Thursday, March 06, 2008

One Week From the BET

Two things to watch in terms of seeding for the conference tournament:

Notre Dame is currently in line for no worse than a 4 seed in New York. The Irish could bump up to #3 with a Connecticut loss at Providence tonight (tied with 11 to go) or at home against Cincinnati on Saturday.

Playing as the 4 seed in New York would mean a likely contest against Marquette on Thursday. The 3 seed will probably play the winner of West Virginia/Seton Hall. No brainer as to who we'd like to play there.

Looking forward to the NCAAs, starting two weeks from today. The Irish stand as a solid 4 seed with the win last night and should solidify that seeding by defeating South Florida on Saturday.

Teams to Watch-

Atlantic 10-
Xavier- 2 seed, Bracket Project

Plays St. Joe's tonight and heavily favored against Richmond Saturday. An early exit from the conference tournament combined with a good ND finish to the year could put the Irish over Xavier on the seeding line.

Big Ten-
Indiana- 4 seed
Purdue- 4 seed
Wisconsin- 3 seed

Irish currently slightly above Indiana and Purdue. Watch the tournament to see how this conference shakes out. All three should win their last regular season games.

Big XII-
Kansas- 2 seed
Texas- 2 seed

Texas finish the year at home, but Kansas could face a tricky contest at A&M on Saturday. One of the two should win the conference, but teams like Kansas State, Baylor, Oklahoma, and the Aggies could all make a run. If either team fails to make the final, the Irish could leap them.

Big East-
Connecticut- 4 seed
Georgetown- 3 seed
Louisville- 3 seed

Obviously, the Irish will have the chance to separate themselves from the Big East teams by winning the conference tournament.

Pac 10-
Stanford- 3 seed

Stanford could lock up that 3 seed with a win over UCLA tonight, but losing 2 of the next 3 (@ UCLA, @ USC, Pac-10 first round) could give ND a chance to leapfrog them.

8 comments:

BlackandGreen said...

Providence beats Connecticut, giving the Irish something tangible to play for on Saturday,

JohnF said...

What is the tie-breaker if ND and UConn both finish 13-5 (not that I'm anticipating a loss to USF)?

BlackandGreen said...

http://www.bigeast.org/fls/19400/pdfs/mensbball/tiebreaker07.pdf?DB_OEM_ID=19400&KEY=&SPID=11228&SPSID=94715

It's complicated... should be UCONN for their win over Louisville.

BlackandGreen said...

Need to watch West Virginia/St. John's at noon Saturday and Marquette/Syracuse at 4.

West Virginia beat Marquette head-to-head, so the Mountaineers get the tiebreaker if they finish with the same record.

Anonymous said...

yikes, we still might see marquette yet. WVU is still trying to solidify themselves in the ncaa tourny, so look for them to smash a st john's team that has nothing to play for (DePaul won tonight) Cuse is also fighting for their lives, while Marquette is only playing for seeding. Marquette could easily drop to 6.

Anonymous said...

Doesn't matter who we get, Marquette, WVU, or Pitt. They all will be playing for their tourney lives. It will be tough in any case. Until last year, we usually collapsed at MSG.

Bryan said...

Just like last year, when I 'smelled' a matchup with Winthrop coming, anyone else 'smell' a Davidson matchup in a 5-12 game? And frankly, I'd be BEYOND pissed....

Bryan said...
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