Tuesday, December 17, 2013

12/17 recap

Cincinnati 44, Pittsburgh 43 - Wait, is this after 20 minutes or 40?  And this was a neutral site game, don't think I identified it proper yesterday
Florida St 106, Charlotte 62 - Ok, Charlotte, if you're a real contender for the NCAA tournament, you don't get blown out in this game.  A nice token win for FSU
Manhattan 86, South Carolina 68 - Today's installment of The SEC Is Terrible
Wake Forest 77, St Bonaventure 62 - Frankly, I'm shocked Wake held serve at home
Washington 73, Tulane 62 - This is a road win for UW
Toledo 78, Arkansas St 65 - Road win, 10-0
Louisville 90, Missouri St 60 - The MVC is down, folks
Wichita St 72, Alabama 67 - Except for this team.  Road win.  By the way, there's no reason they can't have the same type of resume Gonzaga had last year, which got the Zags to the 1 line.  Of course, the 1 seeds were weaker last year than typical as well.  But it's time to start having the conversation
New Mexico St 67, New Mexico 61 - And speaking of down, time to worry a bit about the MWC.  And I'm officially wrong about NMSU
Florida 77, Memphis 75 - And the game of the night is little impact on the bracket.  Both teams solidly in the field anyways, both teams have many similar games upcoming, this is one data point of several.  Both teams will be fine
Denver 90, Belmont 62 - Back to back road losses cool the Belmont at-large train a bit.  But it's still rolling.  Committee will forgive these road losses if they hold serve at home and beat the bad teams on the road, because that win @UNC and @MTSU will have shelf life.  But they gave back a fair bit of the margin for error with this one

Wednesday preview:
Texas at North Carolina - Put up or shut up time for Texas.  And UNC needs to start holding serve over decent teams with some regularity
Massachusetts at Ohio - A legitimate road test.  This is completely a house money situation for UMass at this point, the goodwill they've built up is massive.  As for Ohio, they need it for any kind of at-large viability
North Carolina St at Tennessee - Simply a must-win for Tennessee
Drexel at St Joseph's - Drexel still lingering around the at-large discussion for me
Southern Miss at Western Kentucky - Mandatory for S. Miss
Indiana St at St Louis - Redemption chance for ISU
Stanford at UConn - UConn should hold serve, they have less margin for error playing in the AAC
LSU at Texas Tech - Mandatory for both

No comments: