NEWS AND NOTES
-For Chad Sherwood’s UTR Game of the Day – CLICK HERE
-Butler went on the road to Saint John’s yesterday, and Butler lost. This is the second true road game they’ve lost against a team that clearly appears to be nowhere near the NIT, much less the NCAA Tournament. They do have a win at Utah, but they need to be able to beat the sub-NIT teams on the road if they truly are a top fifteen team. Hell, they need to be able to beat solid tournament teams on the road if they’re truly a top fifteen team.
-Florida picked up a somewhat impressive win against an Arkansas team who had looked good and who had a bloated record. The Gators have had their struggles, but they’re better this year than they were a year ago and Mike White appears to have them going in the right direction.
-Tennessee knocked off Texas A&M at TAMU, and looked rather impressive in doing so. I think this means two things, TAMU isn’t as good as we thought, but it also means that Tennessee isn’t as bad as we thought. Still not good enough to be a tournament team, but definitely good enough to be dangerous in the conference.
HIGHLIGHTED GAMES
-WEST VIRGINIA AT OKLAHOMA STATE (Big Twelve). Not too many people are all that excited about Oklahoma State despite them being 10-2 with a blowout win against Wichita State in Wichita. They’re unbeaten at home. Most probably see West Virginia as the favorite, but this is anything but an easy game for them to win.
-SAINT BONAVENTURE AT UMASS (Atlantic Ten). At 10-3, UMass will have their chances to play their way into the field, but the margin for error is small.
-VALPARAISO AT UIC (Horizon League). Valpo pretty much needs to run the table in conference play to be safe for a tournament bid without winning the conference tournament, which they are good enough to do but that’s still easier said than done.
-NORTHWESTERN AT MICHIGAN STATE (Big Ten). This is a very interesting game between a Northwestern team that’s put together a very impressive profile and is looking to add a conference road win to it, and a Michigan State team that got off to a sluggish start but just picked up a big win at Minnesota and is looking to turn their season around.
-TEXAS TECH AT IOWA STATE (Big Twelve). Texas Tech has a bloated record, but this is hands down their biggest test of the season so far.
-LA SALLE AT DAYTON (Atlantic Ten). Dayton appears to be among the A10 frontrunners, and they need to take care of business at home against a La Salle team that appears to be of sub-tournament quality.
-BAYLOR AT OKLAHOMA (Big Twelve). Baylor comes in at 12-0 with a very strong resume, but they haven’t played any true road games yet, so this will be a different kind of test for them.
-RHODE ISLAND AT SAINT LOUIS (Atlantic Ten). I want to highlight this game just to say that Rhody has not yet won a true road game, and if they want to land inside the bubble they probably need to at least pick up six of the nine road games they have left, and if they can’t pick this one up they should just give up and start again next year.
-TEXAS AT KANSAS STATE (Big Twelve). Texas is spinning out of control and can’t seem to get back on track. K State has just one loss, but it’s hard to say if their bloated record reflects their schedule or if it reflects how good they are. We’ll learn more about them as we go through conference play.
-VCU AT GEORGE MASON (Atlantic Ten). A strong showing in conference play, which means being able to win against a very much improved George Mason team on the road, should land VCU inside the bubble.
-SOUTH CAROLINA AT MEMPHIS. South Carolina’s profile is strong, but you get the sense that they need a nice road win to help stabilize it after their last couple of losses. Memphis is improved, but is coming off a loss and still appears to have a ways to go before we can call them a solid tournament team.
-KANSAS AT TCU (Big Twelve). TCU is 11-1 and has a ton of momentum built up, which is odd to say and in itself an accomplishment, but being able to knock off Kansas at home is a very tall order. Kansas is a potential #1 seed, and this is the kind of game that #1 seeds win. Well, I guess every kind of game is the kind of game #1 seeds win.
-USC AT OREGON (Pac Twelve). Oregon is coming off a hugely exciting and emotional home win against UCLA, and looks to take down unbeaten USC today. Their profile needed some stabilizing. I’d say they will have certainly accomplished that with a win tonight.
-UCLA AT OREGON STATE (Pac Twelve). UCLA suffered their first loss of the season in a true road game against a very good Oregon team. I suspect that they’ll have little trouble rebounding tonight.
-ARIZONA AT CALIFORNIA (Pac Twelve). Arizona has continued to win despite injuries. While Cal appears to be good, they’ve done very little this season outside of win home buy games. That puts even more pressure on the Golden Bears to perform in conference.
Throwback Thursday (Fallback Friday Edition): The Metro Conference
For Chad Sherwood’s UTR Game of the Day between Eastern Washington and Idaho – CLICK HERE.
For David Griggs’ News, Notes and Highlighted Games – CLICK HERE.
For our weekly UTR Podcast – CLICK HERE.
Last year around this time, we took a look at the Great Midwest Conference – they were one of the forerunners of Conference USA for its inception in the 1990s. Their older counterparts were the Metropolitan Collegiate Athletic Conference, which was more colloquially known as the Metro Conference. It was founded in 1975 with charter members Louisville, Cincinnati, Georgia Tech, Memphis State, Saint Louis and Tulane. Florida State would join a year later, and when Georgia Tech received an invitation to join the ACC and bolster their football side of the conference, Virginia Tech would join the Metro. These seven schools were the core of the Metro for about a decade, and they would add Southern Miss (as a replacement for Saint Louis) and South Carolina to their ranks in 1982 and 1983, respectively.
Louisville was the undisputed flagship of the Metro Conference during its existence. They were frequent hosts of the Metro conference tournament (along with Cincinnati, Memphis and other rotating sites) and won 11 out of a possible 18 titles during the conference’s existence. They won 2 national championships in 1980 and 1986, and were also part of the Final Four in 1982 and 1983 under Denny Crum’s tutelage. After the Great Midwest exodus in 1991, they would dominate the Metro with a 35-13 record in conference play along with 3 more conference titles in this timespan.
As for Cincinnati, it was the best of times and the worst of times. They actually won the first two Metro conference tournaments while Gale Catlett was their head coach for the 1976 and 1977 seasons. None of that translated into any NCAA Tournament success, however, and they would not advance that far again until the 1991-92 season (which was the beginning of the Great Midwest Conference). UC bottomed out in the 1983-84 season with a 3-25 record during Tony Yates’ first season. Not only did they finish 0-14 in the Metro that year, there were also the events of December 20, 1983 that will live in college basketball infamy. That was the day they hosted Kentucky and lost 24-11 in a game where UC played stall ball for most of the contest. This game was one major reason for a 45-second shot clock being implemented for the 1985-86 season.
Memphis State was another program that had quite a bit of success ON the court under head coach Dana Kirk. They won conference tournament titles in 1982, 1984 and 1985 that led to 3 trips to the NCAA Tournament, including an appearance in the 1985 Final Four that was dominated by the original Big East conference. Unfortunately for the Tigers, they would be stripped of those titles and appearances by the NCAA because of violations that took place in the program. Strangely, they were allowed to play in the conference tournament in 1987, but since they were ineligible for the NCAA Tournament, they ended up winning the Metro and the conference was completely frozen out of the NCAA Tournament that year. Thankfully for Memphis State, their success in the Great Midwest Conference would be free and clean.
Tulane had an even more infamous tenure in the Metro, if that seems possible. News came out of a point-shaving scandal involving players and coaches during the 1984-85 season. The university president at the time (Eamon Kelly) completely shut down the program for 4 seasons – in effect, it was the death penalty for Tulane basketball at the time. This was the second instance in NCAA history of a self-imposed “death penalty” after the University of San Francisco shut down their program after the 1981-82 season and would not resume until the 1985-86 season. This also meant that Tulane would be expelled from the Metro membership until their basketball program would be reinstated. Tulane would resume their program in 1989, and would actually win the regular season title in the Metro for the 1991-92 season.
For the 1991-92 season, the Metro membership would drastically change thanks to football. Florida State left to join the ACC, South Carolina left to join the SEC, and Cincinnati and Memphis State left to form the Great Midwest Conference along with Saint Louis, UAB, Marquette and DePaul. In their stead, the Metro invited UNC-Charlotte, South Florida and Virginia Commonwealth as replacement schools to ensure that the conference had the minimum membership requirements to retain their automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament. After the 1994-95 season, the Metro and Great Midwest Conferences ceased operations and helped to form the new Conference USA. The only exceptions were Virginia Tech and VCU – Virginia Tech would join the Atlantic 10 and VCU would join the Colonial Athletic Association.