps giving themselves hope at home—wins over UK and Florida—and then blowing it on the road—losses to LSU and Vandy. Their vague flutter towards a spot on the bubble comes down to winning at Mizzou and at home against A&M, plus a run in the SEC tourney.
Likely? No. But not impossible. Crashing the Dance has moved them up from the fringe bubble to Next Four Out territory, with Kentucky and Tennessee the last at large bids in and two more SEC teams (Ole Miss and Alabama) just in front of them. Lunardi also has them in Next Four Out. They've got a 10-20% shot at a bid.
SEEDWATCH: CTD next four out; no one has them in on the Matrix.
West Virginia (13-16)
Baylor: L 65-62. @ Kansas: L 91-65
At least we won this coaching switch.
SEEDWATCH: exploding seeds that kill spiders like in Zelda or something
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Viewing Guide
Games relevant to your interest that are on the TV and may be worth watching after the first ten minutes. Bolded teams are suggested teams to root for, calibrated for …
1) helping M win conference title
2) best chance for quality-win pile-up to help M seeding
3) greatest number of tourney teams from league
4) eff Michigan State
5) also Wisconsin
Monday
Yesterday; no games.
Tuesday
Illinois at Iowa, 7:06 PM, BTN
Ohio State at Indiana, 9PM, ESPN
Arkansas at Missouri, 7PM, ESPN
Wednesday
MICHIGAN at Purdue, 7PM, BTN
Minnesota at Nebraska, 9PM, BTN
Wake Forest at NC State, 9PM, ESPN3
Thursday
Penn State at Northwestern, 7PM, ESPNU
Wisconsin at Michigan State, 9PM, ESPN (rooting interest: meteor)
Friday
nyet
Saturday
Minnesota at Purdue, 12PM, BTN
Kansas State at Oklahoma State, 1:30, no tv(?!?)
Texas A&M at Arkansas , 2PM, ESPNU
Nebraska at Iowa, 2:21 PM, BTN
NC State at Florida State, 9PM, ESPN2
Sunday
Wisconsin at Penn State, 12PM, BTN
Illinois at Ohio State, 12:30, ESPN
Indiana at MICHIGAN, 4PM, CBS
Northwestern at Michigan State, 6PM, BTN
I think with Jerry Palm you can take what he says and then bump the seed upwards somewhat. To what extent I couldn't really say, but the thing about Palm is he seems to put more weight on bad losses than good wins. I think the tourney committee thinks the other way around.
My #1 seeds:
Duke, Indiana, Kansas, Louisville
Not sure why Louisville isn't getting more love from the Bracketologists. Their resume compares favorably to everyone. 7 Top 50 wins, 11 Top 100 wins, Winners of 9 of their last 10 in the Big East, 4th in RPI, 2nd in Sagarin, 3rd in Kenpom. No Bad losses. 11-4 in Road and Neutral site games.
Not only are they a 1 seed, they are my number 1 overall seed.
I currently have them in my Next 4 out. Their Non-Conference SOS is killing them.
Don't we WANT Gonzaga to be a #1 seed? You're going to have to play a good 2 or 3 seed to get out of the bracket if you're a 1, 2, or 3 (barring being in the "upset bracket"). So why play a 3 AND a really good 1? I'd rather have to play Florida and Gonzaga to get out of a region than Florida and Duke.
(Though who am I kidding...if we're not a #1 you KNOW we're going to be in Duke's bracket).
OK, here is what I don't understand. Dropping Michigan because of a loss to a bad PSU team makes sense. But then why does everyone have KU as a 1 even though they lost to an even worse TCU team? We are both 2-1 against MSU/KSU. What does Kansas have that we don't? Is an OT win over OSU (ntOSU) better than our OT win over OSU (ytOSU)? If the explanation is simply that their loss was earlier then that is just assinine. This isn't the BCS.
Just kidding. My guess is it's because they will likely win their conference and UM lost to a crappy team more recently.
Have absolutely no idea why Kansas is getting so much love
- Big 10 >> Big 12
- Kansas is 4-1 against AP top 25, we are 4-3
- Kansas' loss to TCU is worse than our loss to Penn State
The only thing I can think of is that Kansas is riding a 7 game winning streak while we have gone 4-4 in our last 8. When you play 30+ games there's even more weight put on what you've done closer to March because, who cares about what you did in November? I'm not saying it's right or how it should be, but that's how it appears to be.
"What have you done for me lately" will always apply, even if we played 100 games.
This is entirely "what have you done for me lately?" but it is nonetheless annoying that everyone forgets that Kansas lost to a team that would struggle to even be .500 in any conference in America (Kenpom has TCU 120 spots lower than PSU.....120!!). It sucks but if UM beats PU and IU, then I think they're back in the discussion for a 1 at least. I just want to see UM avoid a tough chalk sweet 16 matchup; whether they are a 1 or 2 seed doesn't matter.
I hate that the ACC may have two one-seeds while the this conference is the best in the country Big Ten may only get one. I think we've got to win the next two and then make the final of the BTT to be considered a one, which, hah.
I would also really like to see Iowa in the tournament. We've an untimely loss (in which Iowa lost a 16 point lead) to Nebraska to thank for Iowa not getting much love. Wins over Illinois and Nebraska (both at home) and one win the BTT may be enough to get them there. Let's hope we aren't matched against Iowa in the BTT because I feel like we are every damn year.
When I watched the BTN Selection special this morning, they had exactly ZERO teams as #1 seeds as Brian has in this thread. All 4 of them were 2 seeds, but they did have M as a 3.
EDIT: IU is a #1 in both, my mistake, but the other 3 are not Ones according to BTN.
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