Bubble News: A Light Thursday Fare With A Side Of Picks
Charlotte, UConn, UAB and Mississippi State suffered killer losses last night, plunging their tournaments into disarray. Rhode Island and Notre Dame notched wins that might be the final propulsion needed to make the final field of 65. All told, among the final 10 in the Bracket Matrix field and first 10 cut out of the consensus, half of them have lost during the course of the last two nights, setting us up for a crazy final weekend of the regular season. You know who else lost last night? Me, and my readers. Sorry for that 0-3 night, folks. Feel free to BOO me. It might make me handicap better. Who knows? Anyway onto tonight
It’s a light night of hoops and the biggest bubble game of the night takes place in the Atlantic 10 confernece when Dayton travels to Richmond. Last night, URI trucked Charlotte in the second half, a result that pretty much kills the 49ers chances at an at-large bid. Also, St. Louis lost a lead late and fell at home to Temple. The Billikens had been climbing the charts, but really couldnt afford any more setbacks if they wanted to be taken seriously as an at-large candidate. A few weeks ago, the A10 was bucking for a record high in bids. Now, you have to wonder if three bids wont be their limit. That could change if Dayton could snap out of its funk and get a critical road win against the Spiders tonight. It’s a consensus Bracket Matrix 7-seed Richmond playing the third-from-out Dayton. The Flyers have lost three of five, so while they’re not slumping, they are not playing all that great either. They were the preseason A10 favorites, but are getting chewed up during the league’s resurgent season this year. A loss tonight drops them to 8-7 in league play, and I dont care how much stronger this league is, nobody from the A10 is getting in the field with a confernece mark that close to .500. Meanwhile, Richmond appears to be locked in the field. They had won eight straight and 10 of 11 before Xavier nipped them at the buzzer over the weekend. I think they might want to grab one more win just to be sure. If they dont win any more games, they will close on a four-game losing streak. If I were a Spider booster, that would make me uncomfortable.
As for other bubble action tonight, we have three teams among the final nine out of the consensus Matrix field all playing winnable games this evening. Ole Miss will be trying to do what their Magnolia State rival could not last night, tuck away a win against one the SEC lesser teams. Ole Miss is fifth-from-out in today’s Matrix, pulling in votes from 8 mock bracketologists. They beat Kansas State and lost to Villanova and West Virginia in the three marque out of confernece games they played. But, they’re just 7-7 in the SEC and their most impressive league win is at home against South Carolina. I dont think they have the resume, but in a year with a weak bubble it still puts them right in the middle of contention. The Rebels get LSU at home tonight. A win does very little but keep them in range. A loss, well LSU has just one league win this year, so do your own math on how crippling it would be. I think they become DOA. No Sugarcoat.
Most folks dont think Seton Hall has much at-large case. The mocks are skeptical as just one person has them in their field. But, the Pirates cant be eliminated at this point. If they close out as strong road warriors and get tonight’s win at Rutgers and over the weekend at Providence, they could set themselves up for an at large bid with a strong Big East Tournament run. If tonight begins a five-game winning streak that ends with a loss in the Big East Title game, they’ll have 21 wins, with a dozen of those coming in the Big East. I think they still have a chance, even if its fleeting.
We’ve said all winter long that the bubble team’s best friend on the west coast is the USC Trojans. The probabtion shackled Trojans have been playing spoiler all year in the Pac 10 and they have one last chance tonight to torpedo the hopes of a league mate. Arizona State sits sixth-from-out with five mock votes. The bubble welcomed them back to the game last week, but the good times were short lived as the Cal Bears throttled them Saturday night. They need a home sweep of the LA schools to close the season and probably need to do no worse than play to their seed in the Pac 10 sectional and make the finals of the field. They’re in much better shape than Seton Hall, but like the Pirates, they need tonight to be the start of a nice winning streak taking them deep into the conference tournament to grab an at-large bid.
Otherwise, the best action of the night takes place in tiny Conway, South Carolina where the Big South semifinals are taking place. True elimination games in the chase for the Field of 65. And that’s where we find one of our picks for the night.
Radford -2 over Winthrop, 1 Unit…..yeah, yeah, yeah cue all the ‘you cant beat a team 3 times’ cliches. That’s bull honkey. At least I hope. Not much has separated these clubs this year, but Radford won both meetings and I feel they have a more complete team. This will a defensive grind, but I’ll take Radford better ability to score the goal to win another tight one.
Richmond -3 over Dayton, 1 Unit……The Spiders rolled Temple on this court. I think they do the same to a Dayton team that just hasnt had a lot of answers against the better A10 teams this year. They are 2-4 against the teams ahead of them in the A10 standings and 2-5 in their last seven true road games. The Spiders are better than most of the teams under the umbrella of those records. I love the way their guards shoot the ball and they’ll have too much on both ends of the court to for DU to handle.
Cheers!
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