Saint Mary’s guard Matthew Dellavedova looks to drive past Gonzaga’s Kelly Olynyk during a Jan. 10 game earlier this season in Spokane, Washington.(Photo: William Mancebo, Getty Images)
Days until Selection Sunday: 6
The big picture:
If Gonzaga is to secure a No. 1 seed, one part of the equation will be completed Monday night.
The Bulldogs control only part of this situation, and they’ve controlled it rather nicely for nearly the entire season. Gonzaga enters the West Coast Conference title game at 30-2, with a solid RPI (11), a 5-2 record against the top 50 and a 13-game winning streak.
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They also have an unremarkable (in comparison to, say, Georgetown or Kansas or Louisville) strength of schedule off 88. That’s not bad, but it isn’t a top-20 schedule. And there’s nothing Mark Few’s crew could have done given the lack of depth to the WCC.
But Gonzaga won and won and won, so it did what it was supposed to do. But the reality is a team that blitzes through the Big 12 (Kansas) or Big East (Georgetown or Louisville) or perhaps Big Ten (Michigan State) tournaments this week is going to pile up opportunities to improve their profile.
Gonzaga, meanwhile, gets to play Saint Mary’s — which is nice, but it doesn’t pack the same punch.
So the Bulldogs can take care of things tonight, and feel good knowing they shouldn’t be any worse than a No. 2 seed come Selection Sunday. Whether they end up on the top line, though, depends on what sort of surges occur elsewhere.
Hot seat: Middle Tennessee
While Gonzaga might have some mild anxiety about something that’s relatively subtle — as a No. 1 or No. 2 seed, the Bulldogs will still have a chance in the NCAA tournament — Middle Tennessee has a far more serious problem on its hands.
At 28-5, the Blue Raiders might play their next game in the field of 68. Or, they might be one of the best teams in the NIT field, a damning description of any team.
That’s the price of Sunday’s 61-57 loss to Florida International in Sunday’s Sun Belt finals. After three leagues with the potential for bid thievery (Missouri Valley, Ohio Valley and West Coast) eliminated that possibility with little incident, the Sun Belt has sent a truly tricky profile into the clubhouse.
Middle Tennessee has a top-30 RPI. It played the nation’s No. 11 non-conference schedule. It also doesn’t own a top-50 win, has just one top-100 triumph (Mississippi) and for the most part beat up on assorted flotsam and jetsam in the Sun Belt the last two months or so.
At least until Sunday, when the Blue Raiders might have taken the wrong loss at the worst possible time.
Nightly winners:
Teams that took a step forward, however modest, on Sunday…
- Indiana: With a victory at Michigan, the Hoosiers should be in decent shape for a No. 1 seed assuming they don’t flame out in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten tournament. Even then, Indiana probably would end up on the top line.
- Temple: If there was any doubt about the Owls, Sunday’s rally against Virginia Commonwealth probably eliminated it. The Owls are on their way to a sixth consecutive NCAA tournament berth.
- Virginia: The Cavaliers insist upon remaining right on the edge, surging past Maryland in overtime to secure the No. 4 seed and a bye in this week’s ACC tournament. Virginia’s resume remains as wacky as ever; the sweep of the Terrapins leaves the Hoos at 8-3 against the top 100 of the RPI, with seven losses to teams outside the top 100 to balance things out.
Nightly losers:
Teams that took a step back Sunday…
- George Mason: There will be no rerun of 2006 for the Patriots after they jumped out to a 28-4 lead and later shot 15 of 19 from the floor in the second half … and still lost in the Colonial semifinals to Northeastern after yielding a go-ahead layup with three seconds left. Northeastern erased the initial deficit early in the second half, but needed to rally from six points down to complete the victory.
- Maryland: It was not a good day for D.C.-area teams who build big leads deep in the Old Dominion. Just hours after Mason’s meltdown in Richmond, the Terrapins constructed a 17-point lead only for it to gradually melt away in Charlottesville. Maryland will be the No. 7 seed in the ACC tournament and would see Duke in the quarterfinals with a victory on Thursday over Wake Forest.
- Middle Tennessee: The Blue Raiders could have made things easy by winning the Sun Belt, but instead are the first team certain to be sweating all the way to 6 p.m. on Sunday after bowing out of the conference semifinals against Florida International.
Résumé worth dissecting: La Salle
John Giannini’s Explorers have a real chance to secure their first NCAA bid since 1992. There’s little truly questionable on their résumé, and an early victory over Villanova looks better and better by the week. A victory in their Atlantic 10 tournament opener would almost certainly be enough to end Explorers’ NCAA drought, and frankly that might not even be necessary given the underwhelming state of the bubble.
NIT-bound (unless it wins its conference tournament): Maryland
The Terrapins offered a look at their season in miniature on Sunday.
They played well early. They struggled right before and after halftime. They played unintelligently at just the worst times. And they wound up losing 61-58 in overtime at Virginia to fall to 20-11 (8-10 in the ACC).
As young as Maryland is — and the Terps are inexperienced —it still lost some games down the stretch it should have won. Considering Maryland was up 17 in the first half on the cold-shooting Cavaliers, this was one the Terps should have collected. Instead, it’s going to take four wins in four days to end Maryland’s two-year NCAA hiatus.
On deck:
- Florida International vs. Western Kentucky (7 p.m. ET, ESPN): Florida International (led by Rick Pitino’s son Richard) attempts to follow up its upset of Middle Tennessee as a wacky Sun Belt tournament reached its conclusion.
- James Madison vs. Northeastern (7 p.m. ET, NBC Sports Network): Top-seeded Northeastern survived an awful start to reach the Colonial Athletic Association final. The Huskies will face a James Madison program that hasn’t played in a league title game since 1997.
- College of Charleston vs. Davidson (7 p.m. ET, ESPN2): Two of the Southern Conference’s standard-bearers meet as league foes for the final time; Charleston is leaving for the Colonial next season.
- Gonzaga vs. Saint Mary’s (9 p.m. ET, ESPN): Saint Mary’s might feel good about its NCAA hopes, but it can end any doubt with a victory over a Gonzaga program hoping to finish its case for a No. 1 seed.
- Iona vs. Manhattan (9 ET, ESPN2): Time for a contrast in styles in the Metro Atlantic final; Iona averaged 84 points in its first two league tournament games, while the Jaspers (14-17) are averaging 57.5 points and won a game earlier this month by a 34-31 margin. The teams split two in the regular season.
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- Liberty: Proof that it’s always possible to get hot at the right time, the Flames won six games combined in January and February and have captured five in March — including four in a row in the Big South tournament. Liberty has a ticket to a Dayton play-in game, where it will have a chance to earn its first NCAA tournament victory; the Flames lost by 20 to North Carolina in 1994 and 19 to Saint Joseph’s in 2004 in their previous two appearances.
- Creighton: You may remember the Bluejays from such previous March adventures as “Pulling a 12-5 upset on Florida in 2002” and “Dealing a hard foul to fracture Kendall Marshall’s wrist in 2012.” Creighton was going to be in the field anyway, but locked up its ninth NCAA bid in 15 years by turning back Wichita State in the Missouri Valley title game.
Stat of the day:
Liberty tied the NCAA record for most losses for a team in the NCAA tournament. The Flames, winners of the Big South tournament, have a certain date in Dayton thanks to their 15-20 overall record. Liberty ties 2008 Coppin State (16-20) for the most defeats for a tournament team. Third on the list is 1955 Bradley, which went 7-19.
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About our bracketologist: Patrick Stevens is USA TODAY Sports’ bracket/bubble specialist for the 2013 NCAA tournament. He has covered college sports and projected the NCAA tournament field for more than a decade for various publications, including The Washington Times. Don’t like his projections? Tweet him @D1scourse[2].
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