Indiana Beats Michigan, Will Be The New #1

#3 Indiana 81, #1 Michigan 73
This was a fun, uptempo game, though if we're honest I think we'll say that both of these teams have played better at other points this season. Indiana was maybe a little bit too fired up for College Gameday and the #1 team in the country, and they committed 16 turnovers. Michigan, meanwhile, featured way too much of Trey Burke launching long jumpers. They didn't attack the basket enough and they didn't get their bigs involved enough. Glenn Robinson III, Jordan Morgan and Mitch McGary combined for 13 attempted shots, and the entire Michigan team took only seven free throws, while Trey Burke took 24 shots from the field. And yes, Morgan was hobbled by an injury and didn't play much, but it's not good for Michigan if there's only 1:09 left in the game when Glenn Robinson III finally hits a shot.

That said, I don't want to be too critical of Michigan here. They were 5.5 point underdogs in Vegas and only underperformed that by 2.5 points, despite getting nothing from Jordan Morgan and such a poor game from Trey Burke. Everybody's going to lose games in the Big Ten. Michigan is still my pick to win the Big Ten tournament, and to earn a 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament (although Indiana is closing in on a second top seed for the Big Ten, as the ACC and Big East appear to be drifting away from having a good candidate for a 1 seed).

With Michigan and Kansas losing today, and Indiana being #3 in the polls, Indiana will automatically move up to #1 Monday. It's the way the polls work. I think everybody realizes that Florida, and not Indiana, is the best team in the country, but I don't think Florida being #2 is a big problem. Indiana came into this game #2 in both Pomeroy and the Sagarin PREDICTOR, and I expect them to still be there when the new numbers come out tomorrow. Indiana's success this season has come from their unexpectedly improved defense. They have only allowed two teams all season to score more than 1.02 PPP in a game - Wisconsin and Butler. To put that defensive performance in perspective, the best defense in the land (Florida) has also allowed two teams to score more than 1.02 PPP in a game. And like Indiana, Florida lost the two times they allowed teams to break that barrier (Arizona and Kansas State).

Michigan has a pretty brutal week coming up. They'll play Ohio State on Tuesday, followed by a road game at Wisconsin on Saturday. The Hoosiers head on the road next week, playing at Illinois on Thursday, and at Ohio State the following Sunday.

Boise State 77, UNLV 72
Boise State really needed this one. After a 13-2 start to the season they had lost four of five, and were in danger of dropping to 2-5 in conference play. But offensively, they were sharp here. They had more assists (13) than turnovers (12), and had a 56.4 eFG%. Overall, they scored 1.10 PPP, which is an important level for them to reach. Boise State is 13-1 when breaking 1 PPP this season, while only 2-5 when not getting there (and those two wins came against cupcakes New Orleans and Louisiana-Lafayette). Boise State has the worst defense in the Mountain West (1.09 PPP allowed in conference play), so they're not going to beat a good team when they aren't sharp offensively.

UNLV played well offensively themselves here, as opponents tend to do against Boise State. Anthony Marshall had 18 points and 12 assists, while Anthony Bennett poured in 25 points on 9-for-16 shooting. As a team they assisted on 24 of 27 made baskets. But more than anything else, they left points at the free throw line (58.8%) and took too many three-pointers (24) for a team that doesn't have a lot of good outside shooters.

Now 3-4 in conference play, Boise State has wins over Creighton and UNLV along with bad losses to Utah and Nevada. Their RPI is 51st, though their Sagarin ELO_SCORE will likely still be in the vicinity of 75th when the new numbers come out tomorrow. So they're a bubble team, but they'd still very likely be NIT-bound if the season ended now. They probably need to get to 9-7 in conference play to have a good chance at an at-large bid. Unfortunately, their remaining schedule is pretty brutal, beginning with a Wednesday night game at San Diego State.

UNLV drops to 17-5 overall and 4-3 in conference play with this loss. They are 7-5 against the RPI Top 100 with an RPI that is 19th and a Sagarin ELO_SCORE that should still be around 30th, so they've still got a nice buffer between them and the bubble. They should be able to lock up that at-large bid if they get to 10-6. Their next game will be on Wednesday, at Fresno State.

Washington 96, Arizona State 92
There wasn't a whole lot of defense played in this game, as the 188 points scored in 40 minutes might have suggested (by my calculation, the two teams combined for 1.27 PPP). Arizona State, for their part, was just white hot from the field. They hit 12-for-19 behind the arc and finished with a 74.1 eFG%. It was Arizona State's best shooting performance since a 75.8 eFG% in a 104-65 rout of San Francisco on November 20th, 2009.

Washington, on the other hand, didn't shoot the lights out. In fact, they only hit 23.1% of their threes. So how could they possibly defeat a team shooting as well as Arizona State did? They dominated the glass. Washington had a 42.9 OR%, compared to a 4.5 OR% for Arizona State. This has been a problem for Arizona State all season. At 9.4 offensive rebounds per game, they are dueling with Utah to be the worst offensive rebounding team in the Pac-12.

With Oregon losing a pair of games this week, Arizona State had an opening to make a run for that Pac-12 regular season title, but this loss drops them a game behind both Oregon and Arizona. They are also only 2-4 against the RPI Top 100 with a Sagarin ELO_SCORE that will drop to around 60th. So they're a bubble team, but at this point they are a clear NIT team. At 6-3 in Pac-12 play now, they need to finish at least 11-7 to have a chance at an at-large bid. Next week they'll be at home to face the two northern California teams.

Washington moves to 13-9 overall and 5-4 in Pac-12 play with this win. They have wins over St. Louis and Colorado, along with bad losses to Albany, Nevada, Utah and Oregon State. They are only 8-9 against the RPI Top 200, so they are definitely an NIT team at the moment, but they can get onto the bubble if they get to 11-7. We should know next week if they're going to make a serious run at that, as they have a tough road trip to Los Angeles. They need to at least split those two games to stay in the bubble discussion.