Sunday Afternoon Update

Before I get to the actual games, I thought I'd point out that we've reached the point in the season when computer rankings actually say something real about the season. The Sam Houston States of the world are dropping out of the top spots, and the conference RPIs make more sense. Today is the first day of the season where the six highest ranked conferences in RPI are the six BCS conferences. Last year, of course, the Missouri Valley actually finished with a higher RPI than one BCS conference - the Big 12. But the Valley isn't nearly as good as it was last year. And the Big 12 is a little bit better (although they're not the best conference, despite what the RPI says right now.... that will change as the year goes on). The Atlantic 10 might even finish ahead of the Valley, although that's not a slam dunk. For the record, the six top conferences are also the BCS conferences in the Sagarin Rankings this morning. But that's not new. Anyway, onto the actual games:


#2 Memphis 85, #4 Georgetown 71
Despite all the hype, this was actually a disappointing game for most of the first half. Memphis must not have gotten a lot of sleep Friday night, because they came with no energy whatsoever. But by the second half it was clear that Memphis was just a bad matchup for Georgetown. Their best player is Roy Hibbert, and the game was too fast for him. With him neutralized, Georgetown just didn't have the talent to hang with Memphis. Still, don't jump off the Georgetown bandwagon. You can bet that they'll struggle with Pitt and Marquette on the road, but they can lose those two games and still win the conference and get a #1 or 2 seed. When at home, Georgetown should be able to control the tempo better, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them go undefeated at home this season. As for Memphis, they remain the most likely team to go undefeated this season. Right now this looks like the best team Calipari has had there, and they have to be considered a favorite for a #1 seed. But I just want to see what will happen when they play an athletic team on the road. Too bad Calipari fixed his schedule so that every tough team is at home. This makes it harder to predict how they'll do in the Tournament, where they won't be able to feed off the crowd for energy quite as much.

#12 Tennessee 82, #24 Xavier 75
There are good losses, and this was one of those for Xavier. They withstood an early assault from Tennessee and then hung close the entire way. Losing this close, at Tennessee, after falling down by 11 points in the opening minutes - that's a good result. Xavier has established themselves as the clear favorite in a very good Atlantic 10. If they can keep this up, there's no reason that they can't get something like a 5 or 6 seed. In addition, this was a good win for Tennessee. A loss here would have looked bad. But they also showed that they could withstand an assault from a good team. And they also showed that they could win a game where the three-pointer wasn't falling (they went 5-for-20 from behind the arc). In my mind, they are the clear favorites in an SEC that has really, really struggled so far this year. They're going to have to run away with that conference to get a #1 seed. I don't see that happening, so I have them as a #2 right now.

#10 Michigan State 78, #5 Texas 72
A massive win for a Michigan State team that has arrived as the clear favorites in the Big Ten. The real story in this game, of course, was Kalin Lucas. The only real difference between last year's team and this year's team is him. If this team is going to make the Final Four it's going to because they have a real second star on the offensive end, and Drew Neitzel isn't double teamed all night. Raymar Morgan has been good, but not good enough (his stats are real good because he put up huge numbers on the bad teams MSU has played- his numbers have been mediocre against elite opponents so far). But Lucas really showed flashes of brilliance in this one. A career high 18 points in this one for Lucas, in addition to six boards and six dimes. He was the difference in this one. I still think that Texas has a shot at winning the Big 12, but they're going to have to learn to shoot better, especially in the mid-range jumper. In this one, they shot 38% from behind the arc, but only 41% from inside of it. When you take out the dunks and layups, they ended up shooting much better from three than from two. That's going to have to change, especially against teams that can rebound like Michigan State.

Mississippi 85, #15 Clemson 82
A lot of people are sleeping on the Ole Miss team. Is it really such blasphemy to argue that they might be the second best team in the SEC? I could easily see it. They are 11-0. And while it's not the greatest schedule in the nation, Clemson, Depaul and Winthrop are not shabby. Barring a very shocking upset, Ole Miss will head into Tennessee on January 9th as a 13-0 team. On top of that, they have a very, very easy SEC schedule. They only get Tennessee, Florida and Vanderbilt once. And they only play the latter two at home. Something like an 11-5 record is very, very reasonable. Throw in an easy out-of-conference game in the middle of that, and the fact that all of the good teams (Vandy, Florida & Tennessee) are in the SEC East, and Ole Miss is probably the favorite to win the SEC West with something like a 25-5 record. Even if they go down to Florida or Vandy in the Tourney semifinals, they'd be 26-6 overall out of the SEC. The RPI would be around 20 or 25. How is that team not getting a 5-7 seed? Right now I've got them at a #9 seed, but that's actually a cautious prediction due to the fact that there is some possibility that they'll fall on their face in conference. But there's no doubt that people are sleeping on this team right now. Rebels fans should be excited.


As an aside, be honest... what other website takes into account potential conference tournament results while making brackets in mid-December? That's why I think this blog is so unique. But enough of the self-promotion. There's a lot of good basketball going on this week - including a few good ones on tv today. Enjoy the Holiday basketball!