Wednesday, January 20, 2010

About last night - Now we've got a race

The race I'm talking about is the Missouri Valley as previously undefeated Northern Iowa went into Wichita to face Wichita State and came out a 60-51 loser. Since they were just ranked by both the AP and Coaches polls, expect the Panthers to fall out of both. On the bracketology front, most of us(Including myself) probably had the Panthers a bit too high, but should the Panthers finish the year with only one loss in conference, they should have a solid case for an at-large. Conversely, the Shockers win makes up for their loss at Creighton and then some. Provided they win this weekend, they could be in the projections on Monday.

To all of you who had Northwestern in the projections...HA, HA, HA! Evan Turner(with yet another double-double) and Ohio State routed the Wildcats 76-56 in Columbus. Now, I'm not going to easily dismiss the Wildcats chances at an at-large, but, apart from Notre Dame and Saint Louis, they didn't necessarily tear up their OOC schedule. Their best chance to score a quality non-conference win was against Butler and the Wildcats lost by 13.

Elsewhere: In a battle of ACC mid-packers, Georgia Tech escaped with a 66-64 win over Clemson, after trailing most of the way. The margin was provided by Zachary Peacock's 2 free throws with 3 seconds left. Purdue went into Assembly Hall(Champaign) and walked out with an 84-78 win over Illinois. Tennessee outlasted Alabama, 63-56, and San Diego State continues to build it's resume by edging Utah 70-68 in Salt Lake City.

2 comments:

  1. How long is Minnesota gonna stay in the bracket without a solid road win? That soft non conference schedule will hurt the Gophers.

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  2. Anon, I gave some thought to dropping the Gophers this week, but I like to play hedge games with the last four teams. I think Minnesota will ultimately get back to the good side of the cut line, but if not, they might slide down to the also under consideration category.

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