Running 2018 college rings postseason thread

Seven Big East teams, after Marquette's narrow escape last night?

 

At the first timeout in Brooklyn tonight:

Duke 25, Notre Dame 17
Miami 4, UNC 0 (with two of those points coming on a goaltend)

Edit: Now it’s 14-0 Miami at the 13-minute mark. Remember that UNC plays beautiful basketball!

 

Can't erase the memory of them getting ratfucked at DePaul.

 

You’re a Virginia fan!!!

 

Not only is the Big South tournament being played in the Cowboys practice facility, with a curtain in between the courts, but the highlights on SportsCenter look like the game is being broadcast via Skype. With a bad Internet connection.

 

That's Conference USA. Big South was played on campus sites.

 

The C-USA tournament was being broadcast by Stadium over Facebook Live. The feed wobbled a little bit but was generally clear over my ISP.

The broadcasters, OTOH, were completely inane and never, ever, shut up. Very annoying. They had also set up the camera station for their sideline reporter to do quick interviews directly in front of one of the bands. Since they did those during breaks in the action, inevitably the band would crank up while she was on camera talking.

 

Speaking of CUSA, MTSU didn't do itself any favors last night ...

 

They’ll still get in, but someone else is out now. Maybe Oklahoma.

 

MTSU is an interesting case. They have a couple of Q1 wins, but not against teams that are getting any at-large type seeds. Their RPI is 32 and they're decent in KenPom (43), and they have "good" losses to good major-conference teams (Miami, USC, Auburn). But at the end of the day, they haven't beaten a single team that will get an at-large quality seed in the tournament, despite multiple opportunities on neutral courts to do so.

Throw in a terrible loss to Southern Miss (which is a Q4 loss in the quad system the committee is using now) and I don't think they'll make it. The committee has historically not looked kindly upon teams with similar, if not better, resumes (Monmouth, Missouri Illinois State, etc). It would probably be a different story had they lost to ODU or one of the other decent CUSA teams this weekend, but a loss this bad, this early, might be too much to overcome.

 

Some other bubble teams took bad losses last night, like Utah and Boise State, so that helps.

Other tourneys bubble teams should be watching today:
A-10: Bubble teams cannot afford anyone other than Rhody or Bona to win this thing.
American: Can't afford a non Houston/Cincy/Wichita winner. Anyone else will be stealing a bid.
Mountain West: Everyone needs to root hard for Nevada. San Diego State, Utah State or New Mexico would be stealing a bid.
Pac-12: Oregon is still in play as a bid stealer. The other three semifinalists are probably in, though USC is looking like Dayton fodder.

 

Middle Tennessee had a stretch where it lost close games to Auburn, USC and Miami. If it could have gotten just one of them...