Saturday, March 03, 2012

Arch Madness: Illinois State Knocks Off Wichita State

Illinois State 65, #14 Wichita State 64
Will we have our first "stolen" automatic bid? We'll find out tomorrow. This game had a frenetic finish. Over the final 4:30 of this game, the two teams combined to shoot 0-for-11 from the field with a pair of turnovers. But Illinois State outscored the Shockers 2-to-1 at the free throw line, with the winning points coming from Tyler Brown with 6.4 seconds left. Wichita State just tightened up, finishing with a 40.4 eFG%, their worst shooting performance since December. And so now Illinois State will get a chance tomorrow in the Arch Madness title game to steal an automatic bid against Creighton.

Illinois State, should they win that game tomorrow, will likely end up with a decent Tournament seed. They finished 9-9 in Valley play and are now 20-12 overall with a 3-6 record against the RPI Top 100. More likely than now they'd end up with a 13 seed, where they'll get a beatable opponent.

Wichita State had a good shot at a 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament if they'd won the Valley tournament title, but there's no way they'll finish higher than a 5 seed now. With only a 6-3 record against the RPI Top 100, I could potentially see them falling as far as a 7 seed. But that makes them a really good team to bet on, because there are few teams as undervalued as Wichita State. To put in perspective how good Wichita State is, they entered today rated higher than Duke in the Pomeroy ratings. If they get stuck playing a team like Ohio State in the Round of 32 then that will probably be the end of their season, but with the right draw they can definitely be a Sweet 16 or Elite 8 team.

#7 Marquette 83, #12 Georgetown 69
Marquette grabbed an early lead in this game, and Georgetown never really could get fully engaged after that. Marquette had a 10 point lead at halftime, and never led by fewer than 8 the rest of the way. Davante Gardner returned to action (though he still looked to be limping a bit), but the star was Jae Crowder, who had 26 points (on 9-for-15 shooting) and 14 rebounds. West Virginia's Kevin Jones has been the best player in the Big East this season, but he doesn't have anywhere near the quality of teammates that Crowder has. That could be the difference as it looks like Crowder is the favorite to win Big East Player of the Year.

This win locks Marquette into second place in the Big East. They'll play in the Big East quarterfinals on Thursday, most likely playing Louisville (the 7 seed). This win pushes Marquette to 7-4 against the RPI Top 50, and their Sagarin ELO_CHESS will likely move up to 10th or 11th. If the season ended now they'd be a 3 seed, but they could move up to a 2 seed with a strong Big East tournament performance.

Georgetown entered this game with a shot at a 2 seed, but that's probably over now. They are 8-5 against the RPI Top 50, but only 12-6 against a soft Big East schedule (coming into today, Pomeroy rated their conference SOS the easiest in the Big East). They are also now the 5 seed in the Big East tournament, meaning that they'll only get a single bye. They'll play on Wednesday against either Rutgers, St. John's or Pittsburgh. If they lose that game then they could tumble as far as a 5 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Marshall 79, Southern Miss 75
Southern Miss is one of those teams that overachieved early in the season and has had a several week reality check that has dropped them all the way to the NCAA Tournament bubble. Their biggest problem all season long has been perimeter defense, and many opponents have gotten into virtual layup lines against them. Here, Southern Miss out-shot Marshall 50% to 17% behind the arc, but got out-shot 63% to 38% inside the arc. Marshall would have won this game by even more if not for that white hot outside Southern Miss shooting.

While Southern Miss led the Conference USA standings midway through the season, they will finish up in second place, which is the more just result. Memphis has been the better team this season. The Golden Eagles finish the regular season 24-7 overall and 11-5 in C-USA play. They have wins over Memphis and South Florida to go with bad losses to Houston, UAB and UTEP. Their Sagarin ELO_CHESS will fall to around 40th with this loss. If the season ended now they'd be a Tournament team, but only narrowly. And with the Tournament bubble likely to strengthen over the next week, Southern Miss has to win their Conference USA quarterfinal game or they'll likely fall into the NIT. They will play on Friday, with several possible opponents.

This win moves Marshall to 9-7 in Conference USA play and 5-9 against the RPI Top 100. It's possible for them to earn the fourth and final bye through the first round of the C-USA tournament, but that will depend on the results of a couple of other games. It's unlikely that they'll earn the conference's auto bid, but stranger things have happened.

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