Morning News: New Bracket, Feisty Oklahoma, Toledo As A Sleeper, And Rutgers Struggles

Julius Brown has led Toledo to a 5-0 record to start the season

New Bracket Projection My weekly bracket projection is posted here. Four teams moved into the bracket: two teams as at-larges (Iowa State and Florida State) and two teams as automatic bids (Drexel and Bryant). The four teams that left the BP68 were La Salle, UNLV, Towson and Mt St Mary's.

I'll give my typical warning not to get too worked up if your team is a 12 seed nor is just narrowly out of the field at this point. There just isn't a big difference. These teams need to play more games to start separating themselves. There is no real "bubble" until January at the earliest.

Feisty Performance From Oklahoma I'm sure Oklahoma wanted to beat Michigan State, but they really impressed in their 87-76 loss. They led by 9 points early and then suffered a brutal 34-9 run to finish the half. But instead of rolling over and dying, they competed in the second half, pulling within five points with two minutes to go. Cameron Clark has really improved since last year, and is scoring points in bunches (32 points last night to pull his season average up to 18.2). Ryan Spangler, the transfer from Gonzaga, has also been very effective.

Unfortunately, their strength of schedule is pretty weak until Big 12 play, so we won't see too much more of this team for a while. The Sooners will likely be 11-2 or 12-1, but without any big scalps. They're going to have the classic bubble resume. A 10-8 Big 12 record with a win or two over the big boys at the top of the standings will get them Dancing. Feels kind of early to talk about that kind of stuff, but there we go.

Sleeper Team: Toledo I suppose it's a slow day in college basketball when I'm talking about a Toledo/Detroit game, but hey... it was a slow day in college basketball. It's an excuse to talk about a Toledo team that has really impressed early on this season. They were my preseason pick to win the MAC, but they're outperforming even those expectations. The story is an offense that has been filthy, scoring at least 1.1 PPP in every single game so far. And it's a balanced offense, with a lot of different ways to beat you (although point guard Julius Brown is the engine that makes it go).

Toledo is now 5-0, with wins on the road or on neutral courts against Boston College, Stony Brook and Detroit. I don't think they should be considered a serious contender for an at-large bid anytime soon, but they're a team that could be a scary 12 or 13 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Rutgers Struggles... Badly Rutgers actually led William & Mary by 9 at halftime, but then started the second half suffering a staggering 20-0 run that they never recovered from. In the end, they lost by 10. Coming off losses to UAB and Drexel, Rutgers is 3-3 overall and looking like they'll finish near the basement of the AAC.

It's not a huge shock that Rutgers is struggling, but there's no obvious help on the horizon. They don't have any big recruits coming in, and they're heading to the basement of the Big Ten (most likely) next season. If Rutgers is ever going to drag themselves up to the middle of the pack in the Big Ten, they're going to have to upgrade the talent level. Either Eddie Jordan will have to use the coming move to the Big Ten as a carrot to draw recruits or else Rutgers is going to have to use the piles of Big Ten Network cash to hire a better coach.