I’ll update this as more tournaments are decided but I wanted to reprise my post from three years ago defensing the honor of conference tournaments. You can go to that link for the explanation, but the case boils down to the idea that the regular season, too, is an imperfect way to determine the best […]

Here’s a viewer’s guide to the Mountain West title game between New Mexico and UNLV which tips off shortly after 6 PM ET on CBS. Both teams rely on a very good defense (UNLV 9th overall, New Mexico 13th) which defends the paint well. And both defenses carry less-than-stellar offenses. In UNLV’s case the offense […]

When Michael Lyons got injured for Air Force in the second minute of their quarterfinal game with UNLV yesterday, he joined a rare club – the guys who start but don’t play more than two minutes in the game. According to my database, there were about 60 such cases involving Division I players this season. […]

March 14-17 at Greensboro, N.C. All-kenpom: Mason Plumlee, Duke (kPOY); Joe Harris, Virginia; Akil Mitchell, Virginia; Kenny Kadji, Miami; Quinn Cook, Duke. I haven’t applied any home-court advantage to this analysis, but it figures that Duke, UNC, and N.C. State benefit more than Miami and Virginia from playing at Greensboro. I take issue with the […]

March 14-17 at Chicago All-kenpom: Cody Zeller, Indiana (kPOY); Trey Burke, Michigan; Deshaun Thomas, Ohio State; Victor Oladipo, Indiana; Jared Berggren, Wisconsin. Big Ten teams get one more shot at beating each other up before they are set free to pummel the country’s other teams. I’m a little surprised nobody has mentioned that it will […]

March 14-16 at Chicago State. All-kenpom: Chris Flores, NJIT (kPOY); Ben Aird, Utah Valley; Art Bernardi, Houston Baptist; Brandon Provost, UT Pan American; Nick Thompson, Utah Valley. Realignment has taken many great rivalries from us, but none more memorable than Utah Valley and Houston Baptist. The two will lock up in the play-in of the […]

March 14-17. All games at Brooklyn, N.Y. All-kenpom: Dwayne Evans, Saint Louis (kPOY); Khalif Wyatt, Temple; Treveon Graham, VCU; Ramon Galloway, La Salle; Juvonte Reddic, VCU. Dayton has to be among the best 12-seeds in a conference tournament. Keep in mind the A-10 has 16 teams, and there isn’t usually going to be much difference […]

March 13-16 at Nashville, Tenn. All-kenpom: Patric Young, Florida (kPOY); Erik Murphy, Florida; Kenny Boynton, Florida; Mike Rosario, Florida; Scottie Wilbekin, Florida. Florida hacked the kPOY formula by its scoring-margin domination of the conference, but seriously, you find a player on another team that put up decent numbers. (The real all-SEC team, all seven players […]

March 14-16 at Montana All-kenpom: Davion Berry, Weber State (kPOY); Kareem Jamar, Montana; Kyle Tresnak, Weber State; Scott Bamforth, Weber State; Joel Bolomboy, Weber State. Montana and Weber State have combined to go 64-2 against other Big Sky foes the last two seasons. It shouldn’t be a surprise then that these two teams account for […]

March 13-16 at Katy, Texas. All-kenpom: Taylor Smith, Stephen F. Austin (kPOY); Damen Bell-Holter, Oral Roberts; DeQuan Hicks, Northwestern State; Hal Bateman, Stephen F. Austin; Warren Niles, Oral Roberts. Stephen F. Austin is the favorite here behind the incredible work of 6-7 center Taylor Smith and statistical splits that Kevin O’Neill would be proud of. […]