Monday, March 05, 2007

Unfinished Business for Bubble Teams

Championship Week is upon us and Selection Sunday is less than six days away. Tonight, we look at forthcoming conference tournaments, and more importantly, the work that bubble teams in these conferences must do to qualify as an at-large team in the field of 65 in 2007. In some conferences, the path ahead is clear-cut, while in others (SEC), seemingly exponential possibilities exist. We could have a semifinal with Florida, Vanderbilt, Tennessee, and Kentucky OR we could have a semifinal featuring Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, and Ole Miss, which means anywhere between 4 and 6 bids, and possibly 7 in a carefully concocted perfect storm scenario with bubble teams in other conferences falling by the wayside. It's highly unlikely, but we're here to inform you in case something goes down at The Georgia Dome this weekend.

ACC
Florida State: Win v. Clemson and a strong showing v. North Carolina
Clemson: Win v. Florida State and North Carolina

A-10
Xavier: Get to the A-10 Championship game
UMass: Get to the A-10 Championship game and lose to Xavier in the final + HELP

Big East
Syracuse: Win v. Connecticut
West Virginia: Get to the Big East Championship game
DePaul: Get the Big East Championship game + help

Big Ten
Purdue: Win v. Iowa and a strong showing v. Ohio State
Illinois: Win v. Penn State and Indiana
Michigan State.: Win v. Northwestern

Big XII
Kansas State.: Win v. Texas Tech (a win v. Colorado is useless) and a strong showing v. Kansas + help
Oklahoma State: Get to the Big XII Championship game by defeating Texas A&M and Texas in succession.

Mountain West
Air Force: Win v. Wyoming

Pac-10
Stanford: Strong showing v. USC; a win will secure a bid, no questions asked

SEC
Alabama: Win v. Kentucky and Mississippi State + HELP
Arkansas: Win v. South Carolina and Vanderbilt
Georgia: Win v. Auburn and Florida
Mississippi State: Win v. Kentucky (Alabama win will be of little use) and defeat winner of Vanderbilt v. Arkansas/South Carolina (either Vanderbilt or Arkansas) en route to the SEC championship game
Ole Miss: Win v. Tennessee and Florida en route to the SEC Championship game

2 comments:

Unknown said...

This week, North Carolina is back in the top 4, knocking out Wisconsin, who needed a late three-pointer by Kammron Taylor to overcome Michigan State at home. The Heels hopped Kansas, who had a big win versus Texas, but only started their comeback following a brief injury to phenom Kevin Durant.


I like to read your page but this is not correct. We were beating Kansas by 16, then 12 at half, but they began their comeback and were up by 6 points when Kevin went down with a temporary injury.

Kevin came back but we still lost by four when the clock hit zero.

Kansas should be a one seed, not Carolina.

Paymon said...

You are entitled to disagree and that's what the marketplace of ideas is here to do.

In the comment box for yesterday's post, I admitted my misinformation via the AP. With that said, I still think Carolina has a stronger overall resume. If both teams win their respective conference tournaments, that would likely widen the gulf in resumes between them.