February 13 Update: Connecticut Victim of the Vagaries of RPI

The Temple Owls and the South Florida Bulls both edged up into the top 25 of RPI a little unexpectedly this weekend. This change meant that instead of Connecticut having just one more scheduled top 25 game in their season (tonight's showdown against South Carolina), the Huskies now have three, and this was enough to drop Connecticut (through no fault of their own) down to the fifth ranked team in the College Women's Hoops S-Factor. I believe this will only be a temporary drop.

Last 4 in:
Harvard
Northern Iowa
Indiana
Northwestern

First 4 out:
Elon
Penn State
Michigan State
Georgetown

Now in:
Harvard
James Madison
Indiana

Now out:
Elon
Michigan State
California

Conferences with multiple bids:
SEC: 8
(1) Mississippi State
(1) South Carolina
(3) Texas A&M
(5) Tennessee
(5) Kentucky
(6) Missouri
(7) LSU
(8) Auburn

ACC: 7
(1) Notre Dame
(2) Florida State
(3) Duke
(4) North Carolina State
(4) Louisville
(6) Syracuse
(6) Miami (FL)

Pac 12: 6
(1) Oregon State
(2) Stanford
(3) Washington
(4) UCLA
(7) Arizona State
(8) Oregon

Big Ten: 5
(4) Maryland
(7) Ohio State
(9) Michigan
(10) Indiana
(11) Northwestern

Big 12: 5
(2) Baylor
(3) Texas
(5) Oklahoma 
(6) Kansas State
(9) West Virginia

American: 3
(2) Connecticut
(7) Temple
(8) South Florida

Big East: 3
(5) DePaul
(8) Marquette
(9) Creighton

Missouri Valley: 2
(10) Northern Iowa
(11) Drake

Ivy: 2
(10) Harvard
(12) Pennsylvania

Last Notes Before the Conference Tournaments

 - The Big 12 regular season wrapped up on Tuesday, and the conference tournament starts tomorrow in Dallas.  After West Virginia's unexpected loss to Texas on Tuesday, for the first time all season, the S-Factor is showing only five Big 12 teams to make the tournament: Baylor (1), Iowa State (5), Oklahoma (6), Texas Tech (8), and Oklahoma State (11).

 - Backing into West Virginia's place in the tournament for now is Illinois, but St. John's is a much more likely candidate for a slot in the field. With an impressive 11-5 record in the Big East, all but three of their 11 losses coming against NCAA tournament teams, 34th ranked RPI, and an important first round hosting slot, St. John's is pretty much a no-brainer for a tournament bid (an anomalous loss to RPI 203 Seton Hall is currently costing them about 5-6 S-Factor points, which would have put them somewhere around an 8-seed in the S-Factor had they won). 

 - I think Illinois, South Florida, St. Joseph's, and Oklahoma State are the bubbliest teams right now that I have shown in the field.



 - Conferences where the conference tournament has little chance of altering the selection of at-large bids: SEC, ACC, Pac-12.  The SEC is very likely getting 7 teams in: there is a huge gap between 7th place Vanderbilt (9-7 SEC) and 8th place Arkansas (6-10 SEC).  Likewise between 5th place Miami (11-7 ACC) and 6th place Virginia (8-10 ACC), and between 4th place Colorado (13-5 Pac-12, 23 RPI) and 5th place Washington (11-7 Pac-12, 83 RPI). 

Now in:
Illinois

Now out:
West Virginia

Conferences with multiple bids:
Big Ten: 7
Big East: 7
SEC: 7
Big 12: 5
ACC: 5
Pac-12: 4
Atlantic 10: 4
Missouri Valley: 2

An Unusual Night in the Big East

The Big East wrapped up its regular season last night, and what a finale it was! The highly-predictable, highly-stratified Big East experienced its first real bout of entropy of the season. South Florida (2-13 in conference before the game) beat 17th-ranked Georgetown. Cincinnati (1-14 in conference before the game) beat 20th-ranked Marquette. These were the margins of victory in five of the eight Big East games last night: 1, 2, 2, 3, 5.

One game that was not close was West Virginia's win over St. John's, 69-49. One day after dropping out of the AP rankings, and two days after head coach Mike Carey got T-ed up berating a female referee, the Mountaineers finally grabbed a win against a somewhat decent opponent and made it to 8-8 in conference (although they still only have three wins in their last ten games). They had a great run to start the season, and I think they did just enough in conference to keep their spot in the NCAA tournament, although a first round loss to Cincinnati would put that spot in jeopardy. The College Women's Hoops S-Factor puts West Virginia in as a 7-seed.

__________________


Now in: Kansas
Now out: Old Dominion

Conferences with multiple bids:
Big East: 10
ACC: 6
SEC: 6
Big Ten: 6
Big 12: 6
PAC-10: 3
Atlantic 10: 3