Villanova Beats Marquette, Moves Closer To An At-Large

Villanova 60, #17 Marquette 56
This game was a grind, with neither team able to get much offensive flow.  Marquette had nearly as many turnovers (19) as made baskets (22). Vander Blue (7 points and 4 assists) was shut down, and the Golden Eagles ended up with only 0.89 PPP. Villanova wasn't a whole lot better, but 22 points (on 7-for-10 shooting) from Darrun Hilliard was enough to put them over the top.

Villanova's success this year has been driven by their defense, though. They have held 8 of their past 12 opponents below 1 PPP. Overall they are allowing only 0.92 PPP, which is third best in the Big East, behind only Louisville and Georgetown. This season they are 12-2 when breaking 1 PPP on offense.

With this win, Villanova moves to 18-10 overall and 9-6 in Big East play, with wins over Louisville, Syracuse, Marquette and UConn, along with a bad loss to Columbia. Overall they are 7-9 against the RPI Top 100, with a Sagarin ELO_SCORE near 40th. If the season ended now they'd be one of the last teams in the NCAA Tournament or one of the first few teams out. They are squarely on the bubble. To make the NCAA Tournament, I think a 2-1 finish and then at least one win in the Big East tournament will be enough. Monday night's game at Seton Hall is very important to take care of, with Pittsburgh and Georgetown coming up after that.

This loss drops Marquette out of a tie for first place in the Big East. They are 10-4 in Big East play, with a 7-6 record against the RPI Top 100. Their Sagarin ELO_SCORE will remain in the Top 20, so at this point they'd basically have to lose out to fall all the way back to the bubble. That's not going to happen, so at this point they're just playing for seed. Their next game will be on Monday, against Syracuse.

St. Mary's 74, Creighton 66
This was a really interesting game between two mid-majors that will be awfully scary NCAA Tournament opponents... if they can get there. Both have soft resumes, and desperately needed this win. St. Mary's got the win, and obviously they got a nice performance from Matthew Dellavedova (19 points, including 5-for-10 behind the arc), but they also managed to limit Doug McDermott (22 points on 7-for-18 shooting). It seemed as though St. Mary's was running a lot of their offense right at McDermott, wearing him out and limiting his effectiveness on the other end of the floor.

Creighton's team-wide shooting woes continued here. They hit only 28% of their threes and had a 46.1 eFG%. That brings their season record to 1-6 when having an eFG% under 52%, and 21-1 when having an eFG% over 52%. Their defense just isn't good enough to keep up teams when they're not shooting well.

Creighton should stay in the Top 30 of both Pomeroy and the Sagarin PREDICTOR tomorrow, but they are firmly on the Tournament bubble. Despite a 22-7 overall record, they have only one win against a certain NCAA Tournament team (Wisconsin), while they have a couple of iffy losses (Drake and Illinois State). Their Sagarin ELO_SCORE will drop them out of the Top 40. If the season ended now I think they'd be an NCAA Tournament team, but with very little room to spare. I think they need to win their final two regular season games (including a finale against Wichita State) to be confident of an at-large bid. If they split their final two games then they will enter Arch Madness with work left to do. Their next game will be on Wednesday, at Bradley.

St. Mary's should move into the Top 25 in the Pomeroy ratings and isn't far behind the Sagarin PREDICTOR, but would have fallen out of the Sagarin ELO_SCORE Top 50 if they'd lost here. Why? The fact that they entered this game 0-2 against the RPI Top 50, with their only "quality" wins coming over BYU. This gives them their nicest scalp of the season, and also moves them to 24-5 overall. If they can win their final two games (at Pepperdine, vs Santa Clara) to get to 26-5, then they should be pretty safe for the NCAA Tournament.

Kentucky 70, Missouri 70
This was a win that Kentucky absolutely had to have, and they got it, even if Missouri had more than a few chances to steal the game. Missouri had a chance to set up a final good possession in regulation, but Flip Pressey let the clock run down too far and took a terrible shot. In overtime, we again saw both the "good" and "bad" Pressey. He was attacking the basket and setting up his teammates, but he also had a terrible turnover when he jumped in the air with nowhere to go with the ball, and rushed a dumb three when Missouri was only down 4 points with almost 40 seconds left in overtime. For the game, Pressey had 27 points and 10 assists, though it took 24 shots and also including 4 turnovers. Overall he played well, but he needs to play under more control.

With one minute to go in overtime, Kentucky was only 14-for-26 at the free throw line, but they proceeded to hit eight straight at the line when they needed them. As Ken Pomeroy will tell you, clutch free throw shooting doesn't exist, but Kentucky happened to get good free throw shooting when they needed it.

It was interesting to see that in a game he really needed to have, John Calipari went with a really tight rotation. His five starters all went 35+ minutes, and three of them went 40+. Neither Jarrod Polson or Jon Hood saw much of the floor at all (they combined for 0 points, 0 rebounds and 0 assists in 11 minutes). Willie Cauley-Stein did his best Nerlens Noel impression, blocking 7 shots, while Alex Poythress (21 points on 8-for-10 shooting) and Julius Mays (24 points on 6-for-12 shooting) were both as good as they've looked all season. Missouri's best player was probably Alex Oriakhi - he led all players with 15 total rebounds and 6 offensive rebounds, and also poured in 16 points.

Kentucky moves to 19-8 overall and 10-4 in SEC play, though only 1-4 against the RPI Top 50 (this is that one win). Their Sagarin ELO_SCORE should move into the Top 30 tomorrow. So they now have a little bit of breathing room between them and the bubble. A 2-2 finish should put them in pretty good shape. Their next game will be on Wednesday, against Mississippi State.

Missouri is 19-8 overall and 8-6 in SEC play, and 7-8 against the RPI Top 100. The biggest stat that is worrying about them is that they are 1-7 in true road games, with the one win coming over a putrid Mississippi State team. So they don't want to end up on the bubble, because that's the kind of stat that could get them left out of the Tournament. For the time being, they should be okay if they can go 2-2 down the stretch. They'll play next on Thursday, at South Carolina.