Chad and the Panel are back on for a rare Wednesday night Hoops HD Report. (we are going to be back to our regular schedule next week. We run through all 10 multi-bid conferences as some leagues have already gotten underway, and most of the rest tip off later this week. We look at the upcoming games, and talk about who we think the biggest surprises and biggest disappointments have been so far. All that, and more…
And for all you radio lovers, below is an audio only version of the show…
For today’s News, Notes and Highlighted Games – CLICK HERE
Drake (11-2, 0-0 MVC) at Evansville (6-7, 0-0 MVC) – 7:00 PM EST (ESPN+)
Today’s UTR Game of the Day takes us to Evansville, Indiana where the Purple Aces will play host to the Drake Bulldogs. While many teams in the Valley have been disappointments to start the season (i.e. Southern Illinois, Loyola-Chicago), one pleasant surprise that has emerged has been Drake’s start to the season. Their only losses were at Colorado and against Iowa State in the Hy-Vee Big 4 Classic. Their two best wins both came in the Las Vegas Classic where they beat WAC favorite New Mexico State and the San Diego Toreros to win the 4-team tournament prior to Christmas. Nick McGlynn leads the Bulldogs with 15.9 PPG and 7.4 RPG; Nick Norton also averages 14.7 PPG and 6.2 APG as well.
Evansville has had a bit of a rough transition during Walter McCarty’s first season as head coach of the Purple Aces. While they did get blown out by Illinois in their opener, they did give Xavier and Murray State a run for their money on the road during their noncon season, but the Murray State was a tough one to swallow after the Racers hit a game-winning layup with under a second to play. Their best win so far was a 12-point home victory against a Ball State team that figures to finish in the top half of the MAC. K.J. Riley leads Evansville with 13.9 PPG and 2.9 APG; John Hall averages 10.2 PPG and 8.2 RPG as well.
NEWS AND NOTES
-Saint John’s blew past Marquette for what was easily their most impressive win of the year. It was a home game, but the Johnnies still beat them rather convincingly. We were skeptical of how good the Johnnies were despite the fact that they went undefeated in conference play. With a close loss at Seton Hall at the buzzer, and a blowout win against Marquette, we are no longer skeptical
-We will be recording the Hoops HD Report tonight. After this week we will be back on Monday nights for the rest of the season.
HIGHLIGHTED GAMES
-NEBRASKA AT MARYLAND (Big Ten). Both teams have good records, and both have looked good at times, but both still have work to do. Nebraska could use some more true road wins, and Maryland could use some more big wins. It’ll be interesting to see what they do against each other.
-SETON HALL AT XAVIER (Big East). Seton Hall is coming off an exciting win against Saint John’s, and has a lot of good wins this season so far. Xavier has struggled all year, but they did look good in their road win against DePaul, and they’ve played well at home this year, so it won’t be a cakewalk for the Hall.
-TEXAS TECH AT WEST VIRGINIA (Big 12). Texas Tech has looked fantastic this year, but I don’t think their resume is as quite as good as they are yet. Picking this one up on the road should help a lot.
-TULANE AT CINCINNATI (American). This is a conference game that will end up looking a lot like a buy game.
-TEMPLE AT UCF (American). This is a bubblicious looking game for both of these teams. Both have big records, but neither have a whole lot of big wins. This is an opportunity with a sense of urgency for both these teams.
-GEORGETOWN AT BUTLER (Big East). If either of these teams are going to reach the NCAA Tournament, then these are the kinds of games that they’re gonna need to be able to win.
-TULSA AT HOUSTON (American). Tulsa is 10-3 and although they’ve been floating below the national radar, they come into this game with a ton of momentum and if they can somehow pull this off on the road it would certainly make a huge impression on the committee. Houston has also been on a roll and looking to remain unbeaten.
NORTHWESTERN AT MICHIGAN STATE (Big Ten). Northwestern has lost to Indiana, Michigan, and Oklahoma all in close games. They don’t have any real wins of note yet, but are potentially much better than their resume. A win in a game like this would change the entire complexion of their resume. As for Michigan State, they look like a protected seeded caliber team and need to hold serve at home.
-UCONN AT SOUTH FLORIDA (American). We’ve got both teams on the outside looking in, but both are having better years than expected, and both will certainly have the opportunities they need to play their way in. IF South Florida pulls this off they’ll improve to 11-2.
-DEPAUL AT VILLANOVA (Big East). Villanova appears to have fixed most of what’s wrong, and can play their way back up to a protected seed if they’re able to blow through the Big East like they have in recent years.
-OKLAHOMA AT KANSAS (Big 12). Oklahoma has a really good record against a decent schedule, but this is by far their toughest test of the year so far, and it may be their toughest test all year by the end of the season. Kansas is once again on pace to get a #1 seed and is probably expecting to pick this one up at home.
-IOWA STATE AT OKLAHOMA STATE (Big 12). Iowa state is 10-2 on the year, and is looking to pick up their first conference win as well as their first true road win.
-TEXAS AT KANSAS STATE (Big 12). Both teams have potential, and both will likely end up in the NCAA Tournament. Texas has some big wins, but has also been kind of schizophrenic this year. K State needs some more meet on their resume and the sooner they start strengthening it the better.
-FRESNO STATE AT SAN JOSE STATE (Mountain West). Fresno State is off to a decent start, but has a very small margin for error. Losing a game like this could totally sink them.
-UTAH STATE AT NEVADA (Mountain West). These are two of the stronger teams in the MWC, but Nevada clearly appears to be the superior team and they’ve got the home court advantage. Utah State is pretty good, though, and if they did pull off the upset it would be the signature win for the season and go a long way toward putting them in the tournament.
-Harvard @ North Carolina
HAPPY NEW YEAR!! Well, the Athletic New Year was back in July, so nevermind.
-We did end the year with two rather big upsets. Hartford won on the road at Boston College in overtime 79-78. BC is 9-3 on the year, but two of those losses were home buy games.
The second game was a huge shocker. Monmouth picked up their first win of the year at Penn. Monmouth had not won a game all year, and was near the bottom of all div1 in nearly every metric ranking. In rankings like the NET and JNG, the two teams were close to 300 spots apart. That is a HUGE upset!! And, I think it has doomed Penn to needing the automatic bid to make the NCAA Tournament.
-NJIT now has 7 true road wins, and is 12-3 on the season. They had a nice win at Duquesne yesterday and are off to their best start ever since jumping to div1.
-Creighton picked up their biggest win of the year by winning at Providence. It gives the Jays a much needed quality road win away from home, not to mention a conference win.
-NOTRE DAME AT VIRGINIA TECH (ACC). Notre Dame has a fairly decent OOC profile, but they still have a lot of work to do to land inside the bubble. Winning a game like this would jack their resume through the roof.
-MARQUETTE AT SAINT JOHN’S (Big East). The Johnnies are coming off their first loss of the year, but it was perhaps their most impressive performance. They at the buzzer against a very good Seton Hall team on the road. They’re at home tonight against a Marquette team that’s looked as strong as anyone in the Big East this year, but that’s still looking for their first true road win.
-Winthrop @ Florida State
-Cal State Fullerton @ Washington
The bracket reflects games played through December 30th.
I want everyone to understand what they are looking at. This is a CHECKPOINT of CURRENT MERIT. It is not a prediction of what I think the bracket will look like on Selection Sunday, nor is it necessarily a reflection of how good I think the teams are. It is just me asking the question how hard would it be for an average team to win the games that these teams have played, and then ranking them based on how they’ve done.
OTHERS CONSIDERED: Temple, Arkansas, Notre Dame, Butler, Florida, Purdue, Creighton, Clemson, Alabama, Maryland, Northwestern, Missouri, Pittsburgh, Washington, Ole Miss, San Francisco, UCF, Murray State, Hofstra, North Texas,
NOTES ON THE BRACKET
-With two wins away from home against Louisville and North Carolina in an eight day span, Kentucky has gone from a team that was hovering around the bubble (at least based on what their resume was) to a team that’s all the way up on the #2 line (at least based on what their current resume is). We’ve seen this before from Kentucky where they kind of stumble around early, then Christmas Break hits, and suddenly they are firing on all cylinders. They didn’t just pick up wins against North Carolina and Louisville. They looked VERY impressive in the process.
-Both Lipscomb and Belmont suffered losses this week and while they weren’t particularly damaging, they weren’t particularly helpful either. I think both of them are good enough to win out, and if they do then I believe they SHOULD end up inside the bubble. Whether the committee will take them or not remains to be seen, but I’m trying hard to believe that efforts are being made to identify good teams from UTR conferences.
-A team that’s not in this field that I really like is Northwestern. They are sneakily good. They currently don’t have any notable wins, but they don’t have any bad losses, and nearly all their losses were very close games against very high caliber teams.
-I think Arizona State is a home court hero, and since their loss to Princeton and some of their other close calls at home, I think they may only be a home court hero when they’re facing a strong opponent. Still, I have them as a protected seed because none of the teams below them have enough on their resume to put them ahead of Arizona State. Yet.
-Furman is still in the bracket and still inside the bubble despite getting blown off the court by East Tennessee State. I don’t think they’ll be there in the end. I don’t think they’ll be at the top of the league in the end. They’re not at the top of the league now, but they still have the best overall resume, and that is how we choose the automatic qualifier. We don’t use current conference standings like a lot of other sites use, although it is fun to do that every once in a while just to watch Chad’s head explode.
MONDAY’S HIGHLIGHTED GAMES
-NJIT AT DUQUESNE. Neither team will likely end up anywhere near the bubble, but both are off to historically good starts in regards to their programs’ histories, and it will be interesting to see what they do against each other. A win for NJIT would give them an incredible 7th true road win on the year.
-CREIGHTON AT PROVIDENCE (Big East). Creighton has a lot of catching up to do, and a win on the road in a conference game like this would be a huge step in the right direction. Providence has some work to do as well because while they’ve got some good stuff on their resume, simply holding serve the rest of the way probably isn’t going to be enough.
-Marshall @ Virginia
-Hartford @ Boston College
-Monmouth @ Penn
-Oberlin (nondiv1) @ Kent State
-UNC Asheville @ Vanderbilt
-Cal State Bakersfield @ Gonzaga
Montana (8-4, 1-0 Big Sky) at Southern Utah (5-5, 0-1 Big Sky) – 8:30 PM EST (WatchBigSky.com/Pluto TV)
Today has a light smattering of games throughout the country, so we will focus in on tonight’s matchup between the Montana Grizzlies and the Southern Utah Thunderbirds. Montana comes into tonight’s game with two consecutive wins against Northern Arizona and South Dakota State. The win at SDSU was impressive in that Montana ended the Jackrabbits’ home winning streak at 26 games. Michael Oguine had 23 points and 9 boards in that game.
Southern Utah started off their season with three straight wins against West Coast Baptist at home followed by a pair of wins at San Jose State and at Seattle, but they have hit the skids with losses in five of their last seven games. Their past two games have been a 42-point loss at USC and a 30-point loss at home to Montana State in their Big Sky opener. Cameron Oluyitan leads the Thunderbirds with 13.0 points per game and 3.9 rebounds per game.
