11/19 recap

Light day, but two signature wins lurk in the rundown below.

HoF Tipoff:
Duke 78, Penn St 68

Rhode Island 76, Cincinnati 71 - a quality neutral win, and a shot at Duke for URI.  Not the best look for Cincy in a fading AAC

Paradise Jam:

Washington St 87, Montana 63

Loyola(Chi) 78, Oral Roberts 53

others:

St Mary's 61, @Dayton 57 - this should be bolded, underlined, and everything.  A signature road win means everything to a team trapped in the WCC.  And this isn't the greatest for Dayton, but their resume will be okay

Texas Southern 77, @LaSalle 76 - that's 3 road wins for TSU already.  Worth noting

11/18 recap

Charleston Classic:
Villanova 96, Wake Forest 77
Central Florida 60, Charleston 40 - Nova/UCF final.  Man, this tourney sucks
UTEP 85, Western Michigan 75
Mississippi St 80, Boise St 68 - not good for the MWC

Tire Pros Invitational:
Xavier 83, Clemson 77
Northern Iowa 73, Oklahoma 67 (OT) - and UNI gets the signature win chance against Xavier
Davidson 70, Missouri 55 - at least Davidson might get 2 P5 wins out of this, although even that won't have much value
Arizona St 80, Tulane 71

Paradise Jam:
St Joseph's 71, Loyola(Chi) 57
Ole Miss 95, Oral Roberts 88 (OT)
Creighton 103, Washington St 77
North Carolina St 85, Montana 72 - results in these quarterfinals go as expected.  Creighton could pick up a decent win over NCSU, we'll see

2K Classic:
Pittsburgh 78, Marquette 75 - solid neutral court victory
Michigan 76, SMU 54 - some urgency for SMU coming up against Marquette.  AAC is down, need to grab as many wins as possible OOC

elsewhere:
USC 65, @Texas A&M 63 - road wins are never trivial
@Minnesota 92, St John's 86
@New Mexico 72, New Mexico St 59
@Nevada 83, Oregon St 58
North Carolina 83, @Hawaii 68 - road wins are never trivial

Non-conference tournaments, part I: pre-Thanksgiving

I'm doing posts to break down each exempt tournament in the non-conference.  This one will deal with the pre-Thanksgiving week ones.

Tire Pros Invitational:
Clemson vs. Davidson
Xavier vs. Missouri
Northern Iowa vs. Arizona St
Tulane vs. Oklahoma
The stakes:  A pretty solid tournament.  There's no signature wins, but the committee will pay attention to three-neutral site wins in a field like this.  Xavier and Oklahoma will have the pressure of probably being the best teams, while it's much more important for UNI and Davidson to pick off a few quality wins.  With a few marginal teams (see:  Tulane), it's important to get in the winners' bracket in this tournament.

Charleston Classic:
Western Michigan vs. Villanova
Wake Forest vs. UTEP
Mississippi St vs. Central Florida
Boise St vs. Charleston
The stakes: Villanova should roll.  For the other 7 teams, this is a freeroll chance to add a signature win over 'Nova.  It's tough to see a lot of value coming out of any other win in this tournament, but a couple of neutral site wins will have value.  Again, important to get in the winners' bracket, to better the chances of a win that will actually have impact.

2K Classic:
Pittsburgh vs. SMU
Michigan vs. Marquette
The stakes:  4 good teams who generally expect to be in the NCAA tournament.  0-2 isn't a disaster in this tournament, 2-0 means two quality neutral site wins.  The good news is everyone in this tourney is competent, so there's no mines to dodge.

Paradise Jam:
Loyola(Chi) vs. St Joseph's
Oral Roberts vs. Ole Miss
Montana vs. North Carolina St
Washington St vs. Creighton
The stakes:  Kind of a weird field.  Solid low-majors (Oral Bob, Montana), middling mid-majors, a couple marginal power conference teams, and Creighton.  Creighton is the favorite and might have to be more in a resume protection mode, as no single win in this field will carry a resume.  There's value in neutral court wins overall, but that's where the value stops in this tournament.

Hall of Fame Tip-Off:
Duke vs. Penn St
Cincinnati vs. Rhode Island
The stakes:  Cincy/URI is a sneaky good game between two probable tourney teams.  Duke will roll everyone in this tourney, though.

11/17 recap

Charleston Classic:
Villanova 76, Western Michigan 65
Wake Forest 103, UTEP 81
Central Florida 86, Mississippi St 61
Charleston 60, Boise St 47

Tire Pros Invitational:
Xavier 83, Missouri 82 (OT)
Clemson 95, Davidson 78 - the kind of swing game that the A-10 needs to win to make a step forward as a conference
Northern Iowa 82, Arizona St 63
Oklahoma 89, Tulane 70

2K Classic:
SMU 76, Pittsburgh 67 - this win has solid value
Michigan 79, Marquette 61

Regular 'ol games:
@Oregon 76, Valparaiso 54 - Valpo is good, this isn't a trivial win
@Louisville 88, Long Beach St 56 - good God, LBSU, stop doing this to yourself
Arkansas St 78, @Georgetown 72 - wat
Ohio St 72, Providence 67 - one power conference teams holds homecourt over the other.  Nothing to see here
Seton Hall 91, @Iowa 83 - road wins are never trivial; home losses aren't a good thing
@UConn 65, Loyola Marymount - road wins are never trivial, and good God did UConn need this

11/16 recap

@California 75, UC-Irvine 65 (OT) - UCI is a competent team, but it's still not a good sign for Cal
@Butler 70, Northwestern 68
Miami 94, @North Florida 56 - road wins are never trivial
@Illinois St 75, IPFW 57 - interesting in that the top teams in the Summit have spent most of the first week losing some big chances at good wins
@Wichita St 80, Tulsa 53
Lamar 63, @Oregon St 60 - oy

11/15 recap

Kansas 77, Duke 75 - I suppose it mattered more for Kansas to get a quality win on the board, but we won't know the impact of this win until March and we have a clearer idea of what the 1 line would look like
Kentucky 69, Michigan St 48 - Michigan St will need some quality wins at some point, but no reason to panic.  Margin of victory is important to a Kentucky team that will be light on quality wins because of the SEC

@Baylor 66, Oregon 49 - it's tough to win road games, I get it.  But these are the games 1 seeds in March win
@Creighton 79, Wisconsin 67 - again, it's tough to win road games.  I see this as Creighton holding serve as a solid tournament team for now
Dayton 77, @Alabama 72 - not good for the SEC; really good for Dayton
@South Carolina 70, Monmouth 69 (OT) - I still think Monmouth will be good but man, this really deflates the party early on
Maryland 76, @Georgetown 75 - quality road win for Maryland.  Not the most crushing loss for GU, but it does remove some margin of error on the bubble

We're slowly starting to see other teams ramp up....Penn St beats a decent Grand Canyon team at home....Florida St over Iona at home...Middle Tennessee over Murray St at home...K-State over Omaha...VCU played a roadie at Liberty for some reason and won...Vandy over Belmont.

11/14 recap

Villanova 79, @Purdue 76 - these road wins matter when you're arguing for a 1 seed in March.  Quality win, and a no-harm loss for Purdue
@Gonzaga 69, San Diego St 48 - SDSU can still be fine, but this isn't a good look for the resume.  Important win for Gonzaga to establish at-large credentials before entering league play
@Cincinnati 74, Albany 51 - huh, didn't see this MOV coming
New Hampshire 57, @Temple 52 - not optimal for the American
Northeastern 64, @UConn 61 - and REALLY not optimal for the American
Furman 84, @UAB 74 - that's the CUSA favorites losing at home to Furman, not a good look for CUSA
@Ohio St 69, North Carolina Central 63 - about as close as I expected
@BYU 82, Princeton 73 - this could count as a quality win in March