Here's how I did yesterday. Could've been worse, could've been better.
2-2 Midwest Regional
2-2 West Regional
3-1 East Regional
3-1 South Regional
10-6 Overall Record
Here are all my picks for today. I have a feeling there will be no upsets today after all the upsets we saw yesterday.
Midwest Regional
#7 Oklahoma State over #10 Georgia Tech-7:15PM
#5 Michigan State over #12 New Mexico State-7:20PM
#2 Ohio State over #15 UC-Santa Barbara-9:35PM
#4 Maryland over #13 Houston-9:40PM
West Regional
#6 Xavier over #11 Minnesota-12:25PM
#3 Pittsburgh over #14 Oakland-2:45PM
#9 Florida State over #8 Gonzaga-7:10PM
#1 Syracuse over #16 Vermont-9:30PM
East Regional
#2 West Virginia over #15 Morgan State-12:15PM
#12 Cornell over #5 Temple-12:30PM
#10 Missouri over #7 Clemson-2:35PM
#4 Wisconsin over #13 Wofford-2:50PM
South Regional
#13 Siena over #4 Purdue-2:30PM
#12 Utah State over #5 Texas A&m-4:45PM
#1 Duke over #16 Arkansas-Pine Bluff-7:25PM
#9 Louisville over #8 California-9:45PM
So those are all my picks for today. The field is down to 32 after the day is done. There's 8 games tomorrow, a couple of which are pretty odd if you ask me like Tennessee-Ohio and Butler Murray State. I don't think a lot of people predicted those two. I'll be abck with my predictions tomorow as well as how I did today.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Midwest and West Preview and Picks for today
On paper and in the opinion of many hoops fans, the Midwest Region looks to be the toughest region of all four. They have the best team in the country in 32-2 Kansas, a likely 1 seed if not for the injury to Evan Turner in number 2 Ohio State, perennial powerhouses in Georgetown, Maryland, Michigan State and Tennessee. They also have teams with frequent bids as of late with UNLV, Northern Iowa, Georgia Tech, San Diego State and New Mexico State. Obviously, the teams I expect to come out of this region are one of the top 3. If I had to bet, I'd pick Kansas, but nothing is a sure thing in this particular region and any of the top seeds are susceptible to an upset.
Midwest Region
Records/How they Got Here
1) Kansas 32-2/Big 12 Champion
2) Ohio State 27-7/Big Ten Champion
3) Georgetown 23-10/Big East at-large
4) Maryland 23-8/Atlantic Coast at-large
5) Michigan State 24-8/Big Ten at-large
6) Tennesee 25-8/Southeastern at-large
7) Oklahoma State 22-10/Big 12 at-large
8) UNLV 25-8/Mountain West at-large
9) Northern Iowa 28-4/Missouri Valley Champion
10) Georgia Tech 22-12/Atlantic Coast at-large
11) San Diego State 25-8/Mountain West Champion
12) New Mexico State 22-11/Western Athletic Champion
13) Houston 19-15/Conference USA Champion
14) Ohio 21-14/Mid-American Champion
15) Cal-Santa Barbara 20-9/Big West Champion
16) Lehigh 22-10/Patriot Champion
Favorites
To me, there's only two favorites in this bracket. The frontrunner, by far, are the Kansas Jayhawks. They are the most complete team in the country. They have everything an NCAA team needs in order to win the national championship. They have inside strength with double double threat Cole Aldrich, they have good shooters in Sherron Collins, Xavier Henry, the Morris Brothers, Tyshawn Taylor, etc. They have guys who can get to the hoop and perhaps most importantly, come this time of year, they have the experience and depth. On paper, I don't know if this team is as good as the Championship team in 2008 but it's close and personally I think this bracket's toughness is a little overrated, particularly in KU's section. I think they handle their second round and Sweet Sixteen opponents fairly easily while Georgetown and Ohio State could possibly get upset in the second round or Sweet Sixteen. Because of their seed and because they've become everyon'e favorite overnight, I have to put Ohio State here. I have no clue why everyone likes them to win the Championship. Sure they have four good scorers in National player of the year candidate Evan Turner (19.5 ppg), William Buford (14.3 ppg) Jon Diebler (12.6 ppg) and David Lighty (12.4 ppg), but they have absolutely no depth. Plus I have a feeling everyone's picking them just because they may have the best player in the nation. Many times the best player's team doesn't win the NCAA Tournament. Just thinking about St. Joe's, we didn't even win a state game with Andrew Bynum, so having one of the better players doesn't mean you're a great team and that's where I think a lot of people picking OSU get confused. They are also in a mediocre conference in the Big Ten. The conference isn't that good. Purdue's probably going to exit early. The furthest I see Michigan State going is Sweet 16. Wisconsin's probably gone early. It's just a weak conference year after year. They play solid defense agianst other teams in the conference and that's because neither team can score anything. Turner's a phenomonal player leading the conference in scoring and rebounding, but you can't do everything by yourself this time of year and that's why I expect them to get upset in the second round against the Oklahoma State-Georgia Tech winner.
Dark Horses
There's a few dark horses here. I like Georgetown but they have been inconsistent this year. Sometimes the combination of Greg Monroe, Chris Wright and Austin Freeman can totally click like they did against Syracuse last week, but at times can really struggle like in their loss to Old Dominion. Austin Freeman was also diagnosed with diabetes recently so it will be interesting to see if that affects his play. If those three do not play well, they could be headed for an early exit, but if they play like they did throughout last week, they could be headed for another deep run. All five shooters shoot above 46% and average more than 8 a game. They are limited on the bench so their starters, especially Greg Monroe, will have to stay out of foul trouble. I also like the Tennessee/San Diego State winner. Tennessee should never be seeded in a million years the 6 seed. They have beaten teams like Kansas, Kentucky and Florida ths season. I like them because they have a good balance of offense and defense. They shoot 46% overall. Scotty Hopson averages 13 points per game. Wayne Chism averages 12.5 points per game and 7 rebounds per game, Bobby Maze and J.P. Prince both average right around 9 points per game as well. They have allowed less than 40% shooting from the field and 29.1% from three-point range. I like San Diego State as well, because they have a good inside-outside combination of Kawhi Leonard and Malcolm Thomas. Leonard averages 12.6 points per game and nearly 10 rebounds per game. Malcom Thomas averages 11 points per game and 8 rebounds per game, so between them they average 24 points and 18 rebounds per game. If they rebound liek they did all season when they had one of the nation's highest rebounding margins, they are a team that could make some noise in this tournament. They have some scoring on the team besides those two as well. As usual, San Diego State shoots very well from the field, shooting 47.7% this season. What could do them in though, is their very low free throw shooting percentage. They made just about 3 out of every 5 free throws this season shooting 61.7%.
Upsets
At least in the First Round, this I think will be the least upset heavy. I only have one of the higher seeds (besides the 8) going out here.
#11 San Diego State over #6 Tennessee
Players to Watch-This is an expanded list because I think with a championship contending team like KU, it is more of a team effort here than on a team such as UK where it's basically Wall and Cousins. So I put all 5 starters on this list. In addition, I think the talent in the lower seeds is much more stacked in this bracket than perhaps others. There are studs like Aubrey Coleman from Houston, Leonard and Thomas from San Diego State who could surprise people. I think the lesser known talent here could provide some of the bigger names and moments when this year's tourney's all said and done.
Cole Aldrich KANSAS
Sherron Collins KANSAS
Xavier Henry KANSAS
Marcus Morris KANSAS
Tyshawn Taylor KANSAS
Evan Turner OHIO STATE
William Buford OHIO STATE
Austin Freeman GEORGETOWN
Greg Monroe GEORGETOWN
Chris Wright GEORGETOWN
Greivis Vasquez MARYLAND
Kalin Lucas MICHIGAN STATE
Raymar Morgan MICHIGAN STATE
Wayne Chism TENNESSEE
Scotty Hopson TENNESSEE
James Anderson OKLAHOMA STATE
Tre'von Willis UNLV
Jordan Eglseder NORTHERN IOWA
Derrick Favors GEORGIA TECH
Kawhi Leonard SAN DIEGO STATE
Malcolm Thomas SAN DIEGO STATE
Jahmar Young NEW MEXICO STATE
Jonathan Gibson NEW MEXICO STATE
Aubrey Coleman HOUSTON
Kelvin Lewis HOUSTON
Armon Bassett OHIO
Orlando Johnson CAL-SANTA BARBARA
James Nunnally CAL-SANTA BARBARA
CJ McCollum LEHIGH
Best Games
#4 Maryland vs. #13 Houston
#6 Tennessee vs. #11 San Diego State
#7 Oklahoma State vs. #10 Georgia Tech
#8 UNLV vs. #9 Northern Iowa
West Region
Records/How they Got Here
1) Syracuse 28-4/Big East at-large
2) Kansas State 26-7/Big 12 at-large
3) Pittsburgh 24-8/Big East at-large
4) Vanderbilt 24-8/Southeastern at-large
5) Butler 28-4/Horizon Champ
6) Xavier 24-8/Atlantic 10 at-large
7) BYU 29-5/Mountain West at-large
8) Gonzaga 26-6/West Coast at-large
9) Florida State 22-9/Atlantic Coast at-large
10) Florida 21-12/Southeastern at-large
11) Minnesota 21-13/Big Ten at-large
12) UTEP 26-6/Conference USA at-large
13) Murray State 30-4/Ohio Valley Champion
14) Oakland 26-8/Summit League Champion
15) North Texas 24-8/Sun Belt Champion
16) Vermont 25-9/America East Champion
Favorites
Syracuse and Kansas State are the favorites in the Western Regional. Syracuse took a bit of a blow last week losing theirstarting Center Arinze Onuaku who averages 11 points and 6 rebounds per game. Luckily, they probably won't need him in their first or second round game against Vermont and either Gonzaga or Florida State. But if he is still hurt going into next week, it could spell doom for the Orangemen. Syracuse has had a great (if unexpected season). They won 24 of their first 25 games which in a conference as tough as the Big East is virtually unheard of. They have an extremely high field goal percentage at nearly 52% and are the highest scoring team in the nation at 82 points per game. However, although they have had 7 players who have scored 20 points at some point this season, they are not particularly deep and their 67% ft shooting can be troublesome at times. Still Jim Boeheim has one of the better defensive teams he's ever coached and their 2-3 zone hold opponents to 39.9% shooting. The Orangemen this season went 11-2 in neutral an road court games. Wesley Johnson at 15.7 points per game and 8.5 rebounds per game and his teammates should be a little too tough to handle for their opponents this week and if they get back Onuaku, they will be a main contender for their second title in 7 years. I like Kansas State as well and actually am picking them for the final four although the more and more I think about it, I may regret not picking BYU over them because I like them a lot too. But Kansas State has one of the best guard combos in the country with Denis Clemente and Jacob Pullen. They average 35 points per game and 7 assists per game. They have a number of ood wins against teams such as Dayton, Xavier, UNLV, Texas A&M and Baylor. They play with a lot of toughness that helps come tournament time but at the same time the overagressiveness could hurt them too, because the refs tend to call more whistles during this time of year. They can be turnover prone and are another team that struggles at the line, but at their best they will be very tough to handle. I think whoever wins the BYU/FL vs. KSU game makes a run to the elite eight...I just hope its KSU although I have BYU in a couple brackets.
Dark Horses
It's become a common practice to say this as they have become a Midwestern Gonzaga, but Xavier being seeded lower than I can remember recently could definitely sneak up on some people. They are deep playing 9 players usually and have a good core of starting players with two sophomores, two juniors and one senior. One of the sophomores is Jordan Crawford who doesn't look or play like a sophomore at all with his 20 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists and a steal per game. At times, he can play a little selfishly which could elimiate Xavier, but they have enough around him that they should be able to get the job done in the first round and have the potential to make yet another deep run in this year's tourney. They get 9 points and 8 rebounds a game from Jamel McLean. They get close to a double double as well from Jason Love and Terrell Holloway also scores 11 points per game and was a big part of their Sweet 16 run last year. They are 12th nationally in scoring at 80 ponts but are another team who play solid defense as well only allowing 29.5% from three point range. BYU is another team who I think is capable of making a deep run in this year's tourney. This is a team who I pick every year who always seem to let me down. They've had winnable games the last couple year's but were outplayed by Texas A&M both years. I feel that they are a better team this year and Florida is weaker this year than Texas A&M's been the last 2 years. Plus the experience helps and expect them to be extra mtoivated this year and at the very least get a win in the matinee tomorrow which commences this year's tournament. They lead the nation in scoring margin at 18.5 points as well as free throw shooting at 78.4%. They ar second in scoring with 83.5 points per game. They are third in three point percentage at 42.1%> Jimmer Fredette might not be a household name now but if BYU has a decent tournament, he may be the Stephen Curry of the 2010 Tournament. He averages 20.6 points per game in addition to nearly 5 assists per game. His teammate Jackson Emery averages 13 points and is 4th in the country in steals. They are a relatively experienced team with a freshman, a sophomore, 2 juniors and a senior. Their best wins are UNLV, UTEP and San Diego State. I expect their scoring to be a big factor tomorrow against Florida who looks a little sluggish on offense at times and expect them to finally get their first win in NCAA Tournament play since 1993 and break a consecutive three year bad luck drought in the tournament.
Upsets
I'm not picking it but I could see this one.
#13 Murray State over #4 Vanderbilt
This one I am picking in my bracket.
#12 Texas-El Paso over #5 Butler
Players to Watch
Rick Jackson SYRACUSE
Wes Johnson SYRACUSE
Arize Onuaku SYRACUSE
Denis Clemente KANSAS STATE
Jacob Pullen KANSAS STATE
Ashton Gibbs PITTSBURGH
Jermaine Beal VANDERBILT
A.J. Ogilvy VANDERBILT
Jefferey Taylor VANDERBILT
Gordon Hayward BUTLER
Matt Howard BUTLER
Shelvin Mack BUTLER
Jordan Crawford XAVIER
Jason Love XAVIER
Jimmer Fredette BYU
Jackson Emery BYU
Matt Bouldin GONZAGA
Solomon Alabi FLORIDA STATE
Chris Singleton FLORIDA STATE
Erving Walker FLORIDA
Kenny Boynton FLORIDA
Ralph Sampson III MINNESOTA
Derrick Caracter UTEP
Randy Culpepper UTEP
Keith Benson OAKLAND
Best Games
#4 Vanderbilt vs. #13 Murray State
#5 Butler vs. #12 Texas-El Paso
#7 BYU vs. #10 Florida
#8 Gonzaga vs. #9 Florida State
Hope you enjoyed reading my preview. Sorry for the day delay. Was busy at the draft last night for the upcoming games. Now onto my picks for tomorrow. By the way I went 2-0 in my high school picks tonight so that puts me at 225-72 overall. Now for tomorrow's games.
Midwest Regional
#9 Northern Iowa over #8 UNLV-7:10PM
#3 Georgetown over #14 Ohio-7:25PM
#1 Kansas over #16 Lehigh-9:30PM
#11 San Diego State over #6 Tennessee-9:45PM
West Regional
#7 BYU over #10 Florida-12:20PM
#4 Vanderbilt over #13 Murray State-2:30PM
#2 Kansas State over #15 North Texas-2:40PM
#12 Texas-El Paso over #5 Butler-4:45PM
East Regional
#1 Kentucky over #16 East Tennessee State-7:15PM
#6 Marquette over #11 Washington-7:20PM
#9 Wake Forest over #8 Texas-9:35PM
#3 New Mexico over #14 Montana-9:40PM
South Regional
#11 Old Dominion over #6 Notre Dame-12:25PM
#2 Villanova over #15 Robert Morris-12:30PM
#3 Baylor over #14 Sam Houston State-2:45PM
#7 Richmond ovr #10 St. Mary's-2:50PM
So there's all my picks for today's games. I'll be back with my records tomorrow as well as my predictions for the 16 games going on tomorrow which leaves us with 32 teams going into the weekend. Enjoy the games everyone and let's hope for a 15 or 16 upset lol. Go RMU! lol
Midwest Region
Records/How they Got Here
1) Kansas 32-2/Big 12 Champion
2) Ohio State 27-7/Big Ten Champion
3) Georgetown 23-10/Big East at-large
4) Maryland 23-8/Atlantic Coast at-large
5) Michigan State 24-8/Big Ten at-large
6) Tennesee 25-8/Southeastern at-large
7) Oklahoma State 22-10/Big 12 at-large
8) UNLV 25-8/Mountain West at-large
9) Northern Iowa 28-4/Missouri Valley Champion
10) Georgia Tech 22-12/Atlantic Coast at-large
11) San Diego State 25-8/Mountain West Champion
12) New Mexico State 22-11/Western Athletic Champion
13) Houston 19-15/Conference USA Champion
14) Ohio 21-14/Mid-American Champion
15) Cal-Santa Barbara 20-9/Big West Champion
16) Lehigh 22-10/Patriot Champion
Favorites
To me, there's only two favorites in this bracket. The frontrunner, by far, are the Kansas Jayhawks. They are the most complete team in the country. They have everything an NCAA team needs in order to win the national championship. They have inside strength with double double threat Cole Aldrich, they have good shooters in Sherron Collins, Xavier Henry, the Morris Brothers, Tyshawn Taylor, etc. They have guys who can get to the hoop and perhaps most importantly, come this time of year, they have the experience and depth. On paper, I don't know if this team is as good as the Championship team in 2008 but it's close and personally I think this bracket's toughness is a little overrated, particularly in KU's section. I think they handle their second round and Sweet Sixteen opponents fairly easily while Georgetown and Ohio State could possibly get upset in the second round or Sweet Sixteen. Because of their seed and because they've become everyon'e favorite overnight, I have to put Ohio State here. I have no clue why everyone likes them to win the Championship. Sure they have four good scorers in National player of the year candidate Evan Turner (19.5 ppg), William Buford (14.3 ppg) Jon Diebler (12.6 ppg) and David Lighty (12.4 ppg), but they have absolutely no depth. Plus I have a feeling everyone's picking them just because they may have the best player in the nation. Many times the best player's team doesn't win the NCAA Tournament. Just thinking about St. Joe's, we didn't even win a state game with Andrew Bynum, so having one of the better players doesn't mean you're a great team and that's where I think a lot of people picking OSU get confused. They are also in a mediocre conference in the Big Ten. The conference isn't that good. Purdue's probably going to exit early. The furthest I see Michigan State going is Sweet 16. Wisconsin's probably gone early. It's just a weak conference year after year. They play solid defense agianst other teams in the conference and that's because neither team can score anything. Turner's a phenomonal player leading the conference in scoring and rebounding, but you can't do everything by yourself this time of year and that's why I expect them to get upset in the second round against the Oklahoma State-Georgia Tech winner.
Dark Horses
There's a few dark horses here. I like Georgetown but they have been inconsistent this year. Sometimes the combination of Greg Monroe, Chris Wright and Austin Freeman can totally click like they did against Syracuse last week, but at times can really struggle like in their loss to Old Dominion. Austin Freeman was also diagnosed with diabetes recently so it will be interesting to see if that affects his play. If those three do not play well, they could be headed for an early exit, but if they play like they did throughout last week, they could be headed for another deep run. All five shooters shoot above 46% and average more than 8 a game. They are limited on the bench so their starters, especially Greg Monroe, will have to stay out of foul trouble. I also like the Tennessee/San Diego State winner. Tennessee should never be seeded in a million years the 6 seed. They have beaten teams like Kansas, Kentucky and Florida ths season. I like them because they have a good balance of offense and defense. They shoot 46% overall. Scotty Hopson averages 13 points per game. Wayne Chism averages 12.5 points per game and 7 rebounds per game, Bobby Maze and J.P. Prince both average right around 9 points per game as well. They have allowed less than 40% shooting from the field and 29.1% from three-point range. I like San Diego State as well, because they have a good inside-outside combination of Kawhi Leonard and Malcolm Thomas. Leonard averages 12.6 points per game and nearly 10 rebounds per game. Malcom Thomas averages 11 points per game and 8 rebounds per game, so between them they average 24 points and 18 rebounds per game. If they rebound liek they did all season when they had one of the nation's highest rebounding margins, they are a team that could make some noise in this tournament. They have some scoring on the team besides those two as well. As usual, San Diego State shoots very well from the field, shooting 47.7% this season. What could do them in though, is their very low free throw shooting percentage. They made just about 3 out of every 5 free throws this season shooting 61.7%.
Upsets
At least in the First Round, this I think will be the least upset heavy. I only have one of the higher seeds (besides the 8) going out here.
#11 San Diego State over #6 Tennessee
Players to Watch-This is an expanded list because I think with a championship contending team like KU, it is more of a team effort here than on a team such as UK where it's basically Wall and Cousins. So I put all 5 starters on this list. In addition, I think the talent in the lower seeds is much more stacked in this bracket than perhaps others. There are studs like Aubrey Coleman from Houston, Leonard and Thomas from San Diego State who could surprise people. I think the lesser known talent here could provide some of the bigger names and moments when this year's tourney's all said and done.
Cole Aldrich KANSAS
Sherron Collins KANSAS
Xavier Henry KANSAS
Marcus Morris KANSAS
Tyshawn Taylor KANSAS
Evan Turner OHIO STATE
William Buford OHIO STATE
Austin Freeman GEORGETOWN
Greg Monroe GEORGETOWN
Chris Wright GEORGETOWN
Greivis Vasquez MARYLAND
Kalin Lucas MICHIGAN STATE
Raymar Morgan MICHIGAN STATE
Wayne Chism TENNESSEE
Scotty Hopson TENNESSEE
James Anderson OKLAHOMA STATE
Tre'von Willis UNLV
Jordan Eglseder NORTHERN IOWA
Derrick Favors GEORGIA TECH
Kawhi Leonard SAN DIEGO STATE
Malcolm Thomas SAN DIEGO STATE
Jahmar Young NEW MEXICO STATE
Jonathan Gibson NEW MEXICO STATE
Aubrey Coleman HOUSTON
Kelvin Lewis HOUSTON
Armon Bassett OHIO
Orlando Johnson CAL-SANTA BARBARA
James Nunnally CAL-SANTA BARBARA
CJ McCollum LEHIGH
Best Games
#4 Maryland vs. #13 Houston
#6 Tennessee vs. #11 San Diego State
#7 Oklahoma State vs. #10 Georgia Tech
#8 UNLV vs. #9 Northern Iowa
West Region
Records/How they Got Here
1) Syracuse 28-4/Big East at-large
2) Kansas State 26-7/Big 12 at-large
3) Pittsburgh 24-8/Big East at-large
4) Vanderbilt 24-8/Southeastern at-large
5) Butler 28-4/Horizon Champ
6) Xavier 24-8/Atlantic 10 at-large
7) BYU 29-5/Mountain West at-large
8) Gonzaga 26-6/West Coast at-large
9) Florida State 22-9/Atlantic Coast at-large
10) Florida 21-12/Southeastern at-large
11) Minnesota 21-13/Big Ten at-large
12) UTEP 26-6/Conference USA at-large
13) Murray State 30-4/Ohio Valley Champion
14) Oakland 26-8/Summit League Champion
15) North Texas 24-8/Sun Belt Champion
16) Vermont 25-9/America East Champion
Favorites
Syracuse and Kansas State are the favorites in the Western Regional. Syracuse took a bit of a blow last week losing theirstarting Center Arinze Onuaku who averages 11 points and 6 rebounds per game. Luckily, they probably won't need him in their first or second round game against Vermont and either Gonzaga or Florida State. But if he is still hurt going into next week, it could spell doom for the Orangemen. Syracuse has had a great (if unexpected season). They won 24 of their first 25 games which in a conference as tough as the Big East is virtually unheard of. They have an extremely high field goal percentage at nearly 52% and are the highest scoring team in the nation at 82 points per game. However, although they have had 7 players who have scored 20 points at some point this season, they are not particularly deep and their 67% ft shooting can be troublesome at times. Still Jim Boeheim has one of the better defensive teams he's ever coached and their 2-3 zone hold opponents to 39.9% shooting. The Orangemen this season went 11-2 in neutral an road court games. Wesley Johnson at 15.7 points per game and 8.5 rebounds per game and his teammates should be a little too tough to handle for their opponents this week and if they get back Onuaku, they will be a main contender for their second title in 7 years. I like Kansas State as well and actually am picking them for the final four although the more and more I think about it, I may regret not picking BYU over them because I like them a lot too. But Kansas State has one of the best guard combos in the country with Denis Clemente and Jacob Pullen. They average 35 points per game and 7 assists per game. They have a number of ood wins against teams such as Dayton, Xavier, UNLV, Texas A&M and Baylor. They play with a lot of toughness that helps come tournament time but at the same time the overagressiveness could hurt them too, because the refs tend to call more whistles during this time of year. They can be turnover prone and are another team that struggles at the line, but at their best they will be very tough to handle. I think whoever wins the BYU/FL vs. KSU game makes a run to the elite eight...I just hope its KSU although I have BYU in a couple brackets.
Dark Horses
It's become a common practice to say this as they have become a Midwestern Gonzaga, but Xavier being seeded lower than I can remember recently could definitely sneak up on some people. They are deep playing 9 players usually and have a good core of starting players with two sophomores, two juniors and one senior. One of the sophomores is Jordan Crawford who doesn't look or play like a sophomore at all with his 20 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists and a steal per game. At times, he can play a little selfishly which could elimiate Xavier, but they have enough around him that they should be able to get the job done in the first round and have the potential to make yet another deep run in this year's tourney. They get 9 points and 8 rebounds a game from Jamel McLean. They get close to a double double as well from Jason Love and Terrell Holloway also scores 11 points per game and was a big part of their Sweet 16 run last year. They are 12th nationally in scoring at 80 ponts but are another team who play solid defense as well only allowing 29.5% from three point range. BYU is another team who I think is capable of making a deep run in this year's tourney. This is a team who I pick every year who always seem to let me down. They've had winnable games the last couple year's but were outplayed by Texas A&M both years. I feel that they are a better team this year and Florida is weaker this year than Texas A&M's been the last 2 years. Plus the experience helps and expect them to be extra mtoivated this year and at the very least get a win in the matinee tomorrow which commences this year's tournament. They lead the nation in scoring margin at 18.5 points as well as free throw shooting at 78.4%. They ar second in scoring with 83.5 points per game. They are third in three point percentage at 42.1%> Jimmer Fredette might not be a household name now but if BYU has a decent tournament, he may be the Stephen Curry of the 2010 Tournament. He averages 20.6 points per game in addition to nearly 5 assists per game. His teammate Jackson Emery averages 13 points and is 4th in the country in steals. They are a relatively experienced team with a freshman, a sophomore, 2 juniors and a senior. Their best wins are UNLV, UTEP and San Diego State. I expect their scoring to be a big factor tomorrow against Florida who looks a little sluggish on offense at times and expect them to finally get their first win in NCAA Tournament play since 1993 and break a consecutive three year bad luck drought in the tournament.
Upsets
I'm not picking it but I could see this one.
#13 Murray State over #4 Vanderbilt
This one I am picking in my bracket.
#12 Texas-El Paso over #5 Butler
Players to Watch
Rick Jackson SYRACUSE
Wes Johnson SYRACUSE
Arize Onuaku SYRACUSE
Denis Clemente KANSAS STATE
Jacob Pullen KANSAS STATE
Ashton Gibbs PITTSBURGH
Jermaine Beal VANDERBILT
A.J. Ogilvy VANDERBILT
Jefferey Taylor VANDERBILT
Gordon Hayward BUTLER
Matt Howard BUTLER
Shelvin Mack BUTLER
Jordan Crawford XAVIER
Jason Love XAVIER
Jimmer Fredette BYU
Jackson Emery BYU
Matt Bouldin GONZAGA
Solomon Alabi FLORIDA STATE
Chris Singleton FLORIDA STATE
Erving Walker FLORIDA
Kenny Boynton FLORIDA
Ralph Sampson III MINNESOTA
Derrick Caracter UTEP
Randy Culpepper UTEP
Keith Benson OAKLAND
Best Games
#4 Vanderbilt vs. #13 Murray State
#5 Butler vs. #12 Texas-El Paso
#7 BYU vs. #10 Florida
#8 Gonzaga vs. #9 Florida State
Hope you enjoyed reading my preview. Sorry for the day delay. Was busy at the draft last night for the upcoming games. Now onto my picks for tomorrow. By the way I went 2-0 in my high school picks tonight so that puts me at 225-72 overall. Now for tomorrow's games.
Midwest Regional
#9 Northern Iowa over #8 UNLV-7:10PM
#3 Georgetown over #14 Ohio-7:25PM
#1 Kansas over #16 Lehigh-9:30PM
#11 San Diego State over #6 Tennessee-9:45PM
West Regional
#7 BYU over #10 Florida-12:20PM
#4 Vanderbilt over #13 Murray State-2:30PM
#2 Kansas State over #15 North Texas-2:40PM
#12 Texas-El Paso over #5 Butler-4:45PM
East Regional
#1 Kentucky over #16 East Tennessee State-7:15PM
#6 Marquette over #11 Washington-7:20PM
#9 Wake Forest over #8 Texas-9:35PM
#3 New Mexico over #14 Montana-9:40PM
South Regional
#11 Old Dominion over #6 Notre Dame-12:25PM
#2 Villanova over #15 Robert Morris-12:30PM
#3 Baylor over #14 Sam Houston State-2:45PM
#7 Richmond ovr #10 St. Mary's-2:50PM
So there's all my picks for today's games. I'll be back with my records tomorrow as well as my predictions for the 16 games going on tomorrow which leaves us with 32 teams going into the weekend. Enjoy the games everyone and let's hope for a 15 or 16 upset lol. Go RMU! lol
Monday, March 15, 2010
East and South Regional Preview
Here are my final records in Group the Group Brackets for the NJSIAA high school basketball tournament as well as my final record for the conference tournaments.
46-16 in Group I games
53-10 in Group II games
43-20 in Group III games
47-16 in Group IV games
18-8 in Non-Public A games
19-4 in Non-Public B games
226-74 overall
6-1 America East
6-5 Atlantic Coast
4-3 Atlantic Sun
8-3 Atlantic 10
8-7 Big East
2-3 Big Sky
4-3 Big South
8-2 Big Ten
10-1 Big 12
6-1 Big West
8-3 Colonial Athletic Association
8-3 Conference USA
5-4 Horizon League
7-2 Metro Atlantic
7-4 Mid-American
10-0 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference
6-3 Missouri Valley
7-1 Mountain West
4-3 Northeast
4-3 Ohio Valley
6-2 Pac-10
6-1 Patriot League
8-3 Southeastern Conference
9-2 Southern Conference
6-1 Southland Conference
7-0 Summit League
8-4 Sun Belt
6-1 Southwestern Athletic Conference
6-1 Western Athletic Conference
5-2 West Coast
195-72 Overall
Now onto the previews for the right side of the bracket.
I think upon seeing this half of the bracket most people thought thought two things. The first was that Duke has a pretty easy road to the Elite Eight and second is how packed Kentucky's bracket is. Temple's a 5. Cornell's a 12. A solid Wofford team who nearly beat Pitt early on this season is a 13. This bracket from top to bottom is stacked. Even a 15 seed like Morgan State has some experience and had they not been playing a red hot West Virginia team, I would have given them a shot at an upset. Their seed doesn't help either. A 15 over 2 hasn't happened in nearly a decade. I'm looking forward to that bracket in particular because so many teams can go deep. Kentucky isn't invincible as a lot of people saw in their game yesterday vs. Mississippi State to capture the SEC Tournament title. I'm sure some people even have them losing to Texas or Wake Forest in the second round. No one knows what to expect from teams like Marquette, Washington, and New Mexico. Any of them are capable of losing first round, but also having runs to the elite eight. This to me, is the bracket to watch.
East Region
Records/How they Got Here
1) Kentucky 32-2/SEC Champion
2) West Virginia 27-6/Big East Champion
3) New Mexico 29-4/Mountain West at-large
4) Wisconsin 23-8/Big Ten at-large
5) Temple 29-5/Atlantic 10 Champion
6) Marquette 22-11/Big East at-large
7) Clemson 21-10/Atlantic Coast at-large
8) Texas 24-9/Big 12 at-large
9) Wake Forest 19-10/Atlantic Coast at-large
10) Missouri 22-10/Big 12 at-large
11) Washington 24-9/Pacific-10 Champion
12) Cornell 27-4/Ivy League Champion
13) Wofford 26-8/Southern Champion
14) Montana 22-9/Big Sky Champion
15) Morgan State 27-9/Mid-Eastern Athletic Champion
16) East Tennessee State 20-14/Atlantic Sun Champion
Favorites
Obviously, the 2 favorites here are Kentucky and West Virginia. If I had to pick of the two, I'd choose West Virginia. They have a lot more experience than Kentucky and are red-hot right now. I think the Big East Conference was much, much tougher than the SEC this year and games that West Virginia get in the Big East helps prepare them for the NCAA Tournament a lot of the time. They have been phenomonal late in the season in the final minutes of games winning three nailbiters, two of which were won by senior Da'Sean Butler, whose averaging 17 points per game. Four of their six losses have been by seven or fewer points. One of their major flaws is their free throw shooting, which has been suspect at times. I also think they have the best coach in this bracket with Bob Huggins who has proven time and time again how good of a coach he is. I think their tough defense and experience carries them to a win over Kentucky in the Elite Eight. A lot of people obviously like Kentucky, as they should. They probably have the most NBA talent of any collegiate team, but are also very young. Another team with a great coach in John Calipari, who has had several deep runs in the tournament. Obviously this is one of the main storylines in this bracket. More so than any other top seed, anything other than a Championship is a bust. Kansas and Syracuse has recently won titles and Duke obviously has had a phenomonal last 2 decades, but Kentucky hasn't had as much success as of late and this would be a big step back into prominence if they were to win the title. In addition, there's a very good chance that their best two players, John Wall and Demarcus Cousins are gone after this year, so they would have to start from scratch again. As talented as they are, they are also extremely young which is a major caution sign when it comes to picking them. I'm not falling into the trap that some people are when they pick the winner of Texas/Wake over Kentucky. I really don't see that happening. Wake Forest is lucky to be an 9 seed, and Kentucky is much better than Texas. But they could trip up later to a Wisconsin, Temple, etc. I think their youth will hurt them and I also think in tough spots, the two star players will play a little more selfishly which I think could doom them.
Dark Horses
There are a lot of dark horses here. I can see a number of teams making runs to the sweet sixteen that not many people would expect. The first one is New Mexico. Many people coming in probably don't know a lot about New Mexico and are questioning them being seeded third. But the Mountain West Conference is usually pretty tough and they're battle tested. They've played (and beat) tough out of conference competition such as California and Texas A&M. They've also beaten BYU in conference play. A 29-4 record is also obviously very good. They have very good guard play and in the NCAA Tournament, teams with good guards are usually in good shape. Darington Hobson averages 16 points per game and 9 rebounds per game. They get plenty of scoring from their supporting cast and are proficient three point shooters. I think Coach Steve Alford has a team capable of potentially getting to the sectional final. I think the Marquette-Wisconsin winner could potentially win a couple games. I was impressed by Marquette's toughness down the stretch last week in the game vs. Villanova. They play with a lot of heart and that's something that can't be measured in the NCAA Tournament. They have a very experienced team with 2 starting seniors, 2 starting juniors and 1 starting sophomore. Lazar Hayward as proven himself a very capable leader and can carry the team on his back. He has averaged 18 points per game and 8 rebounds per game. While they do shoot free throws very well, the thing that continually has doomed Marquette in recent years, such as their game vs. Stanford where they couldn't stop the Lopez brothers is their lack of height. A team with height has a great shot to beat them. That is what makes this bracket so interesting. New Mexico, Marquette and Washington don't really excel in post play. They are all guard oriented teams so those games are usually shootouts rather than grind out and slower paced games. With Washington, their best two players are Quincy Pondexter and Isiah Thomas. Pondexter scores 20 points per game and pulls down 8 boards. He could make a big difference in the Marquette game. Isaiah Thomas is also another major scoring threat scoring 17 a game. They are red-hot right now winning 7 games in a row, but the Pac-10 was dreadful this year. The top 2 or 3 Big East teams probably could've gone undefeated in the Pac-10. Their best win this year was probably the California game which put them into the tournament. If they had lost that, I don't think I'd be talking about them right now. They are extremely prolific on offense scoring 80.5 points per game which is first in the Pac-10 and 9th in the nation. They do play good defense and led the Pac-10 in rebounding for the third time in five years. My other two sleepers are whoever wins the Temple-Cornell game. Both teams are very underseeded in my opinion and I think Temple should've been given a 3 and Cornell at least a 10. I got a chance to see Temple this past Friday and they have a very good team again. Temple continues to pride themself on defense and have a relatively veteran team. However, I do worry about their scoring. Their best players are Ryan Brooks and Juan Fernandez in terms of points scored, but they can be inconsistent at times. If Fernandez struggles to score or is forced into some errors by the Big Red, they could be one and done. They've allowed only 28% shooting from 3 point range, but Cornell is very proficient in shooting the three and have a good field goal percentage overall, so it should make for a very interesting matchup. Cornell, on the other hand, won the Ivy League, their third straight title relatively easy going 13-1 in conference, their only loss to Penn. I really like this team's chances to do some damage in this year's tournament. Hopefully it'll be reparation for when I picked them to beat Stanford and they were down 30 at halftime two years ago so it'll really come full circle with a win (or a couple) in this year's tournament. Teams like this are always dangerous because it's their last go-around. This team has 5 starters returning from last year's team. They shoot 48 percent from the field and 43.5 percent from three point range. They do a great job of passing the ball averaging nearly 17 assists a game and have a good assist to turnover ratio. To Temple's advantage, they rely on the three at nearly 10 a game, but the Big Red have been red hot winning 15 of their last 16. Ryan Wittman is their player to watch averaging nearly 18 points per game. They have an inside presence too with 7 footer Jeff Foote who averages 12 points and 8 rebounds per game, which makes Cornell a team unlike any other team the Ivy League usually sees and what makes this team particularly formidable come Friday afternoon.
Upsets
Don't see too many upsets in this bracket in the first round, just two which are.
#9 Wake Forest over #8 Texas
#12 Cornell over #5 Temple
Players to Watch
DeMarcus Cousins KENTUCKY
Patrick Patterson KENTUCKY
John Wall KENTUCKY
Da'Sean Butler WEST VIRGINIA
Darington Hobson NEW MEXICO
Trevon Hughes WISCONSIN
Juan Fernandez TEMPLE
Lazar Hayward MARQUETTE
Trevor Booker CLEMSON
Damion James TEXAS
Dexter Pittman TEXAS
Al-Farouq Aminu WAKE FOREST
Quincy Pondexter WASHINGTON
Isaiah Thomas WASHINGTON
Ryan Wittman CORNELL
Jeff Foote CORNELL
Noah Dahlman WOFFORD
Anthony Johnson MONTANA
Reggie Holmes MORGAN STATE
Tommy Hubbard EAST TENNESSEE STATE
Best Games
#5 Temple vs. #12 Cornell
#7 Clemson vs. #10 Missouri
#8 Texas vs. #9 Wake Forest
South Region
Records/How they Got Here
1) Duke 29-5/Atlantic Coast Champion
2) Villanova 24-7/Big East at-large
3) Baylor 25-7/Big 12 at-large
4) Purdue 27-5/Big Ten at-large
5) Texas A&M 23-9/Big 12 at-large
6) Notre Dame 23-11/Big East at-large
7) Richmond 26-8/Atlantic 10 at-large
8) California 23-10/Pacific-10 at-large
9) Louisville 20-12/Big East at-large
10) Saint Mary's 26-5/West Coast Champion
11) Old Dominion 26-8/Colonial Athletic Association Champion
12) Utah State 27-7/Western Athletic at-large
13) Siena 27-6/Metro Atlantic Champion
14) Sam Houston State 25-7/Southland Champion
15) Robert Morris 23-11/Northeast Champion
16) Winthrop 19-13/Big South Champion OR
16) Arkansas-Pine Bluff 17-15/SWAC Champion
Favorite
There is no question in this bracket that the favorite is Duke. Their path to the Elite Eight is pretty weak. The only team I think could potentially give them a challenge is Louisville in the second round. I think if they play California in the second round or Texas A&M or Purdue in the Sweet Sixteen, it will be a walk in the park for them. With how Villanova played down the stretch, I can't really consider them a favorite. They have a decent chance to win the South Region, but I personally like Baylor more than Villanova this season. Villanova almost lost to American last year and I really liked their team last year. Who's to say they can't have an early exit this year? Duke has an extremely experienced team which starts three seniors and two juniors. Their only bad loss was to North Carolina State. They played one of the nation's toughest schedules while still being the 1 seed in the ACC. The schedule will help them for the road they'll face in the tournament, but it shouldn't be too hard for them to make a deep run. They're also due for one to happen after early exits to Villanova, West Virginia and VCU in recent years.
Dark Horses
If ever there was a dark horse, Baylor would be it. They're getting pushed aside by the more glamorous teams-Duke, Villanova, Notre Dame, but I've liked what I've see over the season as well as the last couple years from Baylor. They are a well coached team by Scott Drew and have two great guards in LaceDarius Dunn and Tweety Carter. Dunn scores 19 points and dishes out 5 assists per game. Carter averages 16 points and 6 assists per game. They are as deadly a duo that a team could see in the tournament. Ekpe Udoh could make a huge difference inside the paint. He averages 13.5 points per game and almost 10 rebounds per game. He led the Big 12 in blocked shots and was second in rebounding. They also have a number of good wins beating teams such as Xavier, Arizona State, Oklahoma State, Missouri, Texas A&M and Texas (twice).
I'm not buying Notre Dame as a dark horse and actually am going to pick them to go out first round, but do think if they beat Old Dominion they could transform into a sleeper. They have gotten hot as of late and picked up their defensive play. I personally feel that they are tremendously overseeded considering they were "on the bubble" entering the Big East Tournament. After star forward Luke Harangody went down with an injury, their offense became more patient instead of being the high scoring and good shooting team that we were used to seeing. They are good three point shooters but Old Dominion matches up decently with them and frankly you could argue Dominion should be a 7 or an 8 seed as well. The other 2 teams I like as Dark Horses to do some damage is the winner of Richmond and Saint Mary's. Richmond is an experienced team who has played (and beaten) some very good teams this season such as Temple, Old Dominion and Missouri. They just lost to Temple in the Championship this weekend in a close game. Richmond has enjoyed one of its bst seasons in its history. They cracked the top 25 last month for the first time in almost 20 years. This team reminds me a lot of the Dayton team that pulled an upset on West Virginia last year. They play very good defense, holding teams to 39% shooting, but have more offense than the Flyers team had last year. Kevin Anderson averages 18 points per game. David Gonzalvez scoes 14 a game. Justin Harper scores 11 points per game and pulls down roughly 6 boards. They lack a lot of rebounding, but make up for it with their depth and good guard play, another trait which Dayton had last year. Saint Mary's on the other hand has a much more prolific offense. Their starters (Samhan-21.5 ppg, McConnell-13 ppg, Dellavedova-12.5 ppg, Allen-11 ppg, and Steindl 7.5 ppg) average 65 points per game without even going to the bench. Their ability to spread around the ball should be a major story in how this game plays out but Richmond has a big advantage defensively. They are very good three point shooters and their height will help them in their early matchups against Richmond and Villanova if they were to win their first round game. The Gaels shoot well from the line at 76%, but another big difference in the first round game is the depth of the bench. Mary's isn't very deep while Richmond is. That could certianly be a difference maker.
Upsets
I'm not picking these two in my bracket, but I could definitely see them.
#13 Siena over #4 Purdue
#12 Utah State over #5 Texas A&M
This one I am picking in my bracket.
#11 Old Dominion over #6 Notre Dame
Players to Watch
Jon Scheyer DUKE
Kyle Singler DUKE
Corey Fisher VILLANOVA
Scottie Reynolds VILLANOVA
Tweety Carter BAYLOR
LaceDarius Dunn BAYLOR
Ekpe Udoh BAYLOR
E'Twaun Moore PURDUE
JaJuan Johnson PURDUE
Donald Sloan TEXAS A&M
Luke Harangody NOTRE DAME
Kevin Anderson RICHMOND
Jerome Randle CALIFORNIA
Samardo Samuels LOUISVILLE
Omar Samhan SAINT MARY'S
Gerald Lee OLD DOMINION
Alex Franklin SIENA
Edwin Ubiles SIENA
Gilberto Clavell SAM HOUSTON STATE
Karon Abraham ROBERT MORRIS
Best Games
#4 Purdue vs. #13 Siena
#5 Texas A&M vs. #12 Utah State
#6 Notre Dame vs. #11 Old Dominion
#7 Richmond vs. #10 St. Mary's
Hope everyone enjoyed reading my preview on the right side of the bracket. I'll be back tomorrow with the Midwest Preview and NIT Picks and on Wednesday, I'll preview the West Bracket and give more NIT picks. Thursday morning I'll give my picks for the tournament games that day.
46-16 in Group I games
53-10 in Group II games
43-20 in Group III games
47-16 in Group IV games
18-8 in Non-Public A games
19-4 in Non-Public B games
226-74 overall
6-1 America East
6-5 Atlantic Coast
4-3 Atlantic Sun
8-3 Atlantic 10
8-7 Big East
2-3 Big Sky
4-3 Big South
8-2 Big Ten
10-1 Big 12
6-1 Big West
8-3 Colonial Athletic Association
8-3 Conference USA
5-4 Horizon League
7-2 Metro Atlantic
7-4 Mid-American
10-0 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference
6-3 Missouri Valley
7-1 Mountain West
4-3 Northeast
4-3 Ohio Valley
6-2 Pac-10
6-1 Patriot League
8-3 Southeastern Conference
9-2 Southern Conference
6-1 Southland Conference
7-0 Summit League
8-4 Sun Belt
6-1 Southwestern Athletic Conference
6-1 Western Athletic Conference
5-2 West Coast
195-72 Overall
Now onto the previews for the right side of the bracket.
I think upon seeing this half of the bracket most people thought thought two things. The first was that Duke has a pretty easy road to the Elite Eight and second is how packed Kentucky's bracket is. Temple's a 5. Cornell's a 12. A solid Wofford team who nearly beat Pitt early on this season is a 13. This bracket from top to bottom is stacked. Even a 15 seed like Morgan State has some experience and had they not been playing a red hot West Virginia team, I would have given them a shot at an upset. Their seed doesn't help either. A 15 over 2 hasn't happened in nearly a decade. I'm looking forward to that bracket in particular because so many teams can go deep. Kentucky isn't invincible as a lot of people saw in their game yesterday vs. Mississippi State to capture the SEC Tournament title. I'm sure some people even have them losing to Texas or Wake Forest in the second round. No one knows what to expect from teams like Marquette, Washington, and New Mexico. Any of them are capable of losing first round, but also having runs to the elite eight. This to me, is the bracket to watch.
East Region
Records/How they Got Here
1) Kentucky 32-2/SEC Champion
2) West Virginia 27-6/Big East Champion
3) New Mexico 29-4/Mountain West at-large
4) Wisconsin 23-8/Big Ten at-large
5) Temple 29-5/Atlantic 10 Champion
6) Marquette 22-11/Big East at-large
7) Clemson 21-10/Atlantic Coast at-large
8) Texas 24-9/Big 12 at-large
9) Wake Forest 19-10/Atlantic Coast at-large
10) Missouri 22-10/Big 12 at-large
11) Washington 24-9/Pacific-10 Champion
12) Cornell 27-4/Ivy League Champion
13) Wofford 26-8/Southern Champion
14) Montana 22-9/Big Sky Champion
15) Morgan State 27-9/Mid-Eastern Athletic Champion
16) East Tennessee State 20-14/Atlantic Sun Champion
Favorites
Obviously, the 2 favorites here are Kentucky and West Virginia. If I had to pick of the two, I'd choose West Virginia. They have a lot more experience than Kentucky and are red-hot right now. I think the Big East Conference was much, much tougher than the SEC this year and games that West Virginia get in the Big East helps prepare them for the NCAA Tournament a lot of the time. They have been phenomonal late in the season in the final minutes of games winning three nailbiters, two of which were won by senior Da'Sean Butler, whose averaging 17 points per game. Four of their six losses have been by seven or fewer points. One of their major flaws is their free throw shooting, which has been suspect at times. I also think they have the best coach in this bracket with Bob Huggins who has proven time and time again how good of a coach he is. I think their tough defense and experience carries them to a win over Kentucky in the Elite Eight. A lot of people obviously like Kentucky, as they should. They probably have the most NBA talent of any collegiate team, but are also very young. Another team with a great coach in John Calipari, who has had several deep runs in the tournament. Obviously this is one of the main storylines in this bracket. More so than any other top seed, anything other than a Championship is a bust. Kansas and Syracuse has recently won titles and Duke obviously has had a phenomonal last 2 decades, but Kentucky hasn't had as much success as of late and this would be a big step back into prominence if they were to win the title. In addition, there's a very good chance that their best two players, John Wall and Demarcus Cousins are gone after this year, so they would have to start from scratch again. As talented as they are, they are also extremely young which is a major caution sign when it comes to picking them. I'm not falling into the trap that some people are when they pick the winner of Texas/Wake over Kentucky. I really don't see that happening. Wake Forest is lucky to be an 9 seed, and Kentucky is much better than Texas. But they could trip up later to a Wisconsin, Temple, etc. I think their youth will hurt them and I also think in tough spots, the two star players will play a little more selfishly which I think could doom them.
Dark Horses
There are a lot of dark horses here. I can see a number of teams making runs to the sweet sixteen that not many people would expect. The first one is New Mexico. Many people coming in probably don't know a lot about New Mexico and are questioning them being seeded third. But the Mountain West Conference is usually pretty tough and they're battle tested. They've played (and beat) tough out of conference competition such as California and Texas A&M. They've also beaten BYU in conference play. A 29-4 record is also obviously very good. They have very good guard play and in the NCAA Tournament, teams with good guards are usually in good shape. Darington Hobson averages 16 points per game and 9 rebounds per game. They get plenty of scoring from their supporting cast and are proficient three point shooters. I think Coach Steve Alford has a team capable of potentially getting to the sectional final. I think the Marquette-Wisconsin winner could potentially win a couple games. I was impressed by Marquette's toughness down the stretch last week in the game vs. Villanova. They play with a lot of heart and that's something that can't be measured in the NCAA Tournament. They have a very experienced team with 2 starting seniors, 2 starting juniors and 1 starting sophomore. Lazar Hayward as proven himself a very capable leader and can carry the team on his back. He has averaged 18 points per game and 8 rebounds per game. While they do shoot free throws very well, the thing that continually has doomed Marquette in recent years, such as their game vs. Stanford where they couldn't stop the Lopez brothers is their lack of height. A team with height has a great shot to beat them. That is what makes this bracket so interesting. New Mexico, Marquette and Washington don't really excel in post play. They are all guard oriented teams so those games are usually shootouts rather than grind out and slower paced games. With Washington, their best two players are Quincy Pondexter and Isiah Thomas. Pondexter scores 20 points per game and pulls down 8 boards. He could make a big difference in the Marquette game. Isaiah Thomas is also another major scoring threat scoring 17 a game. They are red-hot right now winning 7 games in a row, but the Pac-10 was dreadful this year. The top 2 or 3 Big East teams probably could've gone undefeated in the Pac-10. Their best win this year was probably the California game which put them into the tournament. If they had lost that, I don't think I'd be talking about them right now. They are extremely prolific on offense scoring 80.5 points per game which is first in the Pac-10 and 9th in the nation. They do play good defense and led the Pac-10 in rebounding for the third time in five years. My other two sleepers are whoever wins the Temple-Cornell game. Both teams are very underseeded in my opinion and I think Temple should've been given a 3 and Cornell at least a 10. I got a chance to see Temple this past Friday and they have a very good team again. Temple continues to pride themself on defense and have a relatively veteran team. However, I do worry about their scoring. Their best players are Ryan Brooks and Juan Fernandez in terms of points scored, but they can be inconsistent at times. If Fernandez struggles to score or is forced into some errors by the Big Red, they could be one and done. They've allowed only 28% shooting from 3 point range, but Cornell is very proficient in shooting the three and have a good field goal percentage overall, so it should make for a very interesting matchup. Cornell, on the other hand, won the Ivy League, their third straight title relatively easy going 13-1 in conference, their only loss to Penn. I really like this team's chances to do some damage in this year's tournament. Hopefully it'll be reparation for when I picked them to beat Stanford and they were down 30 at halftime two years ago so it'll really come full circle with a win (or a couple) in this year's tournament. Teams like this are always dangerous because it's their last go-around. This team has 5 starters returning from last year's team. They shoot 48 percent from the field and 43.5 percent from three point range. They do a great job of passing the ball averaging nearly 17 assists a game and have a good assist to turnover ratio. To Temple's advantage, they rely on the three at nearly 10 a game, but the Big Red have been red hot winning 15 of their last 16. Ryan Wittman is their player to watch averaging nearly 18 points per game. They have an inside presence too with 7 footer Jeff Foote who averages 12 points and 8 rebounds per game, which makes Cornell a team unlike any other team the Ivy League usually sees and what makes this team particularly formidable come Friday afternoon.
Upsets
Don't see too many upsets in this bracket in the first round, just two which are.
#9 Wake Forest over #8 Texas
#12 Cornell over #5 Temple
Players to Watch
DeMarcus Cousins KENTUCKY
Patrick Patterson KENTUCKY
John Wall KENTUCKY
Da'Sean Butler WEST VIRGINIA
Darington Hobson NEW MEXICO
Trevon Hughes WISCONSIN
Juan Fernandez TEMPLE
Lazar Hayward MARQUETTE
Trevor Booker CLEMSON
Damion James TEXAS
Dexter Pittman TEXAS
Al-Farouq Aminu WAKE FOREST
Quincy Pondexter WASHINGTON
Isaiah Thomas WASHINGTON
Ryan Wittman CORNELL
Jeff Foote CORNELL
Noah Dahlman WOFFORD
Anthony Johnson MONTANA
Reggie Holmes MORGAN STATE
Tommy Hubbard EAST TENNESSEE STATE
Best Games
#5 Temple vs. #12 Cornell
#7 Clemson vs. #10 Missouri
#8 Texas vs. #9 Wake Forest
South Region
Records/How they Got Here
1) Duke 29-5/Atlantic Coast Champion
2) Villanova 24-7/Big East at-large
3) Baylor 25-7/Big 12 at-large
4) Purdue 27-5/Big Ten at-large
5) Texas A&M 23-9/Big 12 at-large
6) Notre Dame 23-11/Big East at-large
7) Richmond 26-8/Atlantic 10 at-large
8) California 23-10/Pacific-10 at-large
9) Louisville 20-12/Big East at-large
10) Saint Mary's 26-5/West Coast Champion
11) Old Dominion 26-8/Colonial Athletic Association Champion
12) Utah State 27-7/Western Athletic at-large
13) Siena 27-6/Metro Atlantic Champion
14) Sam Houston State 25-7/Southland Champion
15) Robert Morris 23-11/Northeast Champion
16) Winthrop 19-13/Big South Champion OR
16) Arkansas-Pine Bluff 17-15/SWAC Champion
Favorite
There is no question in this bracket that the favorite is Duke. Their path to the Elite Eight is pretty weak. The only team I think could potentially give them a challenge is Louisville in the second round. I think if they play California in the second round or Texas A&M or Purdue in the Sweet Sixteen, it will be a walk in the park for them. With how Villanova played down the stretch, I can't really consider them a favorite. They have a decent chance to win the South Region, but I personally like Baylor more than Villanova this season. Villanova almost lost to American last year and I really liked their team last year. Who's to say they can't have an early exit this year? Duke has an extremely experienced team which starts three seniors and two juniors. Their only bad loss was to North Carolina State. They played one of the nation's toughest schedules while still being the 1 seed in the ACC. The schedule will help them for the road they'll face in the tournament, but it shouldn't be too hard for them to make a deep run. They're also due for one to happen after early exits to Villanova, West Virginia and VCU in recent years.
Dark Horses
If ever there was a dark horse, Baylor would be it. They're getting pushed aside by the more glamorous teams-Duke, Villanova, Notre Dame, but I've liked what I've see over the season as well as the last couple years from Baylor. They are a well coached team by Scott Drew and have two great guards in LaceDarius Dunn and Tweety Carter. Dunn scores 19 points and dishes out 5 assists per game. Carter averages 16 points and 6 assists per game. They are as deadly a duo that a team could see in the tournament. Ekpe Udoh could make a huge difference inside the paint. He averages 13.5 points per game and almost 10 rebounds per game. He led the Big 12 in blocked shots and was second in rebounding. They also have a number of good wins beating teams such as Xavier, Arizona State, Oklahoma State, Missouri, Texas A&M and Texas (twice).
I'm not buying Notre Dame as a dark horse and actually am going to pick them to go out first round, but do think if they beat Old Dominion they could transform into a sleeper. They have gotten hot as of late and picked up their defensive play. I personally feel that they are tremendously overseeded considering they were "on the bubble" entering the Big East Tournament. After star forward Luke Harangody went down with an injury, their offense became more patient instead of being the high scoring and good shooting team that we were used to seeing. They are good three point shooters but Old Dominion matches up decently with them and frankly you could argue Dominion should be a 7 or an 8 seed as well. The other 2 teams I like as Dark Horses to do some damage is the winner of Richmond and Saint Mary's. Richmond is an experienced team who has played (and beaten) some very good teams this season such as Temple, Old Dominion and Missouri. They just lost to Temple in the Championship this weekend in a close game. Richmond has enjoyed one of its bst seasons in its history. They cracked the top 25 last month for the first time in almost 20 years. This team reminds me a lot of the Dayton team that pulled an upset on West Virginia last year. They play very good defense, holding teams to 39% shooting, but have more offense than the Flyers team had last year. Kevin Anderson averages 18 points per game. David Gonzalvez scoes 14 a game. Justin Harper scores 11 points per game and pulls down roughly 6 boards. They lack a lot of rebounding, but make up for it with their depth and good guard play, another trait which Dayton had last year. Saint Mary's on the other hand has a much more prolific offense. Their starters (Samhan-21.5 ppg, McConnell-13 ppg, Dellavedova-12.5 ppg, Allen-11 ppg, and Steindl 7.5 ppg) average 65 points per game without even going to the bench. Their ability to spread around the ball should be a major story in how this game plays out but Richmond has a big advantage defensively. They are very good three point shooters and their height will help them in their early matchups against Richmond and Villanova if they were to win their first round game. The Gaels shoot well from the line at 76%, but another big difference in the first round game is the depth of the bench. Mary's isn't very deep while Richmond is. That could certianly be a difference maker.
Upsets
I'm not picking these two in my bracket, but I could definitely see them.
#13 Siena over #4 Purdue
#12 Utah State over #5 Texas A&M
This one I am picking in my bracket.
#11 Old Dominion over #6 Notre Dame
Players to Watch
Jon Scheyer DUKE
Kyle Singler DUKE
Corey Fisher VILLANOVA
Scottie Reynolds VILLANOVA
Tweety Carter BAYLOR
LaceDarius Dunn BAYLOR
Ekpe Udoh BAYLOR
E'Twaun Moore PURDUE
JaJuan Johnson PURDUE
Donald Sloan TEXAS A&M
Luke Harangody NOTRE DAME
Kevin Anderson RICHMOND
Jerome Randle CALIFORNIA
Samardo Samuels LOUISVILLE
Omar Samhan SAINT MARY'S
Gerald Lee OLD DOMINION
Alex Franklin SIENA
Edwin Ubiles SIENA
Gilberto Clavell SAM HOUSTON STATE
Karon Abraham ROBERT MORRIS
Best Games
#4 Purdue vs. #13 Siena
#5 Texas A&M vs. #12 Utah State
#6 Notre Dame vs. #11 Old Dominion
#7 Richmond vs. #10 St. Mary's
Hope everyone enjoyed reading my preview on the right side of the bracket. I'll be back tomorrow with the Midwest Preview and NIT Picks and on Wednesday, I'll preview the West Bracket and give more NIT picks. Thursday morning I'll give my picks for the tournament games that day.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Getting Caught Up In the Madness
Today is one of the best sporting days of the year. There's so many great games and so many games that mean the world to these teams in conferences such as the MEAC, the SWAC, the MAC and more. Today's the day where teams live to fight another day or pack up the balls for the season. Today outside of this coming Thursday and Friday is unequivocally the best day of the college basketball season. Obviously I've been away for the last couple days so I'll update how I would've done in my high school and college picks.
45-16 in Group I games
52-10 in Group II games
43-19 in Group III games
46-16 in Group IV games
18-7 in Non-Public A games
19-4 in Non-Public B games
223-72 overall
Now onto the real challenge of figuring out how well I did with my college picks over the plethora of games over the last 3 days.
6-1 America East
5-5 Atlantic Coast(Up to Semis)
4-3 Atlantic Sun
7-3 Atlantic 10(Up to Semis)
8-7 Big East
2-3 Big Sky
4-3 Big South
8-1 Big Ten(Up to Semis)
10-1 Big 12
6-1 Big West
8-3 Colonial Athletic Association
8-3 Conference USA
5-4 Horizon League
7-2 Metro Atlantic
7-4 Mid-American
10-0 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference
6-3 Missouri Valley
7-1 Mountain West
4-3 Northeast
4-3 Ohio Valley
6-2 Pac-10
6-1 Patriot League
7-3 Southeastern Conference(Up to Semis)
9-2 Southern Conference
6-1 Southland Conference
7-0 Summit League
8-4 Sun Belt
6-1 Southwestern Athletic Conference
6-1 Western Athletic Conference
5-2 West Coast
192-71 Overall
Now onto my last 4 picks of the Conference Tournament season as well as my predictions for the Group Finals tomorrow.
Atlantic Coast Championship
#1 Duke over #7 Georgia Tech
Atlantic 10 Championship
#1 Temple over #3 Richmond
Big Ten Championship
#6 Minnesota over #1 Ohio State
Southeastern Conference Championship
#E1 Kentucky over #W1 Mississi State
Here are my high school picks for tomorrow.
Group I Championship(Spreads According to Born Power Index)
#1 University-6 over #1 Woodbury
Group II Championship
#3 Shabazz-18.5 over #8 Pequannock
Group III Championship
#1 Kingsway-6 over #1 Mendham
Group IV Championship
#1 Cherokee+7 over #1 Plainfield
Non-Public A Championship
#3 St. Peter's Prep-9.5 over #1 Camden Catholic
So there's all my picks for the 9 games going on today. If you're in New Jersey, I definitely recommend coming to the RAC for the state championships today. It should be a great day of ball. You could stay for the groups I and IV Championship games then head over to the Ritacco Center in Toms River for the 8PM tip off between St. Peter's and Camden Catholic for the A title after it was postponed yesterday.
My two games of the day in high school are:
#1 Cherokee vs. #1 Plainfield in the Group IV Championship Game at Noon at the Rutgers Athletic Center
#3 St. Peter's Prep vs. #1 Camden Catholic in the Non-Public A Championship Game at 8PM at the Ritacco Center
Over in college, the top 2 games are easy for me to pick today. Just keep it locked into CBS for the entire day lol.
#1 Temple vs. #3 Richmond in the Atlantic 10 Championship Game at 1PM
#1 Ohio State vs. #6 Minnesota in the Big 10 Championship Game at 3:30 PM followed by the NCAA Selection Show on CBS.
I hope you enjoyed reading my daily previews and predictions on all these games and I will break down each region of the bracket starting tomorrow night through Wednesday night giving sleepers, favorites and more predictions before going game through game on Thursday before the tournament begins. The madness is finally here.
45-16 in Group I games
52-10 in Group II games
43-19 in Group III games
46-16 in Group IV games
18-7 in Non-Public A games
19-4 in Non-Public B games
223-72 overall
Now onto the real challenge of figuring out how well I did with my college picks over the plethora of games over the last 3 days.
6-1 America East
5-5 Atlantic Coast(Up to Semis)
4-3 Atlantic Sun
7-3 Atlantic 10(Up to Semis)
8-7 Big East
2-3 Big Sky
4-3 Big South
8-1 Big Ten(Up to Semis)
10-1 Big 12
6-1 Big West
8-3 Colonial Athletic Association
8-3 Conference USA
5-4 Horizon League
7-2 Metro Atlantic
7-4 Mid-American
10-0 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference
6-3 Missouri Valley
7-1 Mountain West
4-3 Northeast
4-3 Ohio Valley
6-2 Pac-10
6-1 Patriot League
7-3 Southeastern Conference(Up to Semis)
9-2 Southern Conference
6-1 Southland Conference
7-0 Summit League
8-4 Sun Belt
6-1 Southwestern Athletic Conference
6-1 Western Athletic Conference
5-2 West Coast
192-71 Overall
Now onto my last 4 picks of the Conference Tournament season as well as my predictions for the Group Finals tomorrow.
Atlantic Coast Championship
#1 Duke over #7 Georgia Tech
Atlantic 10 Championship
#1 Temple over #3 Richmond
Big Ten Championship
#6 Minnesota over #1 Ohio State
Southeastern Conference Championship
#E1 Kentucky over #W1 Mississi State
Here are my high school picks for tomorrow.
Group I Championship(Spreads According to Born Power Index)
#1 University-6 over #1 Woodbury
Group II Championship
#3 Shabazz-18.5 over #8 Pequannock
Group III Championship
#1 Kingsway-6 over #1 Mendham
Group IV Championship
#1 Cherokee+7 over #1 Plainfield
Non-Public A Championship
#3 St. Peter's Prep-9.5 over #1 Camden Catholic
So there's all my picks for the 9 games going on today. If you're in New Jersey, I definitely recommend coming to the RAC for the state championships today. It should be a great day of ball. You could stay for the groups I and IV Championship games then head over to the Ritacco Center in Toms River for the 8PM tip off between St. Peter's and Camden Catholic for the A title after it was postponed yesterday.
My two games of the day in high school are:
#1 Cherokee vs. #1 Plainfield in the Group IV Championship Game at Noon at the Rutgers Athletic Center
#3 St. Peter's Prep vs. #1 Camden Catholic in the Non-Public A Championship Game at 8PM at the Ritacco Center
Over in college, the top 2 games are easy for me to pick today. Just keep it locked into CBS for the entire day lol.
#1 Temple vs. #3 Richmond in the Atlantic 10 Championship Game at 1PM
#1 Ohio State vs. #6 Minnesota in the Big 10 Championship Game at 3:30 PM followed by the NCAA Selection Show on CBS.
I hope you enjoyed reading my daily previews and predictions on all these games and I will break down each region of the bracket starting tomorrow night through Wednesday night giving sleepers, favorites and more predictions before going game through game on Thursday before the tournament begins. The madness is finally here.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Group Semifinal Predictions in Groups II, IV and Non-Public B and Conference Tournament Predictions
Another good night for me going 4-1 predicting the games. The only game I lost was Lakewood, who lost to Kingsway. Tonight is the perennial marquee game of the season and that's when the top 2 Non-Public B teams face off so it's usually St. Ant's-Paterson Catholic, St. Ant's-St. Pat's, or St. Pat's-Paterson Cathoic. Because St. Pat's was banned from the state tournament this year, St. Ant's and Paterson Catholic had a very easy route to play each other. Nontheless, both are very good teams. St. Ant's was ranked 18th in the nation in this week's USA Today and Paterson Catholic was ranked 6th. It should be a great game. There are a couple other good matchups tonight but all eyes will be on the RAC for that game and a nice appetizer before that in Seton Hall Prep-St. Peter's Prep. You have 4 teams in the top 8 in the state playing to advance in the tournament. It should be a great night over there. Here's how I'm doing through last night. After tonight, the field goes down from 18 to 12. After Saturday 12 to 10, after Sunday 10 to 6. At that point, they reseed for the Tournament of Champions which starts next week.
45-16 in Group I games
51-9 in Group II games
43-19 in Group III games
44-16 in Group IV games
17-7 in Non-Public A games
18-3 in Non-Public B games
4-1 in last nights games
218-70 overall
Here are my predictions for tonight.
North I vs. North II, Group II
#15 Science Park-4.5 over #8 Pequannock
Central vs. South, Group II
#3 Shabazz-6 over #1 Collingswood
North I vs. North II, Group IV
#1 Plainfield-3 over #9 East Orange
Central vs. South, Group IV
#1 Cherokee-3.5 over #4 Montgomery
Non-Public A North
#3 St. Peter's Prep-9.5 over #1 Seton Hall Prep
Non-Public B North
#2 St. Anthony-15 over #1 Paterson Catholic
Over on the collegiate side, there's no championships to be decided today, but there's a hell of a lot of ball being played today lol. If I can, I'll blog tomorrow morning if not, hopefully I'll be able to some point later in the day because I will be down in Atlantic City watching the early sessin of the Atlantic 10 tournament. The first game is St. Bonaventure vs. Temple and the second game which Im looking forward to a lot because it features two teams squarely on the bubble and that is St. Louis-Rhode Island. There's a lot of great games today starting with the Georgetown-Syracuse game at noon. Here's my record through last night.
5-1 America East(Up to Semis)
4-3 Atlantic Sun
2-2 Atlantic 10 First Round
4-4 Big East Second Round
2-3 Big Sky
4-3 Big South
3-1 Big 12 First Round
2-0 Big West First Round
8-3 Colonial Athletic Association
4-0 Conference USA First Round
5-4 Horizon League
7-2 Metro Atlantic
4-0 Mid-American First Round
5-0 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference(Halfway through Quarters)
6-3 Missouri Valley
0-1 Mountain West First Round
4-3 Northeast
4-3 Ohio Valley
1-0 Pac-10 First Round
5-1 Patriot League(Up to Semis)
9-2 Southern Conference
3-1 Southland Conference First Round
7-0 Summit League
8-4 Sun Belt
1-1 Southwestern Athletic Conference First Round
5-2 West Coast
19-8 in last nights games
112-47 Overall
Now onto my predictions for today.
Atlantic Coast First Round
#8 Boston College over #9 Virginia
#5 Wake Forest over #12 Miami
#7 Georgia Tech over #10 North Carolina
#6 Clemson over #11 NC State
Big East Quarterfinals
#8 Georgetown over #1 Syracuse
#4 Villanova over #5 Marquette
#2 Pittsburgh over #7 Notre Dame
#3 West Virginia over #11 Cincinnati
Big Ten First Round
#8 Michigan over #9 Iowa
#7 Northwestern over #10 Indiana
#6 Minnesota over #11 Penn State
Big 12 Quarterfinals
#1 Kansas over #9 Texas Tech
#4 Texas A&M over #12 Nebraska
#2 Kansas State over #7 Oklahoma State
#3 Baylor over #6 Texas
Big West Quarterfinals
#3 Long Beach State over #6 Cal Poly
#5 Cal State Fullerton over #4 UC Davis
Conference USA Quarterfinals
#2 Memphis over #7 Houston
#3 UAB over #6 Southern Miss
#5 Tulsa over #4 Marshall
#1 UTEP over #9 UCF
Mid American Quarterfinals
#1 Kent State over #9 Ohio
#5 Buffalo over #4 Miami(Ohio)
#2 Central Michigan over #7 Western Michigan
#3 Akron over #6 Eastern Michigan
Mid Eastern Athletic Conference Quarterfinals
#3 South Carolina State over #6 Maryland Eastern Shore
#5 Hampton over #4 Norfolk State
Mountain West Quarterfinals
#1 New Mexico over #9 Air Force
#4 San Diego State over #5 Colorado State
#2 Brigham Young over #7 Texas Christian
#3 UNLV over #6 Utah
Pac-10 Quarterfinals
#4 Arizona over #5 UCLA
#1 California over #8 Oregon
#3 Arizona State over #6 Stanford
#2 Washington over #7 Oregon State
Southeastern Conference First Round
#W4 Alabama over #E5 South Carolina
#E3 Tennessee over #W6 LSU
#E4 Florida over #W5 Auburn
#W3 Arkansas over #E6 Georgia
Southland Conference Semifinals
#2 Stephen F. Austin over #3 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi
#1 Sam Houston State over #4 Southeastern Louisiana
SWAC Tournament Quarterfinals
#3 Alabama State over #6 Alabama A&M
#5 Texas Southern over #4 Prairie View A&M
Western Athletic Quarterfinals
#1 Utah State over #8 Boise State
#4 Louisiana Tech over #5 Fresno State
#2 Nevada over #7 Idaho
#3 New Mexico State over #6 San Jose State
So those are all my predictions for today. Hopefully, I'll be able to get on for my picks tomorrow. It's an off day between the Group Semifinals and the Gorup Finals on Saturday and Sunday, so tomorrow will be a predominant college basketball day as tomorrow begins the quarterfinal and semifinal round in almost all of the ongoing tournaments.
45-16 in Group I games
51-9 in Group II games
43-19 in Group III games
44-16 in Group IV games
17-7 in Non-Public A games
18-3 in Non-Public B games
4-1 in last nights games
218-70 overall
Here are my predictions for tonight.
North I vs. North II, Group II
#15 Science Park-4.5 over #8 Pequannock
Central vs. South, Group II
#3 Shabazz-6 over #1 Collingswood
North I vs. North II, Group IV
#1 Plainfield-3 over #9 East Orange
Central vs. South, Group IV
#1 Cherokee-3.5 over #4 Montgomery
Non-Public A North
#3 St. Peter's Prep-9.5 over #1 Seton Hall Prep
Non-Public B North
#2 St. Anthony-15 over #1 Paterson Catholic
Over on the collegiate side, there's no championships to be decided today, but there's a hell of a lot of ball being played today lol. If I can, I'll blog tomorrow morning if not, hopefully I'll be able to some point later in the day because I will be down in Atlantic City watching the early sessin of the Atlantic 10 tournament. The first game is St. Bonaventure vs. Temple and the second game which Im looking forward to a lot because it features two teams squarely on the bubble and that is St. Louis-Rhode Island. There's a lot of great games today starting with the Georgetown-Syracuse game at noon. Here's my record through last night.
5-1 America East(Up to Semis)
4-3 Atlantic Sun
2-2 Atlantic 10 First Round
4-4 Big East Second Round
2-3 Big Sky
4-3 Big South
3-1 Big 12 First Round
2-0 Big West First Round
8-3 Colonial Athletic Association
4-0 Conference USA First Round
5-4 Horizon League
7-2 Metro Atlantic
4-0 Mid-American First Round
5-0 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference(Halfway through Quarters)
6-3 Missouri Valley
0-1 Mountain West First Round
4-3 Northeast
4-3 Ohio Valley
1-0 Pac-10 First Round
5-1 Patriot League(Up to Semis)
9-2 Southern Conference
3-1 Southland Conference First Round
7-0 Summit League
8-4 Sun Belt
1-1 Southwestern Athletic Conference First Round
5-2 West Coast
19-8 in last nights games
112-47 Overall
Now onto my predictions for today.
Atlantic Coast First Round
#8 Boston College over #9 Virginia
#5 Wake Forest over #12 Miami
#7 Georgia Tech over #10 North Carolina
#6 Clemson over #11 NC State
Big East Quarterfinals
#8 Georgetown over #1 Syracuse
#4 Villanova over #5 Marquette
#2 Pittsburgh over #7 Notre Dame
#3 West Virginia over #11 Cincinnati
Big Ten First Round
#8 Michigan over #9 Iowa
#7 Northwestern over #10 Indiana
#6 Minnesota over #11 Penn State
Big 12 Quarterfinals
#1 Kansas over #9 Texas Tech
#4 Texas A&M over #12 Nebraska
#2 Kansas State over #7 Oklahoma State
#3 Baylor over #6 Texas
Big West Quarterfinals
#3 Long Beach State over #6 Cal Poly
#5 Cal State Fullerton over #4 UC Davis
Conference USA Quarterfinals
#2 Memphis over #7 Houston
#3 UAB over #6 Southern Miss
#5 Tulsa over #4 Marshall
#1 UTEP over #9 UCF
Mid American Quarterfinals
#1 Kent State over #9 Ohio
#5 Buffalo over #4 Miami(Ohio)
#2 Central Michigan over #7 Western Michigan
#3 Akron over #6 Eastern Michigan
Mid Eastern Athletic Conference Quarterfinals
#3 South Carolina State over #6 Maryland Eastern Shore
#5 Hampton over #4 Norfolk State
Mountain West Quarterfinals
#1 New Mexico over #9 Air Force
#4 San Diego State over #5 Colorado State
#2 Brigham Young over #7 Texas Christian
#3 UNLV over #6 Utah
Pac-10 Quarterfinals
#4 Arizona over #5 UCLA
#1 California over #8 Oregon
#3 Arizona State over #6 Stanford
#2 Washington over #7 Oregon State
Southeastern Conference First Round
#W4 Alabama over #E5 South Carolina
#E3 Tennessee over #W6 LSU
#E4 Florida over #W5 Auburn
#W3 Arkansas over #E6 Georgia
Southland Conference Semifinals
#2 Stephen F. Austin over #3 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi
#1 Sam Houston State over #4 Southeastern Louisiana
SWAC Tournament Quarterfinals
#3 Alabama State over #6 Alabama A&M
#5 Texas Southern over #4 Prairie View A&M
Western Athletic Quarterfinals
#1 Utah State over #8 Boise State
#4 Louisiana Tech over #5 Fresno State
#2 Nevada over #7 Idaho
#3 New Mexico State over #6 San Jose State
So those are all my predictions for today. Hopefully, I'll be able to get on for my picks tomorrow. It's an off day between the Group Semifinals and the Gorup Finals on Saturday and Sunday, so tomorrow will be a predominant college basketball day as tomorrow begins the quarterfinal and semifinal round in almost all of the ongoing tournaments.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Group Semifinal Predictions in Groups I, III and Non-Public A, Conference Tournament Predictions
I bounced back from a bad night two days ago going 6-3 in last night's state games. Tonight the field goes from 23-18 teams and are now played at neutral locations. The individual section games besides the 2 games in Non-Public A are now done, so the matchups in the Public brackets are now the winnr of North I plays the winner of North II and the winner of the Central plays the winner of the South. Whoever are the 8 teams left standing after the group semifinals will meet at Rutgers on Sunday for the Group I,II,III,and IV Championship games. Here's my record through last night.
43-16 in Group I games
51-9 in Group II games
42-18 in Group III games
44-16 in Group IV games
16-7 in Non-Public A games
18-3 in Non-Public B games
6-3 in last nights games
214-69 overall
Here are my predictions for tonight.
North I vs. North II, Group I
#1 University-15.5 over #2 Cresskill
Central vs. South, Group I
#1 Woodbury-8.5 over #3 Asbury Park
North I vs. North II, Group III
#1 Mendham-2.5 over #2 Old Tappan
Central vs. South, Group III
#5 Lakewood+4 over #1 Kingsway
Non-Public A South
#1 Camden Catholic-10.5 over #7 St, Augustine
There's 2 championships decided tonight in the Northeast Tournament and the Big Sky Tournament. I may actually decide to make the 2 hour ride up to Connecticut to see Robert Morris take on Quinnipiac for the NEC Title. Monmouth plays in the NEC. There's also plenty of other games going on with the second round of the Big East Tournament, the First Round of the Big 12, and more. Here's my record so far.
5-1 America East(Up to Semis)
4-3 Atlantic Sun
2-2 Atlantic 10 First Round
2-2 Big East First Round
2-2 Big Sky(Up to Semis)
4-3 Big South
8-3 Colonial Athletic Association
5-4 Horizon League
7-2 Metro Atlantic
4-0 Mid-American First Round
2-0 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference First Round
6-3 Missouri Valley
4-2 Northeast(Up to Semis)
4-3 Ohio Valley
5-1 Patriot League(Up to Semis)
9-2 Southern Conference
7-0 Summit League
8-4 Sun Belt
5-2 West Coast
10-5 in last nights games
93-39 Overall
Now onto my predictions for today.
Big East Second Round
#8 Georgetown over #9 South Florida
#5 Marquette over #13 St. John's
#10 Seton Hall over #7 Notre Dame
#6 Louisville over #11 Cincinnati
Big Sky Championship
#1 Weber State over #4 Montana-Weber State finished 3 games better than Montana in Conference play. They score 7 more points per game than Montana, but also let up 9 points more than Montana on average. They also have very balanced scoring whihc is why I think they'll be tough to stop. They have Damian Lillard averaging 20 a game, but then have Steve Panos and Franklin Session who also average 11. Then they have 3 more players who average 9,9 and 8. So they have several guys capable of stepping up in a big spot. I expect Weber States prolific offense to make a difference this game and think they'll be going dancing for the first time in a while.
Big 12 First Round
#9 Texas Tech over #8 Colorado
#5 Missouri over #12 Nebraska
#7 Oklahoma State over #10 Oklahoma
#6 Texas over #11 Iowa State
Big West First Round
#5 Cal State Fullerton over #8 Cal State Northridge
#6 Cal Poly over #7 UC Irvine
Conference USA First Round
#7 Houston over #10 East Carolina
#6 Southern Miss over #11 Tulane
#5 Tulsa over #12 Rice
#9 UCF over #8 Southern Methodist
Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference First Round/Quarterfinals
#6 Maryland-Eastern Shore over #11 Coppin State
#1 Morgan State over #9 North Carolina A&T
#2 Delaware State over #7 Bethune-Cookman
Mountain West First Round
#8 Wyoming over #9 Air Force
Northeast Conference Championship
#1 Quinnipiac over #2 Robert Morris-As someone who follows this league pretty closely, Quinnipiac to me clearly seems like a better team than Robert Morris. Between Justin Rutty James Feldeine and James Johnson, they have about 45 points of scoring just there alone. To me, as shown in last year's NEC Championship in which RMU won 50-48, they look offensively challenged at times and look compalcent. I've noticed too that they get off to sluggish starts and come on strong in the second half. Quinnipiac can't allow that to happen tonight. While I like Robert Morris's defense a lot, I suspect that they will have trouble scoring in big spots while Quinnipiac will be able to rely on one of those 3 players I mentioned to help carry the team. They've been the best team in the NEC pretty much all season long. They are an undefeated 14-0 at home. It's really really hard to go against them in this spot. They haven't played particularly great over the last 2 games and still got by even with Monmouth giving them their best shot as well as LIU giving them a hell of a game too. I think they win a 5 point game or so tonight.
Pac-10 First Round
#8 Oregon over #9 Washington State
Southland Conference First Round
#2 Stephen F. Austin over #7 Texas-Arlington
#3 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi over #6 Texas-San Antonio
#1 Sam Houston State over #8 Nicholls State
#5 Texas State over #4 Southeastern-Louisiana
SWAC Tournament First Round
#2 Arkansas Pine-Bluff over #7 Mississippi Valley State
#1 Jackson State over #8 Grambling
Those are all my predictions for today. If you read yesterday's blog, obviously today there's a considerable amount more of games. These first round of games are alright but my favorite round really start tomorrow, particularly in the Big East. Tomorrow we could have Georgetown-Syracuse, Marquette-Villanova, Pittsburgh-Notre Dame, and Louisville-West Virginia, so there's some really great matchups up ahead in the near future. We'll have to see who advances first today before we start talking about tomorrow's games, but on paper they all look promising. I'll be back tomorrow to give my picks for more sectional finals games, including St. Anthony's-Paterson Catholic as well as more conference tournament picks.
43-16 in Group I games
51-9 in Group II games
42-18 in Group III games
44-16 in Group IV games
16-7 in Non-Public A games
18-3 in Non-Public B games
6-3 in last nights games
214-69 overall
Here are my predictions for tonight.
North I vs. North II, Group I
#1 University-15.5 over #2 Cresskill
Central vs. South, Group I
#1 Woodbury-8.5 over #3 Asbury Park
North I vs. North II, Group III
#1 Mendham-2.5 over #2 Old Tappan
Central vs. South, Group III
#5 Lakewood+4 over #1 Kingsway
Non-Public A South
#1 Camden Catholic-10.5 over #7 St, Augustine
There's 2 championships decided tonight in the Northeast Tournament and the Big Sky Tournament. I may actually decide to make the 2 hour ride up to Connecticut to see Robert Morris take on Quinnipiac for the NEC Title. Monmouth plays in the NEC. There's also plenty of other games going on with the second round of the Big East Tournament, the First Round of the Big 12, and more. Here's my record so far.
5-1 America East(Up to Semis)
4-3 Atlantic Sun
2-2 Atlantic 10 First Round
2-2 Big East First Round
2-2 Big Sky(Up to Semis)
4-3 Big South
8-3 Colonial Athletic Association
5-4 Horizon League
7-2 Metro Atlantic
4-0 Mid-American First Round
2-0 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference First Round
6-3 Missouri Valley
4-2 Northeast(Up to Semis)
4-3 Ohio Valley
5-1 Patriot League(Up to Semis)
9-2 Southern Conference
7-0 Summit League
8-4 Sun Belt
5-2 West Coast
10-5 in last nights games
93-39 Overall
Now onto my predictions for today.
Big East Second Round
#8 Georgetown over #9 South Florida
#5 Marquette over #13 St. John's
#10 Seton Hall over #7 Notre Dame
#6 Louisville over #11 Cincinnati
Big Sky Championship
#1 Weber State over #4 Montana-Weber State finished 3 games better than Montana in Conference play. They score 7 more points per game than Montana, but also let up 9 points more than Montana on average. They also have very balanced scoring whihc is why I think they'll be tough to stop. They have Damian Lillard averaging 20 a game, but then have Steve Panos and Franklin Session who also average 11. Then they have 3 more players who average 9,9 and 8. So they have several guys capable of stepping up in a big spot. I expect Weber States prolific offense to make a difference this game and think they'll be going dancing for the first time in a while.
Big 12 First Round
#9 Texas Tech over #8 Colorado
#5 Missouri over #12 Nebraska
#7 Oklahoma State over #10 Oklahoma
#6 Texas over #11 Iowa State
Big West First Round
#5 Cal State Fullerton over #8 Cal State Northridge
#6 Cal Poly over #7 UC Irvine
Conference USA First Round
#7 Houston over #10 East Carolina
#6 Southern Miss over #11 Tulane
#5 Tulsa over #12 Rice
#9 UCF over #8 Southern Methodist
Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference First Round/Quarterfinals
#6 Maryland-Eastern Shore over #11 Coppin State
#1 Morgan State over #9 North Carolina A&T
#2 Delaware State over #7 Bethune-Cookman
Mountain West First Round
#8 Wyoming over #9 Air Force
Northeast Conference Championship
#1 Quinnipiac over #2 Robert Morris-As someone who follows this league pretty closely, Quinnipiac to me clearly seems like a better team than Robert Morris. Between Justin Rutty James Feldeine and James Johnson, they have about 45 points of scoring just there alone. To me, as shown in last year's NEC Championship in which RMU won 50-48, they look offensively challenged at times and look compalcent. I've noticed too that they get off to sluggish starts and come on strong in the second half. Quinnipiac can't allow that to happen tonight. While I like Robert Morris's defense a lot, I suspect that they will have trouble scoring in big spots while Quinnipiac will be able to rely on one of those 3 players I mentioned to help carry the team. They've been the best team in the NEC pretty much all season long. They are an undefeated 14-0 at home. It's really really hard to go against them in this spot. They haven't played particularly great over the last 2 games and still got by even with Monmouth giving them their best shot as well as LIU giving them a hell of a game too. I think they win a 5 point game or so tonight.
Pac-10 First Round
#8 Oregon over #9 Washington State
Southland Conference First Round
#2 Stephen F. Austin over #7 Texas-Arlington
#3 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi over #6 Texas-San Antonio
#1 Sam Houston State over #8 Nicholls State
#5 Texas State over #4 Southeastern-Louisiana
SWAC Tournament First Round
#2 Arkansas Pine-Bluff over #7 Mississippi Valley State
#1 Jackson State over #8 Grambling
Those are all my predictions for today. If you read yesterday's blog, obviously today there's a considerable amount more of games. These first round of games are alright but my favorite round really start tomorrow, particularly in the Big East. Tomorrow we could have Georgetown-Syracuse, Marquette-Villanova, Pittsburgh-Notre Dame, and Louisville-West Virginia, so there's some really great matchups up ahead in the near future. We'll have to see who advances first today before we start talking about tomorrow's games, but on paper they all look promising. I'll be back tomorrow to give my picks for more sectional finals games, including St. Anthony's-Paterson Catholic as well as more conference tournament picks.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Sectional Finals Predictions in Groups II, IV and Non-Public B, Conference Tournament Predictions
Last night was not a good night for me picking the state games but I did very well picking the conference tournament games, going 4-0 in the Championship games including my prediction of the St. Mary's Gaels upsetting Gonzaga in the West Coast Conference Championship game.
43-16 in Group I games
48-8 in Group II games
42-18 in Group III games
42-14 in Group IV games
16-7 in Non-Public A games
17-3 in Non-Public B games
5-7 in last nights games
208-66 overall
After tonight, the field will be down to 23 schools. Here are my picks for the 9 sectional finals tonight.
North I, Group II(Spreads according to Born Power Index)
#2 Indian Hills-5.5 over #8 Pequannock
North II, Group II
#15 Science Park-7.5 completes their Cinderella story with a sectional final when last year with the old rules they wouldn't even have made states. They win over #5 Garfield.
Central, Group II
#3 Shabazz-8.5 over #1 Willingboro
South, Group II
#1 Collingswood-11.5 over #2 Haddon Heights
North I, Group IV
#9 East Orange-9 over #2 Paterson Kennedy
North II, Group IV
#1 Plainfield-8 over #2 Hillsborough
Central, Group IV
#11 North Brunswick+5 over #4 Montgomery
South, Group IV
#2 Shawnee+5.5 over #1 Cherokee
Non-Public South B
#1 Trenton Catholic-16 over #2 Cardinal McCarrick
There's 3 championship games being decided in NCAA basketball tonight in the Horizon League, Summit League and the Sun Belt Conference. There's also Big East Tournament action tipping off at noon today so we really are starting to get into the thick of the Conference Tournaments now. But first, here's how I'm doing so far.
5-1 America East(Up to Semis)
4-3 Atlantic Sun
1-1 Big Sky First Round
4-3 Big South
8-3 Colonial Athletic Association
4-4 Horizon League(Up to Semis)
7-2 Metro Atlantic
4-0 Mid-American First Round
6-3 Missouri Valley
4-2 Northeast(Up to Semis)
4-3 Ohio Valley
5-1 Patriot League(Up to Semis)
9-2 Southern Conference
6-0 Summit League(Up to Semis)
7-4 Sun Belt(Up to Semis)
5-2 West Coast
7-1 in last nights games
83-34 Overall
Now onto my predictions for today.
Atlantic 10 First Round
#9 Duquesne over #8 St. Bonaventure
#5 Rhode Island over #12 Saint Joseph's
#7 Dayton over #10 George Washington
#6 Charlotte over #11 Massachusetts
Big East First Round
#9 South Florida over #16 DePaul
#12 Connecticut over #13 St. John's (N.Y.)
#15 Providence over #10 Seton Hall
#11 Cincinnati over #14 Rutgers
Big Sky Semifinals
#2 Northern Colorado over #4 Montana
#1 Weber State over #6 Portland State
Horizon League Championship
#1 Butler over #2 Wright State-Butler was upset in this game last year against a very talented Cleveland State team who actually made the 2nd round as a 13 seed. Don't expect it to happen agian this year. I don't think Wright State's as good as that team and this year's Butler's team is much, much better. They will win convincingly tonight capping off an undefeated season in the Horizon League.
Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference First Round
#7 Bethune-Cookman over #10 Florida A&M
#9 North Carolina A&T over #8 Howard
Summit League Championship
#1 Oakland over #2 IUPUI-These two along with Oral Roberts have really been models of consistency for the Summit League. I can't remember the last time one of those 3 weren't the team to capture the League's NCAA bid. I feel this year Oakland is a stronger team and they're usually taller than IUPUI. Outide of George Hill, IUPUI's usually not as good as Oakland in the post and Oakland plays a little better defense so I'm gonna take them to capture the leagues bid tonight.
Sun Belt Championship
#2 North Texas over #1 Troy-Troy was an underdog last night to #4 Western Kentucky and won, there hasn't been a real surprise yet in this tournament. The #9 and #10 seeds won first round games and the #6 seed took out the #3, but that's it. I suspect that this will be a very close spread, but I'm gonna go with my gut on this one and take the Mean Green. I don't know much about either team cause they're not televised much and they don't have much history either in basketball because usually WKU over Louisiana Lafayette makes the NCAA's instead. It's refreshing to see a new team make the field and I think that's going to be North Texas after tonight.
Games of the Day
High School State Tournament
Group II-#3 Shabazz @ #1 Willingboro
Group IV-#11 North Brunswick #4 Montgomery
Group IV-#2 Shawnee @ #1 Cherokee
College
Summit League Championship-#1 Oakland vs. #2 IUPUI
Sun Belt Championship-#1 Troy vs. #2 North Texas
Big East First Round-#12 Connecticut vs. #13 St. John's
So those are my predictions for today. A lot of the major conference tournaments start action tomorrow so it'll be interesting to see what happens and in the Big East, of course it starts today. Hopefully the games will be good today even though they're teams in the bottom half of the league but nonetheless, its still pretty good ball as long as you're not watching Rutgers or Depaul play haha. There's also 5 high school games tomorrow to pick so I'll be back tomorrow with more picks and predictions.
43-16 in Group I games
48-8 in Group II games
42-18 in Group III games
42-14 in Group IV games
16-7 in Non-Public A games
17-3 in Non-Public B games
5-7 in last nights games
208-66 overall
After tonight, the field will be down to 23 schools. Here are my picks for the 9 sectional finals tonight.
North I, Group II(Spreads according to Born Power Index)
#2 Indian Hills-5.5 over #8 Pequannock
North II, Group II
#15 Science Park-7.5 completes their Cinderella story with a sectional final when last year with the old rules they wouldn't even have made states. They win over #5 Garfield.
Central, Group II
#3 Shabazz-8.5 over #1 Willingboro
South, Group II
#1 Collingswood-11.5 over #2 Haddon Heights
North I, Group IV
#9 East Orange-9 over #2 Paterson Kennedy
North II, Group IV
#1 Plainfield-8 over #2 Hillsborough
Central, Group IV
#11 North Brunswick+5 over #4 Montgomery
South, Group IV
#2 Shawnee+5.5 over #1 Cherokee
Non-Public South B
#1 Trenton Catholic-16 over #2 Cardinal McCarrick
There's 3 championship games being decided in NCAA basketball tonight in the Horizon League, Summit League and the Sun Belt Conference. There's also Big East Tournament action tipping off at noon today so we really are starting to get into the thick of the Conference Tournaments now. But first, here's how I'm doing so far.
5-1 America East(Up to Semis)
4-3 Atlantic Sun
1-1 Big Sky First Round
4-3 Big South
8-3 Colonial Athletic Association
4-4 Horizon League(Up to Semis)
7-2 Metro Atlantic
4-0 Mid-American First Round
6-3 Missouri Valley
4-2 Northeast(Up to Semis)
4-3 Ohio Valley
5-1 Patriot League(Up to Semis)
9-2 Southern Conference
6-0 Summit League(Up to Semis)
7-4 Sun Belt(Up to Semis)
5-2 West Coast
7-1 in last nights games
83-34 Overall
Now onto my predictions for today.
Atlantic 10 First Round
#9 Duquesne over #8 St. Bonaventure
#5 Rhode Island over #12 Saint Joseph's
#7 Dayton over #10 George Washington
#6 Charlotte over #11 Massachusetts
Big East First Round
#9 South Florida over #16 DePaul
#12 Connecticut over #13 St. John's (N.Y.)
#15 Providence over #10 Seton Hall
#11 Cincinnati over #14 Rutgers
Big Sky Semifinals
#2 Northern Colorado over #4 Montana
#1 Weber State over #6 Portland State
Horizon League Championship
#1 Butler over #2 Wright State-Butler was upset in this game last year against a very talented Cleveland State team who actually made the 2nd round as a 13 seed. Don't expect it to happen agian this year. I don't think Wright State's as good as that team and this year's Butler's team is much, much better. They will win convincingly tonight capping off an undefeated season in the Horizon League.
Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference First Round
#7 Bethune-Cookman over #10 Florida A&M
#9 North Carolina A&T over #8 Howard
Summit League Championship
#1 Oakland over #2 IUPUI-These two along with Oral Roberts have really been models of consistency for the Summit League. I can't remember the last time one of those 3 weren't the team to capture the League's NCAA bid. I feel this year Oakland is a stronger team and they're usually taller than IUPUI. Outide of George Hill, IUPUI's usually not as good as Oakland in the post and Oakland plays a little better defense so I'm gonna take them to capture the leagues bid tonight.
Sun Belt Championship
#2 North Texas over #1 Troy-Troy was an underdog last night to #4 Western Kentucky and won, there hasn't been a real surprise yet in this tournament. The #9 and #10 seeds won first round games and the #6 seed took out the #3, but that's it. I suspect that this will be a very close spread, but I'm gonna go with my gut on this one and take the Mean Green. I don't know much about either team cause they're not televised much and they don't have much history either in basketball because usually WKU over Louisiana Lafayette makes the NCAA's instead. It's refreshing to see a new team make the field and I think that's going to be North Texas after tonight.
Games of the Day
High School State Tournament
Group II-#3 Shabazz @ #1 Willingboro
Group IV-#11 North Brunswick #4 Montgomery
Group IV-#2 Shawnee @ #1 Cherokee
College
Summit League Championship-#1 Oakland vs. #2 IUPUI
Sun Belt Championship-#1 Troy vs. #2 North Texas
Big East First Round-#12 Connecticut vs. #13 St. John's
So those are my predictions for today. A lot of the major conference tournaments start action tomorrow so it'll be interesting to see what happens and in the Big East, of course it starts today. Hopefully the games will be good today even though they're teams in the bottom half of the league but nonetheless, its still pretty good ball as long as you're not watching Rutgers or Depaul play haha. There's also 5 high school games tomorrow to pick so I'll be back tomorrow with more picks and predictions.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Sectional Finals Predictions in Groups I and III and Sectional Semifinals Predictions in Non-Public A, Conference Tournament Predictions
Tonight is one of the most exciting nights of basketball in the state tournament because teams all over the state are playing for a sectional title tonight and the right to move on to play in the state semifinal. There's a lot of close matchups as well as a couple rivalries. All in all, there's 12 games tonight, 4 sectional finals in I and III each then 2 semifinals each in North A and South A. The game of the night in each section in my opinion are: Newark Central @ Newark University in Group I, Neptune @ Lakewood in Group III, and St. Joe's @ Camden Catholic in Non-Public A. After tonight, the field will be dwindled down from 44 to 32. By the end of Sunday, we'll be down to the 6 teams that make up the TOC, but there's a lot of ball to be played till then. Here's my record through the first week of the tournament.
42-13 in Group I games
48-8 in Group II games
40-16 in Group III games
42-14 in Group IV games
14-5 in Non-Public A games
17-3 in Non-Public B games
203-59 overall
Here are my picks for tonight's games.
North I, Group I(Spreads according to Born Power Index)
#1 Boonton-1.5 over #2 Cresskill
North II, Group I
#3 Newark Central+3 over #1 Newark University
Central, Group I
#3 Asbury Park-10.5 over #1 South Hunterdon
South, Group I
#5 Point Pleasant Beach+0.5 over #7 Woodbury
North I, Group III(Spreads according to Born Power Index)
#4 Teaneck-9.5 over #2 Old Tappan
North II, Group III
#2 MillburnPK over #1 Mendham
Central, Group III
#5 Lakewood-1 over #7 Neptune
South, Group III
#1 Kingsway-12 over #3 Point Pleasant Boro
Non-Public A
#1 Seton Hall Prep-6 over #4 Paramus Catholic
#3 St. Peter's Prep-14.5 over #10 Don Bosco Prep
#4 St. Joe's(Metuchen)+4 over #1 Camden Catholic
#6 Bishop Eustace-2.5 over #7 St. Augustine
Now, onto my college predictions for tonight. There are 4 championship games being held in the Colonial, MAAC, Southern and West Coast conferences in addition to several other tournaments. Here's how I'm doing so far.
5-1 America East(Up to Semis)
4-3 Atlantic Sun
1-1 Big Sky First Round
4-3 Big South
7-3 Colonial Athletic Association(Up to Semis)
4-4 Horizon League(Up to Semis)
6-2 Metro Atlantic(Up to Semis)
4-0 Mid-American First Round
6-3 Missouri Valley
4-2 Northeast(Up to Semis)
4-3 Ohio Valley
5-1 Patriot League(Up to Semis)
8-2 Southern Conference(Up to Semis)
4-0 Summit League Quarterfinals
6-3 Sun Belt Quarterfinals
4-2 West Coast(Up to Semis)
19-6 in last nights games
76-33 Overall
Now onto my predictions for tonight.
Colonial Athletic Association Championship
#1 Old Dominion over #3 William & Mary-Don't know much about either team, but Old Dominion has a little more experience than William & Mary. They also underachieved last year in the CAA Tournament and expect them to reverse their fortune tonight and clinch a NCAA Tournament berth.
Metro Atlantic Championship
#1 Siena over #2 Fairfield-Siena's just been so dominant in this spot over the last couple years. They're clearly the most talented team in the MAAC. Fairfield isn't used to being in this spot. This game's also played at the Times Union Center in Albany, which is where Siena plays all their regular season home games so it's a big advantage to them.
Southern Conference Championship
#1S Wofford over #1N Appalachian State-Wofford got a big break here by Appalachian State taking out their archrival College of Charleston. I think Wofford-Charleston would've been a much closer game. Wofford has been the best team in the Southern Conference all season long and the top 2 teams in the South are much better than the top 2 teams in the North. I think Wofford wins comfortably.
Summit League Semifinals
#1 Oakland over #5 IPFW
#2 IUPUI over #3 Oral Roberts
Sun Belt Semifinals
#1 Troy over #4 WKU
#6 Denver over #2 North Texas
West Coast Conference Championship
#2 Saint Mary's over #1 Gonzaga-This is always one of the hardest conference championships to figure out because as long as I can remember, Gonzaga has always bee good enough to get into the tournament even if they were to lose this game. Some years Gonzaga is more motivated to win this game than others. Regardless, they're going to be in the NCAA Tournament. Saint Mary's probably woudn't be. However, there are some other years where Gonzaga seems extra motivated to prove they're the best team in the West Coast Conference, which they undeniably are and have been basically ever since the mid-90s. Some years Gonzaga just wins on talent alone and while I think this Bulldog teams very good, I don't think it's the best one we've seen. I think this St. Mary's team is one of the their best teams we've seen recently. I just have a feeling on this one and I think we'll be looking for St. Mary's to steal the first bid from one of the bubble teams.
42-13 in Group I games
48-8 in Group II games
40-16 in Group III games
42-14 in Group IV games
14-5 in Non-Public A games
17-3 in Non-Public B games
203-59 overall
Here are my picks for tonight's games.
North I, Group I(Spreads according to Born Power Index)
#1 Boonton-1.5 over #2 Cresskill
North II, Group I
#3 Newark Central+3 over #1 Newark University
Central, Group I
#3 Asbury Park-10.5 over #1 South Hunterdon
South, Group I
#5 Point Pleasant Beach+0.5 over #7 Woodbury
North I, Group III(Spreads according to Born Power Index)
#4 Teaneck-9.5 over #2 Old Tappan
North II, Group III
#2 MillburnPK over #1 Mendham
Central, Group III
#5 Lakewood-1 over #7 Neptune
South, Group III
#1 Kingsway-12 over #3 Point Pleasant Boro
Non-Public A
#1 Seton Hall Prep-6 over #4 Paramus Catholic
#3 St. Peter's Prep-14.5 over #10 Don Bosco Prep
#4 St. Joe's(Metuchen)+4 over #1 Camden Catholic
#6 Bishop Eustace-2.5 over #7 St. Augustine
Now, onto my college predictions for tonight. There are 4 championship games being held in the Colonial, MAAC, Southern and West Coast conferences in addition to several other tournaments. Here's how I'm doing so far.
5-1 America East(Up to Semis)
4-3 Atlantic Sun
1-1 Big Sky First Round
4-3 Big South
7-3 Colonial Athletic Association(Up to Semis)
4-4 Horizon League(Up to Semis)
6-2 Metro Atlantic(Up to Semis)
4-0 Mid-American First Round
6-3 Missouri Valley
4-2 Northeast(Up to Semis)
4-3 Ohio Valley
5-1 Patriot League(Up to Semis)
8-2 Southern Conference(Up to Semis)
4-0 Summit League Quarterfinals
6-3 Sun Belt Quarterfinals
4-2 West Coast(Up to Semis)
19-6 in last nights games
76-33 Overall
Now onto my predictions for tonight.
Colonial Athletic Association Championship
#1 Old Dominion over #3 William & Mary-Don't know much about either team, but Old Dominion has a little more experience than William & Mary. They also underachieved last year in the CAA Tournament and expect them to reverse their fortune tonight and clinch a NCAA Tournament berth.
Metro Atlantic Championship
#1 Siena over #2 Fairfield-Siena's just been so dominant in this spot over the last couple years. They're clearly the most talented team in the MAAC. Fairfield isn't used to being in this spot. This game's also played at the Times Union Center in Albany, which is where Siena plays all their regular season home games so it's a big advantage to them.
Southern Conference Championship
#1S Wofford over #1N Appalachian State-Wofford got a big break here by Appalachian State taking out their archrival College of Charleston. I think Wofford-Charleston would've been a much closer game. Wofford has been the best team in the Southern Conference all season long and the top 2 teams in the South are much better than the top 2 teams in the North. I think Wofford wins comfortably.
Summit League Semifinals
#1 Oakland over #5 IPFW
#2 IUPUI over #3 Oral Roberts
Sun Belt Semifinals
#1 Troy over #4 WKU
#6 Denver over #2 North Texas
West Coast Conference Championship
#2 Saint Mary's over #1 Gonzaga-This is always one of the hardest conference championships to figure out because as long as I can remember, Gonzaga has always bee good enough to get into the tournament even if they were to lose this game. Some years Gonzaga is more motivated to win this game than others. Regardless, they're going to be in the NCAA Tournament. Saint Mary's probably woudn't be. However, there are some other years where Gonzaga seems extra motivated to prove they're the best team in the West Coast Conference, which they undeniably are and have been basically ever since the mid-90s. Some years Gonzaga just wins on talent alone and while I think this Bulldog teams very good, I don't think it's the best one we've seen. I think this St. Mary's team is one of the their best teams we've seen recently. I just have a feeling on this one and I think we'll be looking for St. Mary's to steal the first bid from one of the bubble teams.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Thoughts on the Cardinal McCarrick/Gloucester Catholic Game and Conference Tournament Picks
As I made mention yesterday, the field of 64 has now been dwindled down to 44 teams going into the second week of the tournament. I wound up going to 2 games yesterday. The 1:00 Cherokee-Lenape game was sold out, but fortunately, Shawnee-Atlantic City was tipping off at the same time up the road in Medford. I was very impressed by Shawnee. They have the height, scoring and experience to claim a group IV title and perhaps even more. The second game I went to as a fan/support of the GMC and that was Cardinal McCarrick-Gloucester Catholic over in Gloucester City. As someone whose followed basketball for the past 12 years or so, that had to be one of the worst officiated games I've ever seen. The calls were about 35-2 in favor of Gloucester Catholic. They called jump balls which screwed McCarrick over way too quickly but when GC had the ball they took longer to call the jump balls. They walked a lot and there probably wasn't more than only 3 or 4 walks called against GC. The foul discrepancy was also pretty lopsided. The gym also was the biggest piece of shit I've ever seen for a high school gym. On both sides of the court, there was 4 rows of bleachers which were right on top of the court and on the left side was the student bleachers which were pretty big. Their fans were good and had several clever chants, to their credit. On the opposite side of them was the stage. But it was a piece of crap gym. This team has proven time and time again that they can't win without the help of the referees being highly beneficial to them. As I put it to the guy sitting next to me, the game we were watching yesterday wasn't basketball, it was bullshit. GC plays this stupid ass rope-a-dope game like most of these Gloucester County schools and rely on the horrendous reffing to try to win these absurdly low scoring games. McCarrick is a high scoring team. Then tell me why they mustered up 23 points in 3 quarters against a mediocre team? Obviously, reffing plays heavily into that. If the reffing was balanced yesterday, McCarrick would've won by about 30. What bothered me even more is the stupid fuck who was runnng the clock. Never have I seen a more egregious timer, nor may I ever see a more error-prone timer and it was more than bad, it was despicable what he did plain and simple. I was looking at the scoreboard yesterday and saw the score 12-2 and I'm thinking wow McCarrick's gotten off to a pretty impressive start. Then I look back a couple minutes later after a McCarrick parent turns back to me and says wasn't it just 12 a minute ago and I say to him yeah you're definitely right. They deducted 4 points off McCarrick's score which is a joke and really pissed me off as to how far this team had to go to try to win this game. They fucking cheated. Never should you have to go to that level. Period. And that was administrators or parents running the timer. What the hell is that teaching the kids? That's wrong, bottom line. The parent in front of me was really riding the refs the whole game and was really making a big deal about the timer, so much that he almost got thrown out, but he was right, say it was a close game and McCarrick lost by 3 or less, it would've been because of those stupid cheaters. At the end of the third was when I got heated at the scorekeeper. Kid inbounded the ball with 8 seconds left, crosses half court with 5 seconds left dribbles to the left, 2 more dribbles, shoots a 3 with about 2.5 seconds left no good. All of a sudden, a kid gets the rebound from Gloucester 5 seconds later and puts the ball up and in. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? HOW MUCH MORE OBVIOUS DO YOU WANT IT TO BE THAT THEY'RE CHEATING? That team's a joke and as I said before can't win without the help of the refs and I'm sure that's what happened when we played a couple years ago. I hope St. Joe's gets a second crack at them some point down the road becaue it'll get ugly, especially if we play them at our place. McCarrick still won convincingly but you know how bad the reffing was when I'm still writing about it to this length. The winner was going to have a whale of a game vs. Trenton Catholic so either way they're facing a daunting task so we'll see what happens. It'd be nice if McCarrick faced St. Anthony or Paterson Catholic for the B title.
On to my records for yesterday.
42-13 in Group I games
48-8 in Group II games
40-16 in Group III games
42-14 in Group IV games
14-5 in Non-Public A games
17-3 in Non-Public B games
18-2 in last nights games
203-59 overall
It's an off day for the State Tournament, tomrrow I'll be back with my sectional final predictions for Groups I and III, as well as my sectional semifinal predictions in Non-Public A. The field will be dwindled down from 44 to 32 teams after tomorrow.
For now, here's my college basketball predictions record and my picks for today's games.
4-0 America East Quarterfinals
4-3 Atlantic Sun
1-1 Big Sky First Round
4-3 Big South
5-3 Colonial Athletic Association Quarterfinals
4-4 Horizon League(Up to Semis)
5-1 Metro Atlantic Quarterfinals
6-2 Missouri Valley(Up to Semis)
2-2 Northeast Quarterfinals
4-3 Ohio Valley
3-1 Patriot League Quarterfinals
7-1 Southern Conference Quarterfinals
2-0 Summit League Quarterfinals
3-2 Sun Belt First Round
3-1 West Coast Quarterfinals
27-7 in last nights games
57-27 Overall
Onto my predictions for today. There's a lot of semifinal action going on across low-major and mid-major conferences and there's actually a couple of those games on TV such as American-Lehigh tonight at 8 on CBS College Sports, so it's a great opportunity to see some teams you don't get to see often and a lot of those times they are very exciting games.
America East Semifinals
#1 Stony Brook over #4 Boston U.
#2 Vermont over #6 New Hampshire
Colonial Athletic Association Semifinals
#1 Old Dominion over #5 VCU
#3 William & Mary over #2 Northeastern
Metro Atlantic Semifinals
#1 Siena over #5 Rider
#6 Niagara over #2 Fairfield
Mid-American First Round
#9 Ohio over #8 Ball State
#5 Buffalo over #12 Toledo
#7 Western Michigan over #10 Bowling Green
#6 Eastern Michigan over #11 Northern Illinois
Missouri Valley Championship
#2 Wichita State over #1 Northern Iowa
Northeast Conference Semifinals
#1 Quinnipiac over #4 Long Island
#2 Robert Morris over #3 Mount St. Mary's
Patriot League Semifinals
#1 Lehigh over #4 American
#3 Lafayette over #7 Holy Cross
Southern Conference Semifinals
#1S Wofford over #2N Western Carolina
#2S College of Charleston over #1N Appalachian State
Summit League Quarterfinals
#5 IPFW over #4 South Dakota State
#3 Oral Roberts ovr #6 North Dakota State
Sun Belt Quarterfinals
#1 Troy over #9 South Alabama
#4 Western Kentucky over #5 Arkansas State
#3 Middle Tennessee State over #6 Denver
#2 North Texas over #10 Louisiana-Monroe
West Coast Semifinals
#1 Gonzaga over #5 Loyola-Marymount
#3 Portland over #2 Saint Mary's
So there's all my picks tonight. My games to watch for today are the Missouri Valley Championship which should be a great one. I think Mount St. Mary's-Robert Morris is also on TV so that should be fun to watch as well and also some late night action over on the west coast with Portland playing St. Mary's at around 11 on the East Coast which should keep some people up watching that game. Should be a great day for ball and I'll be back tomorrow to pick some conference championship games over in the Colonial, MAAC, Southern and West Coast Conferences.
On to my records for yesterday.
42-13 in Group I games
48-8 in Group II games
40-16 in Group III games
42-14 in Group IV games
14-5 in Non-Public A games
17-3 in Non-Public B games
18-2 in last nights games
203-59 overall
It's an off day for the State Tournament, tomrrow I'll be back with my sectional final predictions for Groups I and III, as well as my sectional semifinal predictions in Non-Public A. The field will be dwindled down from 44 to 32 teams after tomorrow.
For now, here's my college basketball predictions record and my picks for today's games.
4-0 America East Quarterfinals
4-3 Atlantic Sun
1-1 Big Sky First Round
4-3 Big South
5-3 Colonial Athletic Association Quarterfinals
4-4 Horizon League(Up to Semis)
5-1 Metro Atlantic Quarterfinals
6-2 Missouri Valley(Up to Semis)
2-2 Northeast Quarterfinals
4-3 Ohio Valley
3-1 Patriot League Quarterfinals
7-1 Southern Conference Quarterfinals
2-0 Summit League Quarterfinals
3-2 Sun Belt First Round
3-1 West Coast Quarterfinals
27-7 in last nights games
57-27 Overall
Onto my predictions for today. There's a lot of semifinal action going on across low-major and mid-major conferences and there's actually a couple of those games on TV such as American-Lehigh tonight at 8 on CBS College Sports, so it's a great opportunity to see some teams you don't get to see often and a lot of those times they are very exciting games.
America East Semifinals
#1 Stony Brook over #4 Boston U.
#2 Vermont over #6 New Hampshire
Colonial Athletic Association Semifinals
#1 Old Dominion over #5 VCU
#3 William & Mary over #2 Northeastern
Metro Atlantic Semifinals
#1 Siena over #5 Rider
#6 Niagara over #2 Fairfield
Mid-American First Round
#9 Ohio over #8 Ball State
#5 Buffalo over #12 Toledo
#7 Western Michigan over #10 Bowling Green
#6 Eastern Michigan over #11 Northern Illinois
Missouri Valley Championship
#2 Wichita State over #1 Northern Iowa
Northeast Conference Semifinals
#1 Quinnipiac over #4 Long Island
#2 Robert Morris over #3 Mount St. Mary's
Patriot League Semifinals
#1 Lehigh over #4 American
#3 Lafayette over #7 Holy Cross
Southern Conference Semifinals
#1S Wofford over #2N Western Carolina
#2S College of Charleston over #1N Appalachian State
Summit League Quarterfinals
#5 IPFW over #4 South Dakota State
#3 Oral Roberts ovr #6 North Dakota State
Sun Belt Quarterfinals
#1 Troy over #9 South Alabama
#4 Western Kentucky over #5 Arkansas State
#3 Middle Tennessee State over #6 Denver
#2 North Texas over #10 Louisiana-Monroe
West Coast Semifinals
#1 Gonzaga over #5 Loyola-Marymount
#3 Portland over #2 Saint Mary's
So there's all my picks tonight. My games to watch for today are the Missouri Valley Championship which should be a great one. I think Mount St. Mary's-Robert Morris is also on TV so that should be fun to watch as well and also some late night action over on the west coast with Portland playing St. Mary's at around 11 on the East Coast which should keep some people up watching that game. Should be a great day for ball and I'll be back tomorrow to pick some conference championship games over in the Colonial, MAAC, Southern and West Coast Conferences.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Do you believe in miracles? YES!/Sectional Semifinals Predictions, Conference Tournament Picks
Well, it finally happened. In the most improbable of circumstances, St. Joe's defeated CBA by a final score of 60-49. It was a game almost no one thought we had a chance to win after sophomore forward Quenton Decosey was ruled out for disciplinary action. Many people thought we'd almost certainly lose by double digits, but we hung with them and played one of the best defensive games I've seen in the 6 years I've been associated with St. Joe's basketball. After being told the news that Quenton was not playing, I knew it'd be a little more difficult without him but knew we had more than a puncher's chance to win the game. If not for such a bad start last year, we would've had a great chance against them. I also believed that we got better and they got worse with the losses of 6'7 center Pat Light and their sharpshooter Brian Neller. After viewing tonight, I believe I was right. They're a little worse than the traditional CBA team, but nonetheless, an extremely formidable team who would give fits to nearly every team in the state of New Jersey. They simply were not as deep as their teams in the past and we did everything we had to do in order to win the game tonight. For the most part, we threw clean passes and found the open man when we were trapped and trying to get rid of the ball. We held the ball late without turning it over. We got the key rebounds late in the game. We showed as much grit tonight as the United States did against Canada in game 1 a couple weeks ago. CBA lost in a fashion I thought they would if they were to ever lose to us and that was tenacious defense by us guarding the three pointer and we had to get a little lucky with CBA at the line, who are consistently the best HS shooting team there. We were able to have both. CBA only made 4 threes the entire game to our 9 and they missed some free throws which would've allowed them to remain in the game. This is a hell of a win for St. Joe's and one of the best weeks they've had in a long time. It is certainly the best week in Coach Turco's tenure in capturing the GMC Title and beating their archrivals 5 days apart from each other. In this week he captured the GMC Coach of the Year and then showed it out of conference play tonight with a great defensive gameplan and solidified his place as one of the best coaches in NJ high school basketball. I'm damn proud of all this team's accomplished this year and how they completed both the goals I had coming in as scorekeeper 5 years ago which was to win a championship of some sort and also knock off CBA. At this point, why stop there? We are two away from the sectional title and three from the group title and a spot in the TOC. Camden Catholic is obviously going to be very tough, but if we play like we did tonight, we have a shot and that's all you can ask for when you're in a consistently tough bracket such as ours. All these public school teams have such a bullshit route to this far in the tournament. I like playing teams this good because it helps prepare you for the later stages of the tournament and NONE of these games are walks in the park. You have to come ready every game or you will get beat. That's why I find the parochial games particularly exciting because all the games are usually close and upsets do tend to happen. Should be a great game Monday and I think the winner there takes the section. Now onto my record for this evening.
42-13 in Group I games
42-6 in Group II games
40-16 in Group III games
34-14 in Group IV games
14-5 in Non-Public A games
13-3 in Non-Public B games
16-8 in last nights games
185-57 overall
Here's my picks for today. I'm blogging now since I plan on going to a couple games today and they start pretty early.
North I, Group II(Spreads according to Born Power Index)
#8 Pequannock-3.5 over #5 River Dell
#2 Indian Hills-1 over #3 Elmwood Park
North II, Group II
#8 Newark Tech-10 over #5 Garfield
#15 Science Park-11.5 over #6 Caldwell
Central, Group II
#5 ManasquanPK over #1 Willingboro
#3 Shabazz-17 over #7 Rumson
South, Group II
#1 Collingswood-8 over #5 Middle Twp.
# 2 Haddon Hgts.-9 over #11 Buena
North I, Group IV(Spreads according to Born Power Index)
#9 East Orange-8.5 over #13 Montclair
#2 Paterson Kennedy-5.5 over #6 Union City
North II, Group IV
#1 Plainfield-10.5 over #4 Ridge
#2 Hillsborough+7.5 over #6 Union
Central, Group IV
#4 Montgomery+2.5 over #8 Colts Neck
#11 North BrunswickPK over #10 Marlboro
South, Group IV
#1 Cherokee-2 over #12 Lenape
#2 Shawnee-6 over #6 Atlantic City
Non-Public B
#1 Paterson Catholic-31 over #13 St. Mary's (J.C.)
#2 St. Anthony-35 over #3 Montclair Kimberley
#1 Trenton Catholic-31.5 over #4 Mater Dei
#3 Cardinal McCarrick-5.5 over #2 Gloucester Catholic
Now onto my college predictions for tonight as there are many tournaments starting to get into full gear. Here are my records first as to how I'm doing through 4 nights of conference tournament games.
3-3 Atlantic Sun(Up to Semis)
4-2 Big South(Up to Semis)
2-2 Colonial Athletic Association Opening Round
2-4 Horizon League Second Round
2-0 Metro Atlantic Opening Round
4-2 Missouri Valley Quarterfinals
2-2 Northeast Quarterfinals
4-2 Ohio Valley(Up to Semis)
3-1 Patriot League Quarterfinals
3-1 Southern Conference Opening Round
1-1 West Coast First Round
14-8 in last nights games
30-20 Overall
Now onto today's games.
America East Quarterfinals
#1 Stony Brook over #8 Albany
#4 Boston over #5 Hartford
#2 Vermont over #7 UMBC
#6 New Hampshire over #3 Maine
Atlantic Sun Championship
#5 ETSU over #6 Mercer
Big Sky Conference First Round
#3 Montana State over #6 Portland State
#4 Montana over #5 Northern Arizona
Big South Championship
#1 Coastal Carolina BIG over #3 Winthrop
Colonial Athletic Association Quarterfinals
#1 Old Dominion over #8 Towson
#4 George Mason over #5 VCU
#2 Northeastern over #7 Hofstra
#3 William and Mary over #11 James Madison
Horizon League Semifinals
#2 Wright State over #7 Detroit
#1 Butler over #4 Milwaukee
Metro Atlantic Quarterfinals
#1 Siena over #9 Manhattan
#4 St. Peter's over #5 Rider
#2 Fairfield over #7 Canisius
#6 Niagara over #3 Iona
Missouri Valley Semifinals
#1 Northern Iowa over #5 Bradley
#2 Wichita State over #3 Illinois State
Ohio Valley Championship
#2 Morehead State over #1 Murray State
Southern Conference Quarterfinals
#2N Western Carolina over #6N Elon
#1S Wofford over #4N UNC-Greensboro
#1N Appalachian State over #4S The Citadel
#2S College of Charleston over #3N Chattanooga
Summit League Quarterfinals
#1 Oakland over #8 UMKC
#2 IUPUI over #7 Western Illinois
Sun Belt First Round
#9 South Alabama over #8 Florida Atlantic
#4 Western Kentucky over #13 New Orleans
#5 Arkansas State over #12 Arkansas-Little Rock
#11 Florida International over #6 Denver
#7 Louisiana-Lafayette over #10 Louisiana-Monroe
West Coast Quarterfinals
#5 Loyola Marymount over #4 San Francisco
#3 Portland over #6 San Diego
So there are my picks for today. It should be a great weekend for basketball. Mine's already gotten off to a good start with the triumphant win last night. Hopefully I'll get a chance to see some more great games over the course of this weekend, but I doubt any will beat the 5 OT game that Passaic Valley and Old Tappan played last night lol. The three games I plan on going to today are Cherokee-Lenape at 1, Cardinal McCarrick-Gloucester Catholic at 4 and Ridge-Plainfield at 7. They should all be great games and it will be interesting to see who's left standing after today when the field is dwindled down from 64 to 44 going into the second week of this years basketball tournament. Tomorrow will be an off-day for the state tournament, but I'll be back with more conference tournament picks with my prediction for the Missouri Valley Championship as well as my semifinal picks for the Patriot and West Coast Conferences and more.
42-13 in Group I games
42-6 in Group II games
40-16 in Group III games
34-14 in Group IV games
14-5 in Non-Public A games
13-3 in Non-Public B games
16-8 in last nights games
185-57 overall
Here's my picks for today. I'm blogging now since I plan on going to a couple games today and they start pretty early.
North I, Group II(Spreads according to Born Power Index)
#8 Pequannock-3.5 over #5 River Dell
#2 Indian Hills-1 over #3 Elmwood Park
North II, Group II
#8 Newark Tech-10 over #5 Garfield
#15 Science Park-11.5 over #6 Caldwell
Central, Group II
#5 ManasquanPK over #1 Willingboro
#3 Shabazz-17 over #7 Rumson
South, Group II
#1 Collingswood-8 over #5 Middle Twp.
# 2 Haddon Hgts.-9 over #11 Buena
North I, Group IV(Spreads according to Born Power Index)
#9 East Orange-8.5 over #13 Montclair
#2 Paterson Kennedy-5.5 over #6 Union City
North II, Group IV
#1 Plainfield-10.5 over #4 Ridge
#2 Hillsborough+7.5 over #6 Union
Central, Group IV
#4 Montgomery+2.5 over #8 Colts Neck
#11 North BrunswickPK over #10 Marlboro
South, Group IV
#1 Cherokee-2 over #12 Lenape
#2 Shawnee-6 over #6 Atlantic City
Non-Public B
#1 Paterson Catholic-31 over #13 St. Mary's (J.C.)
#2 St. Anthony-35 over #3 Montclair Kimberley
#1 Trenton Catholic-31.5 over #4 Mater Dei
#3 Cardinal McCarrick-5.5 over #2 Gloucester Catholic
Now onto my college predictions for tonight as there are many tournaments starting to get into full gear. Here are my records first as to how I'm doing through 4 nights of conference tournament games.
3-3 Atlantic Sun(Up to Semis)
4-2 Big South(Up to Semis)
2-2 Colonial Athletic Association Opening Round
2-4 Horizon League Second Round
2-0 Metro Atlantic Opening Round
4-2 Missouri Valley Quarterfinals
2-2 Northeast Quarterfinals
4-2 Ohio Valley(Up to Semis)
3-1 Patriot League Quarterfinals
3-1 Southern Conference Opening Round
1-1 West Coast First Round
14-8 in last nights games
30-20 Overall
Now onto today's games.
America East Quarterfinals
#1 Stony Brook over #8 Albany
#4 Boston over #5 Hartford
#2 Vermont over #7 UMBC
#6 New Hampshire over #3 Maine
Atlantic Sun Championship
#5 ETSU over #6 Mercer
Big Sky Conference First Round
#3 Montana State over #6 Portland State
#4 Montana over #5 Northern Arizona
Big South Championship
#1 Coastal Carolina BIG over #3 Winthrop
Colonial Athletic Association Quarterfinals
#1 Old Dominion over #8 Towson
#4 George Mason over #5 VCU
#2 Northeastern over #7 Hofstra
#3 William and Mary over #11 James Madison
Horizon League Semifinals
#2 Wright State over #7 Detroit
#1 Butler over #4 Milwaukee
Metro Atlantic Quarterfinals
#1 Siena over #9 Manhattan
#4 St. Peter's over #5 Rider
#2 Fairfield over #7 Canisius
#6 Niagara over #3 Iona
Missouri Valley Semifinals
#1 Northern Iowa over #5 Bradley
#2 Wichita State over #3 Illinois State
Ohio Valley Championship
#2 Morehead State over #1 Murray State
Southern Conference Quarterfinals
#2N Western Carolina over #6N Elon
#1S Wofford over #4N UNC-Greensboro
#1N Appalachian State over #4S The Citadel
#2S College of Charleston over #3N Chattanooga
Summit League Quarterfinals
#1 Oakland over #8 UMKC
#2 IUPUI over #7 Western Illinois
Sun Belt First Round
#9 South Alabama over #8 Florida Atlantic
#4 Western Kentucky over #13 New Orleans
#5 Arkansas State over #12 Arkansas-Little Rock
#11 Florida International over #6 Denver
#7 Louisiana-Lafayette over #10 Louisiana-Monroe
West Coast Quarterfinals
#5 Loyola Marymount over #4 San Francisco
#3 Portland over #6 San Diego
So there are my picks for today. It should be a great weekend for basketball. Mine's already gotten off to a good start with the triumphant win last night. Hopefully I'll get a chance to see some more great games over the course of this weekend, but I doubt any will beat the 5 OT game that Passaic Valley and Old Tappan played last night lol. The three games I plan on going to today are Cherokee-Lenape at 1, Cardinal McCarrick-Gloucester Catholic at 4 and Ridge-Plainfield at 7. They should all be great games and it will be interesting to see who's left standing after today when the field is dwindled down from 64 to 44 going into the second week of this years basketball tournament. Tomorrow will be an off-day for the state tournament, but I'll be back with more conference tournament picks with my prediction for the Missouri Valley Championship as well as my semifinal picks for the Patriot and West Coast Conferences and more.
Sectional Semifinal Predictions for Groups I and III, Quarterfinal Predictions for Non-Public A and Conference Tournament Predictions
Through the first 4 days of the state tournament, here's how I'm doing so far.
37-10 in Group I games
42-6 in Group II games
35-13 in Group III games
34-14 in Group IV games
8-3 in Non-Public A games
13-3 in Non-Public B games
28-12 in last nights games
169-49 overall
Not too bad of a night, but Group IV killed me going 7-9. There were a number of upsets, most of which i never saw coming. We are now starting to get into the best part of the tournament where the games are dwindling down and each game becomes more and more important. There's still a number of teams left who going in I'm sure most people though there's no way in hell they'd still be around. 14 seed Carteret, 15 seed Science Park, etc. Who'd have thought the 10 seed Marlboro would be getting a home game this late in the tournament vs. the 11 seed. Unbelievable developments so far and the plot should only thicken with the great set of games tonight with my high school probably having the marquee game of the night when the 10th best team in the state, St. Joe's Metuchen, takes on their archrival and team they haven't figured out as of late in the 8th ranked CBA Colts. There's 24 games tonight and here are my picks to each of them. They should all be very exciting games as many of which have been to this point.
North I, Group I(Spreads according to Born Power Index)
#1 Boonton-18 over #4 Wood-Ridge
#2 Cresskill-14.5 over #3 Palisades Park
North II, Group I
#1 University-12 over #4 Dayton
#3 Newark Central-31.5 over #7 Harrison
Central, Group I
#4 Metuchen-1 over #1 South Hunterdon
#3 Asbury Park-8 over #2 Academy Charter
South, Group I
#1 Pitman-1 over #5 Pt. Pleasant Beach
#6 Penns Grove-0.5 over #7 Woodbury
North I, Group III(Spreads according to Born Power Index)
#4 Teaneck-10.5 over #8 West Milford
#3 Passaic Valley-8 over #2 Old Tappan
North II, Group III
#4 Newark East Side-11.5 over #1 Mendham
#2 Millburn-8.5 over #14 Carteret
Central, Group III
#5 Lakewood-6 over #1 Freehold Borough
#7 Neptune-9 over #11 Ocean Twp.
South, Group III
#1 Kingsway-4 over #12 Moorestown
#2 Lower Cape May-9 over #3 Pt. Pleasant Boro
Non-Public A
#1 Seton Hall Prep-13.5 over #9 Bergen Catholic
#4 Paramus Catholic-11.5 over #12 Union Catholic
#3 St. Peter's Prep-20.5 over #6 DePaul
#2 St. Joe's (Montvale)+0.5 over #10 Don Bosco Prep
#1 Camden Catholic-12.5 over #8 Paul VI
#4 St. Joe's (Metuchen)+1 over #5 CBA
#6 Bishop Eustace-13 over #3 Bishop Ahr
#2 Monsignor Donovan+0.5 over #7 St. Augustine
Those are all my picks for tonight. I look for all the Non-Public A South games to be particularly exciting because they're all close matchups. PVI and CC are big rivals so the score may be closer than the spread indicates. Obviously, same goes for Joe's and CBA. Bishop Ahr has home court so you never know how they could do coming off a horrendous first round loss in the GMC's and then you have a battle of the better point guards in the state in Isaiah Morton and Zack Grennan in the MD-SA game and that one can surely go either way as well.
Now onto my college predictions for tonight as there are many tournaments starting to get into full gear. Here are my records first as to how I'm doing through 3 nights of conference tournament games.
2-2 Atlantic Sun Quarterfinals
4-2 Big South(Up to Semis)
2-2 Horizon League Opening Round
1-1 Missouri Valley Opening Round
2-2 Northeast Quarterfinals
2-2 Ohio Valley Quarterfinals
3-1 Patriot League Quarterfinals
4-4 in last nights games
16-12 Overall(Ouch lol)
Now onto tonight and today's(I can finally say that during a weekday lol, that's when you know tourney time's near. Colonial and Southern Conferences start at noon)
Atlantic Sun Semifinals
#5 East Tennessee State over #8 Kennesaw State
#2 Jacksonville over #6 Mercer
Colonial Athletic Association Opening Round
#9 UNC-Wilmington over #8 Towson
#5 VCU over #12 Delaware
#7 Hofstra over #10 Georgia State
#6 Drexel over #11 James Madison
Horizon League Second Round
#3 Green Bay over #7 Detroit
#5 Cleveland State over #4 Milwaukee
Metro Atlantic Opening Round
#9 Manhattan over #8 Loyola (MD)
#7 Canisius over #10 Marist
Missouri Valley Quarterfinals
#1 Northern Iowa over #8 Drake
#4 Creighton over #5 Bradley
#2 Wichita State over #7 Missouri State
#3 Illinois State over #6 Indiana State
Ohio Valley Semifinals
#1 Murray State over #4 Eastern Illinois
#2 Morehead State over #6 Tennessee Tech
Southern Conference Opening Round
#3S Davidson over #6N Elon
#5S Furman over #4N UNC-Greensboro
#4S The Citadel over #5N Samford
#3N Chattanooga over #6S Georgia Southern
West Coast First Round
#5 Loyola Marymount over #8 Pepperdine
#7 Santa Clara over #6 San Diego
So all in all, there's 22 games today and 22 teams whose season will end unless perhaps Northern Iowa if they were to go down today. I think your best bet today as a fan is to follow the CAA and Southern Conference tournaments. They are always hard fought and generally well-played exciting games. On an individual game level I would say Murray State-Eastern Illinois is probably the game of the day. Both teams are looking to get into the final. Murray State is about 29-4 which is very impressive for any school, let alone an OVC school. They're coming in against a scorching Eastern Illinois team. That should be a phenomonal game. The Ohio Valley Semifinals can be found on ESPNU. They start at 7 with Murray State-Eastern Illinois and follow with Tennessee Tech-Morehead State at 9. Hope everyone enjoys the games today and over the weekend. I'll be back tomorrow with more sectional semifinal picks as well as my conference tournament predictions. Tomorrow there are 3 tickets punched for the Big Dance in the Big South, Atlantic Sun and Ohio Valley Conference Championship games. Combine that with Duke-UNC and a couple other great games and it should be a hell of a weekend for college basketball.
37-10 in Group I games
42-6 in Group II games
35-13 in Group III games
34-14 in Group IV games
8-3 in Non-Public A games
13-3 in Non-Public B games
28-12 in last nights games
169-49 overall
Not too bad of a night, but Group IV killed me going 7-9. There were a number of upsets, most of which i never saw coming. We are now starting to get into the best part of the tournament where the games are dwindling down and each game becomes more and more important. There's still a number of teams left who going in I'm sure most people though there's no way in hell they'd still be around. 14 seed Carteret, 15 seed Science Park, etc. Who'd have thought the 10 seed Marlboro would be getting a home game this late in the tournament vs. the 11 seed. Unbelievable developments so far and the plot should only thicken with the great set of games tonight with my high school probably having the marquee game of the night when the 10th best team in the state, St. Joe's Metuchen, takes on their archrival and team they haven't figured out as of late in the 8th ranked CBA Colts. There's 24 games tonight and here are my picks to each of them. They should all be very exciting games as many of which have been to this point.
North I, Group I(Spreads according to Born Power Index)
#1 Boonton-18 over #4 Wood-Ridge
#2 Cresskill-14.5 over #3 Palisades Park
North II, Group I
#1 University-12 over #4 Dayton
#3 Newark Central-31.5 over #7 Harrison
Central, Group I
#4 Metuchen-1 over #1 South Hunterdon
#3 Asbury Park-8 over #2 Academy Charter
South, Group I
#1 Pitman-1 over #5 Pt. Pleasant Beach
#6 Penns Grove-0.5 over #7 Woodbury
North I, Group III(Spreads according to Born Power Index)
#4 Teaneck-10.5 over #8 West Milford
#3 Passaic Valley-8 over #2 Old Tappan
North II, Group III
#4 Newark East Side-11.5 over #1 Mendham
#2 Millburn-8.5 over #14 Carteret
Central, Group III
#5 Lakewood-6 over #1 Freehold Borough
#7 Neptune-9 over #11 Ocean Twp.
South, Group III
#1 Kingsway-4 over #12 Moorestown
#2 Lower Cape May-9 over #3 Pt. Pleasant Boro
Non-Public A
#1 Seton Hall Prep-13.5 over #9 Bergen Catholic
#4 Paramus Catholic-11.5 over #12 Union Catholic
#3 St. Peter's Prep-20.5 over #6 DePaul
#2 St. Joe's (Montvale)+0.5 over #10 Don Bosco Prep
#1 Camden Catholic-12.5 over #8 Paul VI
#4 St. Joe's (Metuchen)+1 over #5 CBA
#6 Bishop Eustace-13 over #3 Bishop Ahr
#2 Monsignor Donovan+0.5 over #7 St. Augustine
Those are all my picks for tonight. I look for all the Non-Public A South games to be particularly exciting because they're all close matchups. PVI and CC are big rivals so the score may be closer than the spread indicates. Obviously, same goes for Joe's and CBA. Bishop Ahr has home court so you never know how they could do coming off a horrendous first round loss in the GMC's and then you have a battle of the better point guards in the state in Isaiah Morton and Zack Grennan in the MD-SA game and that one can surely go either way as well.
Now onto my college predictions for tonight as there are many tournaments starting to get into full gear. Here are my records first as to how I'm doing through 3 nights of conference tournament games.
2-2 Atlantic Sun Quarterfinals
4-2 Big South(Up to Semis)
2-2 Horizon League Opening Round
1-1 Missouri Valley Opening Round
2-2 Northeast Quarterfinals
2-2 Ohio Valley Quarterfinals
3-1 Patriot League Quarterfinals
4-4 in last nights games
16-12 Overall(Ouch lol)
Now onto tonight and today's(I can finally say that during a weekday lol, that's when you know tourney time's near. Colonial and Southern Conferences start at noon)
Atlantic Sun Semifinals
#5 East Tennessee State over #8 Kennesaw State
#2 Jacksonville over #6 Mercer
Colonial Athletic Association Opening Round
#9 UNC-Wilmington over #8 Towson
#5 VCU over #12 Delaware
#7 Hofstra over #10 Georgia State
#6 Drexel over #11 James Madison
Horizon League Second Round
#3 Green Bay over #7 Detroit
#5 Cleveland State over #4 Milwaukee
Metro Atlantic Opening Round
#9 Manhattan over #8 Loyola (MD)
#7 Canisius over #10 Marist
Missouri Valley Quarterfinals
#1 Northern Iowa over #8 Drake
#4 Creighton over #5 Bradley
#2 Wichita State over #7 Missouri State
#3 Illinois State over #6 Indiana State
Ohio Valley Semifinals
#1 Murray State over #4 Eastern Illinois
#2 Morehead State over #6 Tennessee Tech
Southern Conference Opening Round
#3S Davidson over #6N Elon
#5S Furman over #4N UNC-Greensboro
#4S The Citadel over #5N Samford
#3N Chattanooga over #6S Georgia Southern
West Coast First Round
#5 Loyola Marymount over #8 Pepperdine
#7 Santa Clara over #6 San Diego
So all in all, there's 22 games today and 22 teams whose season will end unless perhaps Northern Iowa if they were to go down today. I think your best bet today as a fan is to follow the CAA and Southern Conference tournaments. They are always hard fought and generally well-played exciting games. On an individual game level I would say Murray State-Eastern Illinois is probably the game of the day. Both teams are looking to get into the final. Murray State is about 29-4 which is very impressive for any school, let alone an OVC school. They're coming in against a scorching Eastern Illinois team. That should be a phenomonal game. The Ohio Valley Semifinals can be found on ESPNU. They start at 7 with Murray State-Eastern Illinois and follow with Tennessee Tech-Morehead State at 9. Hope everyone enjoys the games today and over the weekend. I'll be back tomorrow with more sectional semifinal picks as well as my conference tournament predictions. Tomorrow there are 3 tickets punched for the Big Dance in the Big South, Atlantic Sun and Ohio Valley Conference Championship games. Combine that with Duke-UNC and a couple other great games and it should be a hell of a weekend for college basketball.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
2nd Round Picks for Group II, IV and Non-Public B in the State Basketball Tournament, Conference Tourney Picks
Through the first 3 days of the state tournament, here's how I'm doing so far.
37-10 in Group I games
28-4 in Group II games
35-13 in Group III games
27-5 in Group IV games
8-3 in Non-Public A games
6-2 in Non-Public B games
32-11 in last nights games
141-37 overall
In the conference tournaments, I turned things around a bit from the prior day going 4-2.
1-1 Atlantic Sun Quarterfinals
3-1 Patriot League Quarterfinals
4-2 Overall
Here are my picks for tonight. There's a lot of great action going on in Group IV with some South Jersey rivalries as well as games like Linden-Union. So between that and the conference tourneys ready getting into full swing tonight should make for a great day of ball.
North I, Group II(Spreads according to Born Power Index)
#1 Hopatcong-1.5 over #8 Pequannock
#4 Mahwah-10 over #5 River Dell
#3 Elmwood Park-13.5 over #6 Glen Rock
#2 Indian Hils-19 over #10 Dumont
North II, Group II
#8 Newark Tech-11.5 over #1 Madison
#5 Garfield-6 over #4 Lodi
#6 Caldwell-1.5 over #14 Fort Lee
#15 Science Park-9.5 over #7 Chatham
Central, Group II
#1 Willingboro-7 over #8 Snyder
#5 Manasquan-15.5 over #4 Middlesex
#3 Shabazz-15 over #11 Raritan
#7 Rumson-9.5 over #2 Spotswood
South, Group II
#1 Collingswood-12.5 over #8 Bridgeton
#5 Middle Twp.-2 over #13 Camden
#3 Audubon-4.5 over #11 Buena
#2 Haddon Heights-2.5 over #10 Haddonfield
North I, Group IV(Spreads according to Born Power Index)
#9 East Orange-5 over #1 Passaic
#5 West Orange-4 over #13 Montclair
#3 North Bergen-11.5 over #6 Union City
#2 Paterson Kennedy+1 over #10 Passaic Tech
North II, Group IV
#1 Plainfield-20.5 over #9 Piscataway
#4 Ridge-3.5 over #5 Bayonne
#3 Linden-8.5 over #6 Union
#2 Hillsborough-16 over #10 Dickinson
Central, Group IV
#1 Monroe+1 over #8 Colts Neck
#5 Rancocas Valley-3.5 over #4 Montgomery
#3 East Brunswick-2.5 over #11 North Brunswick
#15 HowellPK over #10 Marlboro
South, Group IV
#1 Cherokee-12 over #8 Williamstown
#12 Lenape-2 over #4 Winslow
#3 Washington Twp.-9 over #6 Atlantic City
#10 Cherry Hill East-7.5 over #2 Shawnee
Non-Public B
#1 Paterson Catholic-28.5 over #8 Morristown-Beard
#5 Dwight-Englewood+6 over #13 St. Mary's (J.C.)
#3 Montclair Kimberley-4.5 over #11 St. Mary's (Elizabeth)
#2 St. Anthony-29.5 over #7 Gill St. Bernard's
#1 Trenton Catholic-24 over #9 St. Rose
#4 Mater Dei-16 over #5 Timothy Christian
#3 Cardinal McCarrick-13 over #6 Wildwood Catholic
#2 Gloucester Catholic-9.5 over #10 Holy Cross
Clearly as you can tell, I think there will be very few upsets tonight. At this point is when you start to see the more dominant teams and teams with a little more consistency which is why I'm picking so many higher seeds to win, plus there's a number of mismatches in games such as Paterson Catholic and St. Anthony or in the Plainfield-Piscataway game. Now on to my college picks.
There's still 2 games from the Atlantic Sun which I picked yesterday.
Big South Semifinals
#1 Coastal Carolina over #4 UNC-Asheville
#2 Radford over #3 Winthrop
Missouri Valley Conference Opening Round
#9 Southern Illinois over #8 Drake
#7 Missouri State over #10 Evansville
Northeast Conference Quarterfinals
#8 Monmouth over #1 Quinnipiac
#2 Robert Morris over #7 Central Connecticut State
#3 Mount St. Mary's over #6 St. Francis (PA)
#5 Fairleigh Dickinson over #4 Long Island
I'll be back tomorrow with sectional semifinal predictions as well as my quarterfinal predictions for Non-Public A. In addition, the America East, Atlantic Sun, Colonial, Horizon, MAAC, MEAC, Missouri Valley, Ohio Valley, Southern and West Coast Conference tournaments are all underway. Stop back then for more picks. Just letting everyone know who enjoys watcing college ball that there is a pick'em game at ESPN.com for next week's conference tournament games. I'd imagine you'd pick the championships of the smaller leagues liek the West Coast Conference or the MAAC in addition to picking quarterfinal games and stuff for the bigger Tournaments early rounds.
37-10 in Group I games
28-4 in Group II games
35-13 in Group III games
27-5 in Group IV games
8-3 in Non-Public A games
6-2 in Non-Public B games
32-11 in last nights games
141-37 overall
In the conference tournaments, I turned things around a bit from the prior day going 4-2.
1-1 Atlantic Sun Quarterfinals
3-1 Patriot League Quarterfinals
4-2 Overall
Here are my picks for tonight. There's a lot of great action going on in Group IV with some South Jersey rivalries as well as games like Linden-Union. So between that and the conference tourneys ready getting into full swing tonight should make for a great day of ball.
North I, Group II(Spreads according to Born Power Index)
#1 Hopatcong-1.5 over #8 Pequannock
#4 Mahwah-10 over #5 River Dell
#3 Elmwood Park-13.5 over #6 Glen Rock
#2 Indian Hils-19 over #10 Dumont
North II, Group II
#8 Newark Tech-11.5 over #1 Madison
#5 Garfield-6 over #4 Lodi
#6 Caldwell-1.5 over #14 Fort Lee
#15 Science Park-9.5 over #7 Chatham
Central, Group II
#1 Willingboro-7 over #8 Snyder
#5 Manasquan-15.5 over #4 Middlesex
#3 Shabazz-15 over #11 Raritan
#7 Rumson-9.5 over #2 Spotswood
South, Group II
#1 Collingswood-12.5 over #8 Bridgeton
#5 Middle Twp.-2 over #13 Camden
#3 Audubon-4.5 over #11 Buena
#2 Haddon Heights-2.5 over #10 Haddonfield
North I, Group IV(Spreads according to Born Power Index)
#9 East Orange-5 over #1 Passaic
#5 West Orange-4 over #13 Montclair
#3 North Bergen-11.5 over #6 Union City
#2 Paterson Kennedy+1 over #10 Passaic Tech
North II, Group IV
#1 Plainfield-20.5 over #9 Piscataway
#4 Ridge-3.5 over #5 Bayonne
#3 Linden-8.5 over #6 Union
#2 Hillsborough-16 over #10 Dickinson
Central, Group IV
#1 Monroe+1 over #8 Colts Neck
#5 Rancocas Valley-3.5 over #4 Montgomery
#3 East Brunswick-2.5 over #11 North Brunswick
#15 HowellPK over #10 Marlboro
South, Group IV
#1 Cherokee-12 over #8 Williamstown
#12 Lenape-2 over #4 Winslow
#3 Washington Twp.-9 over #6 Atlantic City
#10 Cherry Hill East-7.5 over #2 Shawnee
Non-Public B
#1 Paterson Catholic-28.5 over #8 Morristown-Beard
#5 Dwight-Englewood+6 over #13 St. Mary's (J.C.)
#3 Montclair Kimberley-4.5 over #11 St. Mary's (Elizabeth)
#2 St. Anthony-29.5 over #7 Gill St. Bernard's
#1 Trenton Catholic-24 over #9 St. Rose
#4 Mater Dei-16 over #5 Timothy Christian
#3 Cardinal McCarrick-13 over #6 Wildwood Catholic
#2 Gloucester Catholic-9.5 over #10 Holy Cross
Clearly as you can tell, I think there will be very few upsets tonight. At this point is when you start to see the more dominant teams and teams with a little more consistency which is why I'm picking so many higher seeds to win, plus there's a number of mismatches in games such as Paterson Catholic and St. Anthony or in the Plainfield-Piscataway game. Now on to my college picks.
There's still 2 games from the Atlantic Sun which I picked yesterday.
Big South Semifinals
#1 Coastal Carolina over #4 UNC-Asheville
#2 Radford over #3 Winthrop
Missouri Valley Conference Opening Round
#9 Southern Illinois over #8 Drake
#7 Missouri State over #10 Evansville
Northeast Conference Quarterfinals
#8 Monmouth over #1 Quinnipiac
#2 Robert Morris over #7 Central Connecticut State
#3 Mount St. Mary's over #6 St. Francis (PA)
#5 Fairleigh Dickinson over #4 Long Island
I'll be back tomorrow with sectional semifinal predictions as well as my quarterfinal predictions for Non-Public A. In addition, the America East, Atlantic Sun, Colonial, Horizon, MAAC, MEAC, Missouri Valley, Ohio Valley, Southern and West Coast Conference tournaments are all underway. Stop back then for more picks. Just letting everyone know who enjoys watcing college ball that there is a pick'em game at ESPN.com for next week's conference tournament games. I'd imagine you'd pick the championships of the smaller leagues liek the West Coast Conference or the MAAC in addition to picking quarterfinal games and stuff for the bigger Tournaments early rounds.
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