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Conference Tourney Games and Other Highlighted Games for Wed, 2/28

Conference Tourney Games and Other Highlighted Games for Wed, 2/28
Feb 28, 2007, 07:59 am
CONFERENCE TOURNAMENTS

PATRIOT LEAGUE QUARTERFINALS

-Lafayette @ Holy Cross
-Colgate @ American

-Navy @ Bucknell
-Army @ Lehigh

Bucknell and Holy Cross are the hands down favorites to advance to the finals. If that happens, the game will be played at Holy Cross due to the fact that they won the tiebreaker and took control of the #1 seed in the league. Both Holy Cross and Bucknell are good teams that could end up being headaches for first round NCAA Tournament opponents.


SOUTHERN CONFERENCE OPENING ROUND

-Georgia Southern vs The Cidatel
-Elon vs Western Carolina
-Wofford vs Chattanooga
-Furman vs UNC Greensboro

The winners will advance to the quarterfinals of the tournament. From there the seeding is standard. Obviously, these are elimination games. The winners advance to play another day. The losers’ seasons are over.


SUN BELT OPENING ROUND

-Louisiana Lafayette @ North Texas
-Denver @ Louisiana Monroe

-Florida Internatonal @ Florida Atlantic (winner gets #3 Western Kentucky)

-Arkansas Little Rock @ New Orleans (winner #2 gets Arkansas State)

-Middle Tennessee @ Troy (winner gets #1 South Alabama)

Western Kentucky appears to be the best team, but they’re inconsistent and didn’t prove to be the best in conference play. The winner of this league is most likely looking at a #15 seed.


WEST COAST OPENING ROUND

-Pepperdine vs San Diego

-LMU @ Portland (host)

Gonzaga and Santa Clara are the two favorites to win the league, but they won’t see action until the semifinals. In the quarters, Saint Mary’s will play the worst remaining seed from today’s games, and San Francisco will play the best remaining seed.


OTHER HIGHLIGHTED GAMES

-MISSISSIPPI AT ALABAMA (SEC). Ole Miss is ahead of Alabama in the standings, and has looked to be a better team than Bama for most of the season. With the NCAA Tournament approaching, Bama has done little to nothng to prove that they belong in it. This is a big game for both of these teams because both are on the outside looking in and looking to prove that they belong.

-MISSISSIPPI STATE AT ARKANSAS (SEC). Two teams that are on the outside looking in. Arkansas can get serious consideration if they don’t win the SEC Tournament, but they really need to win their next two or three games in order for that to happen.

-GEORGIA AT KENTUCKY (SEC). This is a hugely important game. Georgia has lost a big contributor in Mike Mercer due to injury, but if they can win this game on the road without him it would go a long way toward proving that they are a worthy team for an NCAA bid. Kentucky has shown on occasion that they’re good, but they have been in a tailspin lately. They really need to win this game because their final regular season game is a road game against Florida. If they were to lose that, and suffer an early exit from the conference toureny, they probably wouldn’t be left out of the NCAA Tournament, but it would not be a very impressive impression on the committee that’s seeding the teams.

-UNLV AT NEW MEXICO (Mountain West). UNLV appears to have a bid to the NCAAs locked up so long as they don’t suffer a complete collapse. New Mexico is a good team who has suffered through injuries, but they’re never easy to beat at home. This is a big game for UNLV as far as sustaining their NCAA resume is concerned.

-INDIANA AT NORTHWESTERN (Big Ten). It’s pretty cut and dry. Indiana has struggled on the road, and needs to improve on that. A road win at Northwestern is not all that impressive, but a road loss at Northwestern isn’t all that good either, especially considering that they have so few road wins. A win in this game basically says to the committee, “At least they can beat Northwestern on the road.”

-TEXAS A&M AT TEXAS. This is a huge rivalry in the Big Twelve. A win for TAMU would be a big step toward getting them a #2 seed. A win for Texas would really help boost the quality of their resume and move them up to a much better seed. Texas has been playing well lately, and a home win against a top ten team would rectify that. This is one of those games that means a lot both on and off paper.

-BAYLOR AT TEXAS TECH. Texas Tech is close to the bubble and needs to win some games to nail down a bid. A loss today would be rather damaging, so they need to take care of business.

-SAINT JOSEPH’S AT XAVIER. Senior night for Xavier. XU is right on the bubble and can’t afford to lose any games for the rest of the regular season if they want to be in serious discussion for an at-large. As well as the other bubble teams have been playing, Xavier’s next slipup could be their last. They need to win tonight.

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