1/30 recap

Nebraska 60, Indiana 55 - go home, Big 10, you're drunk
Michigan 75, Purdue 66

UCLA 70, Oregon 68 - Oregon's in trouble...
Oregon St 76, USC 75 (OT)

Cincinnati 69, Louisville 66 - UL should have concern for their seed; it's tenuous at best.  as for Cincy, now they're in serious business
UConn 80, Houston 43

Marquette 61, Providence 50 - gotta start getting these, Provi

Florida 62, Mississippi St 51 - token road win
Auburn 74, Alabama 55

San Diego 61, St Mary's 43 - sigh
BYU 88, Pacific 78

UTEP 89, Louisiana Tech 79 - any loss is bad at this stage
Davidson 94, Chattanooga 51 - first SoCon loss for UT-C; Davidson 0.5 back
Canisius 86, Quinnipiac 74 - your MAAC leader binking a road win
Robert Morris 79, Bryant 76 - 7-0 in the NEC
Utah Valley 67, Texas-Pan American 53 - 7-0 in the WAC
North Dakota St 66, South Dakota 63 - NDSU might be worth a courtesy look with the bubble struggles as of late
Weber St 76, Northern Arizona 67 - at 8-1 and 1-up in the Big Sky, thanks to a N. Colo loss
Stephen F Austin 64, Abilene Christian 48 - at 8-0 in the Southland


Friday:  the first Ivy Friday of the season!  Princeton at Harvard, early chance for a hammer to end the race before it starts.

1/29 recap

Penn St 71, Ohio St 70 (OT) - the hell, OSU?
Northwestern 65, Wisconsin 56 - all of a sudden, the B1G is a mess in the midsection

Kansas 92, Iowa St 81 - Kansas is charging up the board

Arizona 60, Stanford 57 - Arizona is now building up equity; might retain #1 on the S-Curve even with a loss at this point
Arizona St 89, Cal 78 (OT) - a quality road win for ASU; some doubt again in Cal

Syracuse 67, Wake Forest 57
NC State 74, Florida St 70 - don't want to do this too often, FSU
North Carolina 78, Georgia Tech 65 - every road win is a big win here
Boston College 76, Virginia Tech 52
Maryland 74, Miami 71

St Louis 77, Richmond 57 - well, the Richmond run is stunted a bit
St Bonaventure 78, UMass 65 - UMass is starting to bleed away a couple road games; starting to bleed away seeding lines now
St Joseph's 60, Dayton 57 - Dayton is cooked
George Washington 69, LaSalle 47
VCU 76, Fordham 60

Tennessee 86, Ole Miss 70 - whatever, SEC
Vanderbilt 59, Georgia 54
South Carolina 80, Texas A&M 52

Butler 64, Seton Hall 57


Memphis 69, UCF 59
Temple 88, Rutgers 82

Boise St 69, Air Force 58
Fresno St 67, Wyoming 62 - probably ends Wyoming's courtesy look at the bubble
UNLV 70, San Jose St 46
Nevada 76, Colorado St 67

Southern Illinois 79, Indiana St 60 - what?!

Gonzaga 54, Santa Clara 52 - road win
San Francisco 84, Portland 71 - on solo 3rd in the WCC

Delaware 89, William & Mary 72 - UD is 2.5 clear of everyone in the CAA
Albany 77, Stony Brook 67 - Stony and Vermont on 7-1 in the AEast
over in the MAC, Akron and Toledo continue to co-lead, on 6-1
American to 9-0 in the Patriot
Valparaiso 75, Green Bay 60 - first blemish on Green Bay's Horizon resume
Belmont 76, Morehead St 73 - quality road win



Thursday:
Florida at Mississippi St - with the eligibility change, worth paying attention to.  an improved Florida can solidify the 1 line case
Cincinnati at Louisville - let's find out how good Cincy is
Providence at Marquette - bubble teams win this game, Provi
UCLA at Oregon - Oregon needs to end this slide NOW
There's a bunch of low-major stuff to pay attention to once we get the results as well

1/28 recap

Result of the night:
Michigan St 71, Iowa 69 (OT) - signature road win without some of your best players - good way to stay on the 2 line (or get back to the 1 line).  as for Iowa, this is the kind of thing that prevents you from getting to the 2 line

West Virginia 66, Baylor 64 - catastrophic home loss.  this is the cliff's edge, Baylor
Kansas St 66, Texas Tech 58

South Florida 78, SMU 71 - and there's the first road hiccup for SMU.  the first one isn't the one that hurts, usually.  it's the ones after it.  one is excusable

Missouri 75, Arkansas 71 - Mizzou road win in a tough place; Mizzou solidifying as the SEC #3 option.  Arkansas in trouble, but then again, the whole SEC is
LSU 87, Kentucky 82 - speaking of lol SEC, LSU makes up some lost ground.  UK in trouble for a protected seed; they've got to win these games

Creighton 63, St John's 60 - lost chance for St John's to get a magic elixir back to the bubble race

Virginia 68, Notre Dame 53 - road win.  UVA acting like a legit team

New Mexico 78, Utah St 65 - road win in one of the spots I would've figured was a trouble spot for UNM.    important to win these games

Wichita St 57, Loyola(Chi) 45

Wednesday:
Richmond at St Louis - Richmond is trying to make a big run on the outside through the bubble
Ole Miss at Tennessee - screw you, SEC
Arizona at Stanford - signature win chance beckons
Syracuse at Wake Forest - WF's (perhaps) last chance to really get into the bubble convo
Iowa St at Kansas - another day in the Big 12
Florida St at NC State - FSU, bubble teams get these games.  NC State, off-the-bubble teams get games like these to sneak into the convo
Arizona St at Cal - useful for pecking order reasons

S-Curve 1/27

Bracket note:  note that 5 teams are listed on the 11 line and on the 12 line.  The last 4 in straddles the 11/12 lines, one play in game feeds to an 11 seed and the other to the 12 seed.


The 1 line:  Arizona (20-0), Syracuse (19-0), Wichita St (20-0), Florida (17-2)
The 2 line:  Michigan St (18-2), San Diego St (16-1), Kansas (15-4), Villanova (17-2)
The 3 line:  Wisconsin (17-3), Oklahoma St (16-3), Iowa St (15-3), Michigan (15-4)
The 4 line:  Creighton (17-3), Kentucky (15-4), Louisville (17-3), Duke (16-4)
The 5 line:  UMass (17-2), Iowa (15-4), Cincinnati (19-2), Pittsburgh (18-2)
The 6 line:  Oklahoma (16-4), UCLA (16-4), Virginia (15-5), Ohio St (16-4)
The 7 line:  Memphis (14-4), VCU (16-4), St Louis (17-2), UConn (16-4)
The 8 line:  Gonzaga (17-3), Texas (16-4), Xavier (14-5), Florida St (13-6)
The 9 line:  Kansas St (14-6), New Mexico (15-4), Minnesota (14-6), G. Washington (16-3)
The 10 line:  Colorado (15-6), Oregon (14-5), North Carolina (12-7), Baylor (11-6)
The 11 line:  California (14-6), SMU (16-4), Missouri (15-4), Providence (15-5), Tennessee (11-7)
The 12 line:  Arizona St (15-5), Stanford (13-6), Southern Miss (16-3), Harvard (14-3), Toledo (16-2)
The 13 line:  Green Bay (14-3), Mercer (14-5), Belmont (15-7), Delaware (14-7)
The 14 line:  Canisius (14-6), Northern Colorado (11-4), Stephen F Austin (16-2), Georgia St (12-6)
The 15 line:  North Carolina Central (11-5), American (12-7), IPFW (13-6), UC Irvine (11-8)
The 16 line:  Stony Brook (14-6), Utah Valley (10-7), Robert Morris (11-10), Chattanooga (11-8), UNC Asheville (7-10), Southern (7-10)

(* represents a team who's in the field as an autobid; I am representing their place on the S-Curve relative to the at-large teams)

Last 4 out:
Arkansas (13-6)
*Southern Miss
Richmond (14-6)
Dayton (13-7)
*Harvard
St Mary's (15-5)

Next 4 out:
Indiana St (14-4)
LSU (12-6)
*Toledo
Ole Miss (14-5)
Boise St (12-6)

Consideration board:
Indiana (13-7), Illinois (13-8), Utah (12-6), Georgetown (11-8), Clemson (13-6), BYU (12-9), Ohio (13-5), Louisiana Tech (16-4), *Green Bay

The coming-from-the-outside group:
It's a late January tradition of mine - I list a group of teams clearly off the bubble pace.  Every single year, without exception, there's a team that makes a mad run to the bubble.

One of the teams listed below is getting an at-large bid in March.  Who?  I have no idea.  But there's always a team that makes a run.

Purdue (13-7), Washington (13-8), Marquette (11-9), St John's (12-8), Seton Hall (12-8), Butler (10-9), Maryland (10-9), Wake Forest (14-6), NC State (13-7), Notre Dame (11-9), St Joseph's (13-6),  LaSalle (11-8), UNLV (13-7), Utah St (11-7), Wyoming (11-6), Missouri St (13-6), North Dakota St (12-5), New Mexico St (14-7), *Mercer, *Belmont

1/27 recap

Duke 80, Pittsburgh 65 - quality road win for the resume
Oklahoma 88, Oklahoma St 76 - home holds serve; tough to fault OSU, but the top 2 lines are slipping away for them
Villanova 65, Georgetown 60 - every road win matters

Southern 68, Alabama St 55 - SU in relative control of the SWAC
NC Central 53, Morgan St 52 - NCCU in relative control of the MEAC.  Norfolk St beats Savannah St on the road, those two trail by one in the loss column

Tuesday
Michigan St at Iowa, Missouri at Arkansas, Kentucky at LSU among others

1/27 bracket and thoughts

This is probably the last week where I can definitely say there's expectation bias still in the bracket (i.e., a bit of projecting forward).  We're pretty close to the full conversion process where the bracket is 100% about previous results.  There's still a hair of projection (especially on the 4 line) for now.

Analysis!
1) The race on the top 2 lines are tricky.  Kansas is quicky building a signature resume; only problem is they lost to 2 teams directly ahead of them on the S-Curve:  Florida and SDSU.  They're kind of landlocked right now.  The beneficiary is Wichita St, who is a bit clear of that gaggle.
2) The race to the protected seeds and to avoid getting shipped west is underway.  For example, this time, Duke, despite being a protected seed, loses out on Raleigh and gets shipped to San Diego instead.
3) The 3 line is where the most volatility is.  I'm still kind of waiting to see if Okla St or Iowa St can distinguish themselves in the Big 12.  It's likely that 3 line will have the American winner, B1G runner up, Big 12 runner up, and a wildcard.
4) UMass is a team I wanted to find room for on the 4 line, but still can't.  I still think the eye test has some value with the committee, and those four teams on the 4 line all have it.
5) A bit deeper, look at the Pac-12.  All their seeds after Arizona are 6, 10, 10, 11, 12, 12, and falling.  That probably rectifies itself eventually.
6) Meanwhile, in the B1G, we have a clear top 6, and I'm beginning to think we're not going to have a bubble in that conference behind them.
7) Right now, I've got 7 Big 12 teams.  Still think that reduces to 6 by March, but still not confident on who it would be.
8) The SEC is terrible.


WEST
@San Diego
1) Arizona (20-0) vs. 16) Utah Valley (10-7)
8) Gonzaga (17-3) vs. 9) Kansas St (14-6)
@Spokane
4) Creighton (17-3) vs. 13) Green Bay (14-3)
5) UMass (17-2) vs. 12) SMU (16-4)
@Raleigh
3) Michigan (15-4) vs. 14) Georgia St (12-6)
6) Oklahoma (16-4) vs. 11) Missouri (15-4)
@Spokane
2) San Diego St (16-1) vs. 15) UC Irvine (11-8)
7) UConn (16-4) vs. 10) North Carolina (12-7)

MIDWEST
@Orlando
1) Florida (17-2) vs. 16) Stony Brook (14-6)
8) Xavier (14-5) vs. 9) New Mexico (15-4)
@San Diego
4) Duke (16-4) vs. 13) Delaware (14-7)
5) Cincinnati (19-2) vs. 12) Toledo (16-2)
@San Antonio
3) Oklahoma St (16-3) vs. 14) Northern Colorado (11-4)
6) UCLA (16-4) vs. 11) Southern Miss (16-3)
@Milwaukee
2) Michigan St (18-2) vs. 15) IPFW (13-6)
7) St Louis (17-2) vs. 10) Baylor (11-6)

SOUTH
@St Louis
1) Wichita St (20-0) vs. 16) Chattanooga (11-8)/Southern (7-10)
8) Florida St (13-6) vs. 9) Minnesota (14-6)
@Orlando
4) Louisville (17-3) vs. 13) Belmont (15-7)
5) Pittsburgh (18-2) vs. 12) Harvard (14-3)
@Milwaukee
3) Wisconsin (17-3) vs. 14) Canisius (14-6)
6) Virginia (15-5) vs. 11) Tennessee (11-7)/Arizona St (15-5)
@St Louis
2) Kansas (15-4) vs. 15) North Carolina Central (11-5)
7) VCU (16-4) vs. 10) Colorado (15-6)

EAST
@Buffalo
1) Syracuse (19-0) vs. 16) Robert Morris (11-10)/UNC Asheville (7-10)
8) Texas (16-4) vs. 9) George Washington (16-3)
@Raleigh
4) Kentucky (15-4) vs. 13) Mercer (14-5)
5) Iowa (15-4) vs. 12) Providence (15-5)/Stanford (13-6)
@San Antonio
3) Iowa St (15-3) vs. 14) Stephen F Austin (16-2)
6) Ohio St (16-4) vs. 11) California (14-6)
@Buffalo
2) Villanova (17-2) vs. 15) American (12-7)
7) Memphis (14-4) vs. 10) Oregon (14-5)

Procedural bumps:
Providence from 11 to 12
Arizona St from 12 to a 11
SMU from 11 to 12
Southern Miss from 12 to 11


Break it down!
Big 12 7
Pac 12 7
B1G 6
ACC 6
American 5
A-10 4
SEC 4
Big East 4
MW 2

1/26 recap

Stanford 79, USC 71 (OT) - a road win Stanford needed
Nebraska 82, Minnesota 78 - and the opposite of what Stanford did:  marginal road loss
Oregon 71, Washington St 44 - any win is a good win at this stage for Oregon
Arizona 65, Utah 56
UCLA 76, Cal 64 - no real sin for Cal to lose on the road
North Carolina 80, Clemson 61
Indiana 56, Illinois 46
SMU 75, Houston 68 - road win; and SMU is winning all the games it should
Harvard 80, Dartmouth 50
Cincinnati 80, Temple 76
UMass 90, Fordham 52
NC State 80, Georgia Tech 78 (OT)
Memphis 80, USF 58

Monday preview:
Duke at Pittsburgh - let's see how good Pitt really is
Villanova at Georgetown - probably the last chance saloon for G'town
Oklahoma St at Oklahoma - just another day in the Big 12