Sunday, February 19, 2012

Bubble Battle: Washington Beats Arizona

Washington 79, Arizona 70
There has been one main argument both for and against the idea of a single-bid Pac-12. The argument for it is the fact that the conference has been atrocious against non-conference opponents. The entire conference has two RPI Top 50 wins against teams from other conferences all season long. To put that in perspective, Loyola-Marymount has three RPI Top 50 wins alone. The argument against the one-bid Pac-12 is that the Pac-12 is still a good conference compared to the mid-majors, top to bottom. The Mountain West and the Atlantic Ten are the only two mid-major conference rated ahead of the Pac-12 by Sagarin and Pomeroy. The Selection Committee has a history of giving at-large bids to teams that play really well in conference play, and it's just hard to imagine a team finishing 13-5 or better in the Pac-12 missing out on an at-large bid unless it would be really egregious. And that's what made this game crucial, between the two Pac-12 teams most likely to earn that second Pac-12 bid. This result pushes Washington up to 12-3, and drops Arizona to 10-5.

The difference in this game was the fact that Arizona wasn't able to pressure the Washington guards. They actually can't really pressure anybody (they only force turnovers on 18.2% of possessions - 287th best in the country), and that allowed the talented-but-inconsistent Washington backcourt to attack with impunity. Tony Wroten, Abdul Gaddy and Terrence Ross combined for 56 points, 8 assists and only 3 turnovers.

Washington's best non-conference win came against Georgia State, and they lost their one game against California, so they will enter Selection Sunday with zero big wins. They're 0-4 against the RPI Top 50 and 4-8 against the RPI Top 100. That said, they're 12-3 in conference play and their Sagarin ELO_CHESS is up to 62nd. The lack of big wins with that ELO_CHESS would normally mean a trip to the NIT, but it's hard to ignore that 12-3 record. But even if they get to 14-4, they're going to enter the Pac-12 tournament with work left to do. All three of their final regular season games are on the road, beginning with a game at Washington State next Saturday.

Arizona, on a neutral court, is probably better than Washington. The problem is that, like Washington, they did nothing out-of-conference, and they don't have that gaudy conference record. They are now 10-5 and will probably need to win their final three games to have a realistic shot at an at-large bid heading into the Pac-12 tournament. The good news is that their remaining schedule is very manageable, and they have at least a 50% chance of winning all three. They'll begin with a home game against USC on Thursday.

Oklahoma State 90, Texas 78
It's been a frustrating senior season for Keiton Page (it seems like he's been playing college basketball since the Clinton administration), but he had a real highlight here. He scored a career-high 40 points, including 20-for-20 at the line. The Cowboys spent most of the day at the line, actually, earning 56 free throw attempts. The total fouls were almost 2-to-1 (30 for Texas, 17 for Oklahoma State), leading Texas fans to not be all too excited with the reffing. Only one team all season long has attempted more than 56 free throws in a game - the Washington Huskies, who attempted 59 against Seattle back in early January. The 1.37 free throw rate (1.37 free throws attempted for every field goal attempted) is the most by any team since Ball State's 1.45 last season against Central Michigan.

Oklahoma State is only 6-8 in conference play and 13-14 overall, but they've been a frisky team at home. They are 10-3 in home games, including victories over Missouri, Texas and Iowa State. On Wednesday night they'll try to move back up to .500 on the road at Oklahoma.

This isn't a great loss for Texas, but they're still 7-7 in Big 12 play with a manageable schedule ahead. They will play Baylor on Monday, and if they can get past that then they'll have Texas Tech (on the road) and Oklahoma (at home) up next, two games that they should be heavy favorites for. Sweeping those three games will get them to ten conference wins, which will lock them into the NCAA Tournament and give them a chance to improve their Tournament seed in the Big 12 tournament.

Iona 90, Nevada 84
It's a little debatable how important this game really was in the grand scheme of things. Neither of these teams is likely to earn an at-large bid. In my view, this was a quasi-elimination game. The loser of this game was going to find their at-large hopes nearly dashed. Nevada was arguably the better team here, dominating the boards against a much smaller Iona front line (a 46.9 OR% compared to a 33.3 OR% for Iona). But Scott Machado torched Nevada for 15 assists. As a team, Iona had 23 assists on 33 made shots, leading to an astronomical 69.8 eFG% (Iona's second best shooting performance of the season).

Iona will close the regular season with home games against Fairfield and St. Peter's. If they win both then they'll be 26-6. The best case scenario (as far as at-large bids) would be losing in the finals to Loyola-Maryland. Doing that would make Iona 28-9 with wins over Nevada and St. Joe's, along with bad losses to Hofstra, Siena and Manhattan. Their RPI would be inside the Top 40, though their Sagarin ELO_CHESS would probably be in the vicinity of 50-55th. I don't think that would earn an at-large bid, but with a soft bubble it could be enough. In my opinion, though, they're the favorites to win the MAAC's auto bid. So it probably won't matter.

Nevada is now 22-5 with a win over Washington to go with a bad loss to Idaho. They're 0-3 against the RPI Top 50. Their Sagarin ELO_CHESS is 51st, but without any big wins they'd definitely be NIT-bound if the season ended now. They will have a more difficult path to an automatic bid than Iona will, but they still will have an excellent chance. New Mexico State is the favorite, in my view, but it will be competitive. New Mexico State will play at Nevada on March 1st. A win there will give Nevada a lot of confidence heading into the WAC tournament.

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