2011 President's Day Thoughts

MWC a 3-Bid League
Barring a major upset in the MWC Tournament, SDSU, BYU, and UNLV will be the lone representatives from the MWC in the NCAA Tournament.  It is also very likely that all three will receive single-digit seeds.  New Mexico and Colorado State should be solid NIT teams, with CSU the more likely to get a home game in the first round.  However, home losses by the Lobos (to Utah on a 3 at the buzzer) and Rams (to UNLV in a game controlled by the Rebels throughout) eliminated any realistic long-shot NCAA Tournament at-large bids.  CSU could get back in the running by beating BYU and SDSU (both road games), but that is very unlikely.  I would expect SDSU to get anywhere from a 1-3 seed.  BYU should be 2-4.  UNLV really could go anywhere from 6-11, depending on what the mood is of the Committee.  Most of their quality wins came at home, but even at the Thomas & Mack they lost to two non-NCAA Tournament teams.  They hold a win over Wisconsin at home and a neutral site win over K-State (without their two best players).  Besides that, their best win was the one this weekend at Colorado State.  If they can get one at the Pit on Wednesday, they would definitely secure a single-digit seed.

Crazy Rankings
I am not surprised BYU didn't move up in the polls (rising above ND in one of them).  Where did anyone expect them to go?  The top 4 teams lost, but BYU was never in jeopardy of jumping any of them this week with just a solitary win at TCU.  If they go 2-0 this upcoming week, perhaps they could move into the top 5 next week.  Maybe.  No, the craziness in the rankings this week was that BYU received two 1st-place votes.  They also received a 2nd-place vote.  So where did these votes come from?  If you guessed Jason Franchuk of the Provo Daily Herald, you are wrong.  He had BYU at 6, which is about as high as I would feel comfortable putting them.  No, the winners of the Bad Vote of the Week Award belong to an NPR guy from D.C. and a sports writer from Roanoke, Virginia.  The 2nd place vote came from Tampa, Florida.  I believe this is BYU's best team since Danny Ainge, and they belong in the top 10...but come on.  I guess I can't blame them: they probably haven't been able to see BYU play!  Both of the guys with BYU as #1 had SDSU as #2.  I guess, if that is their logic, then BYU could be #1 with a 13-point head-to-head win over the #2 team...

BYU and the BCS Part III
A few weeks back I was looking at BYU's chances to make a BCS game in 2011.  Part III from the series has not made it to print yet.  The first part talked about the numbers game (http://mo-knows-sports.blogspot.com/2011/01/byu-and-bcs-in-2011-part-i.html) while the second part looked at BYU's competition for one of the spots from the non-BCS teams (http://mo-knows-sports.blogspot.com/2011/01/byu-and-bcs-in-2011-part-ii.html).  That is still coming, I can assure you.  I'm sure you all were dying to read it...it will come sometime in the next few weeks.  I will get a lot more into football stuff once the Madness ends, including JC/USC transfers and new recruits that may have a chance to see the field in 2011.  For now, let's just all enjoy Jimmermania and hope for a good NCAA Tournament draw, because BYU's success in the Tourney will, in part, be determined by not getting screwed by the Committee.