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. […]

March 14-16 at Anaheim, Ca. All-kenpom: James Ennis, Long Beach State (kPOY); Alan Williams, UC Santa Barbara; Chris Eversley, Cal Poly; Corey Hawkins, UC Davis; Kwame Vaughn, Cal St. Fullerton. The second-semester additions of Keala King and Tony Freeland gave Long Beach State a boost. Enough of one to propel them to a regular-season title. […]

March 13-16. All games at Tulsa, Okla. All-kenpom: Joe Jackson, Memphis (kPOY); Dwayne Davis, Southern Miss; Josh Davis, Tulane; Isaiah Sykes, UCF; Maurice Kemp, East Carolina. Memphis rolled to a 16-0 record in C-USA play and Rice struggled to a 1-15 mark, validating the preseason poll.  What happened in between didn’t go accoring to plan, […]