Results: Tuesday, November 26, 2014

Bubbles popped: 3

Marist (0-4), Metro Atlantic
A game at Boston College is the best chance Marist has left for a resume building win.  That, and 25 or so more wins wouldn't be enough to earn a 5-loss Marist an at-large bid.

Jackson State (1-4), SWAC
The SWAC is routinely one of (usually the) worst conference in the country.  An undefeated run through it's regular season won't be enough for Jackson State as they will play absolutely no one of note from here on out.

Maryland-Baltimore County (0-4), American East
MDBC still has games remaining at George Washington and Iowa.  Even if they swept those two, the American East won't offer enough red RPI meat to put MDBC into the at-large conversation with five losses.

Four results worth mentioning:

Temple 76, Pennsylvania 67
The Owls picked up a win in the wildly underrated Big Five series.  Philly needs to find a way to market these Big Five games better.  Perhaps a more concise  round-robin over a four-day period, publish the standings somewhere more visible, anything really, to get these games some more hype.  Penn is terrible this year, and Temple doesn't appear to be much better, so obviously that doesn't help the cause much either.

Villanova 60, Michigan 55
This was one of those games that was as wild a finish as you will ever see for a certain type of basketball fan.  And by certain type, I mean the gambling type.  With 14 seconds to play Villanova trailed by one, and they were favored by 4.5 points.  Over the next 14 seconds they went on a 6-0 run to beat Michigan and cover the spread.  That is a crazy swing.

Florida Gulf Coast 62, San Francisco 47
FGCU improved to 5-0 with a win over previously unbeaten San Francisco.  This is an impressive win that will go unnoticed in most the college basketball world.  I try not to put to much weight on previous random tournament runs by no-name schools, but FGCU appears to have some staying power.

Arkansas 76, SMU 72
None of SMU's three loses are what you would describe as "bad," but at some point they need to win one of these games.  Beating Eastern Washington is nice, but I wouldn't want to trust the committee to recognize that, they prove themselves to be ignorant on an annual basis.  Maybe is Arkansas is legitimate (I doubt it), maybe SMU just isn't very good (more likely), but they can't afford anymore non-conferences losses.