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There are three groups of teams: locks, bubble and auto-bid only.

We fall into the third group and we make up the bottom of the bracket. We want this group to be as large and as "bad" as possible. If a team is a bubble team and they lose, they don't affect our seed in any way...they were ahead of us to begin with. They may bump another team from the tournament.

Just root for the worst team to win each game and you'll be on the right track.

I think Belmont should be green?
I like tables and graphs, nice work!

You would be correct. With the time change, I didn't get much sleep last night 

[Decided by RPI. Indeed!]

For the college basketball fan, another great game tonight was Yale-Dartmouth. Yale, with the conference title in their hand, loses on a last second play to setup a one game playoff with Harvard for the Ivy League title.

Will the game be played in New Haven or Cambridge? Since they tied for first in the 8 team Ivy League how is the vitally important home court decided? Knowing the Ivy League I'm sure it's not by RPI. The Ivy would scoff at that.




Decided by RPI. Indeed!

Game is played on a neutral court. In this instance, at the Palestra in Philadelphia.

First ticket punched last night with Belmont. Three more today...

Team to root for today: Illinois State (vs. Northern Iowa), Monmouth (vs. Iona), Western Carolina (vs. Wofford)
To a lesser extent: Hofstra (vs. William & Mary), Northeastern (vs. UNC-Wilmington)

Once again, RPI data is a day behind (maybe I should sleep in before doing this...), but you'll get the idea.

[COULD]

OK, so the NCAA is a little slower in updating their RPI page than I expected, so the RPI numbers are a day old, but the seeding is correct. This will all take care of itself in the end.

As coaches would say...we've got our own business to take care of before any of that matters. Fortunately, we are fans and we don't have to listen!

The first two bids COULD be handed out tonight. The Ohio Valley (Murray State escaped last night...down 11 with under 7:00 to play) will for sure, and Yale clinches the Ivy with a win or a Harvard loss. If Yale were to lose tonight and Harvard win, they would have a one-game playoff (the Ivy League does not use tiebreakers...they play for it).

There should also be a lot of movement the next couple of days. A ton of games, across the board from the small conferences to the majors.

[continent]

Nice to have the commentators talking up the Valpo gameday atmosphere.  "It will be _electric_."  When Valpo tips off tomorrow in front of what he assumes will be a sold-out house.

And praising our geographic centrality?  I assume the former was not continent on the latter.

I sincerely hope the folks in the arena are continent this evening...

I did this two years ago

you did everything else 2 years ago...where've you been since?!?

I've been around...reading and not posting. I haven't missed a home game in three years.

Oakland built a 26-11 lead at the 7:00 mark, then went ice cold (I think these teams feel there is some penalty for attempting a two-point shot).

Game is much closer than it should be at the half. Oakland leads 30-25. Felder has two fouls officially, but there is some question as to whether it should be 3.

Thanks for this; could it also be noted if there are other conference teams behind the red that are also red or close to it?

It could be, but I'm going to leave it as is, so its nice and clean. If a #1 seed loses, I'll change it to the #2 team or #3 team or whatever.

No #1 seeds lost last night, and no movement of RPI, so no update today. Things should start changing soon, however, with tournaments ramping up and the Harvard/Yale game giving one of them a one-game lead with one to play in the Ivy.

Harvard (better if Yale wins the regular season) 

Even better if they both lose out!  But, yeah, even at the same record and same RPI, I'd take Yale over Harvard.

They play each other Friday night.

I did this two years ago and it seemed to generate a fair amount of discussion. I will update daily (I'll try, anyways).

Notes:
- RPI numbers are direct from NCAA website
- RPI obviously is not the only tool
- We want as many upsets as possible...lots of GREEN!

- GREEN means a team has a worse RPI than Valpo (this is good)
- RED means a team has a better RPI than Valpo (this is bad)

- I will fill in details as they become available (basically, when conference tournament brackets are set)
- "Top Remaining Seed" just means conference tournament seed, not RPI ranking
- As Auto-Bids are given out, chart will be sorted by Auto-Bid RPI. Until then, sorted by date

[TON]

Just got home from Auburn Hills and can't express how proud of this group I am. They were simply physically overmatched today, and that's ok. Going in, we all knew it was going to come down to how many shots we made. MSU was going to get a million offensive rebounds and we were not going to get easy looks. That happened, we just didn't shoot it very well unfortunately.

The team this year gave us moments we will never forget...Ryan's shot against Green Bay, the comeback at Detroit and making it to the first NCAA Tournament since 2004. They have a TON to be proud of and absolutely nothing to be ashamed of, including today's game. Michigan State was one of the few teams that - quite simply - we had little chance against because of their physicality.

To respond to some of the criticism of Bryce's timeouts...he was trying to keep us in the game when we were missing EVERYTHING! There was a stretch where we ATTEMPTED two shots in four minutes, and Bryce used two of the timeouts then. If he hadn't, MSU may have extended their lead even more. He used them when he felt he had to. Yes, we were out of them at the end, but if he hadn't used them early, it may have been a 25-point lead at that point, and it wouldn't have mattered.

We had seven TO's against Michigan State...partly because we weren't very agressive for stretches, partly because we just plain took care of the ball better.


I am proud to say that I am a Valpo grad when our players play like they did for 40 minutes. I don't care if we make shots, I care how hard they play. I'm proud of them, and I have memories I won't soon let go of. These seniors (and the other guys too...) represent our school with great class, passion and they are the men that truly put VALPO out for the world to see...

(they all come here since they don't have their own boards.)

Both of them?

Perhaps just the Horizon League scores?

Against notre dame a few years back the lower level was full.

Please bare with us...

We're Going Streaking!

Here you are, good sir.

Case in point:  the color black. Someone in another thread said the uniforms for Thursday will be black and gold.

I don't know that anyone said anything about the uniforms. There is a photo of the SHOES, which are mostly gold with black accents. Also, in that thread, the gray uniforms were brought up (and suggested to be never seen again).

I would think we will wear gold...but that's nothing more than a guess...

Still pissed about our seed (I can't really write out what I think...I might have to ban myself if I wrote it), just don't think the location/opponent combination is that big of a deal

[Michigan State is the "FIFTH" closest team to their home site, of the top 16, but 11 of the 16 are at the closest site and the others all make pretty logical sense.]

Honestly, if we want to complain about seed/opponent, I think we have a beef. Site, I don't think we should really be upset. The committee "protects" the top four seeds in each region geographically as best they can. Michigan State is a 3 seed, so they are protected....that's how it works. Its not the committee bending over for them and giving them a home game (can't believe I'm defending them...but I don't think they got this wrong).

All four #1's are at the closest site.
Three #2's are at the closest site (Miami is not...Dayton is about 200 miles closer)
Two #3 seeds are at the closest site (Marquette [Dayton about 60 miles closer] & Florida [Dayton about 100 miles closer])
Two #4 seeds are at the closest site (Syracuse, St. Louis...obviously)

The Miami and Florida ones make sense...stay in the south. Syracuse and St. Louis? Well, they were the last two, so they got what was left.

Michigan State is the "FIFTH" closest team to their home site, of the top 16, but 11 of the 16 are at the closest site and the others all make pretty logical sense.

1 Louisville (Lexington, KY - 77 miles)
1 Gonzaga (Salt Lake City, UT - 721 miles)
1 Indiana (Dayton, OH - 165 miles)
1 Kansas (Kansas City, MO - 39 miles)

2 Georgetown (Philadelphia, PA - 136 miles)
2 Miami (Austin, TX - 1355 miles)
2 Ohio State (Dayton, OH - 71 miles)
2 Duke (Philadelphia, PA - 399 miles)

3 Florida (Austin, TX - 1022 miles)
3 Marquette (Lexington, KY - 466 miles)
3 New Mexico (Salt Lake City, UT - 620 miles)
3 Michigan State (Auburn Hills, MI - 82 miles)

4 St. Louis (San Jose, CA - 2090 miles)
4 Kansas State (Kansas City, MO - 120 miles)
4 Michigan (Auburn Hills, MI - 51 miles)
4 Syracuse (San Jose, CA - 2829 miles)



The matchup sucks, but I'd rather be there than out in San Jose....we can all get to the game in Detroit.

Been told by a friend that the ticket office is sold out of tickets for this weekend...and there is no longer a story on the athletics website that tickets are available there.

If this is true:
1) Congratulations Valpo Fans!
2) Awesome!

Hey, I'm just being constructive and fourthright.

If three lefts make a right, what is a fourthright?

A DUI?

12:15pm tip on CBS

http://www.mlive.com/spartans/index.ssf/2013/03/michigan_state_to_play_1215_pm.html

12:15 eastern
11:15 central

Complaining about our seed/opponent isn't going to do any good.  WHo is actually going?  I will be there cheering our guys on.  I hope they believe they can win more then the rest of you guys.

<raises hand>

Lunardi now has Valpo in San Jose playing #4 Marquette.     

Other #4s are K-State, Michigan, and Wisconsin.      I got my wish for Wisconsin to beat the Hoosiers, now if we can just draw them for the first round........!

Last Lunardi bracket had us #13 in San Jose playing Arizona #4.    Wisconsin seeded #5 in same bracket.    That is a remotely possible for VU to the Sweet 16.

I would LOVE to see Wisconsin beat Indiana today and move up to a #4 so we could draw them.   They are slow enough for us to beat them.  Wisconsin might have risen to a #4 already after beating Michigan but doubtful.

Wisconsin is wright State but more over the top. They're the most painful boring team to watch and play very fundamental basketball. They are very beatable due to their poor offense, and they don't take advantage off forcing turnovers. They slow the game down and play excellent defense and limit their own mistakes.

With Valpo's propensity for turnovers I don't see anyway that Valpo wins over Wisconsin. The score may be low and seem like Valpo is always in reach of making a run but with the difference in number of actual shots due to Valpo having many more turnovers, Wisconsin would win by their usual margin from 5 to 15.  Against Wisconsin, the run would never come and frustrate us as Valpo fans to no end.

Wisconsin is 276th in the nation in defensive turnover percentage.

As a Badger fan as well, I really don't want to draw them. As supporter said, they don't force turnovers...they force you into late clock bad shots....which might as well be turnovers.