tear up your sports illistrated

[williebat]

I'd prefer that Nevada, the mid-major that's closest to actually being a "major," would receive more of a challenge for its BracketBuster game than the sixth-place team in the Missouri Valley, Northern Iowa. And apparently there's at least one WAC coach who'd prefer that the league not take part in the BracketBuster weekend at all. "I don't know how everybody else feels, but if we can get a stronger TV deal, the BracketBuster would be meaningless to our conference," San Jose State's George Nessman said on Monday. "I don't think any of our teams will be helped in terms of their NCAA Tournament profile or NIT profile by playing in the BracketBuster." Wolf Pack coach Mark Fox is not in that camp, though; he called it a "life-saver" for scheduling and made it clear he didn't think Nevada had outgrown the event.
Next three: 2/17 vs. Northern Iowa, 2/22 at Idaho, 2/24 at Boise State.

This is from 16 guy at SI. OH how we have fallen.

[ihateISU]

bulletin board material? not that we should need any more motivation, but we got nothing to lose with this one.

[jman2004]

I hope the Valley doesn't disappoint us this weekend. I wish they'd clean house and shut everyone like this up.

Is he serious, the WAC?

Shouldn't the fact that the Vallye dominates the number of teams in Bracketbusters be a clue that its in fact, the Valley that may be outgrowing the event, and not San Jose State?

[BCPanther]

I really don't think it is out of the realm of possibility that the Valley could go a perfect 10-0 this weekend.

I think that SIU is just simply better than Butler. Remember, Butler has not played anybody since the first of December.

We are so tough to prepare for in a short time when you are not used to our style. The shooting funk has to end sometime, so why not now...

MSU should be athletic enough to give Winthrop all sorts of trouble.

Creighton will use Drexel to show how overrated the CAA is.

Wichita State is simply out of Appy State's league, possible blowout. Appy has a really inflated RPI...

Bradley has a ton more experience than VCU and VCU uses pace to bother teams, bad news for them is that Bradley likes the same pace...

The bottom 4 all got teams they are substantially better than. If the Valley takes an RPI hit it will because one of these teams gets beat, not the top 6...

[WolfInSeattle]

I hope the Valley doesn't disappoint us this weekend. I wish they'd clean house and shut everyone like this up.

Is he serious, the WAC?

Shouldn't the fact that the Vallye dominates the number of teams in Bracketbusters be a clue that its in fact, the Valley that may be outgrowing the event, and not San Jose State?

The WAC is a much tougher conference than most people realize and the travel is extremely tough with teams stretching from Louisiana to Hawaii. Last year the WAC 3rd place team beat Southern Illinois at Carbondale in the bracketbuster and this year Fresno State (currently 5th place) destroyed Creighton 69-54 in Fresno.

That said, Nevada looked terrible defeating SJSU last night and they can definitely be beaten Saturday. One of the strange things about this team is that they are 0-6-1 vs the spread when they are a 12pt favorite or greater, but they are 3-0 when an underdog and 4-1 if the spread is less than 5 either direction. In other words they always seem to play to the level of competition. If they take UNI lightly the Pack will lose by 15. I don't have any idea what's happened over the last 4 weeks since I watched the Panthers and thought you looked pretty good, but I expect a close game on Saturday. This Nevada team is not one that can be counted on to take charge from the start and control an entire game.

[KaBullseye15]

The WAC is a much tougher conference than most people realize and the travel is extremely tough with teams stretching from Louisiana to Hawaii. Last year the WAC 3rd place team beat Southern Illinois at Carbondale in the bracketbuster and this year Fresno State (currently 5th place) destroyed Creighton 69-54 in Fresno.

That said, Nevada looked terrible defeating SJSU last night and they can definitely be beaten Saturday. One of the strange things about this team is that they are 0-6-1 vs the spread when they are a 12pt favorite or greater, but they are 3-0 when an underdog and 4-1 if the spread is less than 5 either direction. In other words they always seem to play to the level of competition. If they take UNI lightly the Pack will lose by 15. I don't have any idea what's happened over the last 4 weeks since I watched the Panthers and thought you looked pretty good, but I expect a close game on Saturday. This Nevada team is not one that can be counted on to take charge from the start and control an entire game.

i dont think theyre good enough to be above playing in bracketbusters though

[WolfInSeattle]

That wasn't my point..

i dont think theyre good enough to be above playing in bracketbusters though

That wasn't my point. It was the comment about the WAC like it was a laughable thought. I'd love to see the WAC and MVC play games every year. It's something we've discussed on our board many times and I don't know why we don't set up some home and home series'.

Just what does the Bracketbuster do for the MVC? For the WAC it generally isn't much help, but I like it because we get to see strange teams from the east and it gets Nevada a little publicity in the midwest, but it really doesn't do much more than that. If the Panthers weren't in a deep funk or if the Pack were playing Butler or SIU perhaps I'd see it differently, but Nevada has nothing to gain and a lot to lose on Saturday while you have nothing to lose and perhaps a lot to gain.

Anyway, I'll probably post about the Nevada team tonight or tomorrow and I hope it's a great game on Saturday.

[ihateISU]

what it does for the MVC is possibly bump up our conference RPI. It might not help your team this year, but it helped us last year when we beat bucknell. that game might have been the one to get us an at large bid.

[Newsbreaker]

I don't think the Brackebuster is even close to what it was intended to be. In fact, for the MVC teams, I think it IS pretty close to meaningless.

Let me explain.

We are going to be a 3 bid or a 5 bid league based on our own merits alone...how we have compared out of conference has already been established, because the MVC schedules better (most of it, UNI's misfortunes aside) then leagues like the WAC. How many bids we get is going to be determined by how our league shapes up against itself.

The Bracketbuster was a GREAT idea. Get a few teams that aren't on National TV often a chance to show off against each other, and hopefully a few will improve their standing, nationally. Instead, the whole damn country is in this thing, and it's beed dilluted beyond recognition.

For a league like the MVC, where we literally have teams on National TV at LEAST once a week, if not more, one extra appearance just isn't worth what it once was.

For a league like the WAC, where there's a chance to actually impress on this day and "steal" an extra bid, the event actually should have even more meaning then it currently does to us.

[BCPanther]

I really think that the MVC, WAC, A10, CUSA, and MWC should get together and have an week in December where each team gets two or three games against teams from within those leagues.

Say, for example, everybody plays three games- Saturday, Tues/Wed, Fri/Sat/Sun. UNI plays say @ Charlotte on Saturday, comes home for New Mexico on Wednesday, and then gets Rice at home on Sunday.

It would help everyone to schedule quality opponents and would be feasible travel wise, I do however pity the team that has to make that run to Hawaii...

[jman2004]

That wasn't my point. It was the comment about the WAC like it was a laughable thought. I'd love to see the WAC and MVC play games every year. It's something we've discussed on our board many times and I don't know why we don't set up some home and home series'.

I wasn't laughing at the WAC. I realize the WAS is underrated. I was laughing at how the SI article (the coach that was interviewed) acted as if the WAC was WAY above the Valley.

That is definately not the case.

[WolfInSeattle]

I'd love to see that kind of tourney. The MWC would be too afraid to get in that kind of a scrum though. They outwardly act like they're the Pac10 but inwardly know they have no national reputation or clout.

[WolfInSeattle]

No way.

I wasn't laughing at the WAC. I realize the WAS is underrated. I was laughing at how the SI article (the coach that was interviewed) acted as if the WAC was WAY above the Valley.

That is definately not the case.

Oh, heck no. I would have put last year's top 5 up against the Valley's and there would have been some real knock down-drag out battles, but the WAC is down a little this year, and our lower third is pitiful. I can't overemphasize how bad the travel is in the WAC, though. I wish we could put all our schools in a small 300 mile radius circle like the Valley. We envy your regional rivalries and the fact that you can drive to so many of the away games.

[Panthers to the Bone]

Good banter. I still think the BB game is meaningful, however, I would like the rest of the conference schedule to be less straining. By that I mean that I would like to see a conference game added on the Monday prior to the MVC Tourney and still play at least 2 games before January 1. That would free the schedule up a little so that no teams do the 4 games in 8 days routine next year.

Why is this a beneficial deal? If the MVC is as good of a conference as we think it is, it should put 4-6 teams on ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU that weekend (like this year) late in the season against the best the other conferences have to offer. If the MVC is as good as we think, it solidifies our ranking where if there is a debate on Selection Sunday if there should be a 4-5th team from the Valley in The Dance or a 2nd/3rd team from the Horizon/CAA/WAC, we can point to those BB wins as ammo. Why else is it beneficial? The MVC is on national television on ESPN2 from 4PM to midnight EST...straight. No other shows b/t games...it's almost the MVC vs. the rest of the country. In addition, MSU is on ESPN2 on Friday night. It also guarantees that our top teams in the league will be playing RPI boosting teams in the non-con. By Jan 29th (when they select the pairings), ESPN should know who has strong records...which means that all Valley teams, if they win, will be beating opponents who have either strong RPI's and/or large win totals (which boosts the MVC's RPI). It's a very solid deal. Everyone but Drake and Illinois State are playing teams in the top 4 of their conferences (and most are against teams #1/#2).

IMO, if the Valley goes 10-0, they would probably jump to the #4 RPI conference (in which the MVC is .0096 points behind). If the MVC goes 9-1, they might get to the #4 conference. If they go 7-3 to 8-2 the MVC probably lands in at #5. 6-4 or worse, the MVC probably drops to #7 for the remainder of the season.

[panther2317]

I'm pretty sure Creighton had some guys out with injuries when they played at Fresno.