The Return of George Mason, SEC Bandits, and 11-letter words that start with Cluster

Hi all and welcome to my first real blog post. Today is Wednesday, which means I'm talking all things conferences. Each Wednesday will feature 3 different conversational topics:
-CAA Updates
-Conference-wide coverage of two or three of the Big 6 conferences
-One other mid-major conference
Hopefully, these different levels of breakdown will keep everyone informed on what they want to know both locally and nationally, but also maybe highlight some teams that aren't really on anybody's radar. Remember, there are 32 auto-bids in March, and upsets are bound to happen!


CAA Update


In case you missed it yesterday, white-hot George Mason absolutely blasted VCU at the Siegel Center in Richmond, coming away with a huge 20 point victory. If anyone considered George Mason under the radar, even on a national scale, they certainly aren't anymore. If you're a Virginia native, you certainly remember the state-wide fervor that swept through in 2006 when GMU made it all the way to the national semifinals. A lot of people are talking about that kind of run again, and while it may not be as improbable as it was 5 years ago (George Mason's latest seed projection is as high as an 8), the potential is certainly there for the team to make a deep run.
VCU's loss dropped them into a three-way tie for second place with ODU and Hofstra. And to give you a fuller picture of how good GMU really is, consider the following:
1. GMU has picked up a two-game lead in conference play and is most likely a lock to be the #1 seed in the conference tournament.
2. George Mason is now in possession of a twelve-game winning streak, the longest active streak in all of Division 1 College Basketball.
3. During the patriots winning streak, 5 games have been won by 20+ points (@NE, Drexel, @Delaware, Towson, @VCU). 11 of the 12 have been by double digits. The only game that was at all close was on January 22 at- you guessed it- JMU. The final score was 75-73.


After GMU and the VCU/ODU/Hofstra mess, the standings drop off pretty quick. JMU is in 5^th at 9-7, holding the tiebreaker over also 9-7 Drexel. JMU still has a chance to make some noise, too. After stepping out of conference to play Miami of Ohio this Saturday, JMU's final two games are at home against ODU and at VCU. While JMU is statistically relegated to no better than 5^th place in the regular season, they certainly have a shot to play their way into the Madness via the conference tournament. If this team gets hot at the right time, they will absolutely have a shot at the CAA title. And their season finale is certainly set up to give them some serious momentum going into March.


Big East


Let's be clear. The Big East is the best basketball conference in America. This conference is so deep that half of the teams in the conference won an early season tournament. Two more were finalists. In case you suck at math, that's ten teams… and that's moderately absurd. The conference hasn't really lost any steam at all either, despite appearances that they're all losing. There's a great quote by some coach in the conference, and I can't remember who it was that said this for the life of me, but it was something to the effect of "We spend the first half of the season beating up on the rest of the country, and then we spend the second half beating up on ourselves." I couldn't have put it better myself. At one point, the Big East had 9 of the 16 teams ranked in the national top 25 poll. That's essentially 40% of America's best teams all in one place. Teams like WVU and Cincinnati have since come out of the poll, with WVU twitching back and forth in that 20-30 range, but both are still certainly capable of springing some upsets down the stretch here. And don't be surprised to see one of them pretty deep in the Big East tournament, either.
Stepping off my soapbox, Pitt has maintained its 1.5 game lead in conference play, which is remarkable with Ashton Gibbs sitting on the bench. As much as it pains me to say it, Pitt is good. They're final four good. They're not going to blow anybody out in March- it's not their MO- but they will continue to win games. And as the moniker goes, all you have to do come tournament time is survive and advance.
Speaking of Notre Dame, the Irish have been generating a lot of talk lately about how they've dropped the Jekyll and Hyde act and started actually winning games on the road. My response? Not so fast. Sure, the win at Pitt was completely impressive, and it definitely got my attention. However, take a look at the rest of their winning streak since their win in the Oakland Zoo- a blowout of DePaul in Chicago, a seven point home win over Rutgers, another home win over a good Louisville team that took the Irish to overtime, and another road blowout of a South Florida team that is second only to DePaul in sucking this year. However, the Irish have a few chances to impress upcoming. They play in Morgantown this Saturday, a game which I unfortunately am no longer attending due to travel issues. Having experienced the atmosphere in the WVU coliseum from courtside seating earlier this season, I can tell you that any team that can win in that crazy atmosphere absolutely gets my vote for impressive performance. The Irish will also close out their season at UConn, which will inevitably be another chance to impress the selection committee.
After Pitt and ND… well, I'm thinking of an 11-letter word that starts with cluster. Red-hot Georgetown is a game behind Notre Dame at 9-4. Half a game back from them is Louisville at 8-4. Half a game back from them is Villanova at 8-5. UConn, St. Johns, and Syracuse are all a game back from Villanova. WVU follows them by half a game, and Cincinnati/Marquette are half a game behind the Mountaineers.
Here's the crazy thing: every single team I just mentioned has a solid case for an NCAA tourney bid. Every single one. I say with a completely straight face that the Big East will get double digit bids this year. Lunardi has been predicting 11 bids basically all year, and I'm just a shade under him at 10. Everyone down through WVU will definitely get a bid with the exception of St John's. Out of the Johnnies, Cincinnati, and Marquette, two of those three teams will most likely get bids. I'm guessing the third will be Cincinnati, barring an impressive run in the BE tournament.


SEC


Have any of you ever traveled in the southeastern part of our fine country? Short of traversing a good portion of interstate 95 to take a vacation in Orlando a few years back, I really hadn't at all. Most people say it's beautiful, and until this year I'd be inclined to agree with them. But this year, I found out about a horrifying reality sweeping the southeastern portion of this fair land.
Bandits live all over the roads.
Yes, it's true. Bandits are everywhere, just waiting for you to hop on the road so they can take advantage of you. They won't think twice about stealing your precious road wins valuables and leaving you with a remarkably average in-conference record empty pockets, stranded on the bubble in the middle of nowhere.
Okay, but seriously. What is up with SEC road teams this year? I can't be the only one that has noticed this. Conference leader Florida, who has beat the likes of Kansas St, Xavier, and Kentucky, has lost at Miss St? Vandy loses at Arkansas? And BOTH of them lost at South Carolina? There's Tennessee, who beats Pitt AND Villanova, but loses at Alabama? Let's be honest- Alabama has a good record because they play in the atrociously bad SEC West, and NOT because they're that good of a team.
Pop Quiz- no cheating!!!
1. Ten games into SEC play, what is Alabama's in-conference record?
A. 7-3
B. 9-1
C. 5-5
D. 8-2
E. 4-6
2. Alabama played three teams in the Paradise Jam tournament this season: Seton Hall, a below-average Big East team; Iowa, the last place Big 10 team; and St Peters College, a team that is currently 10-5 in the MAAC.






Ready for the answers? 1 is most definitely D- Alabama has squeaked out an 8-2 conference record. And which teams did Alabama lose to? That'd be all of them. In addition to their tournament play, they also went on to play OOC games against Providence and Oklahoma State and lost them both as well.


Of course, no team epitomizes losing on the SEC road than Kentucky, a team that has been nationally ranked all year yet currently holds a 1-5 road record, losing to the likes of Ole Miss, Georgia, and others. Sure, you can attribute a lot of it to immaturity- maybe think about recruiting some players that have plans to actually stay at your school, John Calipari- but come one, UK should be able to pull out a few road wins with their #1 ranked recruiting class.
But why the hell does any of this matter? Well, it matters because road wins are a big criterion that the selection committee looks at. Hence why there are probably more bubble teams in this conference than any other conference in America. UK, Florida, and Vandy are definitely in. Is Georgia? South Carolina? Alabama? Tennessee? All these teams inability to definitely prove their worth makes for an incredibly hard attempt to prognosticate how good these teams actually are via the incredibly annoying yet necessary "I" test. My prediction? Georgia and Tennessee are in, SCAR and Bama are out.


MVC


If you're a hard core basketball fan, you know the Missouri Valley Conference is mainly known for its abundance of perimeter shooters and bracket buster winners. If you're more of a casual fan, you probably are more familiar with last year's Northern Iowa squad that upset the overall #1 seed Kansas in the second round of the NCAA tournament last year and screwed all of our brackets up. The conference doesn't have such a dominant team this year- the two teams that are tied for first place both have 3 conference losses- but the potential for major upsets is definitely there. Wichita State is a team that has been quietly good all year, beating Big-6 schools like UVA and LSU and coming extremely close to beating UConn early in the season when the huskies were arguably playing their best ball. They've got a big non-conference game coming up against VCU as they push for an at large bid, assuming they lose the MVC autobid to Missouri State. Mizz St doesn't quite have at large resume that Wichita has, losing all their big OOC games to the likes of Tennessee, Tulsa, and Oklahoma St. However, they've been much more consistent in conference play, losing at Indiana St by 1 and again at home to Northern Iowa by 1. Their third loss is at Evansville, the MVC giant killer. Wichita has been slightly more erratic in conference play, losing all three games at home. Though one loss did come at the hands of Missouri State, another game via 5-10 Southern Illinois.
So what does it all mean? Outside of powerhouse mid-majors like the A-10, MWC, CUSA, and the CAA, non-big 6 conferences are generally one-bid leagues. The MVC may prove to be the exception to the rule: should a team not named Wichita St win the conference tournament, the conference may become a two-bid league this year. Should the shockers pull of the win against VCU this year and lose in the finals of the MVC, I think you have to consider them as a viable at large team, albeit possibly a play-in 12 seed. If the shockers win the MVC tourney, no other team carries the OOC schedule and wins that Wichita has, and the league will most likely be awarded just the one bid. The VCU game then becomes irrelevant (at least to the Shockers), and they will most likely be seeded as a 10 or 11.




Thanks for staying with me, 2000 words later. Look for another post tomorrow around noon!