PiRate Ratings College Basketball For January 29, 2020

Wednesday’s Games

 

Home	Visitor	Spread
Arkansas	South Carolina	10.2
Army	Bucknell	0.2
Boise St.	San Jose St.	16.8
Boston College	Louisville	-12.0
Boston University	Loyola (MD)	9.4
Bradley	Valparaiso	7.6
Central Arkansas	Southeast Louisiana	5.5
Central Florida	Memphis	-3.1
Citadel	Wofford	-7.1
Colgate	Lafayette	8.0
Colorado St.	Nevada	1.5
Connecticut	Temple	4.4
Duquesne	Dayton	-9.0
East Carolina	Houston	-13.7
East Tennessee St.	Mercer	16.0
Fordham	St. Bonaventure	-5.3
Furman	VMI	17.3
George Washington	Davidson	-5.5
Hartford	Binghamton	7.8
Houston Baptist	Incarnate Word	5.7
Illinois St.	Evansville	5.8
Indiana St.	Drake	4.4
Iowa St.	Baylor	-4.9
Kansas St.	Oklahoma	-0.6
Kentucky	Vanderbilt	17.5
La Salle	Saint Louis	-3.0
LSU	Alabama	4.3
Massachusetts	Saint Joseph’s	6.4
McNeese St.	Nicholls St.	0.6
Michigan St.	Northwestern	18.3
Navy	Holy Cross	12.2
New Hampshire	Vermont	-10.7
New Mexico	San Diego St.	-8.3
New Orleans	Northwestern St.	4.2
Northern Iowa	Missouri St.	10.6
Notre Dame	Wake Forest	8.1
Oral Roberts	South Dakota St.	3.6
Penn St.	Indiana	5.0
Saint Peter’s	Monmouth	1.5
Sam Houston St.	Texas A&M-CC	10.2
Samford	Chattanooga	-4.1
Seton Hall	DePaul	12.3
Southern Illinois	Loyola (Chi)	-3.3
Stephen F. Austin	Abilene Christian	8.4
TCU	Texas	4.1
Texas Tech	West Virginia	-1.4
Tulane	South Florida	0.4
UMass Lowell	Stony Brook	-5.7
UMBC	Albany	-0.7
Utah Valley	California Baptist	-2.0
Washington St.	Arizona St.	-2.0
Western Carolina	UNC Greensboro	-4.0
Xavier	Marquette	-0.4

 

Important TV Games on Wednesday

You will need multiple monitors tonight if you want to see all the important basketball games.  Besides multiple key games that will help decide seeding in the “one-bid” conferences, there are some big-time power conference games that will determine who stays in the good graces of the NCAA Selection Committee and who has to blow bubbles.

 

DePaul has fallen to last place in the Big East, and the Blue Demons are out of the field for now.  They could get in position to get in position for the Bubble with a road win against Big East leader Seton Hall.  The Hall is merely playing for a chance to move up to the #1 Seed line if a couple teams above the Pirates lose.

 

Duquesne is two games out of first in the Atlantic 10, and the A-10 is not yet a definite two-bid league, unless somebody upsets Dayton in the conference tournament.  So, seeding for the conference tournament is vital.  The Dukes host the Flyers tonight in the  City of Bridges.  If Dayton keeps winning, the Flyers could move up to a #2 Seed.

 

The Game of the Night in the South is the LSU-Alabama contest in Baton Rouge.  The Tigers are riding an 8-game winning streak that includes four road wins.  Alabama comes to town riding a 4-game winning streak, and the Tide are one big win away from crashing into the next Bracketology list.  ‘Bama first-year coach Nate Oats is one of three hot new leaders (along with Buzz Williams at Texas A&M and Eric Musselman of Arkansas) of SEC schools.  Expect a lot of possessions.

 

New Hampshire hosts Vermont in a key America East game between neighborly rivals.  Vermont leads three A-East rivals by one game with UNH two games back.  In a league where the higher seed hosts every conference tournament game, and with Vermont having an incredible home court advantage, upsetting the Catamounts when they play on the road is the only way to bring them back to the pack and possibly make them have to play a championship game on the road.

 

In the SoCon tonight, the Western Carolina-UNC Greensboro winner could find themselves in second place before the night is over.  Both teams are strong enough to challenge league leader East Tennessee State.   If ETSU continues to dominate the regular season and then gets upset in the SoCon Championship Game, this could become a two-bid league.

 

The Big 12 game of the night finds two potential Elite 8 teams playing in Lubbock as last year’s national runner-up Texas Tech hosts West Virginia.  If Bob Huggins’ Mountaineers win this road game tonight, they are just a Gonzaga or San Diego State loss away from moving to the top seed line.

 

Also in the Big 12, TCU hosts Texas, where the loser of this game falls well back in the pack in at-large tournament consideration, while the winner will most likely move up to one of the last teams out or possibly a 12-seed in a play-in game in Dayton.

 

In The Big Ten, Penn State has been quite a surprise this year, while Indiana has been on the cusp of breaking out and returning to power, but keeps stubbing its toe by blowing second half leads.  The winner of this game will be above .500 in the league, and in this year’s Big Ten, any team finishing at .500 or better in conference play is going dancing in March.

 

We have the Big East as the third toughest conference in the land this week.  It figures that half of the league will get NCAA Tournament Bids.  Xavier is 2-5 in the league hosting a Marquette team that is 4-4 in the league.  The teams are fighting it out tonight with 5th and 6th place in the balance.

 

Arkansas hosts a hot South Carolina team tonight in Fayetteville.  The Gamecocks have an interesting resume, but it isn’t NCAA Tournament worthy–yet.  USC owns road wins against Clemson and Virginia as well as a home win over Kentucky, but they also lost to Boston U and Stetson.  Meanwhile Musselman has Arkansas in line for a top 8 NCAA seed, and he is the co-favorite along with A&M’s Williams for SEC Coach of the Year.

 

Six years ago, Stephen F. Austin beat Virginia Commonwealth in the NCAA Tournament before falling to UCLA in the Round of 32.  Then coach Brad Underwood became a hot commodity, where he moved on to the big time.  He’s doing a great job at Illinois.  Current head coach Kyle Keller has been an assistant to Eddie Sutton, Bill Self, and Billy Kennedy, and he could be the next hot commodity coming out of Nacogdoches.  His Lumberjacks faces one of their toughest conference contests tonight when SFA hosts Abilene Christian.  Coach Joe Goldings’ Wildcats bring the toughest defense in the league to face SFA’s outstanding perimeter offense.

 

Out West in the Mountain West, San Diego State has two somewhat difficult games remaining on their schedule in their attempt to be the first team to arrive at the NCAA with a perfect unbeaten record since Wichita State in 2014.  One of those tough games comes tonight when the Aztecs play at the Pit in Albuquerque against New Mexico.  SDSU Coach Brian Dutcher should be the leading candidate for National Coach of the Year, after he scored the best “free agent” trio at the end of last year.  Dutcher was able to attract Malachi Flynn from Washington State, Yanni Wetzell from Vanderbilt, and K.J. Feagin from Santa Clara, all who start for the Aztecs.  Flynn and Wetzell figure to end up on the All-MWC team.  

 

 

Time (EST)	Network	Home	Visitor
6:30 PM	FS1	Seton Hall	DePaul
7:00 PM	CBSSN	Duquesne	Dayton
7:00 PM	ESPN2	LSU	Alabama
7:00 PM	ESPN+	New Hampshire	Vermont
7:00 PM	ESPN+	Western Carolina	UNC Greensboro
8:00 PM	ESPN+	Texas Tech	West Virginia
8:00 PM	ESPN+	TCU	Texas
8:30 PM	BigTen	Penn St.	Indiana
8:30 PM	FS1	Xavier	Marquette
8:30 PM	SECN	Arkansas	South Carolina
8:30 PM	ESPN+	Stephen F. Austin	Abilene Christian
9:00 PM	CBSSN	New Mexico	San Diego St.