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Bracket Buster Discussion Thread


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I believe the overall series with Murray State is tied up at 8-8. Let's do some bracket-busting and tie-breaking all at the same time!

I'd love to see us play Murray State. They are no fluke, with pretty impressive games over Southern Miss on a neutral, Dayton at home (a 17-point spank job) and a tough road win at Memphis.

What might be key is that it'll have been over a month since they played anybody nearly as good as Akron. If we can get out of our first-half funk and punch them really hard in the mouth early... might be a great day.

Anyway, it would be awesome to knock off a ranked unbeaten. B)

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Ok, so the Zips are in the top 5 of RPI among the road teams. The top 2 RPI home teams are Creighton and Murray State. The Zips played Creighton in the BB last season, so it won't be the draw this year. Due to the mix of MVC at the top of both lists, there's perhaps an outside chance the Zips could sneak up and draw the Racers. Unlikely .. but could happen.

What would help would be the following:

St. Mary's loses to LMU & BYU this week.

Wichita loses to Evansville & Drake

Long Beach loses to UC Riverside & CS Fullerton

Northern Iowa loses to Indiana St. & Missouri State.

Each of these teams has a bad RPI team in their 2 remaining games before the selections .. so maybe they can all help the Zips out by tripping over a should win game.

The biggest help would be if one of the West coast teams really tanks as well as Wichita St. The remaining good West Coast team could take the Creighton game, and Akron to Murray State is a manageable travel, leaving Wichita to go to ORU .. and maybe Northern Iowa to the Dakota?

Gotta win in Mount Pleasant and hope for some bad bounces by the teams ahead of us.

I would love Love LOVE a shot to go into old OVC territory against an undefeated, ranked Racers team.

Go Zips!

I think we can agree we want either Creighton or Murry. Although we have a bigger chance of getting Creighton then Murry. I disagree with wanting all of those teams to lose. Wichita and Northern Iowa losing does not affect our chance of playing Creighton.

Home Teams Conf

Creighton MVC

Murry OVC

Oral Roberts SUM

Davidson SC

Iona MAAC

Road Teams Conf

St Marys WCC

Wichita St MVC

Long Beach St BW

Northern Iowa MVC

Akron MAC

Of the top 5 teams, Creighton can not be paired up with Wichita S t or Norther Iowa. This leaves St Marys, Long Beach and Akron. So really We just want St Marys to lose to Loyla or BYU and Long Beach to lose to UC Riverside or Cal St Fullerton. Hopefully they put Murry up against St Marys to try and get them to play a game against top competition to see if they will lose, which would leave Creighton to us.

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I think we can agree we want either Creighton or Murry. Although we have a bigger chance of getting Creighton then Murry. I disagree with wanting all of those teams to lose. Wichita and Northern Iowa losing does not affect our chance of playing Creighton.

Home Teams Conf

Creighton MVC

Murry OVC

Oral Roberts SUM

Davidson SC

Iona MAAC

Road Teams Conf

St Marys WCC

Wichita St MVC

Long Beach St BW

Northern Iowa MVC

Akron MAC

Of the top 5 teams, Creighton can not be paired up with Wichita S t or Norther Iowa. This leaves St Marys, Long Beach and Akron. So really We just want St Marys to lose to Loyla or BYU and Long Beach to lose to UC Riverside or Cal St Fullerton. Hopefully they put Murry up against St Marys to try and get them to play a game against top competition to see if they will lose, which would leave Creighton to us.

We had Creighton last year. They don't match up the same teams two years in a row.

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It's an unwritten rule. I don't think they've ever broken it.

So its not a rule. The reason it probably has not happened in the past is that it is just extremely unlikely that two teams have matched up perfectly in the RPI two years in a row. Just because it hasn't happened in the past doesn't rule out the possibility.

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FYI, Northern Iowa lost tonight. The Zips will likely hop UNI in RPI tonight putting them as the 4th best RPI away team in Bracket Busters. Saint Mary's and Long Beach State both have difficult games coming up tomorrow.

Northern Iowa has now lost 4 of their last 6. ESPN likes hot teams for the bracketbuster and Northern Iowa is most definitely not.

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I don't know if Murray State is necessarily the best BracketBusters team. But they sure have the best record. Who wouldn't want a shot at knocking off D-I's last undefeated team? Most people just don't think the Zips are ranked high enough to be selected for that opportunity.

I'm not giving up on the remote possibility of a Zips-Racers matchup until the pairings are officially announced.

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I always have to ask. Why wouldn't we want to play the best team?

I do want to play the best team. Just indicating that a trip to N or S Dakota is more than just a remote possibility. The Jackrabbits, in particular, are a very good team. As far as us playing the Racers, I have a feeling that the BB people will pair St Mary with Murray St.

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2006: Nevada

2007: Austin Peay

2008: VCU

2009: Valpo

2010: VCU

2011: Creighton

When is the Creighton rematch anyway? I know it normally would have been in the early part of this season. Do we play the BlueJays next year? If so we could for all intents and puposes have three Bracketbusters games next season (with return games and next year's game), that should help with the RPI numers in 2012-13.

As far as this year's opponent goes, I love the list of potential opponents. When I graduated high school I had 5 schools at the top of my list to attend. In addition to Akron two others on my list were Murray State and New Mexico State. I have a feeling we'll get one of the Dakotas for some reason though. I'm OK with those two also.

Wherever we go I hope we can somehow turn it into some type of a way to get our name out there to recruits in that area. This program is getting to the point where it can recruit more nationally, even if it can't do so against the "power conferences" yet it can certainly recruit with most mid-majors anywhere.

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UNI lost so we'll likely pop ahead of them. They must have had a tough OOC schedule because they are now 4-7 in the MVC. Not terribly impressive. Wichita St. also lost but they were pretty far ahead anyway. Looks like Oral Roberts, Iona or Davidson. That also means a TV game is pretty well assured.

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UNI lost so we'll likely pop ahead of them. They must have had a tough OOC schedule because they are now 4-7 in the MVC. Not terribly impressive. Wichita St. also lost but they were pretty far ahead anyway. Looks like Oral Roberts, Iona or Davidson. That also means a TV game is pretty well assured.

It's going to be one of those three schools, for sure. Of those, if we are looking for a win this year, Oral Roberts is the best bet, despite the gaudy record. But I'd rather get Iona or Davidson.

Even with a win, the Zips still will have to win the MAC tourney to get a bid, so this year isn't make or break. I'm looking at what team will be the best opponent on the return trip. While Oral Roberts is having a great year, it's a program that seems to be up and down. This is an up year, but if past recent history shows, they could easily be a team with 10-15 losses next year (or whenever they come to town).

Davidson, on the other hand, is about as rock solid as you will find at the mid-major level. They've been to the NCAA tournament three times in the past six years (with an elite 8 run, an a pair of close losses to Ohio State and Maryland) and made two other trips to the NIT (winning at least one game both times). Granted, they will probably never get back to the level they were at with Stephen Curry, but it's still a program that you know will play a solid non-con schedule (Duke almost annually) and will be in the hunt for a tourney berth.

Iona's intriguing because they could be really good in the future, or fall back to more like they had been 2-3 years ago (they'll probably never be as bad as they were in 2006 or 2007 when they started 0-22 and finished 2-28 or 29.). Tim Cluess has done an amazing job there in just his second year. However, it may be too good of a job, as I can see him being a hot coaching candidate at a bigger school, and considering he is 52, he doesn't have time to pick .... ala Shaka Smart. If Cluess stays, no doubt, Iona will continue to be a great mid-major program. But if he leaves, who knows.

Taking all that into consideration, and hoping that this year's bracket buster opponent means more when they come back (when will that be? Don't we owe Creighton a game next year? Does that push this year's team back a year, or do we just play both next year?), I'd rather see Davidson or Iona, with Davidson being the safe pick, and Iona being the potential boom-or-bust type team.

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