Championship Week "Who do I cheer for Tonight?" List

[BCPanther]

Your Right MadCat,
Sit back and enjoy a good basketball game. They will both be playing next week and Brad Brownell, head coach at Wright State, is a leading contender for the Evansville Job...

[Panthers to the Bone]

Keep those eyes on the lookout for Rick Hartzell tonight. He will be officiating this game.

[UNI MadCat]

Keep those eyes on the lookout for Rick Hartzell tonight. He will be officiating this game.

Don't give the conspiracy theorists anymore fodder!!

[UNI MadCat]

Oops, forgot about that game because I figured both teams were in postseason. Would be cool to see Butler win because that keeps open an NCAA bid for MoSt or BU, and Wright State could be an interesting NIT opponent. Mainly because their arena is hosting the "play-in" game and is a first round site I believe, which would probably mean they would have to play on the road..... Wishing, wishing....

Good call Khan; I didnt think about it. I'll cheer for Butler then.

[Khan4Cats]

Wednesday of Championship week and the fun really gets started as some of the big conferences get going. For you viewing:

The two Auto-Bids determined today: Northeast Conference and Big Sky Conference. In both, the NIT guarantee-regular season champs are in the finals. Big Sky: Weber State, Northeast: Central Connecticut

Opening Round Games in Conference USA (only team to worry about is Tulsa, if they make a deep run), in the Mid American (MAC) (only team to worry about is Ohio, also with a deep run). The Big West opens but none of them matter, in the MEAC and SWAC, we want the regular season champs to advance (Delaware State and Mississippi Valley State).

Bigger Conferences:

Atlantic 10: 10th rated RPI Conference
Dayton vs Charlotte- Dayton is an NIT bubble, root for Charlotte
Fordham vs Richmond- Fordham is an NIT bubble, root for Richmond
Saint Louis vs Duquesne- SLU is right behind us in the RPI, go Duquesne
Saint Joes vs Temple- St Joes is another bubble NIT

The tough thing about the A-10 is they have many NIT bubble type teams after Xavier (1 seed) and UMass (2 seed). A bubble team is very likely to make the semis in GW (3 seed, 85 RPI, would play St Joes 93 RPI to go to the semis likely) and Rhode Island (4 seed, 122 RPI, would play Fordham 100 RPI for the semis likely). Fortunately, their best two NIT bubbles (Dayton 74 RPI, and SLU 81 RPI) have to play the 1 and 2 seeds in the quarterfinals. This conference could squeeze out a couple more bids after the top 2, or be stuck with just 2 postseason teams. I'm guessing a third team will likely get a bid somewhere.

Pac-10: 3rd rated RPI
California-Oregon State doesn't matter unless one of them rises up to win the auto-bid, not likely
Washington-Arizona State: Not sure how to root here, a Washington win would likely help our RPI slightly, but they are an NIT bubble type team that is just in front of us and they are good enough to make a run through the Tourney. I think a Husky loss is probably best in the long run, as they only have one road win (at Arizona State) and I think our profile is better despite the head-to-head.

Big East: 5th Rated Conference
DePaul vs Villanova: Both are likely post-season teams, DePaul is an NCAA bubble, root for Nova to keep bubble slots open for the Valley
Syracuse vs UConn: This one hurts because I really dislike Syracuse, but UConn is an NIT bubble team that needs to be taken out early. The 'Cuse may still need a win over ND to make the NCAA's even with a W.
West Virginia vs Providence: Providence is an NIT bubble team that has only been away from home twice out of conference (both losses) WVU is like 'Cuse, likely needs 2 wins to Dance. Root for WVU to win, then lose in the next round to Louisville
Marquette vs St. John's: St. John's has two chances for post-season play: win out or win a couple and claim the "We're a Big East School so we have to be in post-season play" bid Go Marquette.

[UNI MadCat]

At this point its probably better to have both Washington and Iowa lose. Washington is 75, we're 80 and Iowa is 83. I'd rather they both finished below us. Jumping the gun but an Iowa win over Purdue all but guarantees they finish ahead of us as they'll get an RPI jump from that and then they play an OSU team that, if they lose, isn't going to likely drop their RPI.

[Khan4Cats]

I agree entirely on Iowa v Purdue. Am going to be a BIG Boilermaker fan on Friday. Still, I think I will be sick from having to listen to all of the "We're the 4th place team in the Big 10 so deserve a postseason bid" crud we are likely to hear even if they lose.
An Iowa State win tomorrow would be really nice too to help take out Oklahoma for certain and our RPI. Would really love to see them beat Kansas too, since they are not a threat to take an NIT spot and I can't see them winning 4 games to get to the Dance.

[panther2317]

Purdue winning knocks Missouri State out of the NCAA's...and believe me, financially...we want at least 3 Valley teams in the NCAA's. Obviously all Panther fans want to be in post-season play and that's the priority, I'm just talking about dollars and cents for the future.

[Panther Cat]

I disagree with you on Iowa and Washington. I think they are both in the NIT regarldess of the outcome of their tournament.

Iowa's RPI isn't too great and they don't win on the road. BUT, 10-6 and 4th place in the Big 10 is going to get them in, especially considering that many think that conference will take 5-6 to the NCAA. Also an Iowa win would knock Purdue out of the NCAA and help our RPI. Plus the NIT has already contacted Barta on possibly hosting an NIT game (standard procedure I'm sure UNI has been contacted too, but it's still very likely they will be in).

In Washington's case it's a little different, but still the same type of situation. the PAC 10 is the #1 or 2 RPI conference and i don't see the NIT leaving out a team with 18 wins from there. Obviously Arizone State isn't going to make any postseason so them winning won't steal any bids. But Washington winning a game or two can help our RPI. If they are an NIT bubble and they lose to ASU, then that's a huge loss, I just feel that they are already in. NIT is about making money and unfortunately a lot of the big schools will probably sell more tickets.

I still think as of right now UNI is in the NIT with Washington and Iowa. But if a couple more teams win that we don't want to we will be getting bumbed.

One a side note Iowa State beating Oklahoma will be a nice win for us in a few different way.

[UNI MadCat]

First off, the Pac 10 is #3, not 1 or 2.

I couldn't disagree much more Panther Cat. We're so bunched up with UW and Iowa that comparisons will have to be made. If their RPI is ahead of ours, and they are from the BCS school, they will get the nod. We don't need them getting any more cards stacked in their favor. I think you are over estimating the RPI help we will get from either of these teams winning. A UW loss might (coupled with other games) drop us one spot, but it would likely drop them 10 or more spots since ASU is a 200+ RPI team, thus putting us ahead. An Iowa win will undoutedly have them jump us. Right now, in the comparisons we beat Iowa, but give them a better RPI and another top 50 win (or top 100 at the worst if PU drops out of the t-50) and a MUCH better record down the stretch and that might put them in over us in a head-to-head comparison, regardless if we won in our only meeting.

My point is... at this time its best to keep other teams behind us in the RPI. What you aren't taking into account is that there is some imaginary line where the NIT goes straight down the RPI numbers. Right now, I feel its at 77. The way it looks, we might not make it there. Which means we then start "competing" against other teams. I'd just rather be on the plus side of the RPI debate if that comes up. Our NIT status is a complete toss up at this point and I'd rather have other schools be in that category as well. While you may be right that Iowa and UW are in regardless, I'd rather have them have to sweat it out just like us.

Remember too that an ISU win helps Iowa as well.

[BCPanther]

NIT-ology (which I will say is off a lot when you look at who he has in the NCAA) has us in as a 7 seed...Updated Today...

[UNIChippewa]

On a semi-related note and question; does anyone know why the NIT has gone back to only 32 teams in the post-season tournament? Maybe less teams makes it more competitive and produces better basketball, but it's obviously causing us lots of angst. If they still had 40 teams we wouldn't have anything to worry about.

[ceaser150]

Root for Washington to lose. The RPI help would be minimal to UNI and a loss to a horrible team like ASU would really hurt Washington's profile. On a related note, UCONN is beating Syracuse at the half. A win by UCONN probably secures an NIT bid for them. Although it is nauseating to root for Syracuse and it a win would probably secure an NCAA bid, we still need to pull for UCONN.

[UNI MadCat]

On a semi-related note and question; does anyone know why the NIT has gone back to only 32 teams in the post-season tournament? Maybe less teams makes it more competitive and produces better basketball, but it's obviously causing us lots of angst. If they still had 40 teams we wouldn't have anything to worry about.

You know, I'm not really sure. I've searched and haven't found an explanation. My best guess as just some dope sitting beyond the keyboard would be that it was a scheduling nightmare and they wanted to keep the same schedule for the NIT final four -- which I believe is a Monday/Wednesday slate in NYC -- and it was tough to balance all of it. IIRC there were times were teams were meeting for first round games before other teams had played opening round games. I also remember the teams that played in the dreaded Monday night game. I dont know if this was true or folklore but I seem to recall stories of Valpo sitting on the tarmac just waiting to find out where they were headed to play the next night -- and it ended up being Iowa. It's hard enough for coaches to prepare for a game on one day's notice within the conference (tourney) but to prepare for an entirly foreign opponent probably was becoming too much. Again, this is just speculation on my part but that is my best guess. In the end, those scheduling nightmares and no "easily readable" bracket probably did "cheapen" the tournament in some respect.

Still though, I'd like to see it at 40. Even with 40 you're looking at less than a third of D-I teams in postseason play (105 out of 337).

[UNI MadCat]

As we speak Syracuse is pounding UCONN and the Huskies are losing their cool. I'm guessing there is little chance they are an NIT team now... at least in front of us.