Under The Radar, Villanova Keeps Winning

#4 Villanova 82, #11 Georgetown 77
Last season, Georgetown seemed to find a way to lose every single close game they were in. They finished with a Pomeroy Luck rating of 340th, and ended up not even being in the discussion on Selection Sunday, even though they were clearly better than a number of teams that did earn at-large bids. They're doing better this season (their Luck rating is currently 212th), but they still seem to have a bad habit of letting small droughts turn into big droughts. They continually put themselves into huge first half holes and try to grind their way out of them. They crawled out of a 16 point second half deficit here and actually tied things up before eventually falling in the final minute. The Hoyas are now 4-2 in Big East play and have road games at Pittsburgh and Syracuse among their next three games. Unless they can pull an upset in one of those games their Big East title hopes are over. As for Villanova, it's amazing that any team could go under-hyped in the always over-hyped Big East, but Villanova has gotten significantly less press attention and love than Syracuse, and even less than West Virginia, even though they are the highest ranked team in the conference, and are tied for the lead in the standings, at 5-0. Jay Wright deserves a lot of credit for making this more than a three-point shooting team, and doing a good job of spreading the floor and getting his players to the line. The fact that they have won games over good teams when their three-point shooting hasn't been good is why they've been so consistent. Their next four games are relatively easy, but six of their nine final Big East games will come against teams currently ranked in the AP Top 25, so they've got a long way to go to actually win this conference.

Virginia 75, Miami (Fl) 57
Virginia jumped out to a 12-1 lead early in this game, and then kept the lead in the 8-to-12 point range for nearly the entire game before opening things up over the final few minutes. This is an impressive win in and of itself, but the story of this game is that Virginia is actually 3-0 and alone in first place in the ACC. This is a team that lost to Auburn, Stanford and South Florida in the early going this season, and despite this 3-0 ACC start still has an RPI of 101st in the nation. But that RPI is deceptively bad, and has more to do with Virginia's weak schedule than anything else. As they play more ACC games their strength-of-schedule will improve and their RPI will grow. Sagarin's PREDICTOR has them 59th and Pomeroy has them 48th, which means that they might actually be a lot better than we think they are. But they still have a really long way to go to make any kind of a run at an at-large bid. Their ACC schedule quickly gets more difficult, with road games at Wake Forest and North Carolina among their next three games. Let's see Virginia win a few more games before we really take them seriously. As for Miami, they are looking dangerously like one of those teams that we see every season that runs off an 11-0 or 15-1 start against a weak schedule, gets hyped up into the Top 25, and then wilts when conference play begins. They are 15-3, but only 1-3 in the ACC, despite a fairly soft ACC schedule so far. The schedule-makers did them a favor by giving them only one game each against North Carolina, Duke, Clemson and Georgia Tech, but those four games are still yet to come. They will be in the at-large discussion if they can get to 7-9, but they're going to have to knock off one of those ranked teams. Miami's schedule is currently ranked 264th by Sagarin, 258th by Pomeroy, and 258th by the RPI. The Selection Committee is always more impressed by teams that win a few and lose a few against a tough schedule than a team that runs through cupcakes.

Michigan 68, #15 UConn 63
I know that I'm not the only person to point this out, but it was pretty jarring to see Michigan's fans rush the floor after this win. This was a nice win that means a ton for their at-large resume, but I viewed this game as pretty much a toss-up. UConn came into this game 11-5 and 2-3 in the Big East after all. Still, as I said, this was an important win for a Michigan team desperate to salvage something from their out-of-conference performance. I give them credit for putting together a tough schedule (Pomeroy rates their out-of-conference strength of schedule at 80th), but they didn't win enough of the games. They finish 7-5 with this being the best win by far. Their RPI is 122nd and their Sagarin ELO_CHESS is 115th, so they wouldn't even be in the at-large debate if the season ended now. They could finish 10-8 in the Big Ten and still not make the Tournament, and even that will be difficult as they now head into road games at Wisconsin and Purdue, followed by a home game against Michigan State. They've got to pull an upset in one of those three games or they need a really long winning streak just to be in the discussion on Selection Sunday. As for UConn, their utter inability to his three-pointers continues to kill them. Michigan did a great job of collapsing their zone any time the ball went inside, making it difficult for UConn's big men to get open shots, and basically begging them to launch threes. UConn's players got a ton of open looks behind the arc, but passed a bunch of them up and bricked most of the rest, finishing the game 1-for-11. I can't recall another elite team in recent years that was this awful at shooting three-pointers, and it's why I think UConn is overrated. They're still probably a Tournament team, but they could easily end up on the bubble before all is said and done. They got some help from the Big East schedule makers: Big East teams only have to play three teams twice, and the three teams UConn is doubled up with are Notre Dame, Louisville and Cincinnati, which might make them the only Big East team to not be doubled up with any other ranked team. But they might need a 10-8 Big East record just to lock up that at-large bid, which is not a joke after the 2-3 start.