Guess I'll be rooting for nothing but upsets on Thursday.

We'll need all the help we can get....

we need upsets on the other side of the (original) bracket to avoid Irvine on Friday.

Would be interesting to see if Irvine got in as an at-large. I don't think the BW is a two-bid conference, but you never know...

That's a good question. I guess if they make it to the BWT championship game and possibly lose on a last second shot, maybe. I'd put money on them heading to the NIT if they lose.

i doubt it. their NET ranking is 111. UCLA is 76 and they are considered an unlikely bubble team (assuming they don't win the Pac12 tourney)

:up:

If I'm remembering right, weren't we 80 or so in RPI during the Hawkins season? And we didn't really sniff the bubble.

Plus from what I've read it looks like the B1G and Pac are poised to put most of their teams in the tournament. There won't be a lot of spots that the committee would want to give to mid majors with that kind of crop in contention

i can't remember our RPI that season, but i'm pretty sure we were below 100. the NET seems to be the one that the committee follows these days. according to Jon Wilner in his Pac12 Hotline in the SJ Mercury, he thinks the Pac will get 5-6 teams depending on how tournaments go. Their NET is 77 (RPI is 61), and last season the lowest at-large was 73. So, Irvine is far below that.

There were a handful of mid-majors over the years that did not make March Madness with RPI as high as the twenties.

That's pretty shabby!

Highest RPI ranking left out of the tournament:
• 21 - Missouri State (2006)
• 29 - Colorado State (2015)
• 30 - Hofstra (2006), Air Force (2007)

This was from a 2016 link, so I don't know about recent history.

No spectators at the conference tourney: https://ucdavisaggies.com/news/2020/3/10/mens-basketball-big-west-tournament-to-proceed-without-spectators.aspx

DAMN!!!

Wow...that's going to be really strange. It will be like a pre-season, scheduled scrimmage and I think it will definitely alter the game.

I also wonder if ESPN will continue to air the games as scheduled. I hope they do but it's going to be really weird.

It’ll certainly be interesting to see which teams can deal with an empty arena. Who can put it out if their minds and focus on the game.

"They" say that it's hard to beat the same team 3 times in a season as Hawaii would have to do to beat the Ags on Thursday, Try telling that to Vanderbilt when they lose to Kentucky 3 times (no data, but I imagine it has happened more than once). Ditto for Wake Forest and Duke (yes, I know that the Demon Deacons upset Duke this year, but still...). My protestations notwithstanding, I think that "they" are right when it comes to teams who are evenly matched as UCD and Hawaii are. Last time I looked, their net rankings were right next to each other (215 and 216), so WE SHOULD WIN THIS TIME.

No Aggies on the Big West All Conference Team, but Ezra Manjon was named Freshman of the Year:
https://bigwest.org/news/2020/3/9/big-west-reveals-2019-20-mens-basketball-all-conference-team.aspx

I'm already at Anaheim. Is there an alternate watch party, or does that defeat the purpose?

FWIW, Jordan Ford at SMC fun to watch. They beat BYU last night.

Les recruited him but lost out to St Mary's.

No spectators at March Madness this year. Wow...

Hysteria?

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-deaths-from-coronavirus-are-so-high-in-italy/

The NBA suspends the season.

And just like that, basketball season is over...

Feel bad that the players don’t get a final shot, but not surprised based on the recent NBA actions.

ACC also cancelled theirs, I saw.

So will future NCAA basketball seasons be canceled bc of the flu?

The flu contributes to the death of 20,000 to 60,000 people in the US every year.

What makes this different? Hysteria?

Read up on reputable news sites etc. It IS a big deal.

Well for one, we don't know how bad this is going to get. Read the article you posted about the health care system in Italy. We have a finite number of hospitals and beds. What restricting people does is to help lower the number of cases at one time so doctors can adequately help people who get sick.

Not to mention the fact that there isn't widespread testing so we don't know who has it and who doesn't.

This is going to get much worse before it gets better.