Can The Big East Get 11 Tournament Teams?

St. John's 72, #11 Notre Dame 58
The St. John's defense swamped a Notre Dame offense that sometimes struggles against athletic, attacking perimeter defenses. The refs did call the game tight, and with 25 fouls committed by the Johnnies, the Irish ended up with 32 free throw attempts. But Notre Dame hit only 19 of 32 free throws (59%), an uncharacteristic struggle considering their 73% free throw shooting on the season. This isn't the first time this season that Notre Dame's strong free throw shooting has abandoned them at a bad time. But to get to the topic of this post, it's worth noting that right now there are 11 Big East teams in the Sagarin ELO_CHESS Top 45. You can look at my posts on how the computers projected the field in 2009 or in 2010 to see that teams with a Top 45 ELO_CHESS very rarely miss the Tournament. And right now the Bracket Matrix does put all of those 11 teams in the Tournament. No conference has ever had more than 8 teams in the Tournament, and certainly it looks like the Big East will break that record this season. But will they get 11 teams? The answer is: almost certainly not. There just aren't enough conference wins to go around - at least one of those 11 teams is going to go 7-11 or worse in conference play. I do think that this is the perfect opportunity for a conference to get 9+ teams. The Big East is a 16 team behemoth and it's very strong (the Big East and Big Ten are the two best conferences in the nation, in some order) while many traditionally strong conferences are down (ACC, Pac-10, SEC, A-10). This is the perfect opportunity for a record-breaking season. St. John's is one of those 11 teams fighting to stay in the field, and they now have a bunch of good wins over Georgetown, West Virginia, Northwestern and Notre Dame, although also with two bad losses (St. Bonaventure and Fordham). Despite the big wins in conference, they probably need to get to 10-8 in conference play to make the Tournament. They are currently 4-2 and head next to Louisville on Wednesday night, then come home for Cincinnati, and then head to Georgetown. Notre Dame looks to still be safely in the field, but what really worries me about them right now is that they are 0-3 in true road games. The Irish have always had a strong homecourt advantage, but the Selection Committee wants to see teams able to get big wins away from home. Neutral court victories over Wisconsin, Georgia and California in November help, but they need a true road win. They have two home games coming up (Cincy and Marquette) before heading on the road again to Pitt and DePaul.

West Virginia 68, #8 Purdue 64
These non-conference games in the middle of conference season are always a bit bizarre, and sometimes the kids don't come out with maximum motivation. But both of these teams did fight hard, and West Virginia's defense was fired up to try to stop Purdue's talented offense. WVU didn't have anybody really capable of controlling JaJuan Johnson (26 points on 10-for-17 shooting, plus 7 rebounds), but they did a good job on Purdue's backcourt. E'Twaun Moore scored a very inefficient 14 points (6-for-18 shooting). West Virginia's offense wasn't able to do much, but they hit enough outside shots to narrowly carry themselves to a quality victory. This loss again emphasizes how little that Purdue has proven so far. They have one win against the RPI Top 50, and that win was over Valparaiso. They are 4-1 in the Big Ten, but those four wins have come against four of the five weakest teams in the Big Ten (Michigan, Northwestern, Iowa and Penn State). They have one more relatively easy game, at home against Penn State on Wednesday night, but then their season starts getting difficult, beginning with Michigan State at home on Saturday followed by a road game at Ohio State. West Virginia is beginning to really strengthen their at-large resume, with wins over Georgetown and Vanderbilt to go with this win over Purdue, with zero bad losses. They need to be wary of a potentially dangerous Marshall team on Wednesday night because if they come out sleep-walking they can lose. If they do beat Marshall then a 9-9 Big East record should be enough to get them into the Tournament. They're currently 3-2.

Wright State 69, Butler 64
I often talk about how much luck plays into a close win or loss, and boy was Wright State lucky at the end of this game. Up by three with a few seconds to go they allowed Shelvin Mack to get a relatively open three-pointer. The ball went halfway down and seemed to roll around the rim forever before finally squirting out into the open arms of Wright State's Troy Tabler, who hit two free throws to end the game. There is a fgreat replay from the opposite side of the floor where you see the Wright State student section jumping around before the shot, and then everybody standing frozen in time while they watched the ball spin around the rim, followed by bedlam as soon as the shot rolled out. That shot missed by half a millimeter and would have sent the game to overtime. And it just goes to show that the Basketball Gods like to even things up in the long run. After a fluky run last season, Butler is having all of the breaks go against them this season. And as good as they are, their resume probably won't be enough to get them an at-large bid. Right now their Sagarin PREDICTOR is 36th and their ELO_CHESS is 53rd. So they would not earn an at-large bid right now, but if they get into the Tournament they'll be a very tough first round beat. They are 6-3 against the RPI Top 100, but their best wins are over Florida State, Washington State, Cleveland State and Valparaiso, which won't impress the Selection Committee. Neither will several bad losses (Evansville, UW-Milwaukee, and possibly this one). They will have to go nearly undefeated the rest of the way to have a real shot at an at-large bid. For Wright State, this win moves them into a tie for second place in the Horizon, and keeps them in the discussion at the top of what is turning out to be a wild Horizon League. Butler, Cleveland State, Valparaiso and Wright State are all capable of winning the conference tournament and then an NCAA Tournament game or more. Prior to this game I viewed Wright State as clearly the weakest of those four teams, but maybe I need to reevaluate that assessment.