Monday Night Recap(2/17)

From here on out until the tournament begins I will do a small recap of the most important games that occur each night and their affects on each teams tournament resume.

North Carolina @ Florida St. 

Probably the most important game to date for the Seminoles who are squarely on the bubble.  They had an opportunity to pick up a quality win and a chance to move safely into the field for the moment.  Instead North Carolina went to Tallahassee and not only knocked off Florida St. but added a quality road win to their resume in pursuit of avoiding the treacherous 7-10 seed range.  The important thing to remember is a loss to North Carolina does not hurt Florida State's resume but rather allows other teams behind them this week to jump the Seminoles if they are able to obtain quality wins.  The big problem for Florida State, and all teams on the edge of the bubble, is that there are a surplus of bubble teams bunched up this year that have very similar resumes.  

Outcome:   Florida St. most likely moves out of the bracket for now.

                   North Carolina stays about the same.  

Oklahoma St. @ Baylor

In a game that was imperative for both teams Baylor continued their recent winning streak and won their third in a row.  Oklahoma St. forced overtime on a last second three after stealing the inbounds pass but fell in overtime and lost their seventh straight.  Baylor continues to climb back into the tournament picture as they have survived their rough stretch in the best conference in the country.  It is important to remember though despite the fact that Oklahoma State is now 4-9 in the Big 12 their overall body of work still remains strong and their losses in the last seven game stretch have been largely to quality opponents who do not hurt their resume (except Texas Tech and Baylor).  As stated above with Florida St. though despite that this loss will not vastly hurt their resume other teams continue to climb above them by beating quality opponents.  On a side note it will be interesting to see if the Selection Committee will weigh this stretch of games without Marcus Smart differently as we have seen in the past.

Outcome:  Baylor moves farther into the bracket and potentially past the play-in game.

                 Oklahoma St. continues to slide but remains in the field for now.  

Delaware @ Towson

A small note here Delaware lost their first conference game tonight at Towson.  Towson sits in second place in the Colonial Athletic Association behind Delaware and is proving that there is a second quality team in the CAA.  The conference tournament should be interesting.

Outcome:  Delaware currently remains the projected CAA auto-bid.  

There will be no updated list of seeds tonight due to the low volume of games.  The seeds will be updated tomorrow night after the games.