Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Temple With Another Impressive Road Win

#22 Temple 80, La Salle 79, OT
La Salle is a quality team, and they gave Temple a good fight. Khalif Wyatt had 25 points for Temple, but he almost cost his team a victory by losing track of the clock at the end of regulation and letting time run out while he had his back to the basket. If there was something more fundamental that was worrying for Temple it was ball handling. They are third best in the Atlantic Ten with only 11.4 turnovers per game, but La Salle forced 11 steals. A big part of that goes on Juan Fernandez, who had a terrible game (7 assists, 5 turnovers and 2 points in 36 minutes).

But Temple escaped with the win, their 11th straight. That stretch features solid road victories over St. Bonaventure, Charlotte and La Salle. They will have another tough road game on Saturday at St. Joseph's. They should be pretty solid favorites for their final two regular season games, so if they can get past St. Joe's then I'll expect them to be the 1 seed in the Atlantic Ten tournament.

La Salle is not quite eliminated from at-large consideration, but they really needed to grab this win. They are now 18-10 overall and 7-6 in A-10 play with a win over Xavier along with bad losses to Delaware, Robert Morris and Richmond. They are only 10-10 against the RPI Top 200 and their Sagarin ELO_CHESS is around 95th. They'll have to win their final three regular season games to stay alive for an at-large bid, beginning with a game at Fordham on Saturday.

#18 Notre Dame 71, West Virginia 44
Notre Dame had a 71.6 eFG% in this game. West Virginia had a 32.4 eFG%. That's about all you need to know. Kevin Jones got 15 points on 6-for-12 shooting, but for the most part Notre Dame bottled him up and forced his teammates to beat them. And outside of Jones, the rest of the West Virginia roster has just been disappointing, and they continued to disappoint here. It's pretty surprising to me how much Truck Bryant has regressed. He does much less facilitating and creating than he did in the past, and instead seems more than happy to launch jumpers. Last year he assisted on 23.4% of baskets made when he was on the floor and took 3.9 three-pointers per game. This year he has assisted on only 15.7 baskets made when he was on the floor, and has taken 7.1 three-pointers per game.

The Irish have suddenly won 9 straight games to move to 12-3 in Big East play. It's very likely that they'll end up finishing in either second place or third place in the final standings. They're now 9-6 against the RPI Top 100 and their Sagarin ELO_CHESS is up to around 25th. If the season ended now, they'd be somewhere between a 5 and a 7 seed. They will play at St. John's on Saturday, and will try not to look ahead to a huge road game at Georgetown on Monday night.

This loss drops West Virginia to 7-8, putting their at-large hopes in peril. They will play Marquette on Friday, which will be a great chance for a big win. But a loss there will make their final two games (vs DePaul, at USF) nearly must-wins. It will be hard to justify an 8-10 Big East team this year considering that a team like USF is 10-5. West Virginia's Sagarin ELO_CHESS is 50th, so they're still right on the bubble, but they need to get to 9-9 or they're going to have a whole bunch of work to do in the Big East tournament. I'll also note that this loss means that West Virginia has an uphill battle avoid being stuck playing in the first round of the Big East tournament.

#6 Michigan State 66, Minnesota 61
It's rare that you see a team's season deflate as quickly and obviously as it did for Minnesota here. Minnesota led for almost the entire second half, but Michigan State closed the game on a 19-7 run where Minnesota just seemed frantic and scared. You could see the same feelings in the faces of the fans in the crowd - once the lead started evaporating, the sense of dread just grew. Michigan State didn't play their best ball of the season here, but they were calm and efficient. They committed only 5 turnovers all game, and assisted on 15 of 22 made baskets.

Even with a win here, Minnesota would have had an uphill battle to the bubble. But with this loss, they have effectively punched their ticket to the NIT. They are 5-10 in Big Ten play with a couple of tough games to go (including a road game at Wisconsin next week). If they somehow win their final three games to get to 8-10 then they'd enter the Big Ten tournament with an at-large scenario, but I don't see that happening. And no 7-11 Big Ten team has ever earned an at-large bid.

Michigan State moves to 12-3 with this win, still a game clear of Ohio State in the loss column. The Big Ten tournament will be the key for them, because they can lose another regular season game and will still be a 1 seed if they win the Big Ten tournament. Although with the depth of the Big Ten, it's going to be difficult for any team to navigate to three straight wins in Indianapolis.

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