CIT Game of the Day – Thursday, March 19, 2015: UT Martin at Northwestern State

Posted on March 19, 2015 by Chad

UT-Martin at Northwestern State, 7:30 PM Eastern, watchcollegeinsider.com

Televisions and computers today will be tuned in to watch college basketball today as the first 16 games of the Round of 64 of the NCAA Tournament take place.  What the overwhelming majority of those watching today’s games may not realize is that there are actually 17 games on the college basketball schedule.  And it is that one extra game, the 17th, that is the focus of today’s CIT Game of the Day.  At 7:30 PM Eastern time this evening, the Tennessee-Martin Skyhawks will be in Natchitoches, Louisiana to take on the Northwestern State Demons in the final game of the CIT First Round, with a date Saturday afternoon at South Carolina Upstate awaiting the winner.

The UT-Martin Skyhawks have won 18 games so far this season, a vast improvement over their eight win campaign in 2013-14.  They received the #4 seed in the Ohio Valley Conference tournament, falling in the quarterfinal round to Morehead State.  This has been the Skyhawks’ best season since 2009, when they notched 22 victories (a mark they could at least tie if they reach the CIT finals).  UT-Martin is led by Deville Smith, who notably scored 21 points in a hard fought 6 point loss at home to Murray State in the team’s regular season finale.  Of course, the most notable win on UT-Martin’s resume came back on New Year’s Day, when they defeated one of our favorite non-Division I teams, Crowley’s Ridge, by a narrow 23 point margin.

Tonight’s opponent for the Skyhawks is the Southland Conference’s Northwestern State Demons.  The Demons finished the regular season with a 19-12 record, falling in the Southland tournament semifinals to Stephen F. Austin.  The majority of Northwestern State’s success this year came in conference, with only one win in non-conference play against Division I competition.  The two players to keep an eye on tonight are Jalan West and Zikitern Woodley.  With both West and Woodley back next season, the Demons may be a force to contend with in the conference race.  For now, they will be a force for the UT-Martin Skyhawks to contend with as both teams battle to keep their seasons going for at least one more game.

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CIT Game of the Day – Wednesday, March 18, 2015: Maryland-Eastern Shore at High Point

Posted on March 18, 2015 by Chad

Maryland-Eastern Shore at High Point, 7:00 PM Eastern, watchcollegeinsider.com

Tonight’s CIT Game of the Day comes from High Point, North Carolina as the Big South’s co-regular season champion High Point Panthers welcome in the MEAC’s Maryland-Eastern Shore Hawks.  High Point was en route to not only the school’s best season at the Division I level but also its first NCAA tournament bid when the Panthers had their entire season derailed in their last two games.  It began in the regular season finale when they suffered a triple overtime loss at Charleston Southern, giving the Buccaneers the top seed in the Big South tournament.  It then got worse when Gradner-Webb knocked High Point out of the Big South tournament, this time in one overtime, in the quarterfinals.  The team led by John Brown, one of the most exciting mid-major conference players in the entire country, will look to rebound from those two heartbreaking losses at home tonight as they begin their quest for the CIT championship.

Tonight’s opponent is a team making only its second ever postseason appearance and first since the 1974 NIT.  The Maryland-Eastern Shore Hawks have for years been stuck in the MEAC basement, not even close enough to sniff a decent seed in the MEAC tournament, let alone a postseason bid beyond that.  This season saw Bobby Collins take over as head coach.  Collins had success at both Hampton and Winston-Salem State, including being the top assistant on the Hampton team that beat Iowa State as a 15 seed in the NCAA tournament, highlights of which were all over TV in last night’s First Four game and will certainly be shown tomorrow when they play Kentucky.  Collins has been, in our opinion at least, the best success story in the entire country for a first year (with his current team) head coach, taking a program that won only 6 games last season and leading them to an 18-14 record, a high seed in the MEAC tournament, and a postseason bid in the CIT.  Tonight, we will find out if this amazing season can continue.

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Hoops HD’s State of the Game Podcast Special

Posted on March 17, 2015 by David Griggs

NEWS, NOTES AND LINKS

-The NCAA Championship Tournament tips off tonight.  Just in case you didn’t know.

-For Chad Sherwood’s CIT Game of the Day – CLICK HERE

 

College basketball always ends on a high note where it is on the minds of every sports fan, and even on the minds of people who aren’t sports fans at all.  As an event, the NCAA Tournament is perhaps the biggest sporting event in the country when you consider just how many people it engages.  With such a great finale, I think we end things under the impression that everything is great in the game of college basketball.  But, in reality, we feel that things are deteriorating.  The NCAA Tournament is a hugely popular event, but as whole, the sport is losing popularity and interest.

David and Lee, who normally don’t get along, discuss the issues they feel that are negatively impacting the game, such as low attendance, low TV ratings, a lack of tradition and rivalry after so many conferences have been realigned, the overall quality of play not being as good, very little interest in the sport for over half the season, and much more.

We want college basketball to be great all year, and of interest to the fans all year.  We also feel that it used to be, and things could be done to make it that way again.  We timed this intentionally because we wanted to discuss these matters when college basketball was king of the hill.  It’s worth the listen.

 

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CIT Game of the Day – Tuesday, March 17, 2015: Louisiana-Lafayette at Incarnate Word

Posted on March 17, 2015 by Chad

Louisiana-Lafayette at Incarnate Word, 8:00 PM Eastern, watchcollegeinsider.com

The First Round of the CIT continues tonight with five games on the slate, highlighted by Incarnate Word’s first ever postseason game (in only their second year of transitioning up to the Division I level).  The UIW Cardinals will be hosting the Ragin’ Cajuns of Louisiana-Lafayette tonight at 8:00 PM Eastern.

UIW enters tonight’s first round game at 18-10 overall, including having impressively gone 10-8 in the Southland Conference.  UIW most notably won at Nebraska back on December 10, in one of the most notable upsets of the non-conference season (even if Nebraska’s season imploded on them this year).  The Cardinals played their first full Division I schedule this year and will not be eligible for the NCAA or NIT tournaments until the 2017-18 basketball season.  They are led by Denzel Livingston who has scored 30 or more points six times already this season.  If he gets to 30 again tonight, it will be a tough game for Louisiana-Lafayette.

The Ragin’ Cajuns of Louisiana-Lafayette enter tonight’s game at 20-13 on the season.  They finished in fourth place in the Sun Belt, falling to Georgia State in the conference tournament semifinal round.  Shawn Long is the player to keep an eye on tonight as he is a legitimate double-double threat every single game.  If he gets there tonight, the Ragin’ Cajuns could very well pull off the road win and advance to the second round of the CIT.

(For my NCAA Tournament Bracketing Analysis, CLICK HERE.)

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NCAA Tournament Bracketing Analysis

Posted on March 16, 2015 by Chad

I took the 1-68 Master Seed List released by the NCAA and plugged it into a bracket, looking for what bracketing rules the committee followed, ignored, or just got wrong.  Below are my comments:

1. There was debate as to whether the committee would put the top 2 seed in the same region as Kentucky.  It is only 293 miles from Charlottesville to Cleveland, bus distance per NCAA rules.  However, they sent the Cavaliers to Syracuse (which requires flying) instead.  This shows that the committee clearly did not want to penalize the Wildcats with the top 2 seed.

2.  Maryland was ahead of Louisville on the S-Curve and is closer to Syracuse than Cleveland.  Therefore, they should have gone to the East Region and sent Louisville to the Midwest, which would have also been within driving distance for Louisville.  For some reason the committee sent Maryland to the Midwest and Louisville to the East though.  Perhaps they wanted to avoid a Kentucky-Louisville game again in the Sweet 16, but they are not supposed to look that far ahead for rematches.

3. There was some debate whether Wisconsin would go to Columbus or Omaha, but the committee went by straight mileage and sent them to Omaha.

4. Notre Dame’s pod was sent to Pittsburgh even though the second Columbus spot was open at the time.  This makes no sense at all to me.  They are both within driving distance, but Columbus is 120 miles closer to South Bend.  Worse yet, the team that got the Columbus spot was Maryland — which would have been closer to Pittsburgh!

5. North Carolina was also passed over for the second Columbus spot and sent to Jacksonville, which is 60 miles further away from Chapel Hill.

6. It is almost 200 miles further for Arkansas to go to Jacksonville as opposed to Columbus.  However, West Virginia, below the Razorbacks on the seed list, was given the 5 seed spot in Columbus, most likely because this is able to put one of the two teams on a bus instead of a plane.  I have no problem with this switch.

7. Another switch I did not understand on the 6 line.  Providence was sent to Columbus while Butler went to Pittsburgh.  It is closer for both teams to be in the opposite site and would not have violated any other rules on this line.  I am starting to suspect the committee needs a geography lesson on where Pittsburgh and Columbus are.

8. Oklahoma State could have been easily swapped on the 9 line with LSU, avoiding an Oregon-Okie State rematch from the 2013 tournament, which is supposed to be a consideration.  Apparently, this was ignored to keep Okie State in Omaha and closer to home.  I have no problem with this.

9. Davidson should have gone to Charlotte, which is in their backyard and was available.  However, the committee flipped them with Georgia, sending the Wildcats out to Seattle.  The logic may have been to avoid a home court disadvantage for Michigan State and Virginia, but the protected seed rules are only supposed to apply to the top 4 seeds in the Round of 64.

10.  Slotting BYU in was amazingly easy on the 11 line despite their bracketing requirements.  The committee lucked out there.

11. Eastern Washington was sent to Portland instead of Seattle which is slightly further.  I believe this was to avoid a team from the state of Washington playing in Seattle and have no problems with it given that as a 13 seed, their round of 64 opponent is supposed to be a protected seed.

12. On the 16 line, Coastal Carolina could have gone to Charlotte to play Duke, but was sent to Omaha instead.  This was also probably a conscious move to help protect Duke’s #1 seed form a semi-local team and shows me that the committee was doing some extra work to avoid any potential claim of a home court disadvantage by a top seed.  I have no problem with this switch either.

13. Finally, there was some concern that the committee would adjust the bracket because of travel issues with charter planes this year.  Clearly, that was not a factor for them at all.

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CIT GAME OF THE DAY – Monday, March 16, 2015: NEW HAMPSHIRE AT NJIT

Posted on March 16, 2015 by Chad

For our Selection Sunday Bracket Racket, CLICK HERE.

New Hampshire at NJIT, 7:00 PM Eastern, free streaming at watchcollegeinsider.com

Welcome to the 2015 CIT Game of the Day feature here on HoopsHD!  As we have done the past several years, we will be highlighting one game per day from the best postseason college basketball tournament in the country (or maybe second best if you include that 68 team thing that gets started this week also).  Tonight, we start the CIT off with a bang, as our adopted team, the Team of the People, the only Independent team in the country, the one and only New Jersey Institute of Technology plays its first ever postseason Division I college basketball game!

NJIT enters the game tonight having gone 18-11 on the season, including the thrilling win at Michigan and having been very competitive against Villanova (the second best team in the nation according to the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee).  They also picked up big home wins this year over Yale and St. Francis-Brooklyn, en route to a school record 18 victories.  Given this program’s success, and the fact that most of the team returns next year, NJIT is clearly a program on the rise that we do not believe will continue to be passed up by conferences for membership much longer, especially with a new athletic facility in the works.

While the NJIT story this year has been a great one, we would be remiss if we overlooked the tale of their opponent tonight, the New Hampshire Wildcats.  As with NJIT, UNH is making its first ever postseason appearance tonight after putting together a 19-12 regular season that included a thrilling America East quarterfinal home win over Hartford.  The Wildcats have struggled as much over the past 20+ years as any Division I program and the sudden turnaround this season has been truly remarkable.  As with NJIT, this is a young team with most of its roster returning next year.  Unlike NJIT, New Hampshire will have a shot at an NCAA tournament bid next year, and may even be our preseason pick next year to win the America East.

The 2015 postseason will truly begin with a bang tonight, as there are very few more exciting stories out there among teams that did not make the NCAA tournament than the two these teams have.  And given that it is the only D1 game being played tonight, there is no excuse not to watch!

 

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