Oregon State Shocks Arizona

Oregon State 76, Arizona 75
So far, this is probably the most shocking intra-conference result from one of the BCS conferences. Arizona is either the second or third best team in the Pac-10, and Oregon State has been downright awful. They have already lost this season to Texas Southern, Utah Valley, Seattle and George Washington. They are 6-6 against the RPI 200+. Let me repeat that: they are 6-6 against teams with an RPI of 200 or worse. And now they're 1-0 against the RPI Top 50. And the thing was, they deserved this win. Obviously a one-point win always involves some luck, but Oregon State was the better team - Arizona would have been the lucky ones if they'd pulled this out. OSU had 6 more offensive rebounds, 5 fewer turnovers, and earned 8 more free throws. The only reason the score was this close was because Arizona shot far better on both two-pointers (73% vs 53%) and three-pointers (30% vs 13%). Arizona also stunk it up from the line (54%) despite normally being strong there (they're 19th in the nation with 76.2% free throw shooting). There was no singular star for Oregon State - everybody just played their best ball of the season. Of course, even after this win Oregon State's RPI is only up to 263rd. Both Pomeroy and Sagarin rate them as closer to the 150th best team in the nation, so they're not quite as awful as their resume suggests, but it's pretty obvious to me they're spending this season locked with their in-state rivals to see which team will finish last in the Pac-10. As for Arizona, this loss is a huge problem because as well as they've played so far they did it against a soft schedule, so their resume isn't particularly impressive. And as bad as the Pac-10 is this year, there aren't big wins to be had in conference (other than Washington). So Arizona is going to have to go at least 10-8 in conference play just to make the Tournament - and even that might not be enough if they flame out in the first round of the Pac-10 tournament. Right now their RPI is 37th and their Sagarin ELO_CHESS is 48th, so they're only very narrowly in the Field of 68. But they're a good team, and they should get the required wins (Pomeroy currently projects a 13-5 finish for them, which is second to only Washington's 16-2 projected finish).

St. John's 61, #13 Georgetown 58
People need to realize that this game wasn't a big upset. Both Sagarin and Pomeroy rated this as nearly a 50-50 game, which was why Ken Pomeroy on his twitter linked to a CBS Sports article saying that St. Johns "Stunned" Georgetown and joked that he flipped a coin and was "stunned" that heads came up. That said, this was a really fun game to watch. Dwight Hardy can get out of control at times and doesn't really distribute the ball well for a senior ballhandler, but boy is he quick and fun to watch play. Overall St. John's has been pretty good with the ball this year (they're only turning the ball over on 16.3% of offensive possessions), and they only had four turnovers in this game. Steve Lavin did a good job of shortening his rotation to his best possible lineups - he was playing too many guys earlier this season, presumably so he could find which combinations worked best. And so while St. John's got off to the slow start this season (losses to St. Bonaventure and Fordham), they are now off to a 3-0 start in Big East play. They needed this quick start, because they've entered a brutal stretch of eight straight games against ranked opponents. They can't afford to fall too far below .500 in conference because even as much respect as the Big East always gets on Selection Sunday (the Big East has passed the ACC as the most overhyped conference among the media and the Selection Committee - they're like SEC football), St. John's will need to get to at least 10-8 in Big East play to get an at-large bid because of how weak they were out-of-conference. Their next game is at Notre Dame on Saturday, and then they play Syracuse at home next Wednesday. As for Georgetown, they're now 1-2 in the Big East and their championship chances are falling apart. Their next two games are at home (West Virginia on Saturday, Pitt next Wednesday), but then they'll head on the road to play Rutgers and Seton Hall. They're currently 0-2 in Big East road games, and have to turn that around if they're going to have any chance of winning the Big East.

Stanford 82, California 68
This was an upset, although not too surprising. In fact, I think Stanford was favored by a point in Vegas. California just has not played well this season, and Stanford isn't as bad as people think (they're definitely a step ahead of the two Oregon schools). Stanford shot the lights out in this game, including 53% behind the arc. California is very poor offensively and relies on its defense, so they're not going to win many games where they're getting lit up. The past few years California has been a team that relies on its guards, and they typically play small, but it's a real problem this year because they have no outside shooters. Last year, when they were a good team, they hit 37.4% of their threes - this year they're at 31.7% (Jerome Randle and Theo Robertson are the two key graduates who lit it up from outside last year). The fact that they can't hit those outside shots means that defense don't have to respect the three, and they're clogging up the middle of the floor to keep Jorge Guttierez from having room. So even though they're hitting a lower percentage of threes than last year, they're actually shooting more of them, just because those are their only options. Short of doing new shooting drills, the only way Cal is going to get their offense under control will be to get some post players who can force double teams so as to open things up for Cal's dribblers. Because their offense is just not good enough (0.94 points per possession on the season) to achieve anything without a Florida State-quality defense (which they don't have). Cal is now 7-6, and 0-1 in Pac-10 play. They are going to have to get to at least 11-7 in Pac-10 play to have a chance at an at-large bid, which means that they have a key stretch upcoming against a fairly difficult schedule (by Pac-10 standards). They play next at the two Arizona schools, and then go home for the two Washington schools, and then head on the road again for the two Los Angeles schools. They can't afford to go worse than 3-3 over that stretch to keep any realistic hope of an at-large bid alive. As for Stanford, they went 7-4 out-of-conference with their best win coming against Virginia, and a couple of questionable losses (Murray State, Tulsa). They, too, would have to go at least 11-7 in Pac-10 play to have a realistic shot at the Tournament. But both Sagarin and Pomeroy rate Stanford as right around the 100th best team in the nation, so it's a very unlikely scenario they'll do even that well. Pomeroy likes Stanford more than Sagarin does, and even after this win he still projects only a 7-11 Pac-10 record for the Cardinal.