Tuesday, February 17, 2004

Perfect Record, Perfect Schedule

There's a growing sentiment across the country that St. Joe's non-conference schedule does not deserve the lofty ranking it is getting from the RPI (or just about any other objective system out there).

But consider this, of the Hawks 11 non-conference opponents, all of them have winning records entering Tuesday's play.

They're the only team in Division 1 that can claim this. Four other teams have just one non-winning team on their non-conference schedule, but they are all (Belmont, Austin Peay, Delaware State, The Citadel) from far lesser conferences than the Atlantic 10.

SJU non conference opponents and records

Gonzaga 21-2
Boston U. 19-4
Old Dominion 15-8
San Francisco 14-12
Penn 12-8
Boston College 17-8
Drexel 15-8
California 11-10
Pacific 16-7
Delaware 15-9
Villanova 12-9

Sunday, February 15, 2004

Bubble Analysis

A little bit of a shakeup this week, mainly due to the failures of 3 Big 10 teams...

(One question mark means you're in, but shaky. Two question marks means you're out, but can get in with a strong finish.)

ACC (7 teams in) – Duke, North Carolina St., Georgia Tech, Wake Forest, North Carolina, Florida St., Maryland. Everybody’s still safe, although NC St. and Duke are the only teams above .500 in conference. The Pack and Devils are a combined 18-1 against the rest of the league.

SEC (7) – Mississippi St., Kentucky, Florida, South Carolina, Alabama, LSU, Vanderbilt(?). Vandy has lost their last 5 on the road and present a weak portfolio unless they can pick up a road win in their remaining games against Alabama, Ole Miss and Georgia.

Big East (7) – Connecticut, Providence, Pittsburgh, Seton Hall, Syracuse, Boston College, Rutgers (?), Villanova(??). The ‘Nova loss to West Virginia puts them on the brink of not being mentioned. But they do play 4 tourney teams in their last 6 games, so there still is the chance for redemption.

Big 12 (5) – Kansas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma St., Texas, Oklahoma. Must…not…put...Missouri…back…on…the…bubble…

Big 10 (3) – Wisconsin, Michigan St., Illinois, Purdue(??), Indiana (??). The Big 10 has morphed into a three team league. Michigan had a horrible week with losses to Minnesota and Iowa. Indiana is on life support, but not dead yet.

Conference USA (5) – Louisville, Cincinnati, Charlotte, UAB, Memphis, DePaul(??). CUSA is almost as clear as the ACC. All 5 teams have done enough to get in. DePaul joins the list on a 5 game winning streak.

Atlantic 10 (3) – St Joseph’s, Dayton, Richmond (?), Xavier(??). Oh the home loss to Xavier hurt Richmond. Not only did it knock Richmond down a peg, it also brings the X-men into the discussion.

Pac 10 (2) – Stanford, Arizona. Oregon loses at Washington, and still has only 1 top 100 win.

Mountain West (3) – Air Force, Utah, BYU(?). BYU benefited because of bad basketball by the Big 10 bubble boys.

WAC (2) – Nevada (?), UTEP(?), Hawaii (??). UTEP was poised to take top WAC honors but then got schooled by Nevada. The team that wins the WAC regular season is in the best shape, with Nevada getting any tiebreakers due to the wins over Kansas and at UNLV.

44 bids are available from these 10 conferences, and I listed 50 teams. So that leaves 6 teams on the outside looking in.

Others: Gonzaga (a lock from the WCC), Southern Illinois (looking good from the MVC), Utah St. (Big West), Western Michigan (MAC). Utah State got the loss at Pacific on Saturday. It is not a horrible loss though, Pacific is 16-7, #76 in the RPI. Western Michigan was getting serious consideration until a loss at Marshall on Sunday. That is a bad loss, Marshall is 9-12, #146.

So here’s this week’s Doubting Dozen. The top six teams would be in, the bottom six are out. There's a pretty big drop-off between Utah State and Richmond. Gonzaga, Southern Illinois, and Utah State are assumed to get the automatic bid from their conference. But if they don’t the bubble divider gets moved up one team. The same applies if a team not listed from the 50 teams above gets one of their conference’s automatic bids. That means that while UTEP is listed as in, they would only get in under the ideal and unrealistic scenario that nothing stupid happens in conference tournaments.

1 Vanderbilt
(Utah St.)
2 Richmond
3 Nevada
4 Rutgers 
5 BYU
6 UTEP

---bubble divider---

(Western Michigan)
7 DePaul
8 Purdue
9 Hawaii 
10 Indiana 
11 Villanova
12 Xavier

Friday, February 13, 2004

Withering Away

Charlotte is quietly establishing themselves as a team to watch. They have as many road wins over top 50 teams than anyone in the nation (4, tied with Duke and Providence).