-Yes, you can now put Syracuse and Indiana safely in the field with little question. In running through three straight NCAA-quality teams (even if Cincinnati is still a question mark) the OrangeMEN have done something that in any year will get a bubble team in the tourney. And while we’re still far from impressed with Indiana, five wins in a row is enough to get past them losing seven of eight before that and get us back to their overall profile, which is solid. But again, still not that much better than Creighton’s.

 

-While we’re on the topic of the Hoosiers, it’s a good thing for them that ESPN’s transmission of the IU-Wisconsin game didn’t cut out at halftime. That may have been the worst half of basketball seen all year, and five points in 15 minutes after jumping out to a 10-2 lead was hardly the way for the Hoosiers to make an impression. Good thing this one stayed close until the half (19-15 Badgers lead), or IU may never have been in range to take control in the second half.

 

-Bubble teams have just about all made their final statements, now it’s a matter of seeing how Saturday’s and Sunday’s many conference finals shake out. Only Texas A&M and California really can help or hurt at-large cases to a critical degree on Saturday; otherwise, we’re down to waiting to see who grabs automatic bids and then holding in suspense over just how the committee will handicap the many unusual situations facing them.

Recapping Friday, will not get any pleasure in saying “told you so,” but Maryland’s at-large chances vanished Friday night. Houston and Vanderbilt’s slim chances also are gone with losses to Memphis and LSU, respectively, and take note of Alabama’s loss to Kentucky. The Crimson Tide are not (or at least should not be) the lock many portray them to be for the NCAAs. Some very nice wins at home in SEC play, but if you look at the entire season, Bama also has a number of questionable losses and not much of a non-conference resume. Alabama is still likely in, but they’ve left the door open to be excluded.

 

-Utah State may not be getting an at-large bid, but the Aggies aren’t dead yet, getting one more shot at Nevada in the WAC final after beating Louisiana Tech in a very tough semifinal. Fans of bubble teams will not be happy to know that Stew Morrill’s team already won once in Reno this year, or that Utah State also grabbed an automatic bid by beating an at-large team in a conference final last year (against Pacific in the Big West). The Aggies ‘held’ Paul Millsap to 18 points and seven rebounds in beating the Bulldogs on Friday, and will attempt to keep Nick Fazekas under the 23 points and 16 boards he had in Nevada’s 75-57 win at USU two weeks ago. This one should be excellent and could be one of the best games of the week if the Wolf Pack puts a little more effort out than teams like Connecticut, George Washington and others have put into games against desperate NCAA wannabees earlier this week.

 

-Nice work by Duke and Ohio State in steering through difficult first round games in the ACC and Big 10 tournaments, respectively, and equally nice work by Miami and Penn State in staying with them. But if Mike Patrick, Dick Vitale and the rest of these TV guys don’t lay off the ACC hyperbole soon, I will vomit on the keyboard while typing or, worse, all over the remote control. We know, the ACC tourney is special. We know the league has a great history and some great teams. It is not the Soviet Union to the rest of college basketball’s San Marino, so the foolishness that comes around every year about the league being cheated if it doesn’t get at least 5-6 NCAA bids needs to stop.

 

-Give Gerry McNamara a Rasputin award for player coming back from being kicked while he was down. His play in this Big East tournament is going to be remembered for a long time. A Rasputin also goes to Xavier for somehow turning its great season-gone-awry back around again and now hinging on one game to get to the NCAAs. Have to give a tremendous amount of credit to both the Musketeers and their Atlantic 10 title game opponent St. Joseph’s for not giving up on frustrating seasons. With both playing their fourth games in four days, this one may come down to which team runs out of gas first, but the way the Hawks are playing of late (six straight wins by 10 points or more), it’s hard to bet against them at this point.

 

-What ever do we make of California? When winning in the Pac-10 tournament should’ve been giving the Golden Bears a boost, particularly with so many other bubble teams failing this week, it may be doing the opposite, only casting more doubt on their NCAA credibility. Cal’s double-overtime win over Oregon this morning is good in that it’s a win, but should a bubble team really be having this much trouble now with a team ranked #140 in the RPI and missing its point guard? Just as importantly, even though it has to be pointed out that the Bears are still winning these Pac-10 tourney games, the wins aren’t helping much (quarterfinal foe USC also has an RPI in the 100s). It’s possible that losing to Washington might have helped their NCAA hopes more than beating the Ducks and Trojans did, because all these games have served as are chances to avoid land mines.

 

At this point, Cal is 20-9, with a 14-6 record against Pac-10 teams. There’s little heft in the non-conference schedule, the best opponent faced being a Kansas team that beat them soundly. Cal did beat San Diego State, but that was before Mohammed Abukar became eligible for the Aztecs and made them a different team. The Golden Bears do have strong wins over UCLA, Washington and Arizona, but also bad losses against Oregon State, Arizona State and DePaul, all at home. Worst of all is a loss to Eastern Michigan, #304 on your RPI sheet; no other serious at-large seeking team has a loss even close to as bad. Leon Powe wasn’t there for that game, but it shouldn’t matter-Cal should never lose to EMU, period. Add in three losses in their last five before the Pac-10 tourney-again, two at home-and you can see why we referred to them as Seton Hall Lite a day earlier. We’d probably have them as our last or second-to-last team in going into Saturday, but Berkeley would be wise to beat UCLA for the Pac-10’s automatic bid.

 

-Have to give a call to Nebraska for getting to the Big 12 semis. The Huskers beat Oklahoma for the second time this year and again exposed the Sooners as another of the many, many nice teams in this country that can just as easily be gone in the opening round of the NCAAs as they could make the Sweet 16. Nebraska’s Jason Dourisseau is a nice player trying to finish his career on a high note, and is the kind of athlete Barry Collier needs more of in the next few years. Other than Dourisseau, this Cornhusker team is very young and will be interesting to watch over the next few years. With a young core and a lot of conference foes rebuilding with new coaches and/or reloading with young players, it’s time for Nebraska to take advantage. Also in the Big 12, not surprised that Kansas or Texas struggled in their quarterfinals; again, two teams with great athletes that are plenty susceptible to underdogs. Were very surprised by Texas A&M’s dismantling of Colorado. A 33-point win at this time of year over anyone is impressive, and this sends a message that the Aggies mean business. Unfortunately for A&M, we agree with Jay Bilas (for once) on them; a win Saturday over Texas is highly recommended. That should indicate just how far behind the 8-ball the Aggies put themselves with their non-conference schedule, if the selection committee is serious about taking a long look at who teams played out of league.

 

-Texas-El Paso did a solid job of slowing down UAB in the teams’ Conference USA semi, and it’s easy to see how they thoroughly undressed the Blazers in El Paso. This time, though, the gritty Miners just didn’t hit enough open shots in the first half or enough free throws in the whole game to get by Alabama-Birmingham. UTEP should be remembering its 12-for-24 performance at the line for awhile, but will need to recover quickly for the NIT.

 

-As tough of a season as Kentucky has had, it still doesn’t surprise us one bit that the Wildcats are in great position to win the SEC tourney. Well, all right, maybe a little. Had a feeling all year that at some point UK would break out, but had all but given up on that by the end of the regular season.

 

-Finally, the ultimate underdogs are still going in several tourneys. Continued excellent work by Wyoming in the Mountain West. The #7 seed Cowboys are now in the MWC final against San Diego State after beating Utah. Like California’s Pac-10 tourney wins so far, this is a game that isn’t going to help the Aztecs at all if they lose. Scary statistic for SDSU; six different teams have won the first six Mountain West tourneys. The two teams not to win one yet? Air Force and Wyoming. We think the Aztecs are in whether or not they lose this, but few seem to concur with this.

 

Another #7 seed, Arkansas-Pine Bluff, is in the Southwestern Athletic Conference final against top seed Southern. Bad news for the Golden Lions is the Jaguars have been the best team in the SWAC all year; good news is UAPB lost the first two meetings with SU by a combined five points. Win or lose, this has been an outstanding year for coach Van Holt and the Golden Lions, who have absolutely proven they can be more than just a team that virtually every other Division I school can wipe its feet on.

 

Yet another #7 seed in a conference final is Toledo, which has now knocked off #10 Bowling Green, #2 Northern Illinois and #3 Akron to get to the Mid-American championship game against #1 Kent State. Justin Ingram and Florentino Valencia are doing their best to carry the Rockets, and they know beating the Golden Flashes is doable since they wiped them out by 16 a few weeks ago. A plus for Toledo is that, unlike other conference, their four games will not come in four consecutive days, since the opening round win over the BGs came on Monday, three days before the rest of the MAC tourney continued in Cleveland.

 

Lastly, there’s Hampton in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, a relative bully as that league’s #6 seed and winner of a semifinal against #7 Norfolk State. The Pirates get Delaware State for Take II in their conference title series; last year the Hornets beat HU with a buzzer-beater to get to the NCAAs. This year’s DSU team is even better, though, and a Hampton win would be almost as surprising as an upset by Wyoming, Kent State or Pine Bluff in their finals.

 

Up next:

 

-You can literally watch games today from 10:30 a.m. until well past midnight. Morning includes the America East final between defending champion Vermont and this year’s top seed Albany. It has to be said that, whether the Catamounts win or lose this game, Mike Lonergan has done a quite admirable job with them this year. Following in Tom Brennan’s footsteps was going to be flat near impossible, but UVM has improved as the season has gone on and has a promising future again.

 

-The Conference USA title is another brunch tip with UAB and Memphis meeting for the third time. See what the Tigers do differently from these teams’ last matchup, and if John Calipari tries to slow things down a bit or counts on the homecourt advantage to make all the difference. We know a Memphis win could eventually mean a top seed for the Tigers, but think about what a win by the Blazers would mean to their NCAA seed…

 

-Other championships include the evening flurry with the Pac-10, Atlantic 10, SWAC, MAC, MEAC, WAC, Big East, Mountain West and Big West. Every game will be televised, so pick the ones you want to watch and enjoy. Best games? Try Syracuse-Pittsburgh, Toledo-Kent State, Nevada-Utah State and Pacific-Long Beach State. Most relevant to at-large considerations will be UCLA-California, Nevada-USU and Wyoming-San Diego State.

 

-ACC, Big 12 and SEC semifinals take place, where bubble teams will be rooting against Wake Forest, Nebraska and South Carolina. Highly recommend watching Texas-Texas A&M, so you can form your own opinion of the Aggies. The Big 10 also plays its semifinals, though at this point all of its teams are likely only playing for seeding.

 

Previous Editions of the Journal: March 10, March 8, March 6, March 4