#19 Michigan 60, #9 Michigan State 59
Stu Douglass scored on a layup with around 36 seconds to go to put Michigan up by one. Michigan State then had about three chances in the final seconds to score the winning basket, but none of them fell. Michigan State finished 0-for-4 from the field with a turnover in the final two minutes. And all of that after a 16-2 second half run to overcome a fairly large Michigan lead. Trey Burke had another tremendous game, scoring 20 points on 8-for-11 shooting. I wouldn't say that he's as good of an overall player as Darius Morris was last season (he's as good at scoring the ball, but he's not as good of a passer or creator for his teammates), but the fact that he's more or less filled the void is the primary reason why Michigan is 5-2 and in contention atop the Big Ten.
Michigan now has wins over Wisconsin, Michigan State, Memphis, Minnesota, Northwestern, Iowa State and UCLA, and only one bad loss (Iowa). Their Sagarin ELO_CHESS is all the way up to 19th. They've been a little bit lucky this season (4-1 in games decided by five points or less), so I don't expect them to keep this level of play up, but we'll see if I'm right as their schedule strength improves. For some reason they're playing a road game at Arkansas on Saturday (and don't sleep on the upset potential there as Mike Anderson has Arkansas playing a lot better), but next week they'll be the road to face both Purdue and Ohio State. The following week they'll play Indiana and then will go on the road to play Michigan State. It's a brutal two-week stretch.
This is Michigan State's second two-game losing streak of the season. Of course, they won 15 straight games in between. They're still only one game in the loss column behind Illinois atop the Big Ten, and I don't think anybody believes that Illinois will still be up there in a couple of weeks anyway. The Spartans are second best in the Big Ten outscoring opponents by 0.17 PPP in conference play this season, so they're still the team most likely to challenge Ohio State for the regular season title. The Spartans will take on Purdue on Saturday, and then will play Minnesota next Wednesday.
Cincinnati 70, #11 UConn 67
It's not a surprise that UConn is struggling with Ryan Boatright dealing with eligibility issues. Boatright is a very good player, and you know that UConn fans have to hate not knowing when he'll be back. In situations like this you just want the NCAA to make a ruling so that we all know if he'll be back, and when. Anyway, Cincy actually looked to be headed to a relatively easy win here. Shabazz Napier hit three three-pointers in the final 90 seconds to pull UConn even late, but a cold-blooded Sean Kilpatrick three gave Cincy the win.
Cincinnati has now won 10 of 11, pushing to 5-1 in Big East play with nice wins over Georgetown and UConn along with one bad loss (Presbyterian). Their RPI is still 107th, but never mind that. That number will improve just as their schedule strength improves. Their Sagarin ELO_CHESS is 67th (and should move up to around 60th after this win), which is a much better measure of their resume. What's holding their resume back is their horrid non-conference strength of schedule (rated 337th by Pomeroy). That said, Cincinnati is certainly playing like an NCAA Tournament team, and so I expect all of those computer numbers to continue to improve as they continue to win Big East games. If they can get to 10-8 in Big East play, it will be hard to see them missing the Tournament. They'll try to move to 6-1 on Saturday at West Virginia.
UConn is still 14-4 overall after this loss, though they're now only 4-3 in Big East play with only a few quality wins (Florida State, West Virginia and Harvard) along with a pair of bad losses to Rutgers and UCF. Their RPI is 4th, but their Sagarin and Pomeroy ratings are both going to fall out of the Top 30 after this loss. They'll play at Tennessee on Saturday, and then will have eight days off to get ready for a home game against Notre Dame. Have to say, it's odd during conference play for a team to go 11 days between games against conference opponents... not sure why it worked out that way.
Xavier 68, St. Joe's 55
Xavier looks to have finally fixed themselves mentally after some brutally bad play after that Cincinnati brawl. Tu Holloway was a facilitator in this game, collecting 12 assists while only taking five shots. You have to figure that he'll be more aggressive offensively when they need him to - he's still the team's go-to scorer. Overall, Xavier had 18 assists on 27 made baskets. If they hadn't hit only 4-for-16 on threes, this game would have really been a blowout.
Xavier went through a horrid six game stretch after the Cincinnati brawl. They lost five of the six games, including a terrible loss to Hawaii. The one win was a narrow one over a mediocre Southern Illinois team. But Xavier has won four straight games now, and taking St. Joe's down this thoroughly is definitely a very nice performance. Xavier is now 3-1 in Atlantic Ten play with two huge games coming up over the next week. They'll play at Dayton on Saturday, and then will get St. Louis at home next Wednesday.
This is a tough missed opportunity for a St. Joe's team that has been hanging out near the bubble, but that just can't close out a big win. They have narrow losses to Harvard, Seton Hall and Iona. They did knock off Creighton, but that's their only quality win of the season, and they're only 2-3 in Atlantic Ten play, with a brutal conference stretch upcoming (vs Dayton, at Temple, at Richmond, vs La Salle, vs St. Louis). All five of those opponents will likely finish the season as RPI Top 100 teams, so St. Joe's will have the opportunity to add a slew of quality wins... or else their A-10 record will drop like a rock. Time will tell which scenario happens.
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7 comments:
Just wanted to say thank you for your work on this blog. I try to read to as much as possible about cbb, and your recaps are so far and away better than everything in the mainstream media. Idk if this is something you want to do as a profession, but I hope youre working on ESPN soon.
Any plans on doing a podcast of some kind as well. Its just so refreshing to read something that combines pt per possession statistics and eye test actual analysis of who played better.
Keep up the great work. Im so glad I stumbled on your blog that I spent over an hour reading recaps from games early in the year that I didnt get to see and appreciate it a ton.
See ya on ESPN soon and hopefully on twitter if you have one.
im ervinsm on twitter
Steve
A bit off topic because I was hoping to post this with a Murray State summary, but I fear that may not happen until they lose, which might be awhile.
What do you think about VCU being ranked ahead of Murray State, Long Beach State, Harvard, Iona, etc. in Pomeroy and having a top 50 Sagarin predictor? I don't think I've ever seen a mid-major so high in the computers with so little fanfare and attention, which is just incredible to me since they're only 1 year removed from the Final Four.
ervinsm, thank you for the kind words. I am on twitter: twitter.com/BPredict. There is a link on the top left corner of this blog's homepage.
Anonymous, the issue for VCU is that they got a reality check that they needed early in the season. They got beat up a few times, and finally woke up and realized that being in the Final Four last year doesn't help you this year. They've played really well since November.
That said, the Colonial is really down this year, so VCU is going to have a very, very hard time earning an at-large bid. But if they earn the Colonial's automatic bid? They'll probably be something like a 12 or 13 seed, and they'll be a scary opponent.
Fair enough, I just feel like I'm hearing more about teams like Long Beach State, Iona, Harvard, Ohio, even Weber State and Oral Roberts, than VCU. It just boggles my mind that a team that made the Final Four last year and is sitting at 13-5 with top 50 computer numbers is nearly invisible at this point.
Well, I'm not sure I'm hearing a whole lot about Weber State... but it is true that teams like Long Beach State and Murray State have gotten more hype than deserved compared to other mid-major teams.
Every year there are a couple of small conference teams that mainstream media types will talk about all the time so that they can pretend like they watch mid-major basketball and that they're able to think outside the box. They all jump on the same bandwagon. Early in this season it was Long Beach State and now it's Murray State. As good as Murray State has been, they're over-hyped. Pollsters really believe they're the 10th best team in the country? Really???
Nobody gets any credit for talking up VCU since they were in the Final Four enough. So nobody is going to talk about them unless they have to.
And yes, I do realize I just described mainstream sports writers like they're a bunch of hipsters. But so be it, haha.
Lets assume Cincy loses the next two @ W va and vs Cuse and splits with Marq
That puts them at 6-4 with the rest of the schedule in no order:
That leaves home games of
Depaul
prov
hall
ville
Road games
@ Rutg
@ St Johns
@ USF
@ Nova
Its not easy to get to 12 or more BE wins, but its not really a pipe dream either. I think they'll be favored in all 4 of those home games (although not overwhelmingly)and winning 3 of those 4 games is pretty likely. They also should be either small favorites or maybe tiny dogs (2 pts or less) in those 4 road games. Getting 3 other road wins from that group would be really hard, but if they can get 2 of those 4 games that means they only need to have one other game break in their favor.
For perspective on where theyve been pt spread wise, Cincy was +6.5 @UConn and the same @Gtown iirc. Cincy was -7.5 to -8.5 vs Nova and ND, and was -11.5 vs ST Johns.
What im trying to get at is, where do you think a team like this will be seeded if it got to 12 conf wins and won a game or two in the BET?
Their non conf SOS is a joke, they have probably the worst loss of any BCS school that will be in the tournament which is a very baaaaaaaaad loss vs Presb, blown out vs X (idk if committee can use MOV or not), lost to St Johns at home is bad, and while Marshall isnt a terrible loss it's still a home game.
They did virtually nothing in the non conf best wins @ Ga and vs Okla and its not like either of those teams is making the tournament, let alone good. But theyve gotten some nice wins, and there wont be many teams with 2 better true road wins than @Uconn and @Gtown.
I just think they are really a hard
and weird team to seed, and if they do end up faltering and finishing at 9-9 or 10-8 BE record it wouldnt surprise me at all if somehow they ended up not being in the tournament.
In general the Selection Committee doesn't pay attention to margin of victory. Also, despite having a horrible loss, the Selection Committee will historically balance out bad losses with good wins. If two teams have equal computer numbers, they'll give the higher seed to the team with a bunch of big wins and bad losses rather than the team with neither.
If Cincinnati gets to 12-6 and also has a big win over Syracuse, Marquette or Georgetown (if they played Georgetown in the BE tourney), then I would say that a 6-9 Tournament seed would be reasonable. To get up around a 6 seed they'd have to finish strong (a good record in their final 10/12 games, and a couple of wins in the Big East tournament).
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