NEWS AND NOTES
-Jon Teitel’s midseason All Conference Awards have been posted!! CLICK HERE to check them out
-USC is no longer unbeaten, and they got beat so badly by Oregon that perhaps it should count as two losses. The 84-61 score isn’t even indicative as to how badly Oregon outplayed them. I’d say the Ducks are back. Well, at least when they’re at home.
-Michigan State is looking better. We all became discouraged when they lost to Northeastern, but now they’ve won six of their last seven, which includes their two biggest wins of the year at Minnesota and at home against Northwestern, and both their team and their profile have been revived somewhat.
-Arizona State, who isn’t good, picked up a win at Stanford. I believe this will knock Stanford off of our radar for the time being.
SPOTLIGHT GAME
-NEW HAMPSHIRE AT DARTMOUTH. CLICK HERE for Chad Sherwood’s UTR Game of the Day!!!!!
-VILLANOVA AT CREIGHTON. Both teams are unbeaten and both are ranked in the top ten. What else do you need to say?? Nova’s profile is the more impressive one, but they’re coming off a game where they had to sweat out DePaul, which is almost unbelievable given how well they had been playing prior to that game. Creighton is very tough to beat at home, and the fans will be rocking for this one.
OTHER HIGHLIGHTED GAMES
-XAVIER AT GEORGETOWN (Big East). Xavier has a good profile, but they’ve yet to win a true road game. Georgetown has been streaky this season, and will be trying to rebound after losing their conference opener to Marquette.
-DUKE AT VIRGINIA TECH (ACC). Duke continues to look like a #1 seed, but they’ll face a VA Tech team who has played really well this season and has more momentum built up than they have at any time in recent memory. This should be a fun one.
-CLEMSON AT WAKE FOREST (ACC). I’ve been very impressed with Clemson’s play lately. They’ve looked like a tournament team, and although Wake is unbeaten at home this is definitely a game that Clemson is able to win.
-NORTH CAROLINA AT GEORGIA TECH (ACC). UNC is looking to pick up a road win in their conference opener, which would be their third of the season. They have a very solid profile and it would be a surprise if they didn’t end up with a protected seed.
-SMU AT EAST CAROLINA (American). SMU looks to be one of the better teams in the AAC, and they’re going after their second true road win today against an ECU team that has just one home loss so far. Even though ECU isn’t a tournament team, SMU should get some credit for this win if they’re able to pull it off.
-HOUSTON AT SOUTH FLORIDA (American). Houston has a bloated record and will need a very strong showing in conference just to get into the tournament picture, but it isn’t completely outside the realm of possibility.
-UNC WILMINGTON AT TOWSON (Colonial). UNCW fell at Clemson earlier in the week, but they have just two losses, appear to be good enough to dominate the league, and if they do their profile will likely be strong enough to land them inside the bubble.
-LOUISVILLE VS INDIANA (Game in Indianapolis IN). These two teams are very close geographically, and although they do play on occasion it is not a fixture game. Both teams are highly ranked, both already have big wins, and both have a good chance to end up with protected seeds. Strangely enough, both are also coming off losses. Indiana’s was particularly surprising seeing as how they lost at home to Nebraska. A win in this game for either team would be a great way to bounce back.
-RIDER AT MONMOUTH (Metro Atlantic). Monmouth pretty much needs to run the table or come close to it in order to end up inside the bubble. They should be good enough to do that if they truly are a tournament team.
-NOTRE DAME AT PITTSBURGH (ACC). Notre Dame has been better than expected, but the most impressive games that they’ve played were probably the two that they lost. Considering how good Pitt’s home record is, this would arguably be the biggest win for the Irish up to this point if they’re able to pull it off.
-FLORIDA STATE AT VIRGINIA (ACC). Both teams are ranked, and both have just one loss. Virginia is coming off a very impressive road win against Louisville, and if this UVA team is like the teams of the past, they seem to get better and better throughout conference play. Not many are talking about them as being the best team in the ACC, but they do have the best singular win out of any team so far, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see them handle a good Florida State team at home today.
-CHATTANOOGA AT WESTERN CAROLINA (Southern). If Chattanooga wins out they’ll be in the discussion. Anything short of that and they’ll need the auto bid.
-RICHMOND AT DAVIDSON (Atlantic Ten). Davidson needs to have a very strong showing in the A10, which means either finishing first or coming close to it, in order to end up safely inside the bubble, but they’ve shown signs of being able to do it despite their four losses.
-BYU AT LMU (West Coast). BYU’s margin for error is small. They really can’t afford to lose any games like this one.
-TEMPLE AT UCF (American). Both teams have shown some promise, but both have also shown some red flags. They both have work to do, which makes this an important game for both teams.
-WYOMING AT UNLV (Mountain West). I believe Wyoming and Nevada are the only two teams who have any sort of shot at landing inside the bubble, and to be honest I don’t think either of them will do it. I just think it’s possible. One or both of them will have to run roughshod over this pathetically weak league.
-NC STATE AT MIAMI FL (ACC). Both teams have bloated record, but both need some more meat on their profiles.
-COASTAL CAROLINA AT UT ARLINGTON (Sun Belt). I really like this UTA team, and I think they’re good enough to land inside the bubble. They pretty much need to run all over the Sun Belt in order to do it, but I think they’re good enough.
-SAN FRANCISCO AT SANTA CLARA (West Coast). With USF being at an impressive 11-3, we are going to keep our eyes on them. They’ll need some quality wins in order to land inside the bubble, and they’ll also need to avoid losing games like this one.
-NEVADA AT FRESNO STATE (Mountain West). Nevada needs to win this game, and the next game, and pretty much all the rest of their games, in order to feel safe on Selection Sunday.
-GONZAGA AT PACIFIC (West Coast). Pacific has an impressive home record, but it’s still unlikely that Gonzaga will be challenged.
-SAN DIEGO AT SAINT MARY’S (West Coast). Like many conference home games that aren’t against Gonzaga or BYU, this should resemble a buy game for SMC.
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.