Mon, Dec 22nd - 5 Games...

[gofriars08]

Providence blowing the doors off Miami to pick up a quality neutral court win (though the crowd is 70% PC fans so not sure how neutral it really is...). Kris Dunn with an utterly dominant performance - 15 points on 6/8 shooting, 12 assists, 5 boards, 2 steals. One man wrecking crew.

[notkirkcameron]

Providence blowing the doors off Miami to pick up a quality neutral court win (though the crowd is 70% PC fans so not sure how neutral it really is...). Kris Dunn with an utterly dominant performance - 15 points on 6/8 shooting, 12 assists, 5 boards, 2 steals. One man wrecking crew.

Neutral courts can be silly things. Seems every holiday tournament MU either ends up playing Duke, or a "neutral site" final (Like San Diego State in Anaheim, or Florida State in Orlando....), plus that cheeky NCAA Tournament draw that put a Nationally-ranked Marquette against Utah State in Boise, Idaho...a quick drive from Utah State's campus. Still don't think my fingernails have grown back from that one.

[marquette]

Tale of two halves, really. Absolutely horrific shooting in the first, much better play in the second. The next thing I am going to say shouldn't be taken out of context, UND is a really bad team. However, they also have a 7 footer who became eligible midseason. I expect them to be better than they have been, but still pretty bad. We should have had this from start to finish.

[gofriars08]

Latest RPI's:

Nova 7
SHU 23
SJU 26
Providence 29
Butler 43
Georgetown 57
Xavier 75
Marquette 94
Creighton 126
DePaul 220

Good to see 5 teams in NCAA range. Disappointing to see X so low, think they are better than that but the close losses to Auburn and LBSU hurt.

[Jet915]

Nice win for PC, both teams will likely be "bubble" teams so this could be a tiebreaker. Overall, nice day for the Big East at 4-1.

[GumbyDamnit!]

PC looked really good last night. Seem to have all of the pieces to be a solid top half of the league type of team and tourney team. Still trying to figure out how they could have lost to BC and Brown.

[Irishdawg]

PC looked really good last night. Seem to have all of the pieces to be a solid top half of the league type of team and tourney team. Still trying to figure out how they could have lost to BC and Brown.

Because college basketball.

[hoyahooligan]

Marquette pulling away from surprisingly feisty North Dakota late (UND led by 5 at the half).

55-44 Marquette with 6 minutes to play.


UPDATE: Marquette completes the comeback and defeats North Dakota 67-54 leaving all Marquette fans except the ones who bet on them (18.5 pt favorites) happy.

MU Rah Rah moves to 7-4. I don't know what to make of this team. They lose to Omaha and throw a scare like tonight, but if they'd beaten Omaha and assuming MU takes care of business against Morgan State, they would be entering conference play 9-3, with wins over three F5 teams (Tennessee, Georgia Tech, and Arizona State), and their only losses would be to arguably the three best teams in the Big Ten (Ohio State, Michigan State, Wisconsin).

Some luster coming off of that Arizona St win (not that there was much) after they pulled a DePaul and lost to Lehigh at home.

[Bill Marsh]

All of the results from the past couple of weeks have to be taken with a grain of salt because they come during exam time. Teams aren't following normal practice schedules and sometimes they're not practicing at all. Sometimes players are overtired from pulling all nighters. The idea of players traveling long distances in this period was unheard of years ago. In fact, many teams would have a 10 day break in their schedules. But now college hoops are big business. The TV contract must be fed with product. Oh, well.

When games occur at this time occur with results that appear to be inexplicable because they're out of character, that's probably just what they are - out of character. I don't believe for a minute that if Kentucky and UCLA are matched up again that we'll get the same result. At this time of year, the UCLA kids actually have to take finals, the. Kentucky kids OTOH . . .

I'm. Thinking that the results will begin to be more reliable again during the Christmas- New Year's week.

[Bill Marsh]

Latest RPI's:

Nova 7
SHU 23
SJU 26
Providence 29
Butler 43
Georgetown 57
Xavier 75
Marquette 94
Creighton 126
DePaul 220

Good to see 5 teams in NCAA range. Disappointing to see X so low, think they are better than that but the close losses to Auburn and LBSU hurt.

For comparison, latest from RPI Forecast, which is a more reliable measure IMO:

10. Villanova
21. Butler
22. Xavier
28. St. John's
35. Seton Hall
41. Georgetown
42. Providence
104. Marquette
118. Creighton
205. DePaul

That puts 7 in tournament range!