A Fun Friday in College Basketball

• The only loser in the Big 10 that I imagine is in trouble is Penn State. Their resume stands up OK with other bubble teams, but I could see them getting punished for their horrific non-conference schedule (and for the record I would be 100% on board with that punishment). I cannot wait to see how these Big 10 schools fare next week.
• In the SEC, this has to be the end of Kentucky, Florida, and South Carolina, right? The stunning thing is that three of the teams in the SEC semifinals are SEC West teams. Does that mean the SEC West is better than I have been giving them credit for all year? Of course not. All it means is that the SEC East is nearly as bad as the SEC West. If there is any justice in this world, the SEC will be two-bid league.
• It will be fascinating to see what the committee decides to do with St. Mary’s. I am torn on this myself. I do think that with Patty Mills at 100% St. Mary’s is a tournament team. He did not look 100% in he WCC tournament. Then they added the game yesterday against Eastern Washington. There are two problems with this. First, nobody could see it so who knows how Mills looked. Second, it was against Eastern Washington. If Mills looked good, does it even matter? St. Mary’s wouldn’t be facing any Eastern Washingtons in the NCAA Tournament.
• I am not too sold that either UAB or Tulsa had a shot at an at large bid with a loss to Memphis in the final. With that said, even though UAB is the sexier team with the better computer numbers, Tulsa has a better shot at knocking off Memphis. UAB at their best is probably better than Tulsa at their best, but UAB is much less likely to be at their best. Now if Jerome Jordan can stay on the floor and out of foul trouble and Ben Uzoh and Ray Reese can get hot, some bubble team’s dream may die.
• Who would have guessed we would see Temple and Duquesne in the A-10 final? Xavier and Dayton are in good shape for getting into the tournament, but they did not leave a good final impression for seeding (or prognosticating once I see them in the field).Xavier had a huge scoring drought at the end of the game and Dayton cannot seem to score points if you can slow them down.
• North Carolina better hope this week is long enough to fully heal Ty Lawson because they do not look like a #1 seed without him. With him I still think they are the NCAA Tournament favorites, but they keep proving that the preseason hype was a bit overblown.
• Staying in the ACC, Wake Forest looked atrocious. Congratulations to Maryland for getting into the field, but that was one of the more lazy defensive performances I have seen in a while. Wake Forest seemed disinterested in closing out on shooters and using their incredible athleticism to compete on the glass. While I call their defensive play lazy, their offensive play (settling for threes far too often) could also be described as lazy. I don’t care if they still nab a #3 seed, if they play like that they could lose the first round. (And the most frustrating thing is that if they play intelligently and with energy I am not sure who in the country can beat them; this could be a Final Four team. These are the frustrations of youth, I suppose.)
• Utah State’s impressive comeback against New Mexico State just might end up costing a bubble team a bid. I have a hard time seeing them winning the final on Nevada’s home floor and then they will jump right into that bubble picture.
• The Mountain West now looks like a three bid league with San Diego State’s win over BYU. Call me crazy, but I could see the Aztecs staying in the NCAA Tournament longer than their conference mates BYU and Utah. Lorrenzo Wade and Kyle Spain are more dangerous than what BYU and Utah will throw out there.
• I am more surprised by Baylor’s regular season conference play than I am by this run in the tournament. The problem for bubble teams is that Baylor might have more talent than Missouri. This should be a really interesting game, but I think I expect Baylor to nab the automatic bid.
• Parts of watching UCLA lose to USC reminded me of Wake Forest’s game against Maryland. I think the similarities were mostly with the horrible shooting, because there were some differences. The most important difference is that I think UCLA was trying. They just suck.
• Was I the only one that watched Doris Burke’s postgame interview with Eric Devendorf and started yelling, “Look out Doris! Run! He’s standing right next to you!”?