11/24 recap

I'm behind.  So sue me.

Battle 4 Atlantis:
Louisville 62, Wichita St 52
Baylor 73, Michigan St 58 - it's tough to get a read on the value of a win over Izzo given their murderous schedule so far.  For now, we can still assume it's a signature win, and Baylor's resume has some speed now
VCU 75, St John's 69
LSU 66, Old Dominion 60

Las Vegas Inv.:
Arizona 69, Santa Clara 61
Butler 76, Vanderbilt 66 - Butler gets the signature win chance tomorrow

Advocare Inv:
Gonzaga 82, Quinnipiac 62
Iowa St 73, Indiana St 71
Miami 67, Stanford 53
Florida 81, Seton Hall 76 - the 4 best teams probably won in the quarterfinals here, so the winners are going to get 2 reasonably valuable games.  It's nice when things work out like this

Wooden Legacy:
UCLA 99, Portland 77
Texas A&M 95, Cal St-Northridge 73
Virginia Tech 92, New Mexico 72 - a pretty positive sign that VaTech is moving in the right direction, and a really bad sign for UNM and the Mountain West in general
Nebraska 80, Dayton 78 - oops, for Dayton, and a very important win for Nebraska.  NU gets two shots at quality wins, and Dayton is now trapped on the side of the bracket with absolutely zero resume impact.  All of a sudden, Dayton's resume is going to look a lot lighter than it should.  Could be the most damaging loss of the day right here

NIT:
West Virginia 89, Illinois 57
Temple 89, Florida St 86 - disaster for FSU, as Temple was off to a pretty bad start.  Now not getting a shot at WVU either, which is a modest hit to the SoS

Great Alaska Shootout:
Iona 64, Drake 53
Weber St 86, UC Davis 58

elsewhere:
@Binghamton 72, Long Beach St 64 - just pointing this out, LBSU has played a brutal non-con this year, but another road game, this time at a minnow, and another loss.  So tough to figure out if this means LBSU is plain bad or if this is just wear and tear

11/23 recap

Maui:
North Carolina 71, Wisconsin 56 - UNC with an early statement for the 1 line
Oklahoma St 97, Georgetown 70
Oregon 79, UConn 69
Tennessee 95, Chaminade 81 - outside of a GU>OU upset, Maui goes according to form

Battle 4 Atlantis:
Louisville 68, Old Dominion 62 (OT) - near disaster for everyone involved
Baylor 71, VCU 63 - Baylor wins the mega-important swing game and VCU is trapped on the wrong end of the bracket
Michigan St 73, St John's 62
Wichita St 82, LSU 47

Charleston Classic:
Villanova 63, Charleston 47

Cancun:
Purdue 96, Auburn 71

Gulf Coast Showcase:
Kent St 66, Wofford 59
George Mason 77, Bradley 66
Hofstra 65, South Dakota 57
Houston 72, Vermont 71 - 3 neutral court wins for Houston, we'll see if it matters down the road

MGM Grand Main Event:
Alabama 62, St Louis 57
Valparaiso 92, BYU 89 - words can't describe how big this is for Valpo, the team is light on resume building chances

Great Alaska Shootout:
Buffalo 85, Alaska-Anchorage 79
Nevada 82, Oakland 78

elsewhere:
@South Carolina 61, Michigan 46 - the lesson, as always:  road win are tough to get

Non-conference tournaments, part III: Thanksgiving

Battle 4 Atlantis:
VCU vs. Baylor
Michigan St vs. St John's
Wichita St vs. LSU
Louisville vs. Old Dominion
The stakes:  Michigan St and Louisville are the two best teams, and it would be a stark failure for either to reach the final.  Signature win chance looms in the final, though.

VCU/Baylor is one heck of a swing game.  Winner gets Michigan St and a probable chance at Wichita.  Loser gets trapped in a bracket with St John's, LSU, and ODU.  Biiiiiig difference.  Resume-defining difference.  That game is for the world for both teams.

Wichita will be looking just to beat LSU and take their two chances at quality wins.  Everyone else would do real good just to not be in the losers' bracket.

Great Alaska Shootout:
Buffalo vs. Alaska-Anchorage
Oakland vs. Nevada
UC Davis vs. Weber St
Drake vs. Iona
The stakes:  Rough downgrade for the GAS, no one in here represents a signature win chance.  Still, as I've mentioned, neutral court wins have value, and someone's getting 3 of them.  I think Nevada is closest to the at-large board, but this should be a wide-open tournament.

Advocare Invitational:
Indiana St vs. Iowa St
Stanford vs. Miami
Gonzaga vs. Quinnipiac
Seton Hall vs. Florida
The stakes:  Here's a tournament that represents what can go right or wrong in a tournament.  Gonzaga represents a signature win chance...Miami, Iowa St, Stanford, Florida could all vary from great opponents to non-NCAA opponents...and there's a landmine in Indiana St and Quinnipiac.  All you can do if you're any of these teams is win and hope.  If you're Gonzaga, hope you win and then the SHU/UF winner turns out to be good.  Same for Iowa St and Stanford/Miami.  There's a lot of hope that the next team you line up against ends up being good.  Every year there's a tournament where the losers bracket ends up with a really good team, and the winner of the tournament doesn't even get a quality win out of the tourney.  This feels like that tournament to me this year.

NIT:
Temple vs. Florida St
Illinois vs. West Virginia
The stakes:  Given that Temple and Illinois appear to be poop, it's mega-important for FSU and WVU to hold serve, and then take their chance at a quality win.

Wooden Legacy:
Texas A&M vs. Cal St-Northridge
New Mexico vs. Virginia Tech
Dayton vs. Nebraska
Portland vs. UCLA
The stakes:  For teams like VaTech and New Mexico, a very important first game to get on the bracket side with A&M and UCLA.  Loser gets trapped.  Same with Dayton/Nebraska, but Dayton should win that.  Other than that, this will be all about which teams can't hold serve.

Las Vegas Invitational:
Vanderbilt vs. Butler
Arizona vs. Santa Clara
The stakes:  Vandy/Butler is clear.  One chance at a good win and a house money chance against Arizona.  Simple stakes.

Emerald Coast Classic:
Virginia vs. Iowa
Memphis vs. Providence
The stakes:  Nothing special.  Chances at quality wins, nothing resume-defining in this tourney unless someone beats Virginia.

Barclays Center Classic:
Maryland vs. Richmond
Kansas St vs. Boston College
The stakes:  If Maryland doesn't win, something will have gone horribly wrong.

Savannah Invitational:
Mercer vs. East Carolina
Akron vs. Air Force
The stakes:  Likely no bracket impact, but a couple decent neutral court wins are available here, and it may be worth a seed line for a conference champ in March.

Global Sports Classic:
Washington vs. Western Kentucky
TCU vs. UNLV
The stakes:  Meh.  Washington should handle this.

11/22 recap

Maui:
North Carolina 107, Oklahoma St 75
Wisconsin 73, Georgetown 57 - Wisky/UNC is a pretty nice game, albeit optional for both schools' case at a 1 seed.  G'town/OSU is much more interesting from a bubble perspective
Oregon 69, Tennessee 65 (OT)
UConn 93, Chaminade 82

Legends Classic:
Colorado 68, Texas 54 - UT takes the damaging 0-2 here
Notre Dame 70, Northwestern 66 - and ND leaves with 2 quality neutral wins

CBE HoF Classic:
Kansas 65, Georgia 54
UAB 81, George Washington 74

Cancun Challenge:
Pudue 85, Utah St 64
Auburn 67, Texas Tech 65

Gulf Coast Showcase:
Bradley 70, Wofford 62
George Mason 79, Kent St 75
Vermont 87, Hofstra 73
Houston 85, South Dakota 58 - Houston/Vermont for this title, probably the best 2 teams in the field already

elsewhere:
@Fort Wayne 71, Indiana 68 - and with that, no power conference team will ever play a road game ever again.  In all seriousness, as long as IPFW lives up to their Summit League favorites status, Indiana won't be hurt by this.  Road losses happen.  The real trick will be IPFW turning this into an at-large resume moment
@Pittsburgh 75, Yale 70
Holy Cross 63, @Harvard 52 - notable as the Ivy favorites aren't supposed to lose this kind of home game
@Minnesota 85, Arkansas 71
@Tulsa 75, Oregon St 64
@Washington 94, Long Beach St 88

11/21 recap

Maui:
Georgetown 65, Oregon 61 - disaster for Oregon, not for the loss, but because all the other top teams are on the other half of the bracket and will miss all the big teams in the tourney
Wisconsin 74, Tennessee 62
North Carolina 104, Chaminade 61
Oklahoma St 98, UConn 90

CBE HoF Classic:
Kansas 83, UAB 63
Georgia 81, George Washington 73 - important chance against Kansas coming up

Paradise Jam:
Creighton 86, Ole Miss 77 - not bad for Creighton, and really okay for Ole Miss too who got out of this one with 2 wins
Montana 68, Oral Roberts 47
Loyola(Chi) 88, Washington St 79
NC State 73, St Joseph's 63 - NC State doesn't come out too bad here, loss to Creighton will be forgivable in March

Legends Classic:
Northwestern 77, Texas 58 - the type of win that will matter in March
Notre Dame 89, Colorado 73 - ditto

Gulf Coast:
Vermont 60, Wofford 59
Hofstra 92, Bradley 90
South Dakota 80, Kent St 77
Houston 93, George Mason 56

MGM Grand Main Event:
BYU 92, St Louis 62
Valparaiso 68, Alabama 60 - so important for Valpo just to get to BYU instead of St Louis, big big deal for the at-large resume

elsewhere:
@TCU 80, Illinois St 71 - time to eject on the MVC again
Texas Southern 67, @James Madison 56 - um, that's 4 road wins already for TSU
Winthrop 84, @Illinois 80 (OT) - uh
@San Diego St 77, California 65 - the result of the day.  This will be a very important win fo SDSU, especially since it's a roadie

Non-conference tournaments, part II: early Thanksgiving week

Covers pre-Thanksgiving day tourneys.

Maui:

Tennessee vs. Wisconsin

Georgetown vs. Oregon

Oklahoma St vs. UConn

North Carolina vs. Chaminade

The stakes:  Lower than most years.  UNC kind of catches a bad break, as Chaminade ain't helping anyone's resume, UConn is in the tank, and OkState is okay but not a top team.  UNC will likely acquire several wins better than any semifinal could offer.

However, Oregon/UNC would be a prime matchup, and one that Oregon might need to make an argument for the 1 line.  Pac-12 has a minor perception problem where they're not considered as often for the 1 line.  Oregon winning three times with wins over Wisky and UNC would be a game-changer.

Wisky/Oregon would be a pretty sexy semifinal.  Each of these 4 games has a clear favorite, so we'll see if anyone gets out of line here.

Legends Classic:

Notre Dame vs. Colorado
Texas vs. Northwestern

The stakes:  4 teams in various states of bubble.  Each of the 4 likely expecting to be NCAA tourney teams, all have modest-to-good chances to get there.  Going 0-2 here would be damaging, 2-0 would be very solid.  This tournament analyzes itself, doesn't it?

Men Who Speak Up Main Event:

St Louis vs. BYU

Alabama vs. Valparaiso

The stakes:  Valpo is going to be a mid-major darling.  They'll get mentioned on at-large boards.  This means, right here, neutral site for 2 games....gotta win both.  To give themselves a realistic shot at an at-large, must win 2 neutral site games over a decent Bama team and a decent BYU team.  Valpo should absolutely root to play BYU, by the way.  Quality win chance trumps easier road to the tourney title.

CBE HoF Classic:
George Washington vs. Georgia

UAB vs. Kansas

The stakes:  Kind of a meh tourney for Kansas.  We can move on.  Georgia gets a signature win chance they need if they beat GW, but let's be real.

Cancun Classic:
Texas Tech vs. Auburn

Purdue vs. Utah St

The stakes:  Purdue seems to be a pretty sizable favorite, anything less than 2-0 is a disaster.  Auburn and TTU, if you're serious about the NCAAs this year, you have to beat the other.

Gulf Coast Showcase:

Vermont vs. Wofford

Hofstra vs. Bradley

Kent St vs. South Dakota

Houston vs. George Mason

The stakes:  Um.  Yeah.  Nothing to see here.  Well, almost nothing.  If a team like Vermont wins AEast, having a few neutral site wins like these might be worth a seed line.  Applies to Wofford and the SoCon too.  Other than that, pass.

11/20 recap

HoF Tipoff:
Duke 75, Rhode Island 64 - no harm, no foul to URI, a good neutral site win for Duke
Cincinnati 71, Penn St 50

Charleston Classic:
Villanova 67, Central Florida 57 - it's going to be tough for this tourney to hold any resume value for Nova (given they're worried more about the 1 line than anything else)
Boise St 91, Western Michigan 70
Mississippi St 61, UTEP 54 - these results don't help the perception of CUSA
Wake Forest 78, Charleston 61

Tire Pros Inv'l:
Xavier 67, Northern Iowa 59 - Xavier leaves with 3 neutral site wins, which is more valuable than you think
Oklahoma 70, Clemson 64 - Clemson didn't lose a bad game, but 1-2 hurts; more pressure in conference play to get quality wins
Missouri 67, Tulane 62
Davidson 68, Arizona St 60 - headline writers say "Davidson stuns Arizona St".  What.  What idiots

Paradise Jam:
Creighton 112, NC State 94 - and Creighton gets the tourney win and valuable neutral site wins here
Ole Miss 81, St Joseph's 68

elsewhere:
@Virginia 62, Yale 38
@Michigan St 78, FGCU 77 - oy
@UCLA 114, Long Beach 77 - LBSU death march continues
@Stanford 56, Colorado St 49
@Arkansas St 73, Chattanooga 67 - and that's the road loss that actually hurts.  Chattanooga had a great start to the year and this happens