News, Notes, and Highlighted Games: Sunday, Feb 19th

SURVIVAL BOARD – CLICK HERE to see the entire board

-ORAL ROBERTS (Summit) – Will be eliminated if IUPUI beats Denver.

-Eastern Illinois and Central Connecticut State were mathematically eliminated from qualifying for their conference tournaments yesterday.  Austin Peay survived a shot at elimination, but will be at risk again on Thursday night.

NEWS AND NOTES

-For today’s Under the Radar Game of the Day between Bucknell and Boston U, CLICK HERE.

-Gonzaga remains unbeaten after rolling over Pacific, and well on pace to earn a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

-Kansas has had a great season, and today they picked up what is probably their greatest win of the year at Baylor.  It was a very exciting game that seesawed back and forth where Baylor had a chance to either win or tie in the final seconds, but came up short.  The loss isn’t that costly for the Bears, but I can see a team like North Carolina jumping over them and ending up on the #1 line.  Speaking of the Tarheels….

-North Carolina beat a very good Virginia team rather handily yesterday.  Virginia is just 2-5 in their last seven games but because of how strong their schedule is they’re still reasonably safe for a protected seed.  North Carolina looks to be playing their best basketball of the season and they’ve got a very good chance at ending up as a #1 seed.

-SMU picked up one of their more impressive wins of the season at Houston.  Houston’s not a tournament team, but they’re still tough to beat at home so the committee should give SMU quite a bit of credit for picking up the win.

-Marquette jumped out to a 21-2 lead against Xavier and never looked back.  This was a win that Marquette really needed seeing as how they were right on the bubble.

-Clemson lost another close game.  This time at Miami FL.  No one almost wins more often than Clemson!

-South Carolina couldn’t get it done at Vanderbilt, but they’re still in reasonably good shape for a bid.

-Kansas State got a big road win at Texas.  It’s not the beating Texas part that was big.  It was the road win that was big.  They only had one coming into yesterday and desperately needed another one.

-In one of the bigger surprises of the day Florida State couldn’t get it done against Pittsburgh, and although they weren’t blown out it didn’t exactly go down to the wire either.  Pitt won by a rather comfortable margin.

-UCLA absolutely crushed USC to win the bragging rights and keep themselves in good shape to earn a protected seed.

-Louisville survived a scare at home against Virginia Tech, as did Duke against Wake Forest, and Arizona survived a far more surprising scare against Washington, but both got the wins.  Oregon, West Virginia, Villanova, Kentucky, Florida, Cincinnati, and Notre Dame are all teams who are likely to finish in the top half of the bracket that picked up wins.

-Michigan State’s Eron Harris suffered what looked like a very bad knee injury and had to be removed from the game on a stretcher.  We wish nothing but the best to him for a quick recovery.

HIGHLIGHTED GAMES

-MARYLAND AT WISCONSIN (Big Ten).  Both teams have identical conference records, but despite being at the top of the standings neither are currently being projected as protected seeds (at least not by us).  This is a chance for both of them to pick up one of their better wins of the season up to this point.

-DEPAUL AT BUTLER (Big East).  When a Big East team plays DePaul at home it is their most winnable home game.  Butler shouldn’t have too much trouble in this one.

-GEORGETOWN AT CREIGHTON (Big East).  Georgetown can still play their way inside the bubble, but they’ll need a really strong finish in order to make that happen.  Creighton is safely in the field, but needs to pick up some big wins in order to strengthen their profile and show they can still win without Mo Watson.

-SYRACUSE AT GEORGIA TECH (ACC).  Syracuse is inside the bubble and will make the field if they hold serve the rest of the way.  Georgia Tech is on the outside looking in and hasn’t looked all that good in their recent games.  They’ll need a strong finish to give themselves a chance.

-MICHIGAN AT MINNESOTA (Big Ten).  Michigan has some nice wins, but one of the things they’re missing is road wins.  To get a road win of this caliber will go a long way toward punching their ticket.  Minnesota has been hot and cold this season, but they appear to be heading toward the top half of the bracket.

-UTAH AT OREGON STATE (Pac Twelve).  Utah has an outside shot at best.  They’ll probably need to win out or come close to it to land inside the bubble.