Moving Up
UConn - Over the last week and a half, the Huskies have defeated Indiana, Louisville and Pitt and in the process have gone from a team who may have been on the wrong side of the bubble to a team that would have to trip up horribly over the next month to not be included in the bracket.
Arkansas - Arkansas has picked up back-to-back wins over Mississippi and Florida. They most likely still have some work to do to make up for losses to Georgia and South Carolina but the Razorback are back in contention for a tournament bid. (By the way, Lunardi has Arkansas as a #6 seed in his latest bracket, which I think is ridiculously high).
Texas A&M - With wins over Texas and Baylor, the Aggies appear to have righted the ship. However, they still need to prove they can beat a quality opponent on the road if they hope to receive a high seed.
Louisville - Louisville appears to be in a good position for a bid at this point. The big question is whether they can pick up a few good road wins and earn a high seed.
Treading Water
Everyone in the ACC not named Duke or North Carolina - We keep waiting for a couple of teams to separate themselves from the pack in the ACC but it has yet to happen. At this point Clemson and Virginia Tech seem to be the closest to standing out, while Miami (FL) and Boston College seem to be the most likely to fall out of contention.
West Virginia - WVU picked up a decent win on the road at Providence but it's not enough to overcome an embarrassing loss at home to Cincinnati. The Mountaineers are at 5-4 in conference and will likely need to remain at or above .500 in the Big East to earn a bid.
Florida - The Gators are still searching for good wins. The win over Vanderbilt looks good on paper, but Vandy is not the team everyone thought they were a month ago.
Starting to Slip
Ohio State - The Buckeyes suffered a bad loss at Iowa on Saturday and have feasted on the lower half of the Big 10 thus far (Their 6 conference wins have come against Illinois twice, Northwestern, Iowa, Minnesota, Penn State). They will need to pick up a couple of wins against the top half of the conference if they hope to earn a tourney bid.
Washington State - The Cougars dropped back-to-back home games to Cal and Stanford last week, are now 5-4 in the Pac 10 and have dropped from potentially earning a top 4 seed to being at risk of falling on the bubble. They have home games with USC and UCLA this week and will most likely need to pick up a win in one of those games to avoid sitting on the bubble.
Vanderbilt - It's hard to imagine that a team that finishes below .500 in the relatively weak SEC can earn an at-large bid. Right now, Vandy is at 3-4 in conference and their three wins are against South Carolina, LSU and Auburn. They will need a couple of wins against the better teams in the SEC if they hope to receive a bid in March.
Free Falling
Villanova - Villanova has lost five straight games, all to potential tournament teams, and quite frankly they haven't been competitive in any of them. At this point, it would take an incredible run over the last month of the season for the Wildcats to earn a bid.
Providence - Providence is in a very similar position to Villanova. The Friars are also 3-6 in the Big East and it seems highly unlikely that they are capable putting together a run that will get them back into tournament contention.
Arizona State - The Sun Devils have lost 5 straight games after opening Pac 10 play 4-0. A win this week at Arizona could get things back on track otherwise their tourney hopes are looking dim.
2 comments:
Welcome back. I had thought of something regarding the ACC's current parity plight, and I thought I'd share. I eventually posted it as a myespn.com blog (in reference to Joe Lundardi's bracket), but I'll just post it here, too:
Take, if you will, Texas Tech. With an RPI of 60 and losses to Sam Houston and Centenary (despite wins over A&M and Gonzaga), it's unlikely that they're going to be a tournament team. If the season ended today, they would not be in. Yet getting a win at Texas Tech is no given, and they'll probably even give you a game on your home court. If in some magical land, Texas Tech were to play themselves, we'd end up with highly competitive games, and each game would be a toss up as to which Texas Tech team would win. Now, also imagine that the ACC is comprised of Duke, UNC, and 10 Texas Tech's. Duke and UNC are who they are right now, and Texas Tech is who they are right now. Undoubtedly, Duke and UNC would have the only convincing claim to the NCAA tournament, and it would be difficult to choose 1, let alone 2, Texas Tech teams for the tournament. This is because all 10 of these evenly-matched Texas Tech teams are not NCAA Tournament-caliber teams. AND YET, if the ACC were in fact comprised of UNC, Duke, and 10 Texas Tech's, it would still be the #1 RPI conference in the country. In fact, this conference's average RPI would be 50.5 and the real ACC's average RPI is 56 - which means that this mythical ACC is actually better...and still only has 2 NCAA tournament teams. Is this an exaggeration? Yes, of course.
The fact that the ACC is the best conference does not mean they have the most NCAA Tournament-caliber teams. The parity between positions 3-12 is immense, but it's not unthinkable that the parity exists between teams that, while not bad, are also not NCAA Tournament worthy. Will there be some separation by the end of the season? Possibly. Probably. But at this moment in time, I really believe that Joe Lundardi has it right.
Austin,
Thanks for reading. I agree with alot that you said. In fact in a previous post I mentioned the fact that the ACC's ranking as the #1 RPI conference has much to do with the fact that there aren't any horrible teams in the conference. If Oregon State wasn't in the Pac-10, then the Pac 10 would likely be the #1 conference.
The big question is "How good are these evenly matched teams?" Looking at some of their non-conference performances: Clemson beat Purdue and Miss. St, while losing at Ole Miss; Miami beat Providence and Miss. St; Maryland has a bad loss or two, but also won at UNC. Those three teams probably have the best resumes at this point and if they finish 3rd-5th in the ACC I would imagine that a couple of them will earn bids.
Then you have to compare these teams to some other teams included in Lunardi's bracket at this point. As mentioned above Clemson and Miami both beat Miss. St. who is included as a #8 seed. UNLV is included despite bad losses to UCSB and Air Force. I think it's fairly reasonable to say that UNLV would be in no better position in the ACC than any of the other ACC teams. And if you're going to question UNLV's status then obviously you have to question BYU's as well. George Mason had some nice wins earlier in the year, but lately have lost to East Carolina, Georgia State, Delaware, and UNC-Wilmington.
So guess the point of all this is that these ACC teams will most likely suffer because of the parity in the conference, but I have a hard time believing that only 3 teams will make the tourney. My guess is around 5 teams will get in, which is still down from the 6-8 bids that the ACC typically receives.
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