Hoops HD Report – December 23, 2019

Posted on December 23, 2019 by Chad

It is the final podcast before the Holidays from the Hoops HD crew, as Chad, David and John run down all the big news in the major conferences.  They discuss the amazing week that the Big East Conference had, including a dominating 8-2 win in their challenge series with the Big 12.  Gonzaga’s position as the new #1 team in the nation, the depth of the Big Ten conference and Memphis’ prospects with James Wiseman no longer set to return also get a lot of discussion.  All that and a whole lot more, including a look at just how good San Diego State is (hint: we think they are DAMN good!).

For those that prefer audio only, click below:

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Bracket Projections (David Griggs) – Dec 23rd

Posted on December 23, 2019 by David Griggs

CLICK HERE for our latest Under the Radar Video Podcast

For John Stalica’s UTR Game of the Day, as well as the rest of the News and Notes from around college basketball – CLICK HERE

Below are my latest bracket projections, and below that are some comments from myself and from the rest of the staff.  Some of the rest of the staff, especially that Stalica guy, are going to probably disagree with what I’ve done.  HE IS WRONG!!

This is NOT a forecast of what I think the bracket WILL look like on Selection Sunday.  I am making no attempt whatsoever to guess the actual committee two months before the Selection Show.  Jon Teitel does that, and he is one of the best in the world at it, so if that is what you’re looking for then this isn’t for you.

This is what I think the bracket SHOULD look like if the season ENDED TODAY.

-The bracket reflects all games played through Sunday, Dec 22nd

OTHERS CONSIDERED: UNC Greensboro, Richmond, George Mason, Illinois, Oklahoma, Rutgers, Ole Miss, Houston, Florida, Miami FL, Xavier, VCU, Pittsburgh, SMU, USC, UConn, Saint Louis, Arizona State, New Mexico, Marquette, Akron, Arkansas

-Basically everyone on my top two lines has some sort of high caliber win away from home.  Michigan’s resume is probably a little stronger than Memphis’s, but Michigan also doesn’t have a true road win yet.  Having said that, the three wins down in the Bahamas were spectacular, so I can understand that there is a strong argument to have them on the #3 line.  My other issue with them is…well…they just haven’t looked all that good since that tournament.

-Saint John’s resume looks really good, especially with the wins against West Virginia and Arizona.  This is a team that has improved as the season has progressed.  Mike Anderson has done an amazing job with the Johnnies, and they won’t be an easy team to beat in the Big East.

-When I look at the teams that were omitted, I can understand thinking that Florida, and Xavier, and a few others, they just haven’t done anything, nor have they looked all that good.  Having said that, Xavier did get a nice road win against TCU yesterday, and looked good doing it, but TCU is hardly a consensus NCAA Tournament caliber team.

-Dayton is a case of a team being a lot better than their resume.  They do have a dominant road win over a pretty solid Saint Mary’s team, but nothing against anyone that’s solidly in the top half of the bracket.  Not only that their opportunities will be limited the rest of the way.  I have them as a protected seed, and it’s very conceivable that they could end up there, but it is unusual for a team to get a protected seed with no wins against the top half of the bracket.  They lost to Colorado in overtime this past weekend.  Beating them would have made a world of difference.

-Lastly, we’ve got some UTR teams that are inside the bubble.  I like this Northern Iowa team a ton and think they will end up ranked in the top 25 before the season is over.  Liberty and SFA also have a real good shot at winning out or coming close to it.  If they do that, then they’ll have resumes with bloated records, but very little in the way of top 200 wins.  SFA does have that huge win at Duke, and I think that will help them out a ton when it comes to seeding, and perhaps make it so they don’t need to win the Southland Tournament.  All three are interesting cases.  They could all three have huge records, be ranked in the top 25, but have a very limited number of top 100 wins (and in the case of SFA and Liberty, a limited number of top 200 wins)

 

COMMENTS FROM STAFF

From Chad:

I only have one comment.  Virginia is an 8 seed.  Wow, Tony Bennett’s seat is definitely getting hot!!!!

From that Stalica guy:

-In honor of today’s Festivus celebrations, it is now time for the Airing of Grievances against the Puppet. We definitely need to start with his obsession with having Dayton as a protected seed. I know he’s still stuck on their performance in Maui against Georgia, Virginia Tech and their near win against Kansas. I still think they’re about 5 or 6-seedish, but I would say that a 3 is frankly their ceiling if they’re able to take care of business in the A-10.

-On the other hand, I do appreciate that David is starting to come around on Penn State this year. Their win at Georgetown continues to look better and better, and their only real strike at this point was losing to Ole Miss in come-from-ahead fashion back in November.

-I’ll agree that Northern Iowa has earned the right to be above the bubble, but I would again say that a seed like #6 is their ceiling, not their current checkpoint. I do not agree that Liberty gets the benefit of the doubt yet as to whether or not they should be above the First Four right now. At least not until they can pass their test at LSU after Christmas break.

-Kentucky. Honestly, I’m not sure I would even have them in my field right now, much less on my first ballot (aka top 8 seed caliber). They do have a season-opening win against Michigan State, but that has been watered down by the Spartans’ underwhelming start this season. Losses to Evansville and Utah negate that, and quite frankly if your best win besides that is Georgia Tech, we need to send them to the Feats of Strength. Until then, Festivus is not over.

-Texas is this year’s box of chocolates from Forrest Gump – we just never know what we’ll get. One minute they’re winning soundly at Purdue, the next minute they’re getting humiliated against a Providence team that is the only real disappointment in the Big East. And that’s not counting the food fight they had at home against McNeese before they cleaned up that mess and managed to get a W.

-Minnesota. If this were last week, I would have given this bracket an F and told the Puppet to redo his homework. This week, the Gophers have improved with wins at home against Ohio State and in a quasi-road environment against Oklahoma State. I still think they need a few more wins of note to get in, but their schedule is about as brutal as anyone has played so far this year.

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Under The Radar: Monday, December 23rd (and other News, Notes, and Games)

Posted on December 23, 2019 by John Stalica

For our weekly and belated UTR Podcast recorded last night – CLICK HERE

For Jon Teitel’s coverage of the GW-Harvard game – CLICK HERE

Canisius (5-5, 0-0) at Siena (3-5, 0-0) – 6:00 PM EST (ESPN3)

Tonight’s UTR Game of the Day takes us to Albany, New York for the MAAC opener between the Canisius Golden Griffins and the hometown Siena Saints. After winning four straight games towards the end of November, Canisius has stumbled of late with losses in three of their last four games. All of those losses were on the road – which may not bode well for the Griffs tonight. Malik Johnson is averaging 14.4 points a game and 5.3 assists a game.

Both Siena and Canisius have wins against St. Bonaventure and Bucknell thus far, although the Saints have played a tougher schedule that also includes losses at Xavier, Harvard and Yale so far. The win at home against Bucknell also broke a four-game losing streak that included losses at Colgate and Cal Poly. Elijah Burns has averaged 16 points a game and 6.3 rebounds a game through the first eight games for the Saints.

We will also be taking our Holiday Break from this column after today – our next UTR game will be on Friday this week. That said, be on the lookout for our regular Hoops HD Report podcast later tonight and enjoy your holidays!

 

OTHER NEWS NOTES AND GAMES

-Virginia fell at home to South Carolina.  Although they were ranked in the top ten, when you look at Virginia’s profile it is suddenly lacking, at least by top ten/protected seed standards.  I think they’ll end up kicking it into gear after Christmas, but they have had their struggles so far.

-Xavier picked up a really nice road win at TCU.  It was probably their best win of the year when you consider that it was a true road game, and how good they looked yesterday.  It was the first time all season they’d looked like a tournament caliber team.

-Duquesne is no longer unbeaten.  They fell to UAB in the Saint Pete’s Shootout by a score of 77-68.

-The second round of the Diamond Head Classic is today.  Houston and Washington both won yesterday and are still on pace to meet in the championship game Wednesday.  Washington will get a bit of a test from a pretty good Hawaii team tonight, so that one will be worth staying up to watch.  The final round of the tournament will be on Christmas Day.

-GEORGIA STATE AT SMU.  SMU has an impressive 8-2 record, but as of now they don’t have much meat on their resume and need to make sure they hold serve tonight.

-SAN FRANCISCO AT FRESNO STATE.  It’s a winnable road game for the Dons, and if they can continue to string together wins they could end up hovering somewhere around the bubble come March.

-GRAMBLING AT DAYTON – buy game

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Under the Radar: December 22nd

Posted on December 22, 2019 by David Griggs

Tonight’s highlighted conference is the SoCon, which contains three teams that have a really good shot at landing inside the bubble and making a lot of noise in March.  East Tennessee State just got a big win at LSU, and Furman and UNC Greensboro are having big years as well.

After that we look at the other 21 UTR conferences and discuss how the America East and Big West are kind of fading, how Rider has been a bit of a surprise in the Metro Atlantic, how tough the MAC is looking, and how we expect Northern Iowa, Stephen F Austin, and Liberty to dominate their leagues.  And as always, we finish off with this week’s UTR Top Ten

And for all you radio lovers, below is an audio only version of the show…

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Crimson Peaking: HoopsHD is in the house for Harvard-GW

Posted on December 22, 2019 by Jon Teitel

HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel took a break from the Georgetown beat to check out the Harvard-GW game yesterday:

The pregame meal was Domino’s and a bottle of water: it may not be fancy but it certainly got the job done on a cold Saturday afternoon. Winter break at GW meant there were plenty of good seats available but at least the band played on while the mascot danced:

Let’s tip things off:

My perch up in the 200 level meant that I could peek right into the Colonials huddle: I feel like a real Patriot! I will not give away any secret strategy but 1 innovation that caught my eye is how Coach Jamion Christian’s staff uses a chart of their opponent’s players during timeouts. It is a simple thing but for a visual learner like me it seems simply ingenious:

Harvard will only play 1 home game from November 15-January 3 and it showed during the 1st half as the team looked a bit ragged at times. They were both inaccurate (1-7 from behind the arc) and unaggressive (2-4 from the FT line) as Harvard coach Tommy Amaker tried to do some problem-solving during a timeout:

The player who kept them in the game on offense was PF Chris Lewis, who dominated inside with dunks/layups/old-fashioned 3-PT plays:

On defense the key guy was SG Rio Haskett, who collected a trio of STL and was even able to convert some of them into PTS on the other end. For a player who comes off the bench he has very active hands and always appears to be having fun on the court.

1 familiar name on the GW roster is FR PG Jameer Nelson Jr. (son of the 2004 national POY at St. Joe’s). The good news is that he is not just living off of his father’s name: he can actually play and his layup at the buzzer gave his team a 39-37 halftime lead. The bad news is that he went 0-3 from the FT line despite entering the day as an 81.5% FT shooter:

The shooting star for the Colonials was SG Maceo Jack, who made a 3-PT shot on 3 straight possessions during 1 stretch to really get the crowd into the game. The passing star was SR PG Armel Potter: in addition to using his speed to get into the lane and make a bunch of layups, he also tied his career-high for a game with 7 AST in the 1st half. Coach Christian began the 2nd half with a quick heart-to-heart with Potter on the bench:

Coach Christian has a very short rotation so when his super-sub Justin Williams collided with Harvard’s Bryce Aiken with 13 minutes left in the game and had to go to the locker room you got the sense that the starting 5 would have to play even more minutes than usual. The other big injury occurred off the court, as 6’10” PF Ace Stallings had a huge BLK that sent the ball into the stands…and right into the face of a helpless member of the GW dance team. She jogged off the baseline to collect herself and thankfully it did not appear to require a trip to the ER: no photo available.

The refs helped out with about 10 minutes by whistling 4 different Crimson players for fouls during a 19-second span: needless to say Coach Amaker looked like he had received a lump of coal in his stocking:

Jack went ice-cold in the 2nd half (a scoreless 20 minutes due to 0-5 shooting from behind the arc) but his teammates both young and old picked up the slack. FR SF Jamison Battle continued his weekly improvement with a trio of 2nd half threes to tie his career-high of 18 PTS:

Potter kept making both layups and smart passes to finish with 22 PTS/10 AST in what has to be the best all-around game of his career. Unfortunately, big man Arnaldo Toro was unable to provide much interior assistance after picking up his 3rd foul just 2 minutes into the 2nd stanza and then his 4th foul with 12 minutes remaining in the game.  With Toro on the bench Lewis was able to keep making dunk after layup while finishing with an efficient 22 PTS/10-13 FG and not a single turnover. He also got help from his fellow SR big man Robert Baker, who converted a pretty alleyoop from Aiken and a couple of REB/putbacks to end up with 14 PTS/6-8 FG/3 BLK. Harvard only made 2 threes all day but won 88-75 thanks to superb FT shooting (16-18), a ton of PTS in the paint (62-28 advantage), and some great bench scoring (26-2 advantage).

Coach Amaker did not hold a postgame press conference but I asked Coach Christian how he balances his desire to have his best players in the game while also keeping them somewhat rested, as his 3 top scorers each played the full 40 minutes. He said that it is a battle every game due to a variety of factors: who is healthy, how much time off they have before their next game, etc. He lamented that having Williams pick up 3 fouls in less than 3 minutes of action before getting injured hurt his team because when he is on the floor he provides such great understanding of the game. He also admitted that he would love to get his starters’ minutes down to 32/game as his optimal #:

That’s it for now: happy holidays to all!

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News, Notes, and Highlighted Games: Sunday, Dec 22nd

Posted on December 22, 2019 by David Griggs

NEWS AND NOTES

-For John Stalica’s UTR Game of the Day – CLICK HERE

-Number One went down!  Again!  Kansas was behind Villanova for most of the game, but it was close.  In the end, the Jayhawks missed a game winning opportunity in the final seconds and Nova held on for the upset and for their biggest win of the season.  This is the 5th time a #1 team has lost this year, which means Gonzaga will likely be the 6th #1 team of the season when the rankings come out on Monday.  Chances are Gonzaga will remain ranked #1 for much longer than anyone else has.  No one remaining on the Zags’s schedule is currently in the rankings.

-Ohio State knocked off Kentucky yesterday in another good game between top ten teams.  Kentucky does appear to be improving, particularly when it comes to shooting the ball, but they came up short against a very good Ohio State team, which was their second straight loss.  Kentucky’s next game is against Louisville.  In the past we’ve seen them struggle, then play well and win that game, and then be on solid ground the rest of the season.  Once again, that will be a big one next week for Kentucky.

-Colorado got a huge win in an overtime thriller against Dayton, which is hands down the biggest win of the season for the Buffs so far.  Dayton has lost two games this year, and both were overtime thrillers.  As good as the Flyers are, they still haven’t beaten a team that looks like they will decisively be inside the bubble, which could end up hurting them when it comes to seeding later on.

-Saint John’s knocked off Arizona in the Al Attles Hall of Fame Classic in what was one of the more surprising results of the day (especially with Mustapha Heron not playing).  The Johnnies jumped out to a big first half lead and were able to hold on as Arizona made a run at them, but couldn’t get the win.

-Butler picked up yet another impressive win as they knocked off Purdue in a game where they really never had to sweat.  Butler is ranked in the teens, and will likely continue to rise in the polls.

-San Diego State improved to 12-0 after absolutely blowing Utah off the court.  This is the same Utah team that just beat Kentucky a few nights ago.  San Diego State is DAMN good!

-Indiana held on to beat Notre Dame and improve to 11-1.  They did blow a big lead in this game, but what’s important is that they held on to win, and it was a win that was (mostly) away from home.

-Wichita State is now 10-1 after their home win against a really good VCU team.  People forgot about the Shockers last year.  Well, they are back!  Here’s the thing.  They finished last season 14-4 with all four of those losses being by ten points or less.  Two were against ranked teams.  So, they’re really 24-5 in their last 29 games, yet people STILL seem to be overlooking them because of how poor they were at the beginning of last season.  I would advise not overlooking them anymore!!

-Illinois continues to be a Jekyll and Hyde story.  Some nights they look great and beat ranked teams.  Other nights they lose to teams like Missouri, who have struggled all year long.

-Providence blew Texas off the floor.  It was a complete 180 from everything the Friars have done this season up until yesterday!  I guess the same can be said for the Longhorns, only their 180 was good to bad instead of bad to good.  Is this a sign that Providence may actually turn out to be the team we thought they were after all?

-Utah State picked up a really nice win against Florida in the Orange Bowl Classic.  They really needed this for their resume.  Florida, on the other hand, continues to show signs of being really good, but never consistently looking really good.

-Minnesota got a really nice road win against Oklahoma State.  The Gophers are a modest 6-5, but they’ve also won three of their last four and knocked off Ohio State and Oklahoma State during that stretch.

-Saint Louis is another team that’s quietly flying under the radar, but that people need to sit up and look at.  They picked up a road win at Kansas State yesterday, which improved them to 10-2, gave them their first true road win, and their third win away from home.

-Creighton picked up a really big road win at Arizona State yesterday, which is probably their signature win of the season.  The Bluejays are now 10-2 and you have to start paying attention to them.

-USC knocked off LSU in a close game to improve to 10-2 on the season.  They are a team that’s kind of flying under the radar as well.

-Iowa blew a 15-point 2nd half lead against Cincinnati, but came back to hold off the Bearcats in a neutral-court game in Chicago. The Hawkeyes continue to look like a potential noisemaker in the Big 10. Cincinnati has a lot of work to do in the American this year if they want to get back to the NCAA Tournament this year.

 

HIGHLIGHTED GAMES

-SOUTH CAROLINA AT VIRGINIA.  South Carolina has looked good at times this season, and is actually 2-0 in true road games.  Virginia has just one loss, but has struggled offensively this year.  UVA should hold serve and get the win, but it may be more competitive than what some are expecting.

-NEW MEXICO STATE AT MISSISSIPPI STATE.  New Mexico State still can’t get healthy.  If they can, then they will be a force to be reckoned with, but today will most likely end up looking like another buy game.

-HOUSTON VS PORTLAND (Diamond Head Classic).  This tournament is a chance for Houston to finally break out onto the national scene.  Granted, today’s game won’t end up looking all that impressive, but if they can win the even then their resume should improve.

-XAVIER AT TCU.  This is a big game for both teams.  Both have good records, but both are lacking in notable wins.  This is a resume building opportunity for two teams that need to build up their resumes.

-BALL STATE VS WASHINGTON (Diamond Head Classic).  Ball State has looked good at times, but is likely way overmatched today against a really strong Washington team.

-UTEP AT HAWAI’I (Diamond Head Classic).  UTEP has shown signs of improvement, but they are still looking for their first win away from home.  Both teams will have to beat a team like Washington or Houston in order to make an impression on the committee.

 

BUY GAMES (and equivalencies)

-Purdue Fort Wayne @ Iowa State
-Lafayette @ Rutgers
-New Hampshire @ UConn
-Marshall @ Northern Iowa
-Houston Baptist @ New Mexico
-Duquesne vs UAB – Saint Pete Shootout
-Richmond vs Radford – DC Holiday Hoops Fest
-Prairie View A&M @ Seton Hall
-The Citadel @ NC State

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