BracketBusters takes center stage once again

Every year, there is a lot of talk about how to make BracketBusters better, or if it should just go away entirely. While teams have undoubtedly benefited from it over the years of its existence, the feelings on it seem a bit mixed, and it’s debatable whether or not it has been good as a whole. Right now, it’s what we have, and on Saturday it was center stage.

Proponents have talked about teams getting an extra national television appearance for people to see them. They have also cited the chance to get an RPI boost. Certainly, some of the teams that have benefited can look back and argue that they would not have made the NCAA Tournament if not for a win in the BracketBusters, including Final Four teams from George Mason and VCU. In 2006, George Mason beat Wichita State (and then beat the Shockers again in the NCAA Tournament), while last season VCU also beat the Shockers in Wichita as part of this. It’s also one less game to worry about in terms of putting together a schedule, and at a time when it’s well-documented how difficult scheduling has become for many schools – especially the better mid-majors.

That is all well and good. But only a handful of teams get to play on television against a team that may give them an NCAA Tournament profile boost. Some of the other teams pay a price if they get matched up with a team at the opposite end of the country from them. (At least if it is a televised game, like Nevada at Iona this year, it takes the sting off the travel part.) Some good matchups are tough to make happen because teams are designated as home or road teams in advance. As one example, Long Beach State couldn’t play St. Mary’s because bother were designated as road teams. This also impacts conference scheduling, as it’s one reason why a number of conferences have games in the midst of non-conference play in December.

And while the boost some teams have had from it is nice, they don’t make the NCAA Tournament if they don’t win other games in addition to the BracketBusters game they play. George Mason and VCU needed to win a number of other games along the way to be in position to get the at-large bids they received in 2006 and last season, respectively.

In the past, one proponent talked about how a team has some incentive to play well enough to get a televised game in the BracketBusters. While that sounds good in theory, the NCAA Tournament is a far bigger prize, and if a team is good enough to be in the discussion for a televised game in this there’s a chance they will be in the discussion for an NCAA Tournament at-large bid. I highly doubt a televised BracketBusters game against one of the best teams in the field moves the needle much in terms of motivators for teams.

So what can be done? Not much with this format, really. Teams have to be designated as home and road teams for it in advance because arena dates need to be booked well in advance. Schedules have to be done, and the only way to ensure a large number of the best mid-majors play each other is to have a large pool of teams. Hands are tied, in other words. This year’s event is the 10^th annual, and it’s undergone a few changes in that time, but it is what it has been all along: a decent but flawed idea with big pros and cons.

BracketBusters was surely never intended to solely solve the problem of good mid-majors getting games against good opponents, or getting chances to be seen by members of the NCAA Tournament selection committee. But how much it has helped in that regard is debatable, and other issues with it raise a serious question of whether or not it is good for college basketball in the aggregate. This isn’t to say it needs to be done away with, only that its impact is limited and there are bigger problems that aren’t solved so easily.

Drexel blew out Cleveland State 69-49 in a game that may have lost some luster due to recent losses by the Spartans. It’s a big win for Drexel to come into their arena and win with a very early start (11 a.m. Tip), but the RPI boost the Dragons get is likely to be negligible since Cleveland State’s RPI was 80 entering the week and Drexel’s was 82.

Wichita State handled Davidson 91-74 for a nice road win in another early game. That will help the Shockers only marginally; they’re already in good shape with an RPI of 17, while Davidson entered the week with an RPI of 72. Wichita State has wins over UNLV and Creighton and no bad losses, so the Shockers would likely have been okay if they didn’t play this game.

In one matchup mentioned earlier, Iona beat Nevada in a game pitting two teams whose RPI was separated by three entering the week against each other.

In what was probably the most anticipated matchup, Murray State cruised to a 65-51 win over Saint Mary’s, which will boost the Racers in the event they don’t win the Ohio Valley Tournament.

Late in the evening, Creighton beat Long Beach State in a game that they hope will help them get back on track. Long Beach State, meanwhile, could have used the win since they lack one over a top 50 team in the RPI.

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Florida State went to Raleigh and took care of North Carolina State, but the talk of the game is the ejection of Wolfpack greats Chris Corchiani and Tom Gugliotta. The Seminoles needed another good win to be in a good place, while this loss hurts NC State’s NCAA Tournament hopes as they are running out of chances for significant wins.

Meanwhile, just down the road from there, Clemson still has never won at the Dean Dome.

Michigan held off Ohio State, which puts Michigan State all alone atop the Big Ten.

Marquette got a big game from Jae Crowder (29 points, 12 rebounds) to beat Connecticut, and simply put, the Huskies don’t look good at all.

Notre Dame rallied from a 20-point deficit to beat Villanova in overtime.

New Mexico blew out UNLV to give the Lobos the signature win they have lacked thus far. The real stunner in the Mountain West was San Diego State losing at Air Force, the Aztecs’ third straight loss.

Kansas State got a much-needed win at Baylor.

Washington knocked off Arizona 79-70 to keep pace with California, who knocked off Oregon State 77-63, atop the Pac-12.

UTEP beat Memphis at the FedEx Forum, but they weren’t alone in Conference USA as Houston beat Southern Miss to keep the Tigers and Golden Eagles tied at 9-3 atop the conference.

Bucknell looked like they were in control of the Patriot League a week ago. After a second straight loss, this one at arch-rival Holy Cross, along with American and Lehigh winning, the Bison are now just a game up on the Eagles and Mountain Hawks. Bucknell still has to play at American.

Middle Tennessee clinched at least an NIT bid by way of winning the Sun Belt’s regular season title.

Sunday’s key matchups:

• Michigan State at Purdue
• Indiana at Iowa
• South Florida at Pittsburgh
• Oregon at Stanford

Monson’s 49ers reap the rewards of a tough schedule

If any team could claim to be battle-tested heading into conference play, it had to be Long Beach State.

The 49ers loaded up their nonconference slate with the likes of Kansas, North Carolina, San Diego State, Louisville and Xavier. The team struggled through many of those games, ending up with a 7-6 record heading into Big West play.

But don’t be fooled. The 49ers were more than competitive against the big boys, with single-digit losses on the road at San Diego State, Kansas and North Carolina. Plus, the 49ers beat Pittsburgh, Xavier and Auburn. None of those are particularly outstanding — the Xavier win came during the Musketeers’ tailspin following the brawl against Cincinnati. But in short, Dan Monson’s team learned how to win and how to believe in itself.

This team has taken that lesson and applied it well through the first seven games of Big West play. Long Beach State sits atop the conference standings with a 7-0 record, and only Cal Poly stayed within 10 points of the 49ers.

If Long Beach State can continue to plow through the Big West and claim an automatic to the NCAA Tournament, the 49ers should be a popular first-round upset pick. Their lack of hefty wins will prevent the team from earning a seed much higher than a No. 12 or 13 spot. But that just makes this team a sound pick to upset any No. 4 or 5 seed from a major conference on a neutral court.

The benefits of such a tough schedule might not show up in the win-loss columns immediately. But if Long Beach State goes 1-1 or 2-0 during the first weekend of March, that tournament success will be partially due to the team’s preparation early in the season.

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Murray State will get back leading rebounder Ivan Aska, who grabs 6.0 rpg and scores 12.6 ppg, for the team’s game against Eastern Illinois Saturday, according to the Associated Press.

Michigan could have big Jon Horford back for the Wolverines’ game against Purdue Tuesday, coach John Beilein told Wolverine Nation’s Chantel Jennings for ESPN.com. Horford has been out with a stress fracture since early December.

Arguably the most intense and spite-filled rivalry in the ACC, Maryland and Duke will clash for the first time this season Wednesday night in College Park. And the Terrapins will likely have freshman 7-footer Alex Len, even though he twisted his ankle during the Terps’ loss at Temple last weekend, according to the Washington Post’s Liz Clarke.

Of course, that’s no disrespect to the North Carolina vs. Duke rivalry. And this year, coach Roy Williams won’t have his best defender, Dexter Strickland, who tore his ACL in the team’s win against Virginia Tech Thursday, according ESPN.com’s Robbi Pickeral.

Arkansas coach Mike Anderson is considering adding a hometown hero to the Razorbacks squad, according to the Associated Press. Former Oklahoma State guard Fred Gulley has enrolled at Arkansas and plans to play for Anderson as a walk-on or scholarship player. He was a star high school basketball player in Arkansas before leaving the state to play for the Cowboys.

Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan railed against the rule that allows graduated players to transfer and play immediately during a news conference Monday, writes Benjamin Worgull for Badger Nation.com.

Three coaching legends lose on the same day

It’s not every day that three of the greatest coaches ever lose a game on the same day. Yet that’s what happened on another Saturday full of noteworthy games, as Syracuse suffered its first loss on the season, Duke lost at home to put an end to a long home winning streak and Connecticut lost as well.

And it all happened, ironically, on the day that a football coaching legend appeared close to losing his life. On Saturday night, there were conflicting reports about former Penn State coach Joe Paterno, but we did not learn for sure that he had passed until about 10:30 this morning. We send our condolences to Joe’s family and friends at this time.

The last time Jim Boeheim, Jim Calhoun and Mike Krzyzewski lost a game on the same day was January 18, 2003. The three coaches have combined for over 2,600 wins, so they have won a little more than they have lost, and one might even be surprised that this wasn’t the first day all three lost.

It started in the middle of the afternoon, with two of the games. Connecticut took on Tennessee in Knoxville, a return of a game played last year. The Volunteers got a double-double from freshman Jarnell Stokes and fended off a late Husky rally for a 60-57 win. Turning the ball over one time in the second half certainly helped, especially as taking care of the ball had been a problem for Tennessee of late. Connecticut shot just 36.4 percent from the field.

Around that same time, Florida State looked like they had a shot to end Duke’s 45-game home winning streak, as they were right there with the Blue Devils at Cameron Indoor Stadium. They had leads late in the game as well. And finally, with the game tied at 73 in the final seconds, the Seminoles got the ball up the floor to Michael Snaer in front of his own bench, where he hit a three-pointer just as time expired to give Florida State their second big win in as many Saturdays, a 76-73 decision over Duke.

Not only had Duke not lost at home since North Carolina knocked them off in February 2009, but they also had a longer (64 games) home winning streak against unranked opponents. They had a chance to tie their own ACC record of 46 straight home wins, set between January 13, 1997 and February 9, 2000.

Florida State is now looking more and more like the team some thought they would be this season. In the preseason, a good number of prognosticators thought they might be the third-best team behind Duke and North Carolina. Virginia had emerged as that team, and probably still is, but now the Seminoles look like another formidable team in an ACC that is not looking much better than last year. They are in a three-way tie atop the ACC at 4-1, along with the two teams they have knocked off the past two Saturdays.

By the time the evening came around, one already had a sense that Syracuse could suffer its first loss of the season. The team announced earlier in the day that sophomore center Fab Melo would not make the trip to Notre Dame and Cincinnati and that junior forward Mookie Jones had left the school for personal reasons. The Orange are so deep, it would not have been a shocker if they came away with two wins, but if they dropped one it would not have been a surprise. Sure enough, a Notre Dame team that knocked off Louisville a couple of weeks ago beat Syracuse 67-58 in South Bend.

Notre Dame led throughout the game and beat a No. 1 team for the eighth time, which ties for the fourth-highest total. They did it led by junior big man Jack Cooley, who went for 17 points and 10 rebounds as the Fighting Irish out-rebounded Syracuse 38-25. While Melo’s absence hurt there, it wasn’t a big factor in the Orange’s offensive struggles on the night.

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With Syracuse losing, that left just one team undefeated: Murray State. The Racers were 82-65 winners at SIU-Edwardsville to improve to 20-0 on the season.

Missouri got perhaps its most impressive win yesterday, going on the road to beat Baylor. That’s two in a row now for Baylor, and it seems that at the moment, Baylor is close, but not there when it comes to the top of the Big 12.

Georgetown got all they could handle from Rutgers, and needed to score the game’s last seven points to eke out a 52-50 win in the nation’s capital.

Louisville continued Pittsburgh’s misery as they went into the Peterson Events Center and left with a 73-62 win over the Panthers, who are now 0-7 in the Big East and have lost eight straight.

UNLV convincingly won a key matchup with New Mexico, the second straight loss for the Lobos as they took on the two favorites in the conference this past week.

Mississippi State won an overtime thriller at Vanderbilt in a key matchup among teams chasing Kentucky in the SEC.

Todd Bozeman returned to the bench at Morgan State, but his team’s struggles continued as they lost for the fifth time in seven games by dropping a 62-61 decision against visiting North Carolina A&T.

Late Saturday night, Long Beach State picked up a key road win at UC Santa Barbara. That makes the 49ers 7-0 in conference play, a full two games ahead of three teams in the loss column.

Scary Good