NEWS AND NOTES
-We will be recording our Under the Radar video podcast tonight. Hopefully. Technical difficulties seem to have struck the Griggs household and I’m hoping those get cleared up. One of the things we will be discussing is what is happening at South Carolina State. A proposal by the State of South Carolina House of Representatives that would close the institution for two full academic years. This would mean no classes or students of any kind, which is horrible. Athletically, it would also mean, as far as I know, that if the school were to reopen, it would have to go through reclassification if they wanted to be a div1 program. In other words, they would be a transitional team. Another problem is that schools must have accreditation to participate in the NCAA. If SC State closes, it will certainly lose its accreditation since it is, you know, closed, and it may take as long as two years to get it back. That would obviously delay their reentry into div1 even longer.
-For Chad Sherwood’s UTR Game of the Day – CLICK HERE
TONIGHT’S HIGHLIGHTED GAMES
-KANSAS STATE AT WEST VIRGINIA (Big Twelve). West Virginia is safe, but has room for improvement. K State is on the outside looking in. The bad news is that it’s tough to win in this conference. The good news is that if you can win in this conference, you can build your profile in a hurry.
-SYRACUSE AT BOSTON COLLEGE (ACC). Syracuse is right on the bubble, but as per the Hoops HD rules, if they lose tonight to Boston College they’re automatically ineligible for the…….oh wait. Nevermind.
-MIAMI FL AT WAKE FOREST (ACC). We say this all the time, but the kind of road games solid tournament teams need to win are the ones they play against non-NIT teams.
-PENN STATE AT OHIO STATE (Big Ten). Ohio State appears to be improving and shouldn’t have too much trouble tonight. Unfortunately this isn’t the kind of game that will boost their profile.
-GEORGIA AT TEXAS A&M (SEC). This is a HUGELY important game between two teams that are hovering right around the bubble. Both need the win to establish that they’re better than the other.
-GEORGE WASHINGTON AT DUQUESNE (Atlantic Ten). To repeat….We say this all the time, but the kind of road games solid tournament teams need to win are the ones they play against non-NIT teams.
-LA SALLE AT VCU (Atlantic Ten). VCU really needs a win to stop the bleeding and to start the process of establishing they can be an NCAA Tournament caliber team despite the injuries.
-RHODE ISLAND AT SAINT JOSEPH’S (Atlantic Ten). Personally, I’m not on the Rhody bandwagon despite their bloated conference record, but they are on the radar of virtually everyone else here at Hoops HD. One thing we can agree on is that even if they are alive and kicking, they won’t be if they lose this one.
-GREEN BAY AT YOUNGSTOWN STATE (Horizon League). I don’t think Green Bay can get inside the bubble even if they win out, but they can at least flirt with it.
-TCU AT TEXAS (Big Twelve). As improved as TCU is they’re still just 1-9 in league play. Texas is falling down fast and can’t afford to lose what is probably one of their more winnable conference games.
-ILLINOIS STATE AT NORTHERN IOWA (Missouri Valley). UNI continues to roll. I think they’ll end up as a protected seed, or at least they should.
-INDIANA STATE AT WICHITA STATE (Missouri Valley). The MVC is a two horse race. Wichita State is the other horse. They’re high in the rankings and could end up as a protected seed.
-PITTSBURGH AT LOUISVILLE (ACC). Louisville can still end up as good as the #2 line. Pitt is on the outside looking in, but at 5-5 in the conference they could play their way into the picture pretty quickly if they’re able to pick up a few wins like this one. It’s much easier said than done, though.
-VIRGINIA AT NC STATE (ACC). Huge game here for NC State. They need to pull off some big wins to get the attention of the committee, so they really need to come in with a sense of urgency to night. Should be a great crowd.
-VILLANOVA AT PROVIDENCE (Big East). Nova has just two losses, but this would be one of their more impressive true road wins if they’re able to pull it off. Both teams are in really good shape.
-DEPAUL AT SAINT JOHN’S (Big East). The Johnnies are firmly on the bubble and can’t afford to lose at home to a non-tournament team.
-AIR FORCE AT BOISE STATE (Mountain West). I’m starting to like this Boise State team, but won’t like them if they fail to win this one. AFA can be tricky, so they better be ready for them.
-OREGON AT USC (Pac Twelve). Oregon is way outside the bubble and needs to string some wins together just to get into the picture.
-INDIANA AT MARYLAND (Big Ten). Maryland is slipping, but still safe. Indiana is safe as well, but they could still improve their profile by winning some big road games.
-TENNESSEE AT VANDERBILT (SEC). Tennessee, like Oregon, is outside the bubble and needs to string some wins together just to get into the picture.
-WYOMING AT SAN DIEGO STATE (Mountain West). Wyoming really blew it over the weekend and needs a big win like this to recover. It’s much easier said than done, though.
Bracket Rundown: February 12th
Chad, John and David once again put together an NCAA Tournament seed list. They run through each of the 68 teams that they feel should be in the NCAA Tournament if the season ended today. This week they did things a little different. Instead of taking into consideration the criteria that the actual selection committee uses and how they think the committee will evaluate that criteria, they just ranked the teams strictly on how good they thought they were. In other words, they were not trying to speculate on what the committee would do if the season ended today. As always, there were disagreements and banter as they were putting the list together.
To see how the teams were bracketed after they had been ranked – CLICK HERE
And for all you radio lovers, below is an mp3 version of the show