Hoops HD

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

-Western Kentucky is the nation’s most schizophrenic team this year.  They’ve got wins away from home against West Virginia and Arkansas, and picked up a huge win against Wisconsin yesterday.  They’ve also got losses to Missouri State and Troy.  They may make the Sweet Sixteen, or they may lose in the opening round of the Conference USA Tournament.  For Wisconsin it is a bit of a setback, but only a bit of one.  They’re still a really strong team and will have more than enough opportunities to rack up big wins in conference play.  Speaking of setbacks…

-Arizona State fell at home to Princeton.  They had at least three shots to win it on the final possession with a missed shot where Princeton got the rebound but turned it over, a rebound after another missed shot, and yet another missed shot.  Speaking of schizophrenic, let’s look at Arizona State’s last four games.  They barely beat a Georgia team that isn’t good, they get crushed by a Vanderbilt team that will likely miss the tournament, they beat top ranked Kansas at home, and they lose to Princeton at home.

-Saint John’s suffered their first loss in their conference opener at Seton Hall, but I ended up being more impressed with the Johnnies than anything else.  This was by far their toughest game of the year, and they ended up losing at the buzzer on the road to one of the better teams in the conference.  If they play like that for the rest of the season they’ll win a lot of games and end up in the tourney.

-Iowa had to sweat out Bryant, but managed to hold on.

-Notre Dame had to REALLY sweat out Coppin State, who was winless, but finally got control of the game late.

-DePaul, who’d had a semi-successful OOC run, lost their home conference opener to Xavier.  Both these teams still have a lot of work to do if they want to land inside the bubble.

-In one of the more surprising results of the day, Toledo absolutely blew out Penn.  It’s not that Toledo won because we knew that they were good, but that they completely blew a very good Penn team off the court.  Buffalo is not going to have a cakewalk in the MAC, and they may not be the only team MAC team that ends up in the NCAA Tournament.

-Congrats to Texas Southern who won yet another road buy game after knocking off Texas A&M.  They clearly look to be the best team in the SWAC, and if they do play their way into the field they’re potentially more dangerous than what we’re used to seeing.

-Florida jumped out to a 21-0 lead on Butler, and basically led by that margin or more for the rest of the game.  This was expected to be a good game.  Too bad that Butler was unable to show up.

-Furman, the mostly deserved media darlings, were blown off the planet yesterday in their first conference road game at East Tennessee State.  We’ve talked about how good we thought the SoCon was, and while that Furman had some big wins, we didn’t think they were even the best team in the conference.  Yesterday’s result has us standing by those statements.

-A really nice win for Purdue at home over Belmont yesterday.  It wasn’t the kind of win that drastically changes their resume, but it was a game where Purdue didn’t overlook a really strong Belmont team, and actually looked like a top 25 team themselves, which they haven’t always done this season.

-UCLA = Bad.  Nothing against a Liberty team that’s gonna make quite a bit of noise in the ASun, but the Bruins are reeling right now and will need to pick it up just to end up in the NIT.

-The Fresno State team that we were all big on and all excited about!!….lost at home to Utah Valley yesterday.

-Kansas State won at home against George Mason, but barely.  They nearly blew a huge lead and suffered what would have been a rather damaging loss to a George Mason team that’s nowhere close to the bubble.

-Stony Brook won their 7th true road game yesterday, which I believe leads the nation.

-LIPSCOMB AT CLEMSON.  Both teams come into this at 9-3, but Lipscomb is actually the team with the more impressive resume up to this point.  It’s been a bit of a disappointing start for Clemson, but they still have a high ceiling and are still good enough to land safely inside the bubble come March.  They’ve still got work to do, though, and a win today would be a big start.  As for Lipscomb, If they can pick up this win and then blow through the conference they may be in a position to make the field without needing the automatic bid.

-NEW MEXICO STATE AT COLORADO STATE.  New Mexico State didn’t look all that strong in their last couple of games, but they still look like one of the bests teams in the WAC and should still be in a good position if they can blow through the rest of their season, which they are good enough to do.

-ALABAMA AT STEPHEN F AUSTIN.  A rare type of road game that won’t be easy for the Crimson Tide.  SFA hasn’t done much OOC, but they’ve also not gotten to play any teams like this at home for quite some time.  They will likely be a strong force in the Southland once league play starts up.

-Binghamton @ Michigan
-Rider @ VCU
-Lehigh @ West Virginia – Lehigh has looked like one of the better Patriot League teams, but they’re probably overmatched today
-Appalachian State @ Saint Louis
-Mount Saint Mary’s @ Minnesota
-Drexel @ Hofstra (Colonial) – Hofstra can improve to 12-3 on the year
-Columbia @ Northwestern