Tuesday, February 01, 2011

Johnnies Destroy Ice Cold Duke

St. John's 93, #3 Duke 78
The media always makes too much out of individual games, and that's doubly true whenever Duke is involved. Yes, St. John's was up by as much as 25 points in this game, and Duke was playing awful (17 turnovers), but Duke was also just ice cold. They started the game 1-for-22 on three-pointers. If they had hit their season average (39%) this game would have essentially been a toss-up, as poorly as Duke played. But that said, two things did stand out here for me. First, Duke is again too reliant on outside shooting. Their problems in recent NCAA Tournaments have been a dependence on three-point shooting. It's so hard to win six straight games against quality opponents when a single off night from behind the arc will kill you. Last year they had their best front line in a decade, and so it wasn't shocking that they finally had some Tournament success. This season they are much weaker offensively in the post (the Plumlees seem to have regressed), and they are again too dependent on outside shooting. The other bizarre thing from this game was how passive Coach K was in the first half. You would have expected him to be calling timeouts and yelling at refs, but instead he spent the entire first half sitting in a trance doing neither. I understand wanting to let your players try to work through a tough stretch of play without bailing them out, as a learning experience, but at some point I think it sends the message that this game just isn't important enough. The St. John's players were fighting like this was the most important game of their season while Duke's players didn't show that sort of intensity until the last few minutes of the game.

I still think Duke is going to be a 1 seed in the Tournament simply because they should roll through their remaining ACC opponents. A Wednesday night game at Maryland and a March 5th game at North Carolina are their most likely losses. But there will be big question marks about this team heading into the Tournament because of how they have struggled at times this year, and because they just have no opportunity to prove themselves against a weak ACC. St. John's is now 12-8, including 4-5 in Big East play, but their resume is actually quite strong. They have wins over Georgetown, Notre Dame and Duke, and only two bad losses (Fordham and St. Bonaventure). Their RPI is 23rd and their Sagarin ELO_CHESS is 34th. If the season ended now they'd definitely be in the Field of 68. They have proven that against elite opponents they can hang in there and pull a few upsets, but now the question is whether they can go into the softer part of their schedule without collecting any bad losses. They will play Rutgers on Wednesday and then head to UCLA on Saturday afternoon. A win over UCLA and a 9-9 Big East record should get them into the Tournament. Anything less than that and they'll still have work left to do heading into the Big East tournament.

Washington State 87, #17 Washington 80
It made sense that we'd end a weekend with so many Top 25 upsets with a final one on Sunday night. This was a terribly sloppy game from Washington, particularly from Isaiah Thomas, who shot 3-for-13 with 7 turnovers. Of course, nobody on Washington could hit a shot - they shot 37.1% from the field. Wazzu got a big game from star Klay Thompson (25 points on 9-for-18 shooting, along with 5 steals). Thompson had a reputation last season for putting up huge numbers out-of-conference while coming up short against Pac-10 foes, but this year he's continued his strong play in conference (for the most part... he did only have 9 points in their last game, against Arizona. Naturally the game was a loss).

Washington is still rated as one of the ten best teams in the nation by Pomeroy and Sagarin, but their weak conference is killing their resume. Their Sagarin ELO_CHESS has tumbled all the way to 31st. Even if Washington gets on a big winning streak it's going to be very hard now for them to move higher than a 3 seed in the Tournament. They just will have no chances for big wins. For Washington State this now represents their first RPI Top 50 win, and they're 4-6 overall against the RPI Top 100, with zero RPI 100+ losses. Their RPI is 64th and their Sagarin ELO_CHESS is 63rd. Like Washington they lack chances for big wins, but Washington State will be right on the bubble if they can get to 11-7 in Pac-10 play (they're currently 5-4). Their next two games will be key, on the road at the two Oregon schools. It's important that they don't let down after this big win by losing a game against one of those two bad teams.

Northern Iowa 60, Missouri State 59
If nothing else, Missouri State basketball has been exciting lately. Their last four games have been decided by a combined six points. They won two, and lost two - certainly a statistically just result. Although let me add that if you're not watching these games between top Missouri Valley teams you should. They have huge crowds that rock their arenas, and the quality of play is high. The conference gets zero national attention, but their games are great to watch. Back to Missouri State, they are still tied for first place in the Missouri Valley at 9-2, but this loss drops their Sagarin ELO_CHESS out of the Top 50. And the problem for Missouri State is that they have zero big wins, and are going to lose a bubble showdown against a team like St. John's that has a mix of big wins and bad losses. The Selection Committee will always give the benefit of the doubt to a team with Top 25 wins. Missouri State probably can't afford to lose more than one more game the rest of the regular season if they're going to be able to earn an at-large bid.

Northern Iowa is only one game back in the Missouri Valley, with an 8-3 record, and they've got wins over New Mexico and Indiana in addition to wins over Wichita State and Missouri State. The problem is that they've also got a slew of bad losses: Southern Illinois, UW-Milwaukee, Iowa and Indiana State. Their Sagarin ELO_CHESS is up to 68th now, but they'll need to be within the Top 50 to have a chance on Selection Sunday. That said, with wins on the road already over Wichita State and Missouri State, the two best teams in the conference, certainly UNI has to like their chance of stealing the automatic bid at the MVC tournament.

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