And Then There Were Five

#7 Villanova 72, #25 Cincinnati 61
We're down to five undefeated teams in the nation now. Cincinnati was due for a reality check after blowing through mostly cupcakes to start the season. This game wasn't even as close as the final score would suggest - Villanova led by 16 at halftime and had the second half lead as high as 20. Villanova's perimeter defense just completely choked the life out of Cincy's offense, and ended up holding them to 36% shooting. Cincinnati is now 15-1, and their best wins this season came against Xavier, Dayton and Seton Hall. It is an impressive start, but it's not overwhelming. The fact is that they don't have any huge wins, and their Sagarin PREDICTOR (25th) and Pomeroy rating (23rd) suggest that they're a good team, but in no way is it a sure thing they'll end up making the Tournament. We only have to go back to 2006-07 for a more drastic turnaround. In that case Clemson started the season 17-0 with wins over teams like Florida State, Georgia Tech, Minnesota, Mississippi State, Georgia and NC State. They went 4-10 the rest of the way and at 21-10 (with a 7-9 ACC record and a loss in their first ACC tournament game) they ended up in the NIT. I'm not saying Cincy will end up there, but I'm just saying that I'd like to see Cincinnati collect some Top 25 and Top 50 wins before I put them into the Field of 68 in pen. They next play USF on Wednesday, and then have consecutive road games at Syracuse and Notre Dame. As for Villanova, they move to 3-0 in Big East play and have a big home game coming up against Louisville on Wednesday. Villanova was not done any favors by the Big East schedule-makers. With 16 teams in the conference and an 18 game schedule, each team only has to play three other teams twice. The three teams that Villanova is matched up against twice? Syracuse, Pitt and Rutgers. Considering that Syracuse and Pitt are probably the two best teams in the Big East, that's pretty rough. On the plus side, Villanova will have their shot to try to win the Big East regular season title - all they have to do is beat their top competition.

#2 Ohio State 67, #21 Minnesota 64
Ohio State took their foot off the pedal too early in this game and ended up having the tightest finish in their 16-0 start to the season. The Buckeyes had an 18 point lead with about 8:30 left in the second half, but the Gophers got it so close that they actually had a desperation shot to try to tie things up at the buzzer. While they were getting blown out early on, Minnesota did show a formula here for beating Ohio State. The Gophers have a lot of big bodies that could bang with Sullinger and could keep him under control (15 points on 5-for-11 shooting along with 12 rebounds) without compromising their perimeter defense. Ohio State has good backcourt players, but nobody that is a tremendous playmaker. They certainly don't have an elite point guard. There aren't a lot of teams that can stay with Sullinger one-on-one, but there are a few in the Big Ten. Michigan State is probably the best positioned (other than Minnesota). Ohio State next plays at rival Michigan on Wednesday night, and then they have home games against Penn State and Iowa. Minnesota has been off to a brutal start in the Big Ten, with three very tough road losses (Ohio State, Michigan State and Wisconsin) and one easy home win (Indiana). They have a big home game Thursday night against Purdue before their schedule lightens up. Minnesota probably goes to the Tournament if they get to 9-9 in Big Ten play, but a big win will help. Home games against Purdue, Illinois, Michigan State and Ohio State are their best shots.

Massachusetts 55, Dayton 50
If you want to know why the Atlantic Ten is rated so poorly this season (both Sagarin and Pomeroy rate them below Conference USA) it's games like this. UMass, in their last game, lost to Central Connecticut State by 29 points. The previous sentence does not have any typos in it. They also lost at home to Maine a few weeks ago by double-digits. And then they came here and beat Dayton, severely damaging the resume of one of the few A-10 teams good enough to actually earn an at-large bid. Even after this loss Dayton's resume isn't that bad. They have another bad loss (to East Tennessee State), but they also have wins against Seton Hall and Ole Miss and are 13-4 overall with an RPI of 53rd and a Sagarin ELO_CHESS of 49th. But that said, they aren't as good as their resume. Their Sagarin PREDICTOR is 112th and Pomeroy rates them 92nd. So neither computer rating thinks they're nearly good enough for the bubble. At this point I agree with them - I don't think they're going to finish with the 11-5 or better Atlantic Ten record they're going to need to earn an at-large (I actually think an 11-5 record won't be enough unless they beat Temple and do really well in the A-10 tournament). As for UMass, you can guess from what I've already said about them that they're nowhere near a Tournament team. Things have really fallen off since Travis Ford left, and while they're still 92nd in RPI they are well outside the Top 100 in both Sagarin ratings as well as the Pomeroy ratings.