Figure it is time to give out some ratings to the conferences.\u00a0\u00a0 That will likely change over the weekend’s games – but figure that it is worth calling out for the first two rounds.<\/p>\n
Atlantic 10: A+.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It seemed odd that the A-10 had 5 teams in the tournament.\u00a0 Heck, the tradition-rich ACC only had 4, so how could the committee select 5 from this mid-major.\u00a0 All they have done since the games have started is go 6-0, including dominating performances by St. Louis, VCU and Butler.\u00a0 And then there is La Salle – the team that I thought shouldn’t be in compared to another SEC \/ ACC team.\u00a0 All they have done is won the play-in game and upset #4 seed Kansas State.<\/p>\n
Atlantic Sun: A+.\u00a0\u00a0 Not going to mention the other single bid conferences – but Florida Gulf Coast is the story of the tournament so far.\u00a0 And it bears to be mentioned that the team they beat in the conference tournament, Mercer – went on to win their first game in the NIT at Tennessee.<\/p>\n
Big 10: A.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The top teams (Indiana, Ohio St, Michigan St, and Michigan) all won convincingly.\u00a0\u00a0 They lose a little credit because of Wisconsin’s unexpected loss – but then they get some credit back for the fact that both of their 8-10 teams in conference (Illinois and Minnesota) won their first round games.\u00a0\u00a0 Going 6-1 is pretty good.<\/p>\n
Missouri Valley: A.\u00a0 Wichita State unexpectedly destroyed Pitt – and Creighton managed to hold off Cincinnati to make the conference 2-0.\u00a0 Not as impressive as the A-10 – but you still get an A if you go undefeated.<\/p>\n
ACC: A-.\u00a0\u00a0 Miami and Duke dominated their games.\u00a0 And UNC jumped all over Villanova early and then held on to win their game.\u00a0 The only blemish was a 8-9 game loss by NC State.\u00a0 Pretty good start for the ACC.<\/p>\n
SEC: B+.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Florida didn’t show up for the first half and still was able to blow out Northwestern State.\u00a0 And Ole Miss totally upset Wisconsin getting lots of credit for a 12 seed victory.\u00a0\u00a0 But then Missouri got blitzed by Colorado State.\u00a0\u00a0 Based on seed, Missouri wasn’t supposed to win the game – but they weren’t supposed to lose by double digits either.\u00a0\u00a0 That drops them from the top of the class.<\/p>\n
Pac 12: B.\u00a0\u00a0 The conference totally got a bad break with seeding.\u00a0 How Oregon went 22-4 while healthy, losing only neutral court \/ road games to RPI Top 100 teams, demonstrated they were back to full strength in the Pac 12 tourney, and only got a 12 seed is still one of the most puzzling parts of the selection process.\u00a0\u00a0 But they and Cal both knocked off #5 seeds to get to the Round of 32 – and Arizona looked good in their victory.\u00a0 Not going to take credit away for Colorado losing a close game that they were supposed to lose – but UCLA getting crushed – even while down an important player, pushes them down.<\/p>\n
West Coast Conference: B.\u00a0 St. Mary’s looked great in the first four games – and then almost upset Memphis.\u00a0 Gonzaga won – but #1 seeds are supposed to win their first games by double digits – not by 6.\u00a0 They are where they are expected to be in wins – but it is strange that the team that lost is the one that performed better compared to expectations.<\/p>\n
Mountain West: C.\u00a0 New Mexico’s loss to Harvard is what crushes their grade.\u00a0 You have to win your games when you are a top 3 seed.\u00a0 Didn’t help that UNLV lost as a #5 seed to a team it beat earlier in the season.\u00a0 However, San Diego State and Colorado State ran to easy victories.\u00a0 Wanted to reward the 7 and 8 seeds for their victories – but when a protected seed loses as well as the conference’s second best team, it averages out to a mediocre grade.<\/p>\n
Big East: D.\u00a0 Louisville and Syracuse took care of business as expected – which is the only thing keep this from being an F.\u00a0 Georgetown lost the biggest upset of the tournament to FGCU.\u00a0 Marquette as a 3 seed needed last second heroics to make the next round.\u00a0 Notre Dame and Pitt got blown out of the buildings.\u00a0 And while Villanova and Cincinnati weren’t supposed to win – they didn’t do anything that would bump up the conferences status.\u00a0 One of the Big East’s top 3 might still end up doing very well – maybe even winning the entire tournament.\u00a0 But when you are supposed to have 4 protected seeds and 2 others expected to advance to the next round – and you finish the round with just 3 of 8 teams remaining in the tournament, that is an awful start.<\/p>\n
Big 12: D-.\u00a0 While Oregon never should have been a 12 seed, Oklahoma State as a 5 seed should not have lost by double digits.\u00a0 Kansas State as a protected seed should definitely not lost to La Salle.\u00a0 Oklahoma wasn’t supposed to win – but losing by 15 isn’t an inspiring performance.\u00a0 Then you have Kansas almost allowing Western Kentucky make history as the first ever 16 seed to win – the Jayhawks eventually pulled away for a 7 point victory.\u00a0 The only thing keeping this from a failing grade is the fact that the Jayhawks are still alive, and Iowa State destroyed Notre Dame.\u00a0 Actually maybe I should give them more credit for ISU eliminating Notre Dame’s hideous uniforms….<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
As the kids are going for their nap, I finally turned on today’s game.\u00a0 Hoping VCU comes back – looks like they had a rough first half.\u00a0\u00a0 Go Rams!!!!!!!!!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Figure it is time to give out some ratings to the conferences.\u00a0\u00a0 That will likely change over the weekend’s games – but figure that it is worth calling out for the first two rounds. Atlantic 10: A+.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It seemed odd that the A-10 had 5 teams in the tournament.\u00a0 Heck, the tradition-rich ACC only had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2013-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=467"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":468,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467\/revisions\/468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}