Saturday, November 30, 2019

11/23 recap

HOF Tip-Off:
Arizona St 80, St John's 67
Virginia 58, UMass 46

Paradise Jam:
Fordham 70, Grand Canyon 58
Western Kentucky 83, Illinois St 69

Islands of the Bahamas:
Milwaukee 62, Morgan St 57
UMKC 74, East Carolina 68
George Washington 78, Evansville 70
Liberty 71, Rice 59

non-tourney rubble:
@Memphis 87, Ole Miss 86
DePaul 72, @Boston College 67 - everybody panic.  DePaul is 6-0 (with a bunch of empty calorie wins, but still)
SMU 72, @UNLV 68
St Louis 60, Belmont 55 - important win for a StL team that should be an at-large factor

interesting mid-major stuff:
@UCF 72, Charleston 71
@Penn St 58, Yale 56 - Yale showing well in a road game
Penn 81, @Providence 75 - Providence sucks
Boise St 82, @Pacific 76 (3OT)
Texas Southern 98, @Northern Kentucky 96 (2OT)

MAAC/ASun Challenge:
Did you know there was one?  Neat.  Looks like 2 teams from each conference (Iona, Monmouth, Kennesaw St, Stetson) convering on a neutral site.  Nothing of impact happened, but it existed.  Bully to them.

Summit/WAC Challenge:
And there was one of these too!  This is a more traditional home/away setup.
Utah Valley 68, @North Dakota St 62 - that's a good poach for the WAC

11/22 recap

2K Empire Classic:
Duke 81, Georgetown 73 - ho hum for Duke here.  These wins won't move the needle for them
Texas 62, California 45

Myrtle Beach:
Baylor 77, Coastal Carolina 65
Villanova 83, Mississippi St 76 - service holds for the top 2 teams here
Tulane 86, Middle Tennessee 74
Utah 80, Ohio 66

Jamaica Classic:
Utah St 80, LSU 78 - you don't need me to tell you this was more critical for USU given general access to signature win chances
Rhode Island 60, North Texas 47 - if you're wondering, I have to imagine they made the top 2 teams play each other in the semis to guarantee a signature win chance for USU/LSU
we ain't covering the lower half of the tourney here, but UMBC and Nicholls lost, which is weird

Paradise Jam:
Valparaiso 78, Grand Canyon 74
Cincinnati 66, Illinois St 65
Nevada 74, Fordham 60
Bowling Green 77, Western Kentucky 75

Charleston:
Xavier 75, UConn 74 (2OT)
Florida 78, Miami 58
Missouri St 71, St Joseph's 69
Buffalo 76, Towson 73

Islands of the Bahamas:
Liberty 78, Morgan St 48
Rice 75, Milwaukee 69
UMKC 74, George Washington 68
East Carolina 85, Evansville 68

Junkanoo Jam:
Indiana St 72, Loyola Marymount 60
Duquesne 69, Air Force 63

non-tournament games do exist:
@Oregon 78, Houston 66
Wake Forest 82, @Davidson 70
Temple 70, @USC 61 - a quality road win?

Thursday, November 28, 2019

11/21 recap

Tournaments start.

2K Empire Classic:
Duke 87, California 52
Georgetown 82, Texas 66 - I don't know if Georgetown is ready for the bubble this year, but this is a start

Myrtle Beach:
Villanova 98, Middle Tennessee 69
Baylor 76, Ohio 53
Mississippi St 80, Tulane 66
Coastal Carolina 79, Utah 57 - what the hell happened here?  Disaster for Utah who's now trapped on the obviously wrong side of the draw.  I do wonder about these tournaments, if it's worth going to 8 teams instead of 4.  Everyone good is sweating out a quarterfinal

Charleston Classic:
Xavier 73, Towson 51
Miami 74, Missouri St 70
Florida 70, St Joseph's 62
UConn 79, Buffalo 68 - service holds in this tourney, and chances by the boards for good mid-majors

Junkanoo Jam:
Loyola Marymount 78, Air Force 64
Duquesne 74, Indiana St 71



@Arizona St 71, South Dakota St 64
Omaha 85, @Washington St 77 - ok the Pac-12 is starting to slip again
@TCU 59, UC Irvine 58 - wouldn't worry about the closeness of this game
@Notre Dame 64, Toledo 62 (OT) - nor this one
New Mexico 78, @New Mexico St 77
Hofstra 88, @UCLA 78 - ok time to restart the Pac-12 fail tracker

11/20 recap

@Georgia 82, Georgia Tech 78 - if I'm starting here, you know it was a garbage day
James Madison 80, @Old Dominion 78 - surprised by this one
Northern Kentucky 59, @Ball St 57
Belmont 73, @Lipscomb 67
Texas St 64, @UNLV 57
Arkansas St 80, @Colorado St 78
@Boise St 72, BYU 68 (OT)
San Diego St 66, @San Diego 49
St Mary's 68, @Fresno St 58

A weird day of a lot of road mid-major wins.

Tuesday, November 26, 2019

11/19 recap

dumb loss of the day:
Boston U 78, @South Carolina 70 - I'm not sure BU was even supposed to be great

@Davidson 91, Nevada 71 - a reminder Nevada is way down this year
Charleston 76, @Marshall 66 - road wins are never trivial
@Murray St 79, Southern Illinois 66

Mid-majors showing well:
@Kansas 75, East Tennessee St 63
@Virginia 61, Vermont 55
@Rhode Island 70, Nicholls 65 - Nicholls seems to be a problem this year.  Stretching URI, LSU, Illinois to the brink and beating Pitt
@Alabama 81, Furman 73
In all these cases, longshot at-large hopes probably disappeared

Mid-majors showing really, really well:
Radford 67, @Northwestern 56

11/18 recap

SMU 59, @Evansville 57 - I hope no one boarded the Evansville bandwagon quickly after the UK game.  That's probably gonna go down at a fluke.  SMU does pick up a useful road win the process though

here's an impossibly dumb upset:
Montana Tech 74, @Montana 72

I'm not seeing much else that matters on this day.  Utah Valley hung with Kentucky for a full game; looks like the WAC should be a solid mid-major conference again.  William & Mary hung in against Oklahoma at Oklahoma.  Nothing else approaching a notable result.

Tuesday, November 19, 2019

11/17 recap

Seton Hall 83, @St Louis 66 - this should last as a signature road win for the resume
@UConn 62, Florida 59 - UF doing legitimate damage to its resume early in the year



quick hitters:
@Arizona 83, New Mexico St 53
@Wisconsin 77, Marquette 61
UCF 67, @Illinois St 65
@Oklahoma St 64, Yale 57

Monday, November 18, 2019

11/16 recap

Tennessee 75, Washington 62 - a notable neutral site win
@LSU 75, Nicholls 65 - Nicholls is frisky!  won at Pitt and hung with LSU and Illinois.  Notable
Vermont 70, @St John's 68 - don't laugh, but Vermont has signature win chances coming up.  This is getting serious

@Old Dominion 76, Northeastern 69 - mid-major road win that caught my eye
Belmont 100, @Boston College 85 - another one
Temple 70, @LaSalle 65
San Francisco 76, @Southern Illinois 60

Buffalo 88, Harvard 76 - MAC favorites > Ivy favorites
USC 76, @Nevada 66

11/15 recap

Gonzaga 79, @Texas A&M 79 - any road win by 30 is a signature win
@Xavier 59, Missouri 56 - this should hold up as a quality win by March
West Virginia 68, @Pitt 53
@Rhode Island 93, Alabama 79
@Nebraska 90, South Dakota St 73 - this is actually a pretty terrible loss given how bad Nebraska is
BYU 72, @Houston 71 - a road win of modest value.  Worth monitoring BYU in the WCC just in case
@Utah 73, Minnesota 69

This actually feels like a light impact day.

Sunday, November 17, 2019

11/14 recap

Michigan St 76, @Seton Hall 73 - there's a quality road win.  MSU will be fine.  And Seton Hall will be fine too, although I wonder about their signature win access in the Big East.  Could've really used this as a lynchpin of the resume

Penn St 81, @Georgetown 66
@Richmond 93, Vanderbilt 92 (OT)

@East Tennessee St 61, Winthrop 58 - why it's so brutal as a midmajor.  Playing these kinds of road games all the time.  This shouldn't be a damaging loss, but you know it will be

11/13 recap

@Ohio St 76, Villanova 51 - as you can guess by now, I only put modest stock into big games where the home team holds serve
@VCU 84, LSU 82 - this is another one of those types of games.  Although with the A-10, VCU might've needed this a bit more than LSU

St Joseph's 96, @UConn 87 - here's a result that's mildly curious.  UConn can't really maintain at-large hopes with these kinds of losses

Oklahoma St 73, @Charleston 54 - true road win over the CAA favorites will absolutely carry value in March

@Marquette 65, Purdue 55
@Northwestern 72, Providence 63 - the Gavitt games aren't really providing a lot of intrigue here

Saturday, November 16, 2019

11/12 recap

Evansville 67, @Kentucky 64 - uhhhhhhhhhhhh

Check back in 3 months to see what I think of this.  Can't take Evansville seriously as a tourney threat.  Kentucky will be fine long term but it can absolutely cost them the 1 line in March

Oregon 82, Memphis 74 - goes down as a sexy neutral site win for Oregon

status quo games:
@Xavier 63, Missouri 58 (OT)
@Michigan 79, Creighton 69
@Butler 64, Minnesota 56
@Cal 79, UNLV 75 (OT)

Pitt 71, @Robert Morris 57 - hey, any true road win has value
Auburn 70, @South Alabama 69 - and this is why.  Any road win is a quality win now
@Santa Clara 70, Washington St 62 - and this is really why
Miami 79, @UCF 70
Oklahoma 77, Oregon St 69 - neutral site win

moderately interesting mid-major related games:
Coppin St 76, @Loyola(Chi) 72 - the hell happened here?
@Tennessee 82, Murray St 63
@USC 84, South Dakota St 66

11/11 recap

Winthrop 61, @St Mary's 59 - wait, what?  A lot of goodwill from a road win at Wisconsin is gone with this (although if you had a choice of a split, you'd rather have the good win and bad loss, than a normal loss and normal win).

Is Winthrop in play?  Not really.  Schedule doesn't really give them a realistic chance to build a resume, and the Big South isn't good enough to support any kind of candidacy.

DePaul 93, @Iowa 78 - is DePaul finally good?  Probably not, but I don't know how to explain this one.

The rest of the schedule this day is pretty barren.

Monday, November 11, 2019

11/10 recap

Florida St 63, @Florida 51 - a signature road win.  More interested in what this does to Florida, as opportunities to get these back in the SEC are more limited than they are in the ACC.  These sting the resumes a bit

@Arizona 90, Illinois 69
Vermont 66, @Bucknell 63 - two road wins now for Vermont.  This helps the seed line


...actually there's not much going on for this day.

11/9 recap

Texas 70, @Purdue 66 - true road win for Texas.  These things matter on the resume
Nicholls St 75, @Pitt 70 - speaking of true road wins....no way to describe this other than catastrophic for Pitt, but I don't think they were going anywhere anyways
Southern Utah 79, @Nebraska 78 (2OT) - speaking of going nowhere...
San Diego St 76, @BYU 71 - this should hold up as a quality road win
Kansas St 60, @UNLV 56 (OT) - this one not as much, but still, road win
@Oregon St 80, Iowa St 74
Oklahoma 71, Minnesota 62 - looks like a neutral site win

Most of the other games are of the cupcake variety, or of the mid-major on mid-major variety.
Of note:
LaSalle beats Iona at home in OT
road wins for Delaware (>SIU), Wright St (>MiamiOH), UMass (>Fairfield), Middle Tennessee (>Lipscomb), Northern Iowa (>NIU), Western Michigan (>Milwaukee), South Dakota St (>CSUB).

Saturday, November 9, 2019

11/8 recap

Catastrophic losses of the day:
Merrimack 71, @Northwestern 61 - what the hell
@Furman 87, Loyola(Chi) 63 - MVC is a tire fire again

Pac-12:
@Colorado 81, Arizona St 71 - someone help me figure this out, does this count in the Pac-12 standings?

neutral site games:
Auburn 76, Davidson 66 - neutral site wins are always useful
Washington 67, Baylor 64 - hey, the Pac-12 isn't throwing up on itself this year!

Notables:
@Kansas 74, UNC Greensboro 62 - UNCG playing a relatively tight game
North Carolina 78, @UNC Wilmington 62 - notable because this goes down as a true road win for UNC
Vermont 61, @St Bonaventure 58 - true road win for the AEast faves
@Northeastern 84, Harvard 79 - yes a road loss, but not one Harvard could afford for any hope of an at-large
Illinois 83, @Grand Canyon 71 - road wins are never trivial

Thursday, November 7, 2019

11/7 recap

Not much happened.  Winthrop won a road game and it might be the most notable thing.  Rutgers barely beat Bryant at home, but that's Rutgers.  UAB got a road win at Troy, okay.  I got nothin' else today.

11/6 recap

ACC:
@North Carolina 76, Notre Dame 65
Virginia 48, @Syracuse 34 - goddammit Virginia
@Boston College 77, Wake Forest 70
@Pitt 63, Florida St 61

Signature wins:
@Ohio St 64, Cincinnati 56 - probably won't have as much impact as you'd hope, as this is a home win, but still
@Illinois St 79, Belmont 72 - this should hold some value.  And Belmont's at large hopes are gone really early this time around

Not a lot going on this night.  Plenty of service holds.

Wednesday, November 6, 2019

11/5 recap

Welcome to daily recaps!  A quick look at what games actually mattered.

Kentucky 69, Michigan St 62
Duke 68, Kansas 66 - you won't see me say too much on these heavyweight matchups.  Their impact is obvious.  Top teams playing for positioning on the 1 line.

ACC:
They're playing league games already.  20 game conference schedule now.
Louisville 87, @Miami 74
Virginia Tech 67, @Clemson 60
Georgia Tech 82, @NC State 81 (OT)


Signature wins:
St Mary's 65, @Wisconsin 63 (OT) - when you play in the WCC, signature win chances are scant.  Very important pickup, even if Wisky is down
Penn 81, @Alabama 70 - probably the most notable mid-major win of the day

Notable games:
Utah 79, @Nevada 74 - just to remind you that Nevada has receded
UC Riverside 66, @Nebraska 47 - well that's a dumb loss
Davenport 82, @Grand Canyon 73 - GCU was actually supposed to be good, I think
@Valparaiso 79, Toledo 77
@Northern Iowa 58, Old Dominion 53
@St Joseph's 86, Bradley 81
Little Rock 67, @Missouri St 66 - oops.  This was a weird opening night for the MVC
@Kansas St 67, North Dakota St 54 - this win should look better than people think


Most other games are of the service hold varieties, where better teams held home floor over early cupcakes.  We don't mention them in here.

Monday, November 4, 2019

Bracket PRESEASON

A more full post will follow tomorrow, but for one night, let's just absorb this seed list, shall we?

Things to remember:  I normally megaloathe preseason brackets.  I'm not a big fan.  I prefer to use actual information instead of conjecture, although I do have to use conjecture for the first month or so anyways.  So don't read much of anything into where I have a particular team.  It doesn't matter.

What DOES matter is the number of bids per conference.  This is indicative of what I think the strength of each conference is.  Look for trends, not for specific seeds of specific teams.

Season tomorrow.  Bracket tomorrow.  Seed list NOW.

The 1 line:  Michigan St, Duke, Kentucky, Louisville
The 2 line:  North Carolina, Kansas, Gonzaga, Villanova
The 3 line:  Maryland, Florida, Virginia, Memphis
The 4 line:  Oregon, Baylor, Ohio St, Seton Hall
The 5 line:  Texas Tech, LSU, Tennessee, Purdue
The 6 line:  Colorado, Arizona, Marquette, Cincinnati
The 7 line:  Iowa St, Michigan, St Mary's, VCU
The 8 line:  Houston, Xavier, Iowa, North Carolina St
The 9 line:  Utah St, Florida St, Texas, Auburn
The 10 line:  Wisconsin, Mississippi St, Creighton, Washington
The 11 line:  Wichita St, Davidson, San Diego St, Arizona St, Syracuse, Oklahoma St
The 12 line:  Missouri St, Harvard, Western Kentucky, Buffalo
The 13 line:  New Mexico St, Charleston, Belmont, East Tennessee St
The 14 line:  North Dakota St, Iona, UC-Irvine, Northern Kentucky
The 15 line:  Texas-Arlington, Liberty, Colgate, Vermont
The 16 line:  Radford, Weber St, LIU Brooklyn, Stephen F Austin, North Carolina Central, Grambling

Next 4 in:
Creighton
Washington
Wichita St
Davidson

Last 4 in:
San Diego St
Arizona St
Syracuse
Oklahoma St

Last 4 out:
Alabama
Notre Dame
Georgetown
Dayton

Next 4 out:
Indiana
USC
Miami
UConn

Break it down!:
ACC 7
B1G 7
SEC 6
Big 12 6
Big East 5
Pac-12 5
AAC 4
A-10 2
WCC 2
MWC 2