Last week, Lunardi dropped Providence despite their win over Pitt. Since Friday, Joe has moved Providence back into the bracket with their win over Rutgers. So, according to Joe's logic:
beating Rutgers > beating Pitt
The other new entry in the bracket is Creighton. I'm not sure what to think about this; one one hand, it's tough to leave out a team that's won 10 straight, but on the other hand the best win during that streak was a win at home over George Mason. My take on Creighton is that they are right on the bubble right now, but a loss in the Valley tournament probably knocks them off the bubble, so they better count on securing the automatic bid.
Florida and Michigan are off the board for now (finally). Michigan finishes Big 10 play at Minnesota, which could be a "must-win" for both teams. Arizona is dangerously close to being left out after losing two games in Washington. The Wildcats host Cal and Stanford this week and probably need to win both.
2 comments:
The most confusing thing about Creighton is that he has them at the at large with Northern Iowa taking the automatic bid. I don't see why he has the Panthers taking that bid considering the two teams were co-champions but Creighton has a much better resume than UNI.
I would assume the only way Creighton gets an at large is if they lose to UNI in the championship game. No other loss would be acceptable enough to get an at large. At that point it would depend on what is happening elsewhere across the bubble. Still, with the warts on the resumes of bubble teams across the country, I'd imagine a 27-7 Creighton team would match up pretty well.
I'm assuming he lists UNI with the automatic bid because they are the #1 seed in the MVC tourney.
I think the biggest problem for Creighton is that while they don't have many "warts" on their resume, they don't have any wins that really stand out either. The Dayton win looks OK if you just look at their RPI, but Dayton is average at best on the road (losses at UMass, Charlotte, St. Louis and Rhode Island).
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