For last night’s Bracket Rundown podcast – CLICK HERE
SURVIVAL BOARD UPDATES (click here to view)
-STETSON AT KENNESAW STATE (Atlantic Sun). This is a virtual 8vs9 game. The loser is eliminated.
-Columbia will be out if they lose to Brown and Cornell wins (Ivy League)
-Dartmouth will be out if they lose at home to Princeton, and Brown wins at Columbia, and Cornell wins at Yale
For Jon Teitel’s interview with Ron Rainey about Hall of Fame head coach Bo Ryan – CLICK HERE
Iona (13-15, 11-6 MAAC) at Rider (15-13, 10-6 MAAC) – 7:00 PM EST (ESPN+)
Tonight’s UTR Game of the Day takes us to Lawrenceville, New Jersey – home of the hot-and-cold Rider Broncs. They will play host to the Iona Gaels in a matchup of MAAC teams tied in the loss column in the league standings. Rider started 7-1 in conference play before an inexplicable five-game losing streak that opened up the conference race. Since then, the Broncs have won three straight games. Stevie Jordan leads Rider with 12.4 points per game and 4.3 assists per game.
Iona is one of a handful of teams that took advantage of Rider’s midseason troubles; the Gaels are a half-game ahead of Rider, Quinnipiac and Siena going into tonight’s games. Tonight is the regular-season finale for Iona. They are on a six game winning streak that includes wins against Quinnipiac and Canisius. They also beat Rider 77-71 at home earlier in the season. Rickey McGill averages 15.6 points per game and 5.2 assists per game; EJ Crawford leads the Gaels with 17.7 points a game.
NEWS AND NOTES
-So going into last night, Washington’s NET was 32 and Cal’s was 253. Stephen F Austin’s win over Baylor is still the biggest upset of the season in terms of how far apart the two teams are in the rankings, but this is now second, and I believe it is just the second game where a team was 200+ spots ahead of their opponents and lost. If I’m wrong on that then the Hoops HD fact checkers will correct me. I know that an upset like this isn’t as important or noticeable as UMBC’s win over Virginia last year, but in terms of how far apart the two teams were, it’s actually a bigger upset. MUCH bigger! This CRUSHES Washington’s resume. The best thing they had going for them was that they had a smattering of decent wins and no bad losses. Well, that’s out the window! I still think they get in, but WOW that was bad!!
-Xavier has now won five straight with their win at Saint John’s last night. They have followed up a six game losing streak with a five game wining steak, and can actually play their way onto the committee’s board if they keep it up. They may be there already.
-Minnesota picked up a road win at Northwestern, which may not sound like that big of a deal, but since it was only their second true road win, it was a big deal in the sense that a loss would have been really crushing for the Gophers.
-I am now off the Oregon State bandwagon. They lost at the buzzer to Arizona last night, and I now believe they need to win the Pac Twelve Tournament to make the field.
-Arizona State was blown out at Oregon by 28 points. This is not at all surprising. Had Arizona State won by 28 points, it would not have been a surprise either. They are right on the bubble, and it will make for a fascinating discussion given how schizophrenic their team is.