HOOPS HD SURVIVAL BOARD WATCH (CLICK HERE to view the Whole Board):
-PENN AT DARTMOUTH (Ivy League). Dartmouth will be eliminated if they lose and Columbia beats Brown. Penn is eliminated if they lose, and either Columbia or Harvard wins.
–Cal Poly in the Big West is still alive, but barely. They lost their game at Cal State Fullerton, but Cal State Bakersfield lost at Long Beach State, so they are still mathematically alive until Saturday. EDIT: Cal Poly cannot win any tiebreakers and has been eliminated. If the Puppet bothered reading the emails that Chad sent him, he would know this.
.
NEWS AND NOTES:
-For our latest HOOPS HD BRACKET RUNDOWN Video Podcast – CLICK HERE
-For John Stalica’s UTR Game of the Day – CLICK HERE
-Washington State was picked to finish 11th, and then as the season played out and we got into conference play they started to look like they might be decent, then it started to look like they could get inside the bubble, then it started to look like they were solidly inside the bubble, and now it’s starting to look like they’re going to finish 1st in the Pac 12 and be seeded well inside the top half of the bracket. Their win at Arizona last night was the first home loss of the season for any of the four teams that the committee gave a #1 seed to last week. They are collectively 56-1 at home. Wazzu is who has that one win, and it is for now the best singular win that any D1 team has managed all year long.
As far as the game itself, it was awesome!! It was close all throughout, the lead and momentum seesawed back and forth, and in the final minute of play when it looked like Arizona was in control with a 3pt lead, Wazzu converted the very rarely seen 4pt play to get the lead and ultimately get the win!!
-Grand Canyon played a great first half on the road against a pretty good Tarlton State team and seemed to be cruising. Then in the second half Tarlton came back and actually ended up pulling off the upset 77-74. It’s always damaging when an Under the Radar team loses any games in conference, and this loss is no different. I still think Grand Canyon SHOULD be inside the bubble if they win out through the regular season, but it’s not a guarantee like it would have been had they avoided this loss.
.
HIGHLIGHTED GAMES:
-YALE AT CORNELL (Ivy League). These are two of the teams in a three-way race for the Ivy League title. Both have a slim shot at landing inside the bubble if they win out, and both these teams are really good, so it should be a good one.
-NEVADA AT SAN JOSE STATE (Mountain West). It’s a road game for Nevada, but it’s against an exceptionally weak team and it would be a bad loss for the Wolfpack if they’re not able to hold serve.