Bubble Watch Games of the Night Tuesday 02/10/15

Instead of packing in the best bubble match ups for the week into one post I am going to do this segment nightly for a couple of weeks because this early in the season most teams still have work to do to seal up an NCAA Tournament berth.  As the season progresses and we head towards conference tournament time I will make this a weekly post as we have a clearer view of which teams are locks and which are on the bubble.  Some days will have very few games of note but in particular any Saturday will be chalked full of bubble action.  In fact right away Monday night has literally zero bubble implication games.  The only games of note all contain teams I would consider at this time safely in the NCAA tournament or completely out so I will skip ahead to Tuesday.  

Memphis @ East Carolina- The only reason this game is of any note is because if Memphis were to lose to East Carolina their NCAA hopes would probably be completely eliminated.  Their resume currently is very poor and they can not withstand another bad loss.  They need to win this game just to have a chance to make their few chances against quality opponents mean something.

Prediction: Memphis wins to stay on the far edge of the bubble.  

Notre Dame @ Clemson- Clemson's resume is similar to Memphis in that it leaves a lot to be desired and is not particularly good at this point.  The difference is while Memphis has to win to not fall completely off the big board Clemson has a chance to greatly improve their resume.  Clemson desperately needs a quality win and they are close enough that if they were to win a game of this caliber it may propel them into the first four out or next four out categories.  Clemson is 9-1 at home this season but their best win has came against Arkansas who is not quite at Notre Dame's level.  Nonetheless Clemson will stay fairly relevant win or lose because even if they were to lose a loss to Notre Dame does not kill their middling resume.  

Prediction: Notre Dame wins but Clemson lives on the bubble for at least another week.  

Michigan St. @ Northwestern- It does not take long to understand why this is an important game for Michigan State if you read my post below.  Michigan State's profile is very mediocre at this point and they can not afford a terrible loss to lowely Northwestern.  While this win would not particularly help Michigan State it would keep them on the right side of the bubble and give them another road win which are always valuable no matter where they come.  

Prediction: Michigan State rebounds from their home loss to Illinois and finds a way against a Northwestern team that despite their conference record has been very difficult to beat.  

Kentucky @ LSU- LSU has by far the biggest opportunity to jump off of the bubble of any team on Tuesday.  If they were to find a way to beat Kentucky unless they were to completely collapse it would be almost impossible for them to miss the NCAA tournament.  As it sits not they are one of the last 4 teams in the tournament in my predictions and if they were to lose to Kentucky that would not be likely to change unless the teams below them gained quality wins that allowed them to pass them.  Either way this is LSU's biggest opportunity of the season to in one game solidify their profile.

Prediction: Kentucky stays undefeated but LSU gives them one of their biggest challenges of the season in Baton Rouge expect this game to be very close.  

Cincinnati @ Temple- This is our first game of the night that contains two teams who are both fairly safely in the field at this time.  The importance of this game is not that either team would fall from the field if they were to lose but rather at the end of the year these kind of games are often a deciding factor between common teams if they both were to finish on the bubble.  Regardless of who wins though both teams will most likely remain in the predicted field for the time being.  

Prediction: Temple continues their strong run and beats Cincinnati at home.  

Other games of note: 

Xavier @ Marquette 

 Dayton @ St. Louis 

These both are the exact same scenario as Memphis and Michigan State are in.  Both teams are in the field at the moment but neither team can afford a bad loss.  I think Dayton will be fine because St. Louis this season has looked pretty much completely inept.  Xavier on the other hand faces a Marquette team that can be dangerous at home and Xavier has played very inconsistent at times over the season.  

Prediction: Dayton wins easily at St. Louis and remains in the field.

                   Marquette wins over an up and down Xavier team and Xavier falls from the field for the time being.  

                  

Over/Under 1 02/08/15

I am going to start a new series this year entitled "Over/Under" where every week I will provide one team that I believe is overrated and one that I believe is underrated based purely on their actual tournament resume.  Feel free to leave a comment if you take issue with my selections or if you have anything to add to my perceptions.  Also this only takes into account what these teams have done to this point these perceptions may change in time.

Over/Under #1

Overrated: 

Michigan St.- I can not even begin to describe to you how overrated on the Bracket Matrix Michigan State is.  Their average seed rankings as of Sunday was a 9 seed.  They have several major holes in their profile and most importantly their non-conference quality wins are non-existant.  Michigan St. did play a tough non-conference schedule including games against Duke, Kansas and Notre Dame but they didn't win any of those match ups.  Their best non-conference wins were against RPI #122 Marquette and #116 Loyola Chicago.  They also had a very bad loss at home to #134 Texas Southern.  The committee weighs the non-conference season equal to the conference slate and Michigan State has 0 top 100 wins in that 13 game schedule and 1 sub 100 loss(neither of these statistics bode well for Michigan St.).  If we dig a little bit deeper their conference schedule contains wins over #31 Indiana, #45 Iowa and #77 Michigan.  Those are their three best wins of the season but outside of those three there is really nothing in the middle holding their resume together.  On the other hand to their credit the Iowa win came on the road and will be looked at positively by the Selection Committee especially because a majority of bubble teams will not have a road win of that quality.  Overall Michigan State's resume leaves a lot to be desired and at this point I consider them the last team in the field.  On the bright side though they do have 2 quality opponents at home still in Ohio St. and Purdue and 4 huge road opportunities @Michigan, @Illinois, @Wisconsin and @Indiana to pick up the sort marquee wins necessary to make the tournament.

Analysis:   Bracket Matrix- 9 Seed
                                     Me- 12 Seed(Play-in Game)

Underrated:

Butler- While Butler is not in an any sense of the word criminally underrated  I believe their resume is actually slightly better than the average seed ranking of a 5 seed the Bracket Matrix has them at.  Butler's profile is boosted not only because of their strong out of conference record but also because The Big East has been tremendous this season and has a chance to get anywhere from 5-7 bids in the NCAA tournament.   First and foremost in the Non-conference season Butler beat RPI #10 North Carolina and #21 Georgetown.  There are very few teams in the country that have two non-conference wins that are better quality than Butlers.  Now on the negative end Butler does have 3 losses in the non-conference but  two of them came to tournament teams in Oklahoma and Indiana.  The one loss from their out of conference slate that could be considered a fairly poor loss is to bubble team Tennessee.  In conference though is where they have achieved what I believe is worthy of higher status than a 5 seed. While they have no stellar wins over teams that are elite they do have a huge amount of RPI top 50 wins.  They have 2 wins over Seton Hall, 2 over St. John's and 1 over Xavier who all have a very good chance to be in the tournament.  While none of this may seem overwhelming as evidence I think the reason they are actually deserving of a higher seeding is because the Big East is arguably the Third best conference in the country and Butler sits alone in second place only a 1/2 game behind Villanova.  Regardless I think this is the truest case of a team whose overall resume is considerably better than any individual win or game on their schedule when you add up their schedule as a whole it is considerably stronger than many people believe when compared to other schools around their seed line.

Analysis:  Bracket Matrix- 5 Seed
                                    Me- 3 Seed