Sun Belt Tournament liveblog

I’ll be live-tweeting at @MileHighMids as the Denver Pioneers try to earn their first-ever NCAA birth by winning the Sun Belt Tournament in Hot Springs, AR. If they make the title game Tuesday, I’ll also be live-tweeting my own crazy last-minute trip to Arkansas to watch the game from press row. Details here.

All of my tweets & RTs, and also @DU_MHoops’ tweets & RTs, will appear in the window below, along with any tweets mentioning me or @DU_MHoops. Hit “Click for Live Updates” to start the liveblog. GO PIOS!!!

[Original timestamp Mar 4th, 2012 5:47pm; bumped to top. -ed.]

DU widely projected as a #14 seed; Lunardi on crack?

With the top two seeds in the Sun Belt, #1 Middle Tennessee State and #2 Arkansas-Little Rock, losing yesterday (along with #4 Louisiana-Lafayette, for good measure), #3-seeded Denver is now the nominal favorite to win the tourney, and with it, the league’s NCAA automatic bid.

Of course, that status as the “favorite” will be worth a bucket of warm spit come tip-off tonight — I’m frankly somewhat terrified of much-improved #7 seed Western Kentucky, which I see as a real threat to beat Denver and win the SBC’s auto bid. But being favored does have one side benefit: Denver is now the “projected” Sun Belt representative in the various brackets put out today by “bracketologists.” So we can see where folks have the Pioneers hypothetically seeded in the NCAAs as of now.

For the most part, the answer is about what I expected. Of the folks listed in the Bracket Matrix, sixteen have Denver has a #14 seed, while ten have the Pioneers as a #15 seed. The distinction between #14 and #15 is critical, as college basketball is generally perceived as having a fairly clear-cut top eight teams this year, meaning the #2 seeds will be much harder to beat than the #3s. So if you’re Denver, you really, really want a #14 seed. (Ideally in the Albuquerque pod.)

My Twitter buddy Andy Glockner is among the respected bracketologists with Denver as a #14. So is Jerry Palm, and he’s even got them in Albuquerque.

But the biggest name among the bracketologists, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi, bizarrely has Denver as a #16 seed headed for the “First Four” in Dayton, meaning he thinks the Pioneers — whose profile includes wins over RPI Top 50 teams St. Mary’s, Southern Miss and Middle Tennessee, and RPI Top 100 team Wyoming — are one of the four worst teams in his projected NCAA field. That’s hard to believe, and Glockner is openly mocking Lunardi for it.

That said, recalling the time Niagara was inexplicably thrown into the play-in game, anything is possible. The committee sometimes seems to pay limited attention to seeds lines #13 through #16, which sucks, because the distinctions are really important among those seeds, arguably moreso than the difference between, say, a #6 and a #7, or a #10 and a #12. So I worry a little that Lunardi’s seemingly careless placement of Denver could be repeated in the real bracket.

Just to be safe — and to increase their chances of that #14 seed, or maybe even, dare to dream, a #13 seed — DU fans should root against following “projected auto bid” teams from other leagues. If these teams lose, the resulting champion will almost certainly be below Denver (RPI #90) on the S-curve, whereas the current projected champ might or might not, depending on whom you believe.

Loyola (Maryland), MAAC (RPI #88; title game tonight vs. #126 Fairfield)
Davidson, Southern (RPI #63; title game tonight vs. #246 Western Carolina)
Valparaiso, Horizon (RPI #92; title game tomorrow vs. #152 Detroit)
Bucknell, Patriot (RPI #85; title game Wednesday vs. #109 Lehigh)
UT-Arlington, Southland (RPI #94; tourney starts Wed.; everyone else is sub-100)
Weber State and Montana, Big Sky (RPIs #69, 84; semifinals tomorrow vs. #172 Portland State, #213 Eastern Washington)
Nevada and NMSU, WAC (RPIs #49, 65; tourney starts Wed.; everyone else is sub-100)
Akron, Ohio and Buffalo, MAC (RPIs #70, 71, 79; tourney starts today; everyone else is #97 or worse)

Also — and this a really marginal difference, but you never know — DU might prefer to face North Texas (RPI #201 at last check) instead of Arkansas State (RPI #247) in the title game, since the Mean Green could conceivably crack the RPI Top 200. If DU then beats UNT in the final, the Mean Green’s presence in the Top 200 would improve Denver’s record against teams ranked 101-200 from the current, somewhat ugly 6-4 to a marginally better 8-5. Beating a squad led by future NBA first-round pick Tony Mitchell might also do more to impress the committee, “eye test”-wise, than beating a Red Wolves team with a losing record.

Denver to semifinals; me to Arkansas?

In the survive-and-advance battle for a first-ever NCAA Tournament bid, it’s 1 down, 2 to go for DU.

The Denver Pioneers are headed to the Sun Belt Conference semifinals — and, as the highest remaining seed after a day of upsets, will now be showing up in people’s projected NCAA brackets — after beating South Alabama 61-50 Sunday night.

If #3-seeded Denver wins Monday night, in a semifinal that tips around 7:30 PM Mountain Time, against #7-seeded Western Kentucky (which upset #2 UALR today), I will be boarding a Southwest Airlines flight bound for Arkansas the next morning — roughly eight hours after the game ends, in fact — to attend the championship game as a member of the credentialed press. On the other hand, the Pioneers lose, I will cancel my plane, rental car and hotel reservations, and remain in Colorado. So I will leave my law firm on Monday afternoon not knowing if I’m coming into work the next day, and I will put my girls to bed Monday night not knowing if I’ll see them the next morning.

I’ve already begun packing for this potential trip, not because I’m overconfident or assuming anything, but because I simply won’t have very much time at all to do so tomorrow night, if necessary.

At this point, I should probably step back and explain to any new readers just who the heck I am. I’m an attorney in Denver, and a married, 30-year-old father of three girls under age 4. I’m not a DU alum — I went to USC for undergrad and Notre Dame for law school — nor do I have any tangible connection to the university, other than geographic proximity. But I’m a longtime mid-major basketball fan, and back in 2010, inspired by Kyle Whelliston’s Mid-Majority, I decided to “adopt” the Pioneers as “my” mid-major team, making an emotional investment in Joe Scott’s squad before the season began.

Moreover, rather than just being a fan, I decided to start up a blog dedicated to covering the team — I’ve been a blogger for almost a decade, and I have a degree in print journalism, though journalism is just a hobby for me nowadays rather than a career — and try to get credentialed as a member of the press at DU. I did that, and reported on the team at a blog called Pioneer Pulse all last season. This season, I switched over to Tumblr and renamed the site “Mile High Mids.” But the bottom line is that I’ve been “covering,” and rooting for, the Pioneers for two seasons now. So while a mid-week trip to Arkansas is mighty inconvenient, I feel almost compelled to go. It would be awfully anticlimactic, after all of that, to miss the program’s potential all-time crowning moment. So if they go, I go. Make it to the title game, and I’m there.

If you’re a Denver fan (particularly if you’re a DU student) and you’re new to the blog, I would point you first to my write-up of the Middle Tennessee State win, complete with tons of photos and some videos.

Next, I would point you to my archive of recaps for the Mid-Majority’s 800 Games Project, a crowdsourced collection of personalized, first-person recaps of games played by teams below the Red Line, i.e., “mid-majors.” A few of my recaps are of Northern Colorado games, but most of them are of Denver. Anyway, here they are.

You can also check out my posts about Denver here, and at my aforementioned old blog.

Last but not least, you may want to read up on the history of this blog’s mascots, a pair of stuffed basketballs (or “ballz”) named DU Bally and Mile High Bally. You’ll be seeing a lot of them if you follow my coverage over the next day or two (or week or two??). Here they are tonight, with my Sun Belt bracket on my Giant Bracket Wall:

The Mid-Majority gloss and primer may also be helpful if you see references you don’t understand to things like #superhoops (3-pointers) or “The Other 24” (the mid-major conferences), among countless other inside references and jokes.

Anyway, I’ll be live-tweeting the DU-WKU game as I watch it Monday night, and if all goes well, the live-tweeting will continue as I travel to Arkansas on Tuesday. If that happens, it promises to be epic. You can follow me on Twitter at @MileHighMids (and also @brendanloy).

So those are the basics. Stay tuned and Go Pios!

P.S. I’ve also created a Twitter List of accounts of DU folks at the tourney in Hot Springs, or otherwise related to DU’s team or the SBC in some way. You can view it here. If you have any suggestions for who I should add, please leave them in comments here, or tweet them at me.

21 down, 3 to go

As you may have noticed, I’ve tweaked the design of this page a little, including by adding to the right sidebar a photo of the blog’s mascots, Mile High Bally and DU Bally, chillin’ with Denver’s unofficial/historical mascot, Denver Boone, at Denver’s win over North Texas on Sunday. Here’s another version of that photo:

IMG_7548.jpg 2

I haven’t written my 800 Games Project recap of the game yet — I’ll do that later in the week — but suffice to say, Denver’s 64-52 win was a huge one for the Pioneers, earning them the #3 seed in the Sun Belt Tournament and capping a 4-game winning streak to close out the regular season. It was also their school-record 21st win.

The Pios will need 3 more consecutive wins — on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday in Hot Springs, Arkansas — to earn another first: Denver’s first-ever trip to the NCAA Tournament.

Such a run promises to be a lot more feasible because of DU’s seeding. The #3 seed places Denver on the opposite side of the bracket from top seed Middle Tennessee, which Denver defeated at Magness Arena by 15 points, but which will be tough to beat at a neutral site. Now, the Pioneers know they won’t have to play MTSU until a possible title-game rematch. Here’s the bracket:

Sun Belt Bracket 2

Gosh, I love looking at brackets. It gets me excited for the big bracket next month!

Anyway, here’s complete information on the Sun Belt tourney. If Denver reaches the title game, I’ll be there — I have a flight from Denver to Little Rock departing next Tuesday at 6:00 AM, a rental car to drive from Little Rock to Hot Springs late Tuesday morning, a media credential and parking pass for the game Tuesday evening, and a spot lined up on @skyvan’s floor for Tuesday night.

All of those plans will be cancelled, however, if Denver doesn’t reach the final. This means that, if Denver wins its quarterfinal game Sunday night, I’ll watch their semifinal at 7:30 PM Monday knowing that the outcome will dictate whether, ~12 hours later, I’m at work in Denver — or on a plane to Arkansas.

Needless to say, I’m hoping for the latter. :)

UNC eliminated; DU plays for #3 seed Sunday

After Northern Colorado lost to Weber State on Thursday — here’s my full 800GP recap of that game — the Bears were left hanging by a thread in the battle for the Big Sky’s sixth and final postseason spot. Well, on Saturday night, the thread snapped. Portland State beat Eastern Washington, 69-64, clinching third place and thus eliminating UNC from postseason contention (because PSU finishing ahead of EWU in the standings means Montana State would beat Northern Colorado in any potential tiebreaker for sixth place at 6-10).

So, for Northern Colorado, it ended in a loss. By Eastern Washington.

Meanwhile, in the Sun Belt, Denver will host North Texas on Sunday afternoon, Senior Day, in a battle for for seeding position — and we now know exactly what that means, with the rest of the league having completed its regular season. Here’s my unofficial mockup of the bracket, with only the #3, 4 and 5 spots to be decided, all based on tomorrow’s game:

Read More

Fun with KenPom percentages

I already told you about the scenarios whereby Northern Colorado could lose to Weber State tomorrow, yet still qualify for the Big Sky Tournament. But what are the odds of each scenario? To answer this question (that nobody except me was asking), we turn to the great Ken Pomeroy!

We’ll start with the simplest scenario — UNC wins its way in, with only minimal “help” needed. Here are the necessary steps, with KenPom’s percentage odds of each result.

Read More

DU makes mock NCAA field, improves real SBC seed

BREAKING NEWS: Denver is in the NCAA Tournament bracket!!! Well, not the real bracket — the “mock bracket” that’s currently being constructed by journalists as part of the NCAA’s annual mock selection exercise. According to Matt Norlander and Dave Ommen, the NCAA today declared Denver the Sun Belt champion and auto-bid winner for mock selection purposes. (Auto-bid winners are selected by NCAA staffers, not the mock-selecting journalists. There are always some upsets thrown in to shake things up. So this means nothing, but it’s still kind of awesome.)

In other news, shortly before Denver’s tipoff against Louisiana-Lafayette today, I made my Mile High Hoops debut with an article looking back at the MTSU win and previewing Denver’s three-game homestand to end the regular season. Excerpt:

[D]id the throngs who made the MTSU game such a success — many of whom, particularly among the students, are not “regulars” at basketball games — have a good enough time almost two weeks ago that they’ll want to return? That’s the big question, which will begin to be answered tonight and Saturday.

Speaking after the MTSU game, DU alum Kyle Lewis, last year’s senior co-captain, said he thought at least some of the students would return for future games. “I definitely think so. It’s been a night-and-day change from last season with students, fans, everyone — there’s some excitement around the University of Denver. It’s great to see.” …

Rob Lewis, a fifth-year senior who was Joe Scott’s very first recruit at DU, used the word “unbelievable” four times in describing the students at the MTSU game. “They were a part of our win today,” he said. “They were huge. That was really cool.” He added that “you’d like to have it like that every night,” but conceded, “obviously that’s probably not going to happen.”

Will students and fans take Lewis’s words as a challenge? The answer will come soon enough. Tonight, Saturday and next Sunday, we will find out how much of that energy DU will be able to recapture — and how easy of a path the Pioneers will have to a first-ever NCAA berth that would really change the paradigm and push excitement for Denver men’s basketball to an entirely new level.

I wasn’t at tonight’s game, but the official attendance was 5,870, just below the 6,066 who were reported to have attended the MTSU game. Whether the difference is really that small, I do not know. The official DU live blogger for the game, responding to a query from yours truly, said the student section was “about average tonight.”

Denver’s performance was definitely above average, however. The Pioneers got the homestand off to an exceptionally good start by crushing UL-Lafayette, 77-52. ULL had been in second place in Sun Belt West, and DU third; now the teams are tied for second at 9-5, one-and-a-half games behind division leader UALR (10-3). The teams split their season series, but Denver would win a tiebreaker against the Ragin’ Cajuns because of its win over near-certain #1 seed MTSU.

More importantly, thanks to the win over ULL combined with Western Kentucky’s comeback against Florida Atlantic, Denver now pretty much controls its destiny to earn at least the #3 seed overall in the Sun Belt. I say “pretty much” because there is a highly unlikely scenario wherein Denver could win out, yet end up seeded #4 — but it would require, among other things, Middle Tennessee State (12-1) to lose its final three games, including against Louisiana-Monroe (1-11). So, yeah, that ain’t happening. As a practical matter, if DU beats Monroe on Saturday and North Texas next Sunday — both at home — they’ll be the #3 seed, and wouldn’t have to face MTSU again until a potential Sun Belt title game.

FAU’s loss also gives Denver some additional wiggle room if they lose one of their final two games. FAU still needs to play at MTSU (this Saturday), and if the Owls lose that game — and/or lose either of their other remaining games, vs. South Alabama and Troy — Denver would be guaranteed no worse than a #5 seed in Hot Springs if they go 1-1 in their final 2 games. In other words, assuming they beat lowly Monroe, there’s a very good chance the Pios will have clinched a bye into the quarterfinals before they ever take the court against North Texas on Senior Day. That would certainly take some of the pressure off.

Here is how the teams would be seeded if the regular season ended today:

1. MTSU (12-1)
2. UALR (10-3)
3. Denver (9-5)
4. Louisiana-Lafayette (9-5)
5. North Texas (8-5)
6. Florida Atlantic (7-6)
7. South Alabama (6-7)
8. Western Kentucky (5-8)
9. Arkansas State (5-8)
10. Florida International (4-9)
11. Troy (3-10)

(Note: Louisiana-Monroe is not eligible for the tourney for APR reasons.)

Interesting to note that 4 of the top 5 seeds would be teams from the West. Also interesting that, if these seeds were to hold, Denver would face likely rematches against a team it went 0-1 against, FAU, and a team it went 0-2 against, UALR, en route to a possible title-game rematch with the team that suffered its lone SBC loss at Denver’s hands, Middle Tennessee.

Big night for Denver

Denver hosts Louisiana-Lafayette this evening at 5:00 PM in a huge game for both teams in terms of Sun Belt Tournament seeding position. To review, below are the current standings in the SBC for seeds #2 through #6. Significance: seeds #2-5 get byes into the quarterfinals; #6 does not. Also, #2 and #3 are on the opposite site of the bracket from near-certain #1 seed Middle Tennessee; #4 and #5 are not. So, if you’re Denver, you want to aim for the #3 seed (#2 looks highly unlikely at this point), and at all costs you want to avoid the #6 seed.

2. UALR 9-3 (games remaining: FIU, @Troy, North Texas, Arkansas State)
3. Louisiana-Lafayette 9-4 (@Denver, @North Texas, LA-Monroe)
4. Denver 8-5 (LA-Lafayette, LA-Monroe, North Texas)
5. Florida Atlantic 7-5 (@Western Kentucky, @MTSU, South Alabama, Troy)
6. North Texas 7-5 (LA-Monroe, LA-Lafayette, @UALR, @Denver)

FIU@UALR, ULL@Denver, Monroe@UNT and FAU@WKU are all tonight. Somewhat counter-intuitively, Denver may want UALR to beat FIU, because any possible tiebreakers become more dicey for Denver if UALR is involved, considering the Pioneers went 0-2 against the Trojans. On the other hand, wins by LA-Monroe and WKU over North Texas and FAU, respectively, would be helpful, but not essential (though they’d become closer to essential if Denver loses to Lafayette).

Bottom line, to stay in the race for a #3 seed, and to stay out of the picture for the dreaded #6 seed, the Pioneers need to win tonight.

Updating the Big Sky and Sun Belt races

Both Denver and Northern Colorado took big steps forward in their respective conference races on Saturday. DU beat Florida International to stay in the thick of the race for the #3 overall seed in the Sun Belt, and just as important, avoided a slide toward the #6 seed and an opening-round game in Sun Belt. Meanwhile, UNC kept its head above water in the fight to qualify for the Big Sky tournament, which requires a top 6 finish in the regular-season standings.

I’ll start with Northern Colorado, since they have the most at stake: their very postseason hopes, not just seeding and bracketing, are on the line. The Bears are still on the outside looking in, but they’re now alone in 7th place, with a huge, almost must-win game Wednesday at the 6th-place team. Here’s the relevant part of the standings:

3. Idaho State 7-6 (games remaining: EWU, Sacto, @EWU)
4. Portland State 6-6 (Sacto, @Sacto, EWU, UNC)
5. Montana State 6-7 (Weber, @Montana, NAU)
6. Eastern Washington 5-7 (UNC, @ISU, @PSU, ISU)
7. Northern Colorado 5-8 (@EWU, Weber, @PSU)
8. Sacramento State 4-9 (@PSU, PSU, ISU)

If UNC wins out, they’re very likely in, as they’d own the tiebreaker with EWU. (I say “very likely” because I don’t know if a multi-way tie might change that equation.) The big question is, can they lose to Weber State (or at Portland State), win their other two games, and get in at 7-9? Let’s see…

With Montana State facing the conference’s two best teams and its worst team, it’s a fair bet they’ll finish 7-9. With three winnable home games, Portland State is fairly likely to end up no worse than 8-8. Idaho State, likewise, will probably win at least 1 game to get to 8-8 or better. Conversely, Sacramento State will probably lose at last 1 game, to finish 6-10 or worse. So, if UNC finishes 7-9, it would probably come down to Eastern Washington, Montana State and Northern Colorado for that sixth and final spot.

MSU and UNC split the season series, but assuming UNC beats EWU on Wednesday, the Bears would be 2-0 against the Eagles. The Eagles, for their part, are 2-0 against the Bobcats. So in a hypothetical three-way tie for fifth, UNC would be 3-1 against the group, MSU 2-2, and EWU 1-3. That means the Bears get in. Alternatively, in a two-way tie for sixth with just EWU (i.e., if MSU pulls off an upset and goes 2-1 or better down the stretch), the Bears would win the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Eagles, and get in. So, bottom line, it’s simply a question of whether EWU loses one (or more) of its final three games after (hypothetically) losing to UNC, in order to create that tiebreaker (or fall behind UNC altogether). If they do, UNC gets either the #5 or #6 spot, even if the Bears finish 7-9. Probably. But again, it all hinges on Northern Colorado winning at Eastern Washington on Wednesday. They’ve gotta do that.

Now, to the Sun Belt. Here is where things stand after Saturday’s action, in the battles for seeds #2 through #6:

2. UALR 9-3 (games remaining: FIU, @Troy, North Texas, Arkansas State)
3. Louisiana-Lafayette 9-4 (@Denver, @North Texas, LA-Monroe)
4. Denver 8-5 (LA-Lafayette, LA-Monroe, North Texas)
5. Florida Atlantic 7-5 (@Western Kentucky, @MTSU, South Alabama, Troy)
6. North Texas 7-5 (LA-Monroe, LA-Lafayette, @UALR, @Denver)

With its final three games at home, you have to like Denver’s chances to finish 11-5, in which case they can do no worse than #5, and have an excellent shot at #3 (they just need FAU to lose a game). But a single loss would be devastating — and both Lafayette and North Texas are certainly capable of beating the Pioneers, and will have every motivation to try. The season finale against the Mean Green, Denver’s senior day, could end up having huge seeding implications. It’s a Sunday afternoon game, and I hope to be there with my girls.

#ALLCAPSDAY LIVE BLOG

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 11 IS ALL CAPS DAY, FEATURING THE THIRD ANNUAL MID-MAJORITY ALL CAPS GAME. THIS IS A LIVE BLOG OF ALL CAPS DAY.

ALL TWEETS WITH THE HASHTAGS #ALLCAPSDAY, #ALLCAPSGAME, OR #TMM8 WILL APPEAR BELOW. ALSO APPEARING BELOW: ALL TWEETS BY, OR REFERENCING, @MIDMAJORITY OR @800GP; ALL TWEETS BY @BBSTATE, WITH FINAL SCORES; ALL TWEETS BY @SKYWAYCHICAGO, THE OFFICIAL #ALLCAPSGAME HOST; AND ALL TWEETS BY ME, @MILEHIGHMIDS.

THE OFFICIAL #ALLCAPSGAME IS LOYOLA (ILL.) AGAINST ILLINOIS CHICAGO AT NOON MOUNTAIN TIME. ALSO AT NOON MOUNTAIN TIME, I WILL BE IN GREELEY FOR NORTHERN COLORADO AGAINST MONTANA STATE, TWEETING IN ALL CAPS.

#ALLCAPSDAY AND #ALLCAPSGAME ARE VERY IMPORTANT.