Bracketbusters will be announced today

[∞∞∞]

Per fmrick on vcuramnation.com who does a great job with his predictions, here are the higher potential match-ups based on RPI:

ODU @ Northern Iowa
Siena @ Butler
Wichita State @ Utah State
La Tech @ Northeastern
Western Carolina @ VCU.
Nevada @ Kent State

here's his sheet here based on RPI which might make it look messed up, which is why I posted his predictions above. The lower rated RPI teams on the sheet are probably very solid picks. I guess we'll see.

http://www.vcuramnation.com/forums/view ... f=3&t=2089

[clenz]

I would love a match up with Butler (can't happen because of the bull shit home away thing) or ODU.


From what I've read in most years we would get Siena, but we had them last year and beat them by 17 already this year.

[∞∞∞]

Well to update you guys really quickly, five CAA teams will have televised games (11 games will be televised). They are ODU, W&M, GMU, VCU, and Northeastern. I can only assume Butler, Siena, UNI, and Wichita St. will also be televised.

The CAA announced these games today:

Boston U. @ Delaware
Drexel @ Bradley
SC St. @ Georgia St.
Rider @ Hofstra
JMU @ Canisius
UNC-W @ Radford
Towson @ Manhattan

[SuperHornet]

The WAC announced theirs today. The one game that applies to us is San Jose State @ Montana State.

I think that the Spartans are in trouble here. Not only is this a weird travel plan, but Rush and Navarre will eat them alive.

Thoughts?

[danefan]

Well to update you guys really quickly, five CAA teams will have televised games (11 games will be televised). They are ODU, W&M, GMU, VCU, and Northeastern. I can only assume Butler, Siena, UNI, and Wichita St. will also be televised.

The CAA announced these games today:

Boston U. @ Delaware
Drexel @ Bradley
SC St. @ Georgia St.
Rider @ Hofstra
JMU @ Canisius
UNC-W @ Radford
Towson @ Manhattan

Siena did get a TV game.

[clenz]

UNI, Wichita State and Mo State all got TV games. Their pairings will be announced tonight on ESPNU.

http://www.news-leader.com/article/2...ponent+tonight

The other MVC match-ups are:

Drexel at Bradley
Loyola (Ill.) at Creighton
Drake at Cal State-Northridge
Illinois Chicago at Evansville
Morehead State at Illinois State
Indiana State at Green Bay
Western Michigan at Southern Illinois.

[JayJ79]

Some others I've happened across on various articles:

* Cleveland State vs. Toledo
* Valparaiso at Bowling Green
* Southeast Missouri State at Miami
* Wright State at Ohio University
* Eastern Michigan at Detroit
* James Madison (10-12, 3-8 CAA) at Canisius (11-11, 6-5 MAAC)
* Fairfield (15-7, 8-4 MAAC) at Vermont (15-8, 6-3 America East)
* New Hampshire (7-11, 3-5 America East) at Loyola (10-12, 3-9 MAAC)
* Towson (5-16, 2-9 CAA) at Manhattan (7-14, 2-9 MAAC)
* Marist (1-21, 1-11 MAAC) at Cal Irvine (7-13, 3-7 Big West)
* Niagara (12-12, 5-7 MAAC) at Milwaukee (11-10, 5-6 Horizon)
* Rider (13-11, 6-6 MAAC) at Hofstra (10-12, 4-7 CAA)
* Buffalo (10-7, 4-2 Mid-American East) at Saint Peter’s (12-9, 7-4 MAAC)
* UC Davis at Boise State
* UC Santa Barbara at Fresno State
* San Jose State at Montana State
* Long Beach State at Idaho
* Cal Poly at Hawai’i

[JayJ79]

Per fmrick on vcuramnation.com who does a great job with his predictions...

I don't really care one way or the other about ODU.
But I like your avatar.

[danefan]

Some are repeats but the MAAC games are as follows:



James Madison (10-12, 3-8 CAA) at Canisius (11-11, 6-5 MAAC)
Fairfield (15-7, 8-4 MAAC) at Vermont (15-8, 6-3 America East)
New Hampshire (7-11, 3-5 America East) at Loyola (10-12, 3-9 MAAC)
Towson (5-16, 2-9 CAA) at Manhattan (7-14, 2-9 MAAC)
Marist (1-21, 1-11 MAAC) at Cal Irvine (7-13, 3-7 Big West)
Niagara (12-12, 5-7 MAAC) at Milwaukee (11-10, 5-6 Horizon)
Rider (13-11, 6-6 MAAC) at Hofstra (10-12, 4-7 CAA)
Buffalo (10-7, 4-2 Mid-American East) at Saint Peter’s (12-9, 7-4 MAAC)

[SuperHornet]

I don't know what list you're getting this from, but there's no such thing as "Cal Irvine." The Anteaters are known as UC Irvine or UCI.

[clenz]

There isn't a Sac State either...it's California State University - Sacramento

[SuperHornet]

For sports, the Hornets DO go by Sac State. For academics, it's CSUS.

[JayJ79]

In my defense, I don't really care all that much about basketball, and was just passing along what I had copy/pasted from various articles found around the web.

[89Hen]

* James Madison (10-12, 3-8 CAA) at Canisius (11-11, 6-5 MAAC)
* Fairfield (15-7, 8-4 MAAC) at Vermont (15-8, 6-3 America East)
* New Hampshire (7-11, 3-5 America East) at Loyola (10-12, 3-9 MAAC)
* Towson (5-16, 2-9 CAA) at Manhattan (7-14, 2-9 MAAC)
* Marist (1-21, 1-11 MAAC) at Cal Irvine (7-13, 3-7 Big West)
* Niagara (12-12, 5-7 MAAC) at Milwaukee (11-10, 5-6 Horizon)
* Rider (13-11, 6-6 MAAC) at Hofstra (10-12, 4-7 CAA)
* Buffalo (10-7, 4-2 Mid-American East) at Saint Peter’s (12-9, 7-4 MAAC)

I guess I never understood what the bracketbusters was all about. I always assumed it was teams that could conceivably be on the bubble for making the tourney. Non of these teams are even on the bubble for the CIT. What gives?

[danefan]

* James Madison (10-12, 3-8 CAA) at Canisius (11-11, 6-5 MAAC)
* Fairfield (15-7, 8-4 MAAC) at Vermont (15-8, 6-3 America East)
* New Hampshire (7-11, 3-5 America East) at Loyola (10-12, 3-9 MAAC)
* Towson (5-16, 2-9 CAA) at Manhattan (7-14, 2-9 MAAC)
* Marist (1-21, 1-11 MAAC) at Cal Irvine (7-13, 3-7 Big West)
* Niagara (12-12, 5-7 MAAC) at Milwaukee (11-10, 5-6 Horizon)
* Rider (13-11, 6-6 MAAC) at Hofstra (10-12, 4-7 CAA)
* Buffalo (10-7, 4-2 Mid-American East) at Saint Peter’s (12-9, 7-4 MAAC)

I guess I never understood what the bracketbusters was all about. I always assumed it was teams that could conceivably be on the bubble for making the tourney. Non of these teams are even on the bubble for the CIT. What gives?

That's why they aren't on TV. They schedule a whole bunch of games so they can occasionally strike gold.

[89Hen]

That's why they aren't on TV. They schedule a whole bunch of games so they can occasionally strike gold.

What are the chances of any of these striking gold?

Is it just that every team in the country has an "open date" that they reserve for this event so they just go ahead and schedule them all?

[danefan]

That's why they aren't on TV. They schedule a whole bunch of games so they can occasionally strike gold.

What are the chances of any of these striking gold?

Is it just that every team in the country has an "open date" that they reserve for this event so they just go ahead and schedule them all?

The teams listed above aren't all of the games. The TV games haven't been announced yet.

The mid-major conferences are contractually obligated to leave the date open and nominate a certain number of teams to be available on those dates.

The America East, for example, nominates the teams voted in the preseason coaches Poll to finish in the Top 4. Those teams all get a bracketbusters game, but rarely to any of them get a TV game.

They'll strike gold this year if they pair up Siena against Butler. A Siena win could be the tipping point for an at-large.

[JayJ79]

That's why they aren't on TV. They schedule a whole bunch of games so they can occasionally strike gold.

What are the chances of any of these striking gold?

Is it just that every team in the country has an "open date" that they reserve for this event so they just go ahead and schedule them all?

I may be wrong, but I think that ESPN makes Bracketbuster arrangements with entire conferences, and every school in those conferences ends up getting scheduled for a game that weekend, even the sucky ones.

[89Hen]

The mid-major conferences are contractually obligated to leave the date open and nominate a certain number of teams to be available on those dates.

There's my answer. Thanks!

[JayJ79]

The teams listed above aren't all of the games. The TV games haven't been announced yet.

The teams listed aren't even all of the non-tv games. I'm pretty sure there are more out there. I just stopped when I found an article that listed the MVC games.

[∞∞∞]

TV games:
ODU @ #22 UNI ESPN2
W&M @ Iona ESNPU
Siena @ #15 Butler ESPN2
LA Tech @ Northeastern ESPN2
Morgan St. @ Murray St. ESPNU
Nevada @ Missouri St. ESPN2
Akron @ Va. Commonwealth ESPNU
College of Charleston @ George Mason ESPN2
Western Carolina @ Kent State ESPNU
New Mexico St. @ Pacific ESPNU
Wichita St. @ Utah St. ESPN2

[clenz]

son of a bitch...not the game but the day. dont know if i can make that game

[SuperHornet]

* James Madison (10-12, 3-8 CAA) at Canisius (11-11, 6-5 MAAC)
* Fairfield (15-7, 8-4 MAAC) at Vermont (15-8, 6-3 America East)
* New Hampshire (7-11, 3-5 America East) at Loyola (10-12, 3-9 MAAC)
* Towson (5-16, 2-9 CAA) at Manhattan (7-14, 2-9 MAAC)
* Marist (1-21, 1-11 MAAC) at Cal Irvine (7-13, 3-7 Big West)
* Niagara (12-12, 5-7 MAAC) at Milwaukee (11-10, 5-6 Horizon)
* Rider (13-11, 6-6 MAAC) at Hofstra (10-12, 4-7 CAA)
* Buffalo (10-7, 4-2 Mid-American East) at Saint Peter’s (12-9, 7-4 MAAC)

I guess I never understood what the bracketbusters was all about. I always assumed it was teams that could conceivably be on the bubble for making the tourney. Non of these teams are even on the bubble for the CIT. What gives?

That was the original idea, Hen. But then ESPN got the cr@zy idea that blowing it up would generate more $$. All it did was oversaturate it until it lost all meaning.

That said, UOP fans are NOT happy with this umpteenth matchup with New Mexico State. It's been done in BB before. I wanted the Terriers, and other UOP fans wanted Siena.

[OSBF]

I wish the hell the MVC could get out of this pile of crap. Our conference has sooooooo outgrown the need to be involved in this. One could also argue that it serves no real purpose for the MWC either.

[clenz]

I wish the hell the MVC could get out of this pile of crap. Our conference has sooooooo outgrown the need to be involved in this. One could also argue that it serves no real purpose for the MWC either.

I would agree with this because the top teams always seem to be in the tourney no matter what for the MVC...however, it was created by the MVC.