Pac 10 Tournament Chances

The Pac 10 tournament is down to the semifinals. Arizona will face top seeded Stanford, while California will face second seeded UCLA. As for the Pac 10's third and fifth seeds, they lost last night. Layshia Clarendon of California had 46% of her teams points (22) as the Bears beat third-seeded Arizona State 48-43. Senior Ify Ibekwe got a double-double and was one of three Wildcats to score in double figures as Arizona took down USC 72-61.

The rest of the Pac 10's tournament prospects break down like this. Most bracketologists put Stanford in the tournament as a No. 1 seed and UCLA in as a No. 2 or No. 3 seed.

The third place finisher in the regular season, Arizona State, has looked really bad recently. But it would be hard to deny a team that finished 11-7 in conference with an RPI of 39 and a victory over DePaul earlier in the season, despite the fact that in three of their last five games they have been unable to score more than 50 points.

USC has had a relatively high RPI for most of the season, but the glory days of 2010 led to a disappointing conference season in 2011. And 10-8 in the Pac 10 is about equivalent to 7-9 in the Big 12. They needed to at least get to the semis to have a decent shot at the NCAA Tournament.

California, at 7-11 in conference, lost way too many games that they should have won, and so an at-large bid is probably not in their future.

Three teams may be all the Pac 10 gets. But the College Women's Hoops S-Factor now puts Arizona in the NCAA tournament as an at-large bid for the first time since January 6, 63 days ago! (Check the chart out). No other team with a predicted at-large bid even comes close in terms of most time spent below the at-large line after having been above the line previously (Kansas State's 38 days in purgatory is second). And of all the non-Stanford, non-UCLA teams in conference, Arizona has had the best run over the last month, winning eight out of their last nine games. Which is a huge turnaround from having gone 2-7 in the nine games previous to that. They are peaking at exactly the right time.

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Now in: Arizona
Now out: Southern California

Conferences with multiple bids:
Big East: 10
Big 12: 7
ACC: 6
Big Ten: 5
SEC: 4
PAC-10: 4
Atlantic 10: 2
Colonial: 2
Mountain West: 2

Gladiator Death Match Thursday

For bubble teams it seems like every game in late February is a test. For bubble teams playing other bubble teams, it seems like it's more of a gladiator death match where two contenders enter the arena, but only one comes out (still looking at a tournament bid).

There were two gladiator death match games last night: LSU versus South Carolina, and Southern California versus Arizona State. LSU and Arizona State came out on top last night, and the College Women's Hoops S-Factor rewards their performances with 10-seeds. For their losses, South Carolina remains outside the predicted at-large bids, while Southern Cal was thrust out to the "first four out" category.

But both teams with acronyms of USC have not quite been fed to the lions just yet. Of course anything can happen in their conference tournaments. South Carolina has a chance at a top-25 win against Vanderbilt this weekend, and Southern California has a chance to go 11-7 in the Pac-10, which is acceptable for an at-large resumé though not automatic by any means.

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Now in: Texas, LSU
Now out: Southern California, Michigan

Conferences with multiple bids:
Big East: 10
ACC: 6
SEC: 6
Big 12: 6
Big Ten: 5
PAC-10: 3
Atlantic 10: 3
Colonial: 2

Xavier's Artificial Slide

I was looking at these numbers today, and I wondered what the deal was with Xavier? Xavier remains undefeated in the Atlantic 10 conference, and they had been slated by the College Women's Hoops S-Factor as a 3-seed last week (and for most of the season) and as a 2-seed two weeks ago. Their RPI remains high, no. 9 in the country. But Xavier plummeted to a 5-seed in the new calculation this morning.

The reason for this has nothing to do with Xavier's play. While it's true that the Musketeers struggled at Dayton on Saturday in an overtime victory over the Flyers, only wins and losses, not quality of play, are factored into the S-Factor.

The reason for Xavier's numeric slide is due to two teams that Xavier has beaten this season: Michigan and USC. Both teams had been just barely in the top 25 of RPI going into Thursday (the Wolverines at no. 21 and the Trojans at no. 25). Both teams lost games (Michigan to Penn State and USC to UCLA), and therefore both lost ground in the RPI rankings (Michigan is now no. 26, and USC is now no. 29). Which means Xavier, by no fault of their own, now has zero wins over top 25 teams. Thus, the drop in the rankings.


Now in: Liberty, James Madison, Harvard, Texas, Boston College
Now out: Radford, Old Dominion, Princeton, Texas Tech, Southern California

Conferences with multiple bids:
Big East: 10
Big Ten: 7
ACC: 7
Big 12: 6
SEC: 5
PAC-10: 3
Atlantic 10: 2