For last night’s Hoops HD Bracket Rundown podcast where the panel builds a seed list on-air – CLICK HERE
For Jon Teitel’s interview with NBA and Southern Illinois legend Walt Frazier – CLICK HERE
Harvard (13-6, 2-2) at Yale (16-4, 4-0) – 5:00 PM EST (ESPNU)
Tonight’s UTR Game of the Day features what is typically the football Ivy League’s signature rivalry highlighted by a pair of teams that are eight miles apart and have never met in the NCAA Tournament. The Harvard Crimson travel down I-95 to take on the Yale Bulldogs. Harvard had a rough go during the Penn-Princeton road trip; they lost by 3 points in overtime against the Quakers and then followed that up with a one-point loss at Princeton after the Tigers hit a pair of free throws with 3.9 seconds remaining. Bryce Aiken leads Harvard with 16.7 points a game.
Yale is currently on a stretch of wins in 13 of their last 14 games that include a pair of wins against their travel partner Brown as well as home wins against Columbia and Cornell. Even their last two losses are certainly forgivable, but still represent missed opportunities at Penn State and at North Carolina. Paul Atkinson averages just over 17 points a game for the Bulldogs.
OTHER NEWS, NOTES, AND GAMES
-Cincinnati is now 6-1 in their last seven games, and has knocked off Houston and Wichita State In their last two, so they are definitely trending in the right direction. As for Wichita State, they now fall to 5-4 in conference play after losing two straight games in the final seconds of the game.
-Tulsa was beaten rather handily at home by UConn last night. As well as they had been playing for the past few weeks, the tournament still seems like a long shot.
-Stanford, who I think is pretty much squarely on the bubble, fell to Utah in overtime. When you look at Stanford’s resume, there really isn’t much there, so losses to non-tournament caliber teams, even if on the road, seem to indicate that they themselves aren’t a solid tourney team.
-DAVIDSON AT VCU (Atlantic Ten). I think VCU still has a ton of work to do, but most who closely follow this stuff disagree and have them either on the bubble or in the field. Either way they cannot afford a loss tonight.
-MARYLAND AT ILLINOIS (Big Ten). Almost everyone considers Maryland to be a protected seed, be It pollsters, bracketologists, or the rest of the Hoops HD Staff. If they can win this one tonight, I will agree with them. Both teams are ranked, both look to be in the top half of the bracket, and this is a resume building opportunity tonight.