Friday, February 17, 2012

New Mexico Takes Down San Diego State

New Mexico 77, #15 San Diego State 67
Yes, San Diego State is ranked and New Mexico isn't, and yes this game was at San Diego State. But San Diego State is overrated and New Mexico is underrated. Vegas actually had New Mexico favored in this game, and both Pomeroy and Sagarin projected four point wins for the Lobos. New Mexico is an excellent outside shooting team (they're leading the Mountain West with a 40.7 3P% in conference play), and they hit 10-for-19 behind the arc here. They also did a good job of playing with poise and not allowing the San Diego State crowd to ever really get involved. They held the Aztecs to only one steal all game long. Drew Gordon was excellent for New Mexico, bringing down six offensive rebounds, just one fewer than the entire SDSU team combined.

With this win, New Mexico grabs sole control of the Mountain West standings with five games to go, setting up a crucial game on Saturday against UNLV. That game will be on CBS at 1PM eastern time on Saturday, so check it out. A UNLV win there will likely lead to a three-way tie atop the conference, and a wild final two weeks with each team trying to avoid any bad losses.

Despite being rated 11th in the Pomeroy ratings and 16th in the Sagarin PREDICTOR, New Mexico's soft non-conference schedule had left them sitting near the bubble. This win should pull them safely into the NCAA Tournament field for now. They're 21-4, though a victory over St. Louis is their only other big win, and they have bad losses to Santa Clara and New Mexico State. With this win, their RPI and Sagarin ELO_CHESS both move into the Top 30, and they'd be looking at a 7-9 Tournament seed if the season ended now.

San Diego State falls to 20-5 with this loss. They have wins over UNLV, New Mexico, California and Arizona, with no really bad losses. Their Sagarin ELO_CHESS is 20th. They'll play at Air Force on Saturday and then will come home to face Wyoming on Wednesday. Of the three teams atop the conference, San Diego State has the easiest remaining schedule, so they have an excellent chance to earn at least a share of the regular season title.

Loyola-Marymount 75, #16 St. Mary's 60
This is one of the most perplexing results from the entire season. This superb St. Mary's team that has led the WCC in offense (1.16 PPP in conference play - second placed Gonzaga is way back at 1.07 PPP) and shooting (a 55.0 eFG%) couldn't get anything working in this game. Their 0.95 PPP were their worst in conference play, and their 43.9 eFG% is their second worst of the entire season. And all this against a Loyola-Marymount defense that is at best mediocre. It was just one of those days where nobody could get a shot to fall.

Loyola-Marymount isn't a bad team, of course. They beat BYU this season, and are now 10-4 in conference play. They've assured themselves of finishing no worse than 4th in the WCC standings (which earns them a bye to the WCC tournament quarterfinals), and could still move up to third. It's been a pretty amazing season for them. They'll face Valparaiso on Friday, and then will close the regular season against San Diego and Santa Clara.

It looked for a while like St. Mary's had basically locked up the WCC, but this loss changes that. They are now even in the loss column with Gonzaga, a team they've already split the season series against. It's not certain yet whether St. Mary's or Gonzaga will win the tiebreaker (it will depend on what other teams in the conference do the rest of the way), so St. Mary's just needs to try to win their final two conference games and then need to hope the tiebreakers go in their favor. They also, of course, will be playing at Murray State on Saturday. That will be a very interesting game to watch. St. Mary's is the better team, but the Murray State homecourt advantage wipes that out. It should be a toss-up game.

Purdue 67, Illinois 62
The story after this game was Bruce Weber, and whether this game will end up costing him his job. He did sound defeated in the press conference after the game. But that said, Bruce Weber has been fired by the fans and the media many times before, and he's continued to survive. I have seen quite a few people in the media saying that it should be so easy to win at Illinois, and that it arguably has more advantages (because of all the great recruits in Chicago) than any other Big Ten program except maybe Indiana. I'm sorry, but anybody who believes that doesn't understand the Chicago area.

First of all, a lot of people seem to think that the University of Illinois is in Chicago. It's actually about two hours away. Notre Dame, Purdue and Wisconsin are all just as close to Chicago as Illinois is. Northwestern and DePaul are the two closest major conference programs to Chicago, and there are several other mid-majors in the vicinity. There's no reason why Illinois should have any easier of a time getting Chicago recruits than Notre Dame or Purdue. In addition, Chicago is like New York in that all of the top programs recruit there and there is a maze of high school and AAU coaches each looking to take advantage of the system, and that will steer their players in whichever direction benefits them. No coach is going to own that city's recruiting ever. The same is true of Washington DC, and other hotbeds of basketball talent.

I'm not saying Bruce Weber is a brilliant coach or that Illinois can't do better. He has had a lot of talented players that have been inconsistent and underperformed. But I also think that the expectations are a little bit too high.

Regardless, Illinois is now 5-8 in Big Ten play with road games at Ohio State and Wisconsin remaining. They will need to finish 8-10 or better, and then will probably need a win in the Big Ten tournament to earn an at-large bid. It's not impossible, but it's going to be tough. They really needed this win over Purdue. A home loss to another bubble team is just a killer right now. Their next game will be Saturday at Nebraska.

Purdue is no Tournament lock, but they're firming up their spot in the field. They're now 7-6 in Big Ten play and 8-7 against the RPI Top 100. Their Sagarin ELO_CHESS is all the way up to 32nd. If they can get to 10-8 then they'll lock up a Tournament bid. Anything less than that and they'll enter the Big Ten tournament still on the bubble and still with work left to do. They will play a red hot Michigan State team on Saturday.

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