ENTHUSIAST OF ALL

After such a valiant effort against Kentucky, and losing in overtime after a controversial no-call, I have a tough time leaving Mississippi State out. Minnesota’s thrashing at the hands of Ohio State shouldn’t take away from its wins over Michigan State and Purdue in back to back days, and they should still have the upper hand on conference rival Illinois despite finishing a game behind them in league play. Looking closer at Wake Forest, their 7 wins over the RPI top 50 is hard to overlook, so I’ve decided to keep them in as well, which means that Virginia Tech must also be in as discussed in yesterday’s post. That means that the final spot comes down to yesterday’s losers UTEP and Utah State. It has simply come to the point where these mid-major conference runner-ups can’t both be included over conference runner-ups like Minnesota and Mississippi State who beat stronger teams in their tourneys. In fact, the only thing keeping Utah State in the discussion at this point has to be their win over BYU, but their losses to teams like Utah, Northeastern and Long Beach State nearly nullify that. UTEP, on the other hand, had a better conference record and doesn’t have any bad losses besides to Houston, and importantly, has a road victory over New Mexico State…the team that knocked Utah State off last night. So, as much as I think Utah State and Illinois have strong arguments to be in, they are my last 2 out.

Last 4 in: Wake Forest, UTEP, Minnesota, Mississippi State

Last 4 out: Utah State, Illinois, Florida, Rhode Island

This entry was posted on March 14, 2010 at 9:13 pm and is filed under Sports. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.