Saturday, February 11, 2012

Butler Wins At Cleveland St: Are They Making A Run?

Butler 52, Cleveland State 49
A month ago, Butler lost at home to Cleveland State in a game that wasn't even really as close as the seven point final margin. Throw in bad losses in a sweep against Detroit, and a sweep in the state of Wisconsin, and I was soon the only leading bracketologist that was keeping Butler in my Field of 68. It's not that I didn't see the results - there is no question that Cleveland State has (overall) had the best results in the Horizon League this year. Heck, I moved Cleveland State into my Field of 68 as an at-large team three days ago. But we went through this last season, when I also was the only leading bracketologist keeping Butler in my bracket, and took quite a bit of grief in the comments to my BP68s over it. But what I saw was a Butler team that gets every opponent's best shot in Horizon League play, and that has played in National Title games and just can't find the intensity to care about games against Youngstown State or Wisconsin-Green Bay.

Now that said, I do think this year's Butler team is clearly inferior to last year's team. They desperately need some players that can hit outside shots. They're hitting an abysmal 27.1% behind the arc this season (tied for 6th worst among 345 Division I teams). They have a really good front line, but defenses can sag down and dare Butler to shoot over the top. But despite that, Butler is excellent defensively, they have four very good rebounders that Brad Stevens is constantly rotating to keep fresh, and they make smart decisions. One win over Cleveland State doesn't prove that Butler is going to turn it on like they did last season, but it's a good sign.

In Cleveland State's defense, starting guard D'Aundrey Brown has missed most of the past three games with a groin injury. With him in the lineup this past week might have gone differently, but the Selection Committee is not going to care. It's been a really bad three days, with a home loss to Valparaiso two days ago followed up by this home loss to Butler. It's dropped them out of the lead in the Horizon League standings (Valparaiso is now on top), and it's badly damaged their at-large hopes.

Cleveland State is now 20-6, with a win over Vanderbilt along with bad losses to Hofstra, South Florida, Youngstown State and Valparaiso (twice). Their RPI has dropped nearly 30 points in the past two weeks to 80th, and their Sagarin ELO_CHESS will fall out of the Top 60 as well. Cleveland State's at-large hopes haven't been completely extinguished, but they probably need to win the rest of their regular season games. Their two toughest remaining games will be next week, on the road at Wisconsin-Milwaukee on Tuesday and then at home against Drexel next Saturday as part of Bracketbusters.

Depending on what happens in the Valparaiso/Youngstown State game tonight, Butler could be back into third place in the Horizon at the end of the day. In fact, if the season ended now, the seeding would set up for a Butler/Cleveland State Horizon League semifinals, played in Valparaiso's gym. Would be a fascinating game if it came to pass. Butler's next game will be Tuesday against Loyola-Chicago.

Loyola-Maryland 87, Iona 81
This was, arguably, the biggest game in Loyola-Maryland history. The reality is that this program has had basically zero success over the years. They made the postseason once, when as a 5 seed they had a miracle run and won the 1994 MAAC tournament under Skip Prosser. But Prosser left to take the Xavier job, and Loyola suffered 11 straight losing seasons, including a horrible 1-27 season in 2003-04. That season caused the school to hand over the reigns to Jimmy Patsos, a longtime assistant under Gary Williams at Maryland. He has built up this team from basically nothing, and brought them into this game tied with a really good Iona team atop the MAAC standings.

The Loyola-Maryland crowd was fired up, and Iona spent the first half looking like they didn't want any part of this game. Iona lost every loose ball as their players seemed unable to give any effort. Iona actually trailed by 25 points with 12 minutes to go. That's when Iona turned their full court press on, and in the final 12 minutes Loyola-Maryland had more turnovers (5) than made baskets (3). But Iona was just a little bit too sloppy, and a bit too unlucky. One play that stood out came in the final minute of the game where there was a scramble on the ground and one of the Loyola players (I think it was Robert Olsen) grabbed the ball and gestured wildly for a timeout, only they had none left and it would have been a technical foul. The refs ignored it, let it play out and eventually called a jump ball, which gave the ball back to Loyola. That call could have turned the game for Iona. But it doesn't change the fact that Loyola was the better team and deserved the win.

Loyola-Maryland is now a game clear of Iona with four conference games to go. It would be a tremendous achievement for Jimmy Patsos to somehow won the conference's regular season title. But that said, I still wouldn't bet on them in the MAAC tournament. Here are the top MAAC teams ranked by points per possession in conference play:

+0.19 Iona
+0.12 Manhattan
+0.11 Loyola-Maryland
+0.11 Fairfield
+0.01 Rider

In other words, Iona is still the best team, and is still my pick for the conference tournament. The key game for Loyola the rest of the way will be on the road at Manhattan, on February 26th. Their next game will be tomorrow against Fairfield. Iona will play tomorrow against Marist.

#23 Louisville 77, West Virginia 74
A brutal, heartbreaking loss for West Virginia. With three losses in their previous four games, they really needed this home win over Louisville. And they grabbed the lead halfway through the first half and held it continuously until the final three minutes of regulation. But Kyle Kuric hit a back-breaking three-pointer to give Louisville the lead back, which was followed up less than a minute later by a dicey charge call that fouled Deniz Kilicli out of the game. And with one final chance, down by one point with ten seconds to go, Gary Browne rushed a pass into the paint that got picked off by Kyle Kuric. The Mountaineers players all had shocked looks on their faces walking off the floor.

For Louisville, the story of the game was probably Wayne Blackshear. The freshman had been out with a torn right labrum, and was making his collegiate debut in this game. He scored 13 points on 3-for-5 shooting behind the arc. For West Virginia, Kevin Jones had another monster performance in a losing effort (22 points on 7-for-13 shooting, plus 11 rebounds). Kevin Jones probably won't win Big East Player of the Year because his team hasn't played well enough, but the reality is that he's played better this season than any other Big East player. He's been the best player in the conference.

West Virginia drops to 6-6 in Big East play now. They have wins over Georgetown, Kansas State and Cincinnati, along with bad losses to St. John's and Kent State. They are 9-9 against the RPI Top 100, and their Sagarin ELO_CHESS will fall into the 45-50 range. If the season ended now I'm pretty sure they'd be a Tournament team, but it would be close. they need to finish at least 3-3 down the stretch or they're going to enter the Big East tournament with work left to do. They have two huge road games coming up next, on Thursday at Pittsburgh, and then six days later at Notre Dame.

Louisville has won six straight to move to 8-4 in Big East play, with a Sagarin ELO_CHESS up near 20th. A few weeks ago they were looking like a potential bubble team, but now they're into the conversation for a 3-5 Tournament seed. They still have a home-and-home left against Syracuse, and we'll learn a lot about this team by how they play in those two games. The first game, in Louisville, will be on Monday night.

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