Dayton's last stand

See CJ staring up at the clock? That's because he knows time is running out.

With six games to play, Dayton sits at 15-9 on the season and 5-5 in the Atlantic 10, good for eighth place in the conference. You might note that is more or less the position Dayton has finished in the conference standings the past couple years, and it is more or less the position they appear to be headed for again. Dayton's final six games consist of three games they will be favored to win (tonight against Charlotte, at Richmond and versus George Washington) and three games you would figure they will have their hands full (at Xavier, at Duquesne and versus Massachusetts).

But let's pretend for a second that despite their weary legs, lack of defense and poor depth, the Flyers manage to catch fire one more time, and start playing the way they did when they ran through Ole Miss, Saint Louis, Temple, LaSalle and Xavier en route to a 4-1 start in the A-10. Would a 21-9 record be enough to get Dayton a shot at an at-large bid? The team's resume going into the A-10 tournament would look something like this:

Record: 21-9, 11-5 Atlantic 10
RPI: ~50
Quality Wins: Xavier (2x), Temple, Saint Louis, Minnesota, Alabama, Ole Miss (I'm not saying all of these actually are great wins, but they would be advertised as such)
Bad Losses: Miami (OH), Buffalo, St. Bonaventure, St. Joe's, Rhode Island, Duquesne

That looks to me to be one of the more perplexing tournament resumes one could possibly look at. My first thought, if I didn't know who the team was, would be to figure that they had either drastically improved or fallen off over the course of the season, with the nice wins either coming early or late. But that's not been the case with this Dayton team. The quality wins and bad losses have been sprinkled evenly over the course of the season. My gut looking at the resume says no, this team would not be one deserving of an at-large. But to make sure, I took a look at the final teams to receive at-large bids over the last three years and compared them to this year's UD team. However, one final adjustment had to be made. The final at-large bids (seeds 10,11 and 12) contained teams from power-6 conferences and non-power conferences alike. In looking at the records of power-6 teams that received 11 or 12 seeds (almost certainly the type of seed Dayton would receive this year because they would likely be a First Four team), it was clear that those teams' strengths of schedule played a large difference in them getting recognition. None of those teams had 20-win seasons. UD's best possible record without 20 wins would be 19-11, and no matter who they beat, I think we can agree an at-large bid would be out of the question.

So, I decided just to look at the mid-major schools to receive at-large bids near the end of the draw. Here are their resumes:

2009
Dayton
Record: 26-7, 11-5 Atlantic 10
RPI: 27
Quality Wins: George Mason, Xavier, Temple
Bad Losses: Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Saint Louis (iffy whether that's a bad loss)

2010
Texas-El Paso
Record: 26-6, 15-1 Conference-USA
RPI: 39
Quality Wins: Houston
Bad Losses: none

Utah State
Record: 27-7, 14-2 WAC
RPI: 42
Quality Wins: BYU, New Mexico State
Bad Losses: Long Beach State, Louisiana Tech

2011
UAB
Record: 22-8, 12-4 Conference-USA
RPI: 31
Quality Wins: Arkansas? VCU?
Bad Losses: East Carolina, Southern Miss, Tulsa

VCU
Record: 23-11, 11-6 Colonial (believe it or not, they did play 17 conference games)
RPI: 49
Quality Wins: Wichita State, Old Dominion, UCLA
Bad Losses: South Florida, Georgia State, Northeastern, James Madison

And here we are. A quick look at those resumes compared to UD says Dayton has no chance of an at-large. Sure, they have more quality wins by far than any team on that list, but they also have more quality losses, a worse RPI, and a worse conference and overall record than most.

However, it's important to keep in mind that Dayton wouldn't be finished at 21-9. The A-10 Tournament would still be looming large. And at 11-5 in the conference, a 4-5 seed is the most likely placement. Let's give Dayton a five seed so they play one more round. That would mean UD would have the possibility of three more wins and a loss (four wins would mean they win the automatic bid). In our continuation of the best-case scenario, UD would finish the season 24-10. And with a couple wins over some of the better A-10 competition, its RPI could improve to somewhere like 45. Now take a look at the resume:

24-10, 11-5 A-10
RPI: 45
Quality Wins: Xavier (2x(Maybe 3x)), Temple (Maybe 2x), Saint Louis (Maybe 2x), Minnesota, Alabama, Ole Miss
Bad Losses: Miami (OH), Buffalo, St. Bonaventure, St. Joe's, Rhode Island, Duquesne

The volume of bad losses still looms large, but does that resume look similar to any of the ones we showed above? How about last year's tournament darlings, the VCU Rams? 24-10 vs. 23-11, 11-5 vs. 11-6. 45 RPI vs. 49. Quality wins over mostly good mid-major teams, and several head-scratching bad losses. Not to mention that VCU finished its regular season losing four of five games before making it to the CAA Tournament final. In our projected scenario, UD would be on a nine game win streak before losing in the final. Sounds better to me.

Here's the thing, though: VCU had no business making the tournament last year. I know, I know, "they proved they deserved the bid with their play over the next three weeks". Woopty-doo, Basil. They hadn't earned their place there. They didn't have that great of a season until the tournament. But that is the opportunity the First Four provides. With three more bids in play, there is just a sliver of opportunity for a not-so-great team to sneak in if somebody on the selection committee makes the right argument.

In conclusion, If UD wins its next nine games, starting tonight against Charlotte, and then loses in the A-10 Championship Game, it will still only have an outside shot of making the NCAA Tournament. So Go Flyers!

I'll book my tickets for the CBI.

Mid-Major Report: 2/13

Upheaval! The strength at the top of the Mid-Major Report this season has been staggering, as several teams had put together significant win-streaks to get to the top and stay there for most of the season. Well, there's a new world order as we stare into the face of Bracketbusters week. Five of the top six teams from last week's report lost games this week. And with that, the top ten has been shaken like never before this season. The temptation was strong to drop four teams from the rankings this week so we could talk about a bunch of deserving newcomers, but that would have been ridiculous. Saint Mary's still deserves to be here So get ready to see some familiar faces, but in a whole new light. As always, you can refer to the first report of the year for information on how these rankings are achieved.

Dropped Out: Southern Miss (1-1 last week, last at 10-14 UAB)
Outside looking in: Drexel, VCU, George Mason, Saint Louis, Long Beach State

10. Creighton (21-5, 35th in Ken Pomeroy's team rankings)
Creighton is barely alive in this week's rankings after having a stranglehold on the top five all-season long. The Blue Jay's have now lost an almost inexplicable three games in a row. Their loss at Northern Iowa two weeks ago was not shocking; teams are almost always eventually going to lose a game like that when they don't play their best. But Creighton followed that up with a loss at Evansville and then a turd of a performance at home against Wichita State. In the process, they all but surrendered the Missouri Valley Conference title to the Shockers. It really has been a stunning turn of events, since the Blue Jays had easily beaten Wichita at Wichita over a month ago, and had looked just as good until February reared its head. Creighton is sporting one of the best offenses in the country, but that offense didn't show up at the same level against Northern Iowa and Evansville, and then when it was slightly better at home against Wichita State, the Blue Jays' 135-ranked adjusted-defense was exposed in giving up 89 points. Now, it's time for the Jays to draw a line in the sand. Continue free-falling, and they could unbelievably find themselves on the bubble. Right the ship, and they're still a comfortable six or seven seed.

9. Harvard (21-3, 37 Pomeroy)
Princeton got the best of Harvard again. What is up with this rivalry, that no matter how good Harvard seems to be, the Tigers have their number? Certainly, Princeton played well, shooting 50 percent from the field and going 17-24 from the foul line to Harvard's 7-11. The loss make's Harvard's situation with the NCAA Tournament much more precarious. Now with just a one-game lead in the Ivy League, losing the conference championship (the Ivy League does not hold a tournament) seems much more possible now, and would put Harvard in a similar situation to last year, when it did not receive an at-large bid. This team has gotten more recognition since the beginning of the season than last year's team did, since it was coming off a good season already. Harvard will have that going for it, but will it be enough? Probably best to just recover and win the next three games at home against Yale, Princeton and Penn, and secure the title.

8. Temple (19-5, 36 Pomeroy)
The Atlantic 10 is once again represented in the top 10. Temple sat just outside the rankings last week because despite a six-game win streak in the conference, they hadn't really beaten any of the teams that matter. Well, now that streak is up to eight, and with an easy dismantling of Xavier added to their resume, the Owls get the nod. Temple looks to be hitting its stride at the right time with Ryan Moore (18.8 ppg) and Khalif Wyatt (16.7) leading the way in scoring. Temple's 1-2 punch, along with the unflappable Juan Fernandez, gives them the 16th-best adjusted-offense in the country. And in typical Temple fashion, the Owls haven't shied away from tough competition this year. They have the 21st-rated strength of schedule in the country. And at 19-5 against that kind of competition, the Owls are to be taken seriously.

7. Murray State (24-1, 68 Pomeroy)
The Racers' six week run atop the Mid-Major Report is over. With a loss to Tennessee State at home, Murray State drops six spots in this week's poll. It was a bad loss, no question. And most writers have been chalking it up to the pressure of an undefeated season. Ken Pomeroy was bothered by this, and expressed as much in a post on his website. And while he doesn't discount the possibility of pressure playing a factor, he says the biggest reason they lost is more likely because win probabilities said there was no expectation of them continuing to win ("You play enough games in which you are heavily favored, and you are going to lose eventually. Put more precisely, a team that plays ten games as a 90% favorite is expected to lose once during that span, and the Racers have played a lot of such games this season, including the game against Tennessee State.") In my mind, the numbers guy's explanation and the feelings guys' explanations are two different ways of saying the same thing: It's really, really hard to go undefeated over the course of a college basketball season. And that's why Murray was No. 1 for as long as it was. By the way, after the loss, Murray won by 19.

6. San Diego State (20-4, 55 Pomeroy)
Any doubts we may have had about San Diego State due to their poor rating at kenpom.com should have been alleviated this week, when they came within a bucket of going 2-0 against UNLV this season. Actually, the team ratings back me up on this one. The UNLV game was SDSU's only game last week, and by losing they improved eight spots at kenpom.com from a week ago. Go figure. Playing a team highly rated by his system very closely will do that for you. Seriously, though, there should be no doubting the Aztecs from here on out. They are extremely talented and athletic, can run the floor and shoot the ball well. No doubt in my mind that they are a top 15 team in the country (as in a legitimate Elite Eight threat).

5. Brigham Young (21-6, 31 Pomeroy)
For the first time this season, BYU didn't fall out of the rankings the week after breaking into them. This is BYU's third stint in the Mid-Major Report, and during each of the previous two, they suffered losses to fall out immediately. Not this week. With a 38-point win over a bad Pepperdine squad, the Cougars extended their win-streak to three. Their 20th-rated adjusted-defense will be put to the test on the road next week; BYU plays its next three games on the road, including a huge game for them at Gonzaga. BYU has very little chance of winning the WCC, but a great shot at of improving its seeding come tournament time.

4. Saint Mary's (23-3, 32 Pomeroy)
Despite a loss at Gonzaga last week, there's no need to panic about St. Mary's. That's because it wasn't all that surprising of a loss. Gonzaga is very good; Gonzaga is a tough place to play; St. Mary's had won 12 in a row going into the game. The Gaels are still, like San Diego State, a threat to beat anybody in the country on a given day. They have the 14th-best adjusted-offense in the country, and average better than 16 assists per game. Yeah, the loss hurts just a bit, but with a Bracketbusters game at Murray State upcoming, as well as the WCC Tournament looming, the Gaels have plenty of time to do some damage and secure an excellent seed in the tournament.

3. Wichita State (22-4, 9 Pomeroy)
The Shockers have been ranked almost comically high at kenpom.com all year, but after dominating Creighton Saturday, they have set the new standard. A top-10 spot! I will say this, however, on their behalf: during the Creighton game Wichita State actually looked worthy of being so highly rated (maybe not top 10, but definitely top 20). The Shockers took a lead in the first half and never looked back, turning in a splendid offensive performance. They now have the ninth-rated adjusted-offense, 24th adjusted-defense, and 72nd best strength of schedule. Oh yeah, and they're in the driver's seat to win the MVC title now. Like Temple, they appear to be playing their best basketball of the season at a good time to do it.

2. New Mexico (20-4, 12 Pomeroy)
The Lobos are another team that play exactly to Ken Pomeroy's specifications, coming in this week with an obscenely high ranking of 12. Of course, you now know if you didn't before that New Mexico is the one team out of the top six from last week to avoid a loss. But with wins over Boise State and Wyoming (in which NM scored just 48 points), it wasn't enough to get them the top spot. Really, the reason New Mexico didn't make the cut is I'm being cautious with them once again. They climbed to fifth in the Jan. 17 Mid-Major Report, and promptly went 0-2 the following week against
San Diego State and UNLV. Well, guess who they've got coming up this week? Yup. At San Diego State and home against UNLV. Prove to me that you've changed this time around, New Mexico.

1. UNLV (22-4, 22 Pomeroy)
That's right. From No. 7 to No. 1. UNLV was that impressive (or maybe 1-6 from last week were just the opposite). Either way, anybody who watched the SDSU-UNLV game Saturday had to come away impressed by Vegas. They've got it all (except for maybe a consistent big man), and they have a player in Mike Moser who has it all individually: size, athleticism, length, speed, shooting ability, ball-handling. He was the best player on a court full of pretty excellent players. In the Mountain West Conference, clearly the best non-power-6 conference in the country, there is a three-way tie atop the league. San Diego State has lost two games by a combined 19 points. New Mexico has lost two games by a combined 12 points. And UNLV has lost two games by a combined four points (both on the road). Clearly at the moment, they've got the best resume of the group.

The real Jimmy Chitwood

This is why social media is awesome.

The Indiana High School Athletic Association posted the final minutes of the 1954 Indiana State Championship basketball game, played between Milan and Muncie Central. The Milan team was the inspiration for the greatest sports movie ever made, Hoosiers.

Soon after it was posted by the IHSAA, sports writers and personalities alike began tweeting about its existence on the web, and now, we all have the wonderful privilege of watching the grainy footage of the most exciting and famous 32-30 basketball game ever played.

For those that aren't aware, the story goes like this: until 1997, Indiana did not have divisions in high school basketball come tournament time, so what resulted was a single-class state tournament. As in, every single team in the state was playing for the same title. That meant good teams from rural areas usually had plenty of opportunity to win several games over the lesser teams from their sectionals and districts, but would inevitably lose later in the tournament when they ran into the teams from big schools in urban areas like Indianapolis, Muncie or South Bend.

That is, until Milan High School, with its enrollment of 161 students, denied powerhouse Muncie Central its fifth state championship with a defensive, slow-it-down slugfest in the 1954 title game. On a Bobby Plump buzzer-beater, Milan took the title 32-30 and went down in Indiana basketball lore.

If you know Hoosiers (and if you don't, stop reading this, go to the library, and rent it. If it's not at the library, here you go), you know the rest. Coach Marvin Wood ages several years and turns into Gene Hackman. Maris Valainis, after not even playing high school basketball, is selected to play Jimmy Chitwood, the Bobby Plump character of the movie, and actually turned out to be an incredible shooter (this scene was filmed in one take. Also, sorry about the italian. Unbelievably, this is the only version of this clip I could find anywhere on the internet).

At any rate, as awesome as Hoosiers is, it's even cooler to see what happened in real life. Movies almost always inject drama into their true stories to keep the audience riveted. In the case of that final game, no extra drama was needed. Bobby Plump hit a buzzer beater, just like Jimmy Chitwood did.

Good, Old-Fashioned kiddie fun at the Dean Dome

...So of course the same day I post about awesomeness in the NBA, college basketball made sure to steal my heart right back.

In game 2 of the 2009 Eastern Conference Semifinals, Lebron James hit a buzzer-beater to win the game. It was cool in the way that all buzzer-beaters are cool, but even more fun for me was watching the replays. From several different angles, knowing what had happened, you could look at what was going on around Lebron before and during the shot: fans, teammates, coaches, opponents, etc. For, me the best angle shown in the aftermath is the one from the opposite end of the court, with Lebron's back to you. He hits the three, then turns around, mouth open wide, screaming, and extends his arm upward, fist clenched. Of course, all the fans going bonkers in the background was cool, but none of it captured me the way the look on Lebron's face did. He looks like a little kid celebrating. The way he's screaming and how wide his eyes are, he can't believe he made the shot. And he couldn't be happier. Just like all the fans that night in Quicken Loans Arena. For me, it's cool to see an athlete, a guy who is usually all business on the court, look the way that I feel when I see a buzzer beater.

So, as you might imagine, it was about 100,000,000 times cooler to see Austin Rivers smile like a 10-year-old as he turned around to jump into the arms of Andre Dawkins and be mobbed by his teammates after hitting the game-winner (two links there, a 50-second and two-minute clip. I'd recommend the two-minuter of course) at North Carolina. Rivers is usually so serious that it seems to me he's working hard to put on the persona. But last night, as time ticked down with the ball in his hands and I was screaming, "Do something!" as Seth Curry was screaming, "Go! Go!" (see? the angles after the fact are cool), Rivers hit a shot that means he will always be remembered fondly by Duke fans. And then he turned around and shouted out loud just like I did (except he was on the court and I was on a couch). Then he ran down the court fired up, turned around and smiled the biggest smile I've ever seen on his face before being mobbed by his teammates.

As Rivers fell to the floor, he extended one arm and continued smiling, as if to say, "Thank God. Yes!" It was the same way his dad and sister and Dell Curry felt, as cameras showed them jumping around out of their seats like they had won the lottery. I had already managed to scream out loud, run up the stairs, keep screaming, and then run back downstairs and rehash every second of the game with my brother on the phone.

Both the Lebron shot and the Rivers one are amazing to watch. But what made the Duke buzzer-beater last night really special is that I felt justified in my irrational love for sports and Duke basketball. For as long as I can remember watching basketball, I've had days made or ruined by the exploits of the Duke Blue Devils (and eventually the Dayton Flyers as well). I've cried more times than I'd care to admit about Duke losses (or in some cases, wins Duke shouldn't have gotten) I know it doesn't make sense. Sports shouldn't matter this much. But I can't help it; they do. And Wednesday night, it was special to see in Rivers' face that jumper mattered even more to him than it did to me.

In defense of the NBA

Yesterday I was trying to come up with something to write about and kept coming up empty. As I drew blank after blank while scouring sports websites, it became clear why I was struggling so much. After an extremely busy time for sports, with college basketball in full swing, an extremely exciting Australian Open and the NFL playoffs, we've lost a lot. There isn't a whole lot going on in the sports world at the moment.

But basketball is still going on. And the past two nights, I've gotten a serious reminder that the NCAA isn't the only league worth watching. Despite evidence that the NBA is as popular as it's ever been, the people around me all seem to be on the opposite side. On Christmas day when I turned the NBA on, my aunt muttered, "Who gives a shit about the NBA?", right before my grandma realized what was on TV and said, "It's not real basketball, I can't watch it. All that matters is the fourth quarter."

And maybe that's true. I'll admit that the NBA features rampant, uncalled travelling violations, terrible shot selection and oftentimes lazy play. The travelling I can't defend; it bothers me too. But as for the others, its understandable. Have you ever actually watched an NBA game? These guys are unbelievable! The NBA's catchphrase for the past couple season has been "Where Amazing Happens", and it couldn't be more true. An NBA game between the Charlotte Bobcats and Memphis Grizzlies (read: two of the lesser teams in the league) contains more incredible feats of athleticism than the NFL displays in a given week. And that is exactly what was on display last night.

For NBATV's Tuesday "FanNight", the Oklahoma City Thunder were visiting the Golden State Warriors. The Thunder have the NBA's best record, while the Warriors are below .500 and struggling on defense, as has been the case for the past couple years. The Warriors' defense did not matter on Tuesday night though. What unfolded was one of the greatest displays of shot-making I've ever seen. Both teams were on fire from the get-go, and no one more so than Golden State's Monta Ellis. Ellis did his best impression of Allen Iverson-in-his-prime last night, going for 48 points while hitting shots of all types from everywhere on the court, and fearlessly going at bigger players in the process. He also became one of my favorite NBA players in the process. Take a look at some of the stat lines that came out of this game:

Monta Ellis: 48 points, 7 rebounds
David Lee: 25 points, 11 rebounds, 10 assists
Stephen Curry: 16 points, 10 assists, 7 rebounds

Kevin Durant: 33 points, 10 rebounds, 7 assists,
Russell Westbrook: 31 points, 7 assists
James Harden: 19 points, 7 assists, 4 steals
Daequan Cook: 17 points, 5-6 3pt fg.

You are not reading those incorrectly. Golden State had one guy with a triple double, one guy just shy of a triple double, and a guy who scored 48 points, but they still lost. This was not a symptom of them playing lazy defense. Everyone was just on fire. Seriously, those stats I listed are unbelievable and they don't come close to doing the game justice. Go watch some highlights right now. This blog post will still be here when you get back.

I just posted the link and couldn't help but watch the highlights again. And I saw the game last night. How can you be a sports fan and not appreciate something like that? How can you not love watching Monta Ellis, who looks like he might have an inch or two and about ten pounds on me, be unstoppable against all those huge dudes employed by Oklahoma City? Get off your high horse, basketball fans. The NBA is awesome.

Mid-Major Report: 2/6

We've made it to February, and college basketball is getting wild. Instead of waiting for Bracketbusters games to take place, the mid-majors of the world decided to turn in a crazy slate of results a couple weeks in advance, which will only serve to make the Bracketbusters games more intriguing. Four teams inside the top 10 lost games last week, while several others sitting just outside also suffered losses and cost themselves a shot at making it into the rankings.

As always, refer to the first report of the year for information on how I come up with these rankings.

Dropped Out: Nevada (1-1 last week, lost at home to Idaho), Oral Roberts (1-1, lost at South Dakota State)
Outside looking in: Temple, Long Beach State, Drexel, Cleveland State, VCU

10. Southern Mississippi (20-3, 45th in Ken Pomeroy's team rankings)
Southern Miss makes it's glorious return to the top 10 on the wings of a five game win streak in the Conference-USA. The Golden Eagles dispatched Central Florida away from home and avenged their only C-USA loss by beating Memphis last week. With a strong close to the season (one, maybe two more losses), Southern Miss could be looking at an at-large bid (currently a nine-seed in bracketology, but as the automatic bid for C-USA. No telling where they would be if they didn't have the conference lead at the moment). The decision to include Southern Miss over Temple and Long Beach State was a tough one, but since USM's only loss since November was a two-pointer at Memphis, they got the benefit of the doubt.

9. Brigham Young (20-6, 33 Pomeroy)
The Cougars are back after turning in a strong week with the best win of any team in the top 10. After being beaten up by St. Mary's, the Cougars rebounded and beat Gonzaga by 10 and won by 19 at Portland. Two impressive results were enough to get them back into the top 10. Joe Lunardi felt the Cougars did deserved a nod as well, as he moved them into his NCAA Tournament field in the most recent Bracketology. With the excellent front line of forwards Noah Hartsock (17.6 points per game) and Brandon Davies (14.4 ppg and 8 rebounds per game), if BYU can close out the season strong, they'll be primed to make the tournament and perhaps make some noise with an upset or two.

8.. Wichita State (20-4, 16 Pomeroy)
The Shockers took care of business at Missouri State and at home against Indiana State in two close games, and so maintained their ranking for another week. Make no mistake, Wichita is the real deal. I don't know who Wichita State will be playing in the first round of the tournament, but I'm almost certain I'll be picking them to win the game. They are not 16th best in the country, as kenpom.com's team rankings indicate, but they are a top-30 team. They are ranked in the top 50 in the country in most important statistical categories, and are especially well-liked by the advanced metrics like adjusted offense and defense (13th and 25th, respectively). Don't sleep on the Shockers.

7. UNLV (21-4, 18 Pomeroy)
The Rebels stumbled at Wyoming last week, taking a 68-66 defeat after having two great looks to tie/win the game. This came as a pretty disappointing loss after UNLV was looking good to run through the Mountain West right up to its rematch with San Diego State. But after the loss to Wyoming, I have a bit of concern about the Rebels' ability to win on the road. Despite a nice road win at Illinois earlier in the year, all four of UNLV's losses have come on the road, and they've needed overtime to beat UC Santa-Barbara, Air Force and Boise State away from home. Not exactly some top competition there. Luckily for UNLV, you don't have to win on the road to win in the NCAA Tournament, and they will be there. They might do well to go for some wins in their remaining road games at New Mexico, Texas Christian and Colorado State, though, or it could kill their seeding.

6. Harvard (20-2, 38 Pomeroy)
Coming in at sixth and back in the Top 25 of the coaches poll is Harvard. Now riding an eight game win streak, the Crimson are still undefeated in the Ivy League and have a tiebreak advantage to pad their one-game lead over second-place Yale. Avoiding a hiccup at Pennsylvania will be key for Harvard in the upcoming week. Penn was the team that undid Harvard's season a year ago, and they will be looking to bring some of the same magic to this matchup. Harvard's defense is still among the best in the country (21st in adjusted-defense), and kept it up against Cornell and Columbia last week, holding the opponents to 60 and 52 points.

5. Creighton (21-3, 24 Pomeroy)
The Blue Jays lost a second game in the Missouri Valley Conference and are now tied with Wichita State with a game still to play against the Shockers. Creighton's decline with a loss this week was not as precipitous as some drops in the past in these rankings because it came on a buzzer-beater away from home. A quick look at Creighton's 65-62 loss at Northern Iowa and it looks more like a fluke than an indication of Creighton being exposed. The top team in the country for field-goal percentage at 51.2 percent, Creighton shot just 42.1 percent at Northern Iowa and scored 62 points, compared to its season average of 81 per game (sixth in the country). Similar to the Blue Jays' Dec. 28 loss to Missouri State, this just looks like a game in which they struggled shooting, and it resulted in a close game that they couldn't quite win in the end. It does, however, make the teams Feb. 11 rematch with Wichita State extremely important. The winner will almost certainly win the MVC regular season.

4. New Mexico (19-4, 10 Pomeroy)
Despite being terrifically overrated by kenpom.com's system (10th is the highest any team has been in the report this year, and its a whopping 13 spots higher than NM was last week), New Mexico does appear to have righted the ship and be very good. Whereas UNLV required overtime to beat both Air Force and Boise State on the road, New Mexico dealt with both teams easily last week, winning by 39 and 16 points, respectively. The Lobos have the 29th best adjusted-offense and 12th best adjusted-defense in the country. That's the good news. The bad news? The next four games are against Wyoming, at San Diego State, home against UNLV, and at Colorado State. Not what one would call a friendly stretch, and it produced New Mexico's only two losses in the Mountain West last time.

3. San Diego State (20-3, 63 Pomeroy)
Despite a 2-0 week, SDSU dropped 10 more spots at kenpom.com, most likely due in large part to a two point squeak-by of Boise State at home. Still, the Aztecs are alone atop the Mountain West again and that is no small feat. The numbers continue to not back up the 20-3 record SDSU is sporting, and yet Steve Fischer's squad keeps on winning, which is why numbers are not all we can look at in sports. New Mexico has a tough stretch coming up but so does San Diego State. First the Aztecs will travel to UNLV for a rematch, and UNLV will be hungry afer losing by two in the first meeting. Then its a home game against New Mexico. Whatever SDSU has accomplished so far, it could fall apart pretty quickly if they don't get up for the next two games. Such is life in the MWC.

2. Saint Mary's (22-2, 26 Pomeroy)
If a tournament were organized of the 10 teams on this list plus the six best mid-major teams after them, I would probably be picking St. Mary's to win it all. Now up to a 12 game winning streak after a rest week with just one game against San Diego last week, the Gaels have been extremely impressive this season. In the latest Bracketology, they were given only a five seed, which seemed too low to me. The good news for the Gaels is they will have two golden opportunities to improve on that seeding in the coming weeks. With games at Gonzaga and Murray State, St. Mary's still has a couple very challenging tests ahead. Can Matthew Dellavedova continue being the best guard on the court when he's matching up against Kevin Pangos and Isaiah Canaan? If so, this team is headed for a two or three seed in the tourney.

1. Murray State (23-0, 61 Pomeroy)
Another week, another couple wins for the Racers, and a further decline in the Ken Pomeroy rankings. Why? Because beating teams like Southest Missouri State and Tennessee-Martin doesn't count for much in those rankings unless the win is by 30 or more. Which is valid. The good news for the Racers is I don't think anyone is buying into that number 61 next to their names. And maybe people are buying in the number 9 assigned to them in the coach's poll either, but they should at least realized Murray State isn't far from there. You just don't get to 23-0 without being really good. Sure, the 309th-ranked strength of schedule might make it easier, but teams like Dayton, Southern Miss, Western Kentucky and Memphis wouldn't take too kindly to you calling them cream puffs. If you're not sold on Murray, just wait another week and a half. Watch the game against Saint Mary's. Even if they lose, I'm guessing you'll be impressed.

Just around the corner

Welcome back, UD basketball.

You had us fooled for a bit there, what at 4-1 in the A-10 with a beautiful new style of play wins over the other three best teams in the conference. But thank you for setting us straight. For at least one more year, we're going to be treated to mediocrity and inconsistency personified. When you beat Xavier and Temple, you'll lose to St. Bonaventure and Rhode Island.

The only thing that is alarming about Dayton's recent three-game skid is that I didn't see it coming. It happens every year. UD looks good, then its NCAA Tournament chances are gone. Five wins later, maybe we were wrong about them. But sure to follow is a bad non-conference loss, effectively ending that glimmer of hope. After another run of great wins, they are the toast of the town, and sometimes the nation. UD followed the same formula as the last several years: keep the fans interested, barely. And once again, the team had me fooled.

After watching the game (debacle) against Duquesne in person (Flyers still winless with me in the Arena this year, heartbreaking), I'll still be following Dayton basketball closely, but not with the same naive sense of hope. Not the naive hope I somehow got back after they quit in a game and lost to Buffalo by 29. With the loss Dayton fell to 4-4 in the Atlantic 10, with most of its toughest road games still to play. The only way UD could secure an at-large bid at this point is to go 6-2 or better in the final half of the A-10 season. And 6-2 would be pushing it. Teams need to separate themselves from the pack in the A-10 this year to get noticed. And 9-7 won't do that, even if all 9 wins are great ones.

So from here on out, it's put up or shut up time. And after seeing UD do anything but put up in games that should have been easy wins at home against Rhody and Duquesne, my outlook is rather bleak. Dayton gave up a combined 169 points in the two games and was uninterested on the defensive end. Against Duquesne, after the Dukes played the best half of Duquesne basketball this season, UD put up for five or six minutes. They cut a nine point halftime deficit to one, and then shut it down offensively and defensively. Duquesne started getting better looks. UD stopped pounding the ball inside. And, predictably, the game got away from them in the end. Watching it unfold, I couldn't help but be stunned. They had Duquesne right where they wanted them. That was looking like it was going to be a terrific second half capped by a 13-point UD win. Try a 10-point UD loss. And after seeing it in person, I know: for at least one more year, this the still Dayton basketball program that we love, and then hate.