Pac-10 Will Not Get More Than Three Bids

California 93, Washington State 88
For some time it's been believed by most that the Pac-10 is on pace for two or three bids. I've been on the high side, arguing that they're in line for three (Washington, California, Arizona State) for a while now. Others have gone the other way - Lunardi's most recent Bracketology actually only has one Pac-10 team in. That's kind of ridiculous, but although Lunardi is far from being one of the best bracketologists out there, he gets more attention than anybody else, so his word has a lot of impact. Still, other teams have threatened to make the Pac-10 a four or even five bid conference. USC made some noise before banning itself from the postseason because of the OJ Mayo situation. Oregon has made some noise but fallen off as well. And now Washington State appears to be falling off. They've lost two straight now to fall to 2-3 in the Pac-10, and their RPI has fallen all the way to 98th. Sagarin's PREDICTOR puts them 91st as well, which is still good for the fourth best PREDICTOR of the postseason eligible Pac-10 teams (USC is 62nd, but do not count, of course). Anything is possible at these early stages, and Washington State's out-of-conference was good enough that a 10-8 Pac-10 record would get them in a serious discussion for an at-large bid, but I find it unlikely. There really seem to be only three Pac-10 teams with reasonable chances at at-large bids right now, and I see three as the ceiling for the conference. Two is a real possibility. California, meanwhile, has the best computer numbers of any team in the conference, and are in contention to win the regular season title with a nice 3-1 start. They have to show more consistency, and they have to show that they can beat Washington (they get their shot at Washington this afternoon), but they're looking more and more like a Tournament team. I still view Washington as the favorite to win the conference, but I believe Cal will likely finish second.

#14 Gonzaga 89, Saint Mary's 82
This is always the hardest conference game of the season for Gonzaga. Not only has Saint Mary's been the second best team in the conference for a couple of years now, but they also have a very nice homecourt advantage, and are tough to beat there under any circumstances. But Gonzaga's tougher strength of schedule really showed in the composure they had over the final minutes as they squeezed out a narrow victory. Gonzaga is now up to 13-3 overall with wins over Wisconsin, Cincinnati, Illinois, Oklahoma and Saint Mary's, and no bad losses. Their RPI is up to 14th, although it will likely drop as their strength-of-schedule drops. Both Sagarin and Pomeroy believe Gonzaga is only around the 40th best team in the country, but they've done a great job of closing out close games to build a resume that is better than they probably deserve (Pomeroy gives them a Luck rating of 11th in the nation). I don't think they'll run through the WCC undefeated this season, but if they do then they will have to be in the discussion for a 2 or 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament. As for Saint Mary's, both Sagarin and Pomeroy actually think that they're a slightly better team than Gonzaga, but their resume isn't anywhere near as good. They are 15-3 with no particularly bad losses, but their best wins are over San Diego State and Utah State, which isn't good enough for a bubble team. Their RPI is 41st and their Sagarin ELO_CHESS is 38th, which means they'd be one of the last teams in or one of the first teams out of the bracket if the season ended now. Without any big wins (unless they win at Gonzaga on February 11th) they're going to have to build an at-large resume by just winning a ton of games and hoping to get in on sheer winning percentage. They're going to have to go at least 10-4 in the WCC to have a realistic at-large chance.

Xavier 78, Dayton 74
Dayton came into this season as the favorite in the Atlantic Ten, but have tumbled so far that nobody is at all surprised by this result (I'm pretty certain that Xavier was favored by three or four points in Vegas). Chris Wright has been good, but hasn't really progressed since last season, and has actually struggled with foul trouble because he's maybe been trying too hard or felt too much pressure to lead this Dayton team to a title (he only played 14 minutes because of foul trouble in this one). And Dayton seems to be another team that just has too big of a rotation. They had an insane 11 players get double-digit minutes in this game. And that's not out of the ordinary for this team, as ten players are averaging 9.5 minutes per game or more this season, but only one is averaging over 25 per game. I just don't believe that's the way to win games. You've got to find your 7-9 man rotation and go with it. Dayton is a respectable 13-4, but they're 2-4 against the RPI Top 100 and their only good wins are over Georgia Tech and Old Dominion. Xavier and Temple have been the two best Atlantic Ten teams thus far, which leaves Dayton and Rhode Island dueling for third position in a conference that might only get three Tournament teams. As for Xavier, they are only 12-5 overall but have jumped out to 4-0 in the Atlantic Ten, and have a win over Cincinnati to go with this win, and zero bad losses. Their RPI is actually up to 17th in the nation. They are going to have to go at least 10-6 in conference play to make the Tournament, but I think that they're going to go 11-5 or 12-4 to get in with room to spare.