Hoops HD

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-Last night was a rather chalky night with Kansas, Michigan State, and North Carolina all picking up wins at home.  All beat ranked teams, but all won as expected.  The biggest game of note was Nebraska losing at Rutgers.  That’s a rather costly loss for a Nebraska team that’s been a little flimsy on the road.

-AUBURN AT SOUTH CAROLINA (SEC).  Auburn is trying to rebound from their home loss to Kentucky and pick up what would be just their second road win of the season.  They face a South Carolina team that’s also coming off a loss, but has been playing pretty well since league play began.  I’ve been railing kind of hard on Auburn, but if they win this then I’ll respect them a little bit more.

-MINNESOTA AT MICHIGAN (Big Ten).  Minnesota has a decent resume, but still has room to improve.  Michigan is still fighting for a #1 seed and is looking to rebound from their first loss of the year.  They should be way up for this one.

-MISSISSIPPI STATE AT KENTUCKY (SEC).  Mississippi State has a rather hollow resume despite being in the rankings.  If they can pick up a road win like this one then it will no longer be hollow.  Kentucky is looking more and more like a solid protected seed as the season plays on.

-TEXAS TECH AT KANSAS STATE (Big 12).  K State has gone from looking like an NIT team to looking like a protected seed in a matter of a week.  They face a Texas Tech teak that also has a good chance of ending up as a protected seed, so this will be a high quality win for whoever pulls it off.

-VILLANOVA AT BUTLER (Big East).  Nova is looking to remain unbeaten in Big East play, and Butler is looking to get up off the mat.  This has not been an easy place for Villanova to win in recent years, so while they clearly look like the superior team I wouldn’t take this one for granted.

-CLEMSON AT FLORIDA STATE (ACC).  Florida State is in a tailspin and really needs to pull this one out at home to get back on track.  Both teams have just one conference win coming into this one, and really need to get it turned around.

-TOLEDO AT KENT STATE (MAC).  These are two of the better teams in the MAC that were strong OOC, but have both tripped up a little bit early and fallen to 3-2.  The loser of this will have very little chance of keeping pace with the top of the conference.

-BUFFALO AT NORTHERN ILLINOIS (MAC).  This is another winnable road game for Buffalo.  They’re good enough to win out, and if they do there is a really good chance they end up as a protected seed.

-DUKE AT PITTSBURGH (ACC).  This is a big showcase game for Pitt, and if they win it their chances of making the NCAA Tournament increase exponentially, but it’s much easier said than done.  Duke is a #1 seed caliber team who is looking to improve to 3-0 in true road games, and 7-1 away from home.

-WAKE FOREST AT VIRGINIA (ACC).  Virginia shouldn’t have any trouble rebounding from their close loss at Duke.

-OLE MISS AT ALABAMA (SEC).  This is a really important game for both teams.  Both have some good wins, but both still have a lot of work to do in order to feel completely safe on Selection Sunday.

-INDIANA AT NORTHWESTERN (Big Ten).  Indiana has lost four straight games, and desperately needs to pick up a win in this one.  It may be easier said than done.  Northwestern doesn’t look like a tournament team, but they’ve played pretty well at home this year.  They’re 8-3 overall with a 2pt loss to Michigan and an overtime loss to Oklahoma accounting for two of those three losses.  They also lost by just two earlier this year in Bloomington.

-SAN DIEGO STATE AT FRESNO STATE (Mountain West).  Fresno State can improve to 5-1 in conference, which keeps them within reach of first place, and keeps their at-large hopes barely flickering.

-Boston College knocked off Florida State yesterday!!  A HUGE win for the city of Boston!!  Oh yeah, I think they’re football team is in another Super Bowl, but BC beating ranked teams in basketball seems to happen less frequently than the Pats making the Super Bowl.  As for Florida State, it’s a setback.  Boston College would be 100 miles away from the NCAA Tournament if the season ended today and they’d lost five straight coming into yesterday.  FSU’s resume isn’t exactly screaming protected seed at the moment.

-MARYLAND AT MICHIGAN STATE (Big Ten).  Maryland has looked fantastic in the past few weeks, but winning at Michigan State is an extremely tall order.  A loss won’t really set them back.  A win would put them in discussions for a #4 seed or better.

-VIRGINIA TECH AT NORTH CAROLINA (ACC).  For the last several weeks I’ve been railing on VA Tech for their lack of notable wins.  They’ve got a chance to change all of that tonight if they can pull this one off.

-NEBRASKA AT RUTGERS (Big Ten).  Nebraska has been a little flimsy on the road, so any type of road win, even if it is against Rutgers, will help round out their resume.

-CREIGHTON AT GEORGETOWN (Big East).  Both of these teams have a lot of work to do.  Creighton is just 1-4 in Big East play and needs to start stringing together wins to have any sort of a chance.

-IOWA STATE AT KANSAS (Big 12).  Kansas is coming off a rather surprising loss at West Virginia and is still trying to adjust to life after losing a key player to injury.  Iowa State won the first meeting between these two in a blowout.  The big difference is that the first meeting was at Iowa State.

-BAYLOR AT WEST VIRGINIA (Big 12).  After sleepwalking through the season up until a few weeks ago, Baylor has finally come to life.  They’ve looked really strong since getting healthy and have another winnable road game tonight.

-As far as Under the Radar games, It’s a fun day in the NEC with all ten teams in action.

Yesterday, like all Saturdays, was another roller coaster of a day.

-I’m going to start off in the SoCon (of all places) because the Furman v Wofford game was not the biggest thing that happened yesterday, but it was the biggest thing that happened that almost no one is talking about.  Furman received a ton of well received accolades after their wins at Loyola Chicago and Villanova, and how they cracked the Top 25.  Wofford took on even more heavyweights out of conference, but wasn’t able to pick up any wins against teams that will likely land in the top half of the bracket, but they’ve beaten pretty much everyone else, and the metrics love them.  The win yesterday, which was a thriller that seesawed back and forth, put them a full three games ahead of Furman in the SoCon standings, and I just don’t see Furman catching them.  If Wofford continues to blow through the league, I’m guessing that there will be room for them inside the bubble, especially since we’ve been told here at Hoops HD by some people that we think would know that there is an incentive to identify good teams from outside the normal multi-bid leagues.

-There are no more undefeated teams.  Virginia and Duke seesawed back and forth as you would expect, but the Blue Devils came up with some huge defensive stops in the final minutes and held on to win by just 2.  It’s very likely that one or both these teams could end up on the #1 line.  For Virginia, the loss may be more rare than you think.  Everyone remembers their loss to UMBC, but people forget that they were 47-3 in their last fifty games coming into yesterday, and were 24-1 in their last 25 ACC games, which is a pretty good league.

-Michigan also went down for the first time at Wisconsin.  Throughout the year Wisky has looked good at times, bad at other times, and decent most of the time.  I didn’t think they had it in them to knock off the Wolverines, but they did.  It’s probably their biggest win of the season up to this point even though the win came at home.

-Tennessee really had to sweat out Alabama at home yesterday, but barely held on to win.  Otherwise we’d have had three of the top four teams lose in the same day, and I don’t recall the last time that happened.

-Kansas has an amazing profile when you look at their wins, but they also have losses on there that you typically don’t see from #1 seeds.  Yesterday, they went on the road and lost to a West Virginia team that may struggle to make the NIT, let alone the NCAAs.  Most at Hoops HD keep wanting them on the #1 line, and that will probably be the case again this week, but I for one just don’t see it.

-Baylor has really turned a corner, and got a huge home win yesterday against Texas Tech.  The Bears are healthy again and have suddenly won three of their last four with the only loss being a close one to Kansas.

-Kentucky got a really nice road win at Auburn to help further their case for a protected seed.  Auburn’s next win against a team that’s likely to make the NCAA Tournament (without the auto bid) will be their first.  As great as everyone thinks they are, they still haven’t beaten a good team.

-Oklahoma knocked off Texas in the first edition of the Red River Shootout.  It was a nice win for a Longhorns team that’s been kind of schizophrenic this year.

-Indiana may be in some trouble.  They have now lost four straight, and things aren’t about to get any easier.  Purdue beat them rather handily yesterday in the season’s first edition of that rivalry.  With games at Northwestern, Michigan, at Rutgers, and at Michigan State on the horizon, Indiana is looking at a stretch where they could easily drop seven out of eight games.

-UCF has got to be the least exciting and most ignored 14-3 team from a multi-bid conference in history.  They won against Tulsa yesterday, but barely, and no one is really all that excited about them despite their bloated record.

-Stony Brook got another road win yesterday at Maine, but it was a much bigger struggle than expected.  Nevertheless, they got the W, and still have more road wins than any other team in the nation.

-A few other fun notes.  There are no more unbeaten teams, but there is still one winless team (at least against div1 opponents).  Maryland Easter Shore, Alcorn State, and Southern each picked up their first div1 wins of the season yesterday, making UNC Asheville the only D1 team without a D1 win.

-North Alabama won at the buzzer yesterday to improve to 4-1 in ASun play.  Not only is North Alabama a transitional team, but it is their FIRST YEAR of the transition!  That is a rather remarkable start.

-FLORIDA STATE AT BOSTON COLLEGE (ACC).  This is a very winnable road game for the Noles, which is kind of important since it would only be their second of the year so far.

-PROVIDENCE AT MARQUETTE (Big East).  Providence has the talent to put together the type of run that could land them in the NCAA Tournament, but for now they are just 1-3 in league play and although they’ve played well in some of those losses they are still in a bit of a tailspin.

-ILLINOIS AT IOWA (Big Ten).  This is a very winnable road game for the Hawkeyes, and it’s important that they hold serve and don’t miss the low hanging fruit.