It's been a while. Things have been hectic here in tourneybubble land. But never fear, I have returned to give you my opinion on a wide variety of topics, you can all rest easy now knowing that I am back and better than ever. With that said, let's dive right in, shall we?
First and foremost, lets look at the top bracketbuster matchups and how we here at tourneybubble see them playing out.
The big matchups of the weekend are Butler-Davidson, Utah State-St. Mary's, VCU-Nevada, Northern Iowa-Siena and for the heck of it, I am including GMU-Creighton because I want to add more on this game later.
The marquee matchup is of course Butler-Davidson. Davidson has Steph Curry, Butler has the best mid-major TEAM in the country. I like this matchup for several reasons. First, it will be a great style matchup. A tough, defensive minded, completely balanced TEAM against a percieved one-man gang in Curry. It's the classic battle of a team vs. a Superstar, which is more important.
It also pits two great coaches in Brad Stevens and Bob McKillop against one another in what should be a very well coached game. It will come down to who better executes on their possessions late in the game, which coach runs the better plays for their shooters (Curry or Heyward) and whether or not Butler can shut down Curry when it counts, at the end of the game.
Alot of different story lines in this game and definetly a preview of how both these teams will play in the tourney against top competition. This game will be better than any game you see in the SEC or PAC-10 all year long.
The next game I want to talk about is Utah State and St. Mary's. I haven't seen much of either of these teams this year, but from everything I have heard and read, Utah is the real deal this year. 21-1? That is incredible no matter what conference it is in, and the WAC, while not great, isn't a bad conference either. The only down side to their record is that they have yet to play any really good to great teams. The only really good team they have played is BYU and, well, that was their one loss.
It is a complete shame that this game will a terrible TV game because of Patty Mills injury. St. Mary's isn't even close to being the same team they were before we got injured, getting blown out by Portland in their last game. It's a shame too, because these are probably 2 of the best teams on the West Coast, in any league, before that injury.
The final game I want to talk about before this section of the update is over (part two will be updated tomorrow) is the GMU-Creighton game. This is certainly a made for tv event, as GMU is being rewarded with a marquee game on national TV against Creighton basically because of their previous bracketbuster performances and because of their Final 4 run.
If their was any sense of competition and fairness in the selection of these games, then Northeastern, who has a 2 game lead on GMU in the standings and just beat them head to head, would have been given the marquee CAA matchup over VCU (who they also just beat) and GMU. Instead, Northeastern gets stuck against a good Wright State team, but gets screwed out of a marquee matchup.
It's clear that ESPN simply wants to put names against names, which is why Northeastern got the shaft, VCU and GMU got marquee games and ODU also gets to be on tv against Liberty because of, you guessed it, Seth Curry. If a Curry brother isn't playing for Liberty, no way two 180+ RPI teams get on tv. Instead, there is a very good chance it could be on ESPNU or even ESPN2 if they decide to market the Curry brothers back to back.
I am an extremely biased ODU fan who is being gifted a home game on national tv, and even I can see that ESPN doesn't care about the best matchups and promoting mid-major basketball, they only care about how many casual viewers they can draw to their channels.
With that said, GMU-Creighton should be a hell of a game. GMU is physical, tough inside and has several players capable of hitting clutch shots (Dre Smith, John Vaughan). Creighton will be very tough at home, and will remember their last bracketbuster against a CAA team, when Drexel came into their arena and beat them on national television (they year Drexel was screwed out of an at-large bid). GMU is going to have to dust off some Final 4 level magic to win this one on the road, because Creighton is no joke this year. They have a big size advantage inside, they have an incredible home court advantage and they have the motivation to not get beat by a CAA team in the bracketbusters again.
I look for Creighton to handle GMU at home by around 10 or so, but I think we should all be upset that Northeastern isn't getting to play this game. More to come tomorrow.
