Five (late) mid-major Points of Emphasis

I covered the emotional fallout from the mid-majority’s collective struggles in this year’s NCAAs last time out, so it’s time (even if everyone else has moved on to bigger and better things) to look at some of the nuts and bolts of those struggles … or, in some cases, successes. Here’s five things you might have missed about this year’s mid-major performance:

1. All Southern Illinois needed was their usual—or even slightly worse than usual—three-point shooting performance, and they’d have beaten Kansas. For the season, the Salukis hit 36.9 percent of their threes. Against the Jayhawks? 6-25, 24 percent. In a 61-58 game. Dammit.

SIU played the defense they needed to (19 KU turnovers), didn’t get killed on the boards (28 rebounds to 22), got the second chances their offense relies on (14 offensive boards) … the end result being that SIU took 15 more shots than the Jayhawks, more than enoughto offset KU’s freakishly good two-point shooting (24-36, 66 friggin’ percent). But SIU took many more threes than usual—25 of their 57 shots, fully 44 percent of their attempts. Usually? 36.3.

So the Salukis not only took more threes that normal, they made a lower percentage. Some of that was Kansas’s D, which no less an authority than Big Ten Non-Affiliated Wonk proclaimed the best in the country heading in the tournament. But watching the game, a lot of it was just missed opne looks. Jamaal Tatum shot 40 percent from three during the season, Matt Shaw 36 percent. Against Kansas? A combined 2-13. Add that up with Tatum’s honked tip-in in the closing minutes, and you get what should have been the upset of the tournament.

2.It’s not your imagination: Underdogs got no luck this season. Listen to any serious stat guru, and they’ll tell you that when it comes to truly close games, luck is the biggest factor in determining a victor. The idea of “clutch” is, mostly, a crock: even the 1996 Bulls weren’t any better in close games than the league average. So low seeds and high seeds should win around the same number of close games, right? That’s not the way it works most of the time in the NCAAs, but it was especially true in 2007. After going 13-10 in one-possession and overtime games in 2004 and 2005, higher seeds (8-9 games excluded) went 8-4 in 2006 and up to 10-4 in 2007. And unlike 2006, where two of those four close-game upsets were mega-shocks from Northwestern St. (over Iowa) and George Mason (over UConn), the biggest in 2007 was 11 VCU over 6 Duke. And if you include four-point games as “close” as well, higher seeds’ success in 2007 balloons to a 12-4 record, the highest percentage in any tournament going back to 2003 at least (sorry, that’s as far back as I’m taking my research.)

The good news from this point is that the pendulum should swing back the other way next season--emphasis on "should."

3. Sure enough, Winthrop got their upset via defending the three. Part of the reason the JCCW was so confident in Winthrop’s upset chances over Tennessee in 2006 was their ability to defend the perimeter against a perimeter-based team. It was the same situation in 2007 going against Notre Dame, and whaddya know: the Eagles held Notre Dame to an anemic 4-22 performance (18 percent), and this time their opponent didn’t have Chris Lofton to answer their late-game prayers. (It helped, too, that unlike in 2006, when they went 7-24, the Eagles got over the 35 percent mark on their own threes, going 8-21.)

4.With Gonzaga’s demise, Butler is now the preeminent mid-major NCAA team. The Bulldogs’ last four NCAA appearances have resulted in 1) an eventual NCAA finalist taken to overtime and forced to hit a buzzer-beater to survive the first round 2) a win over an ACC team in which their opponent was held to an NCAA-record 10 points in the first half 3) a Sweet 16 appearance 4) another Sweet 16 appearance and a four-point second-half lead on the eventual champion—the largest second half deficit they faced the entire tournament. All despite Butler being the higher seed in precisely one of those games.

5. It’s a little surprising to see Dana Altman scrapped over by two schools, considering how lousy he’s been as an NCAA coach. Full credit to Altman for building the kind of program he has at Creighton and recognizing the Fayetteville circus for what it is in time. But his team is the anti-Butler. They’ve been seeded 10th or better five times this decade, giving them five winnable first-round games—and gone 0-5. Sure, they won the double-overtime thriller over Florida in 2003 as a 12, but those were the years when everyone was beating Florida in the first round.

And hey, speaking of the Gators, one more fun fact:

6. Jackson St. was as close to Florida at the half as UCLA and closer than Ohio St.. The Tigers trailed 41-35 at the break, the Bruins 29-23 and the Buckeyes 40-29. The moral of the story is that if college basketball games were 20 minutes long and Jackson was in UCLA or Ohio St.’s region, they’d have made the Final Four. At least, that’s the way I’m looking at it.

Disappointment

Beware: Philosophizing ahead.

Last Monday, April 2, Florida won the national title by beating Ohio St. by nine, bringing the 2007 NCAA Tournament to an end. The next day, April 3, Fountains of Wayne released their fourth studio album, Traffic and Weather.

The former has a lot to do with why I haven’t bought the latter. Fountains of Wayne is, hands-down, my favorite existing band. The NCAA Tournament is, hands-down, my favorite annual sporting event*.

But these NCAAs didn’t even come within shouting distance of my expectations. They weren’t awful. They’re never awful. But after the glory of George Mason? In the wake of those insane regional finals in 2005? They were a disappointment. They were never anything more than adequate, nothing more than, well, a whole bunch of college basketball games.

If it wasn’t for just a handful of moments, they wouldn’t have even been adequate. Seeing Brad Maynor send Dive, er, Duke home after 40 minutes was as cathartic for me as it was for everyone else. Winthrop shaking that ever-fattening first-round gorilla off its back was hella sweet for a guy who still feels the tug of the old Big South alliance. Watching a team as selfless and inherently likable as Florida take home the grand prize—after gambling the NBA’s gazillions they would do nothing less than exactly that—made for a hell of a story. Not to mention it continued to keep important NCAA championships out of the heathen hands of the Buckeyes and the Big 10.

But this mainstream acceptance, even glorification, of this year’s tournament because of the absence of big upsets and alleged quality of the teams remaining? That doesn’t cut it here. First, it’s not like that mile-high stack of high seeds ever produced a truly classic game. Georgetown’s battle with Vandy was excellent and yeah, yeah, yeah the G-town-UNC game wasn’t bad--but only thanks to the Heels’ Greg Norman-esque gag job. The best game in the tournament, for the JCCW’s money, was SIU-Kansas, pitting the Salukis' mind-blowing man-to-man against the Jayhawks’ mind-blowing (and, from this perspective, damn unfortunate) two-point shooting--and SIU doesn't have a single player who's clsoe to the NBA radar.

But more importantly, who the hell watches the NCAAs for the quality of the basketball? When I want to watch basketball for the sheer joy of watching the sport played well, I’ll turn on the Suns and Mavs, thanks.

What I watch the NCAAs for is the surprise, the drama, the story the tournament offers. And the story of one megalith full of NBA stars beating another megalith isn’t a story. That’s what’s supposed to happen. That’s what the entire rigged college basketball system of Bob Hugginses and Hummer-driving AAU recruits and antibacterial million-dollar locker rooms is intended to give us. I watch the NCAAs for a re-affirmation that what’s intended and what’s supposed to happen sometimes doesn’t--that all the money and prestige and status in the world still can’t keep Connecticut from losing to George Mason, it still can’t keep a bunch of Patriot League nerds from toppling Kansas. Now those are stories.

This year, though, money won. Status mattered. This year’s NCAA Tournament was one of those realistic turn-of-the-century British novels where the rich gentleman engaged to the snooty rich girl falls in love with the smart-but-poor country girl, then marries the rich girl anyway and they all live unhappily ever after. You finish a book like that, you understand the author’s choices. You admire the craft. You acknowledge the realism. In short, you respect it. But you never fall in love with it. And I never loved the 2007 NCAAs.

So now, one of these days, I am going to buy the new Fountains of Wayne album, which because of the crushing brilliance of their first three I have mountainous expectations for. The same expectations I have every year for the NCAAs. One of them has already been good-and-not-great. It would hurt a little too much this week to learn that both of them are.

A mid-major-centric tourney wrap up and some blog news coming this week.

*As I mentioned earlier, the Iron Bowl or the Auburn-LSU game or a juicy season-opener would rank right up there in good years. But then, occasionally, there are also bad years.

The Million Dollar Bracket, Year 2

So there I was Sunday night, poised at the keyboard, ready to write my 10,000-word thesis on the Drexel snub, the fellating of the Big 10, whether Jay “Puppy Kicker” Bilas is pure, undiluted evil or if, like Darth Vader, there’s still a few tiny specks of good still in him. (The answer: he’s from Duke. So no.)

Then I get this tap on my shoulder.

The JCCW: Oh, Real Life. Hey, how you doing? Could we make it quick? I’ve got this post I want to write and …
REAL LIFE: Let me just stop you there. I’ve got an awful lot of work I need you to do over the next couple of days, and if you could help me out with that it would be really appreciated.
THE JCCW: Oh, um, sure. But, uh, could you maybe just cut me a little bit of slack on this one, Real Life? You know I’m a college hoops blogger, and with this being the biggest week of college hoops season and all, it’s really important that …
REAL LIFE: Oh, is that what do you call it … Tournament, thing, that you like so much … is that this week? I’m not the biggest sports fan. Still, if you could just do V, W, X, and Y, and if you could get to Z that would just be great. Thanks so much!
The JCCW: *Siiiiiiiigh*

So the Million Dollar Bracket: Year 2 is arriving too late for it to be of any use to anyone. (Except maybe, after this weekend, as an archeological document on how not to pick a bracket.) In the exceedingly likely prospect that you’re unfamiliar with or have forgotten the Million Dollar Bracket project, here’s last season’s version. Basically, what the JCCW is attempting to pull off is nothing less than the greatest feat of sports prognostication in the history of man: a perfect NCAA Tournament bracket.

It will happen when pigs not only fly, but do so by ditching the commonly illustrated cherub wings* for a rocket ship made of corn cobs and mud. I know that. But aiming for anything less (like, say, winning the office pool) just feels like resorting to conservative pragmatism and general half-assery … like a dozen people’s senior quotes in my high school yearbook said, you shoot for the moon, you end up amongst the stars, right?

So here’s how, in theory, you pick a Million Dollar Bracket:

1. Rule out any 1 seeds that will lose in the second round. Up until last year, a top seed had lost in the second round every even-numbered year (but never in an odd-numbered year) every tournament since 1990. It didn’t happen, but in the JCCW’s view that only makes it more likely it’ll happen this year—there’s only been one three-year stretch in the 64-team tournament era without one, and that was ’87-89.

So who? There’s two candidates: Arizona (after bludgeoning Purdue) over a potentially sleepwalking Florida, and Michigan St. or Marquette over UNC.

In the first possibility, the way the Gators rolled through the SEC tourney and the way Arizona just doesn’t seem to have enough defense even when playing their best ... it's a game that looks competitive, but also looks very much like it's Florida’s.

On the other hand, Carolina is a team a) whose best player flailed through the ACC tourney thanks to his unfortunate and ongoing Phantom of the Opera impression b) that is very, very young and like young teams does things like lose to lesser foes c) is coached by the same coach that brought you both 9-seed UTEP over 1-seed Kansas in 1992 and 8-seed Rhode Island over 1-seed Kansas in 1998.

Michigan St.? Wonk says they’re Ohio St. or Wisconsin in disguise if they just hold onto the damn ball. Also, the last two times Michigan St. lost in the first round, Tom Izzo took them to the Elite Eight as a 7-seed and the Final Four as a 5-seed the following seasons. As you’ll recall, the Spartans were upset by George Mason last year. Expect more big things—as in a win over wounded Marquette and an upset of the Tar Heels.

2. Pick a Final Four of one or two 1-seeds, one or two 2-seeds, and a sleeper. With no 1-seeds in last year’s Final Four, it looks like a good year for two to make it. The Midwest doesn’t offer any serious threats to Florida, so there’s one. Kansas has been on the JCCW’s Final Four list for months, so there’s two.

In the South, Memphis was supposed to be vulnerable last year as a 1 and laughed all the way to the Elite 8, where they would have beaten UCLA if not for a damn-near-impossibly bad shooting night. Sure, the C-USA sucks, but they dominated it in a fashion they didn’t even manage last year. They’re the Final Four’s 2-seed.

Everybody loves them some Georgetown in the East (and those that don’t love them love the Heels) but while the Hoyas were rolling through a mediocre Big East (and the Heels were busy looking bored against N.C. State), Texas was busy twice taking Kansas down to the very wire. The Horns have gotten progressively better all season, and by the Elite 8, they’ll be better than Georgetown. They’re the sleeper.

3. Pick one or two first-round upsets of protected (i.e.1-4) seeds. There’s been 37 of these in 21 years, so that’s around 1.75 a year, or about five every three years. With two each of the past two seasons and a few solid Cinderellas biting the dust in their conference tourneys, I think there’s only one this year.

The semi-candidates are TAMU-CC over Wisconsin (slow game plus Christi’s 3-point bombers could be gold), Albany over Virginia (Virginia isn’t any good, Albany’s Jamar Wilson is), and Wright St. over Pitt (Dashaun Wood! Dashaun Wood!). But those are still pretty unlikely, in TAMU-CC’s and Wright’s case because Wisconsin and Pitt are well-coached and solid, and in Albany’s case because they’re still Albany.

So the real candidates are Holy Cross over Southern Illinois, Oral Roberts over Washington St., and Davidson over Maryland. The Oral Roberts upset is a carbon-copy of last year’s Winthrop over Tennessee pick: experienced, savvy multi-tournament team going against overseeded, fading, first-time-in-the-NCAAs-in-forever team and gets plenty of analyst love (Seth Davis predicted a Roberts win the moment the brackets were revealed). It’s so, so tempting. But I think it ends like the Winthrop game: with the high seed just awake enough to just edge the Cinderella.

That leaves Holy Cross and Davidson. Both have veteran coaches. Both have major-conference talent. Both are due as hell after some close calls over the past several years. But Davidson has the weaker opponent—and one much more likely to look past a mid-major. After the unconscionable cruelty of Maryland’s escape past UNC-Wilmington in 2003—on what has to be the luckiest shot in NCAA history—karma has some wicked payback in store for the Terps.

4. Pick two or three 5-12 and 6-11 upsets. There’s an average of 2.6 of these a year, or around five every two years. After four last year, two is probably the smarter call, but … I just happen to think USC and Butler are awfully ripe, and playing teams in Arkansas and Old Dominion that have shown some ability to win away from home.

And I’m picking Winthrop again. Notre Dame is a good team, no question. They looked very good against Georgetown, no question. But Winthrop has to win this game. They have to. Or they are cursed, and will never get over the hump, and are unworthy of the hype and blah blah blah. Gregg Marshall's not ready to hear all that, and that should make the difference. (Also? Winthrop still defends 3’s pretty well—and 3’s are a big, big part of the Notre Dame offense.)

5. Find six or seven protected seeds that will fall before the Sweet 16. You know what drives me bonkers? Experts that to a man (or woman) don’t seem to understand how frequently protected seeds lose in the first weekend. There hasn’t been any fewer than six gone by the round of 16 for a decade, but here’s an Si.com alleged “expert” telling us there’s going to be two and another saying three. This guy has the stones to call Oral Roberts for the Sweet 16 … but then only two other non-protected seeds in the rest of the bracket?

My feeling is that the conference tourney upsets and a stronger set of 2 seeds that usual means we’re looking at six upset favorites, same as last year. We’ve already evicted (1) UNC and (2) Maryland. Let’s add (3) Oregon, who doesn’t play defense, surely peaked at the Pac-10 tourney, and (like Notre Dame) gets a lot of points from deep. Winthrop can take them. (4) Washington St. will fall to a streaking Vandy, who made the Sweet 16 as a late-charging 6 a few years back. (5) Virginia sucks and will lose to Tennessee, who will surely thank their deities of choice they were handed patsies like ridiculously overseeded Long Beach and the Cavaliers. And Louisville will take advantage of their unfair home court advantage by toppling (6) Texas A&M, who has somehow become a consensus Final Four favorite despite the fact they lost two of their last three games.

6. You need a Cinderella. First, it’s no fun if you don’t. Second, defining a bona fide Cinderella as “a double-digit seed mid-major (A-10 and MWC excluded) that advances to the Sweet 16,” there’s been at least one Cinderella each of the last 10 seasons and 17 of 21. If you’ve been paying attention, you know Winthrop’s one. But by the happy coincidence of Old Dominion and Davidson facing each other in the second round, ODU becomes a second. No less a personage than Gregg Doyel is on board with Davidson in this game, but I think you have to take the Colonial team over the SoCon team after what Mason did last year.

7. Fill in. We’ve got our Final Four, our Sweet 16, and our first-round upsets. What’s left? In the East, Texas Tech takes advantage of better coaching to beat Boston College. Georgetown dumps Vandy to advance to face Texas in the Elite 8. In the South, BYU beats Xavier and Creighton ousts “We didn’t beat anyone the RPI ranks higher than 45th, and that was at home, but for whatever reason people still think we were underseeded” Nevada. Ohio St. makes shorter work of Tennessee this time around in the regional semis, before losing to Memphis. In the West, Duke has too much coaching (dammit) for VCU, Gonzaga wreaks vengeance for the Committee’s Big 10 fascination on Indiana, SIU sees off Virginia Tech, and Pitt earns the JCCW’s gratitude for dumping Duke before getting dispatched itself by a just-plain better UCLA in the Sweet 16.

Now, in the Midwest, there’s a dilemma. UNLV will take out their seeding frustration on Ga. Tech before getting bounced in the second round by Wisconsin, who’s a lot closer to home than the Rebels. But does Wisconsin or Winthrop advance to the Elite 8? The ol’ gut says Winthrop can’t pull a third straight upset, even over a team that had to go to overtime to beat them the first time around at home and at full strength. The Badgers won’t have either of those advantages in a rematch. But just as important—really, more importantly in the Million Dollar Bracket’s eyes—is the fact that with Ohio St. meeting Memphis and Kansas facing UCLA, a Florida-Wisky match-up would mean three 1-vs.-2 contests in the Elite 8. That’s never happened. Plus, a Wisconsin win would mean the lowest seed in the round of 8 would be Texas’s 4—and all 21 Elite 8’s have had at least a 5 or 6. In fact, no Elite 8 since 1996 has gone without at least one team seeded 7th or lower. The only candidates for that qualification the JCCW can see are the Ga. Tech/UNLV winner, the Creighton/Nevada winner, Gonzaga, Mich. St., maaaaaaaaybe Texas Tech or Arizona … or Winthrop. Of all those nominees, I like Winthrop’s draw (every other 2-seed, or Texas, or Florida, are too strong) and Winthrop’s massive cache of karma best. I think they beat the Badgers and make the Elite 8.

Is that likely at all? No. But some team seeded 7th or lower is going to get that far. If you’re trying to win your office pool, you pick Wisconsin and don’t sweat it. If you’re trying for a Million Dollar Bracket? You take your best guess and hope.

8. Finally, pick your winner. I like Texas’s athletes even better than I like Memphis’s, so the Longhorns win one semifinal. In the other, the run simply has to end sometime for Florida. Winning 12 straight NCAA Tournament games in today’s college basketball is, in the JCCW’s opinion, all but impossible. Kansas advances.

And because Kansas has already proven they’re just a touch better than Texas, they score just a touch more in yet another classic between the two. The Jayhawks have looked like the best team in college hoop to the JCCW for a while, and while the best team doesn’t always win the NCAAs, I think this time it will.

So there you go. Worth a million dollars? No. Evidence that it’s probably time to think about investing in a shrink? Probably. Fun as hell to put together, research, and write up? Oh yeah. Here’s hoping your NCAAs are just as fun.

*You'll have to scroll a bit.

JCCW Bracketology

Two quick things before my bracket guess:

--Boy, spoke just a wee bit too soon about the success of conference tourney favorites, didn't I? Akron, Delaware St., and Vermont all went down yesterday, all in excruciating fashion. The result is that the bottom of the bracket is gutted. Barring some seeding wackiness from the Committee (always a possibility) TAMU-CC (which itself survived a huge scare from Northwestern St. just a few seconds ago) looks like the only potential giant-killer at either the 14 or 15 lines.

--Will be fascinated to see what the Committee does with the play-in game. The obvious candidates are Jackson St. and Florida A&M, but shunting both representatives from the HBCU conferences out of the bracket proper could cause an impressive amount of sh*t to hit the fan. But to stick either school into the bracket proper will be a riotous injustice to whatever team does wind up in the play-in. It's a catch-22 ... and I'm hoping like hell it's the kind of catch-22 that results in the game being put out of its sparsely-attended, viewer-ignored, absurdly-unfair misery.

The Bubble

The JCCW thinks 14 teams have reasonable arguments for being either slipped in or left out. That's a lot. Though every year people say "This was the hardest bracket to pick ever," there's actually some truth this season, methinks. With 31 autos and 27 locks, that means the first seven of those 14 get in. The ranking:

IN

1. 2. Texas Tech, Georgia Tech: Too many wins over teams like Kansas and North Carolina to leave out.
3. Drexel: Every year the Committee preches road wins. How can you leave out a team that is all but the pure embodiment, the Walking Avatars, of the solid road win?
4. Syracuse: Not as good a profile as some think, since the Georgetown win is cancelled out by some questionable losses. The win at Marquette saves them.
5. Stanford: Oregon's surge gives them a lift, and they did beat UCLA.
6. Old Dominion: I'm worried, but that late-season winning streak is impressive.
7. Kansas St.: The last team in, basically on the strength of having accomplished something in their conference tourney and having a quality road win (at Texas) that the next team down does not.

OUT

8. Purdue: As pointed out before: Zero RPI top 100 road wins. The JCCW was shocked at the reaction to their Big 10-tourney win over Iowa. How does beating Iowa on a neutral court prove anything?
9. Air Force: Absolutely horrible on the road in-conference and obviously the four-game losing streak suggests they're not going to compete even if invited.
10. Florida St.: No bad losses and a handful of good wins (including a road win at Duke) should equal a bid and I wouldn't be surprised if they make it. But there's just so many losses.
11. Arkansas: The Committee is simply not going to spend too much time looking at a team that had no case when the selection process started. Plus, a below-.500 record in the SEC West?
12. Missouri St.: Covered this a couple posts back. Too many squandered chances.
13. Appalachian St.: Vandy's tumble didn't help.
14. Illinois: Their best win is a neutral-court win over Indiana. Gimme a break.

So, the bracket, complete with bad guesses at sites and whatnot. I tried to observe most bracketing procedures, but did happily ignore BYU's no-Sunday restriction:

MIDWEST

1. Ohio St. vs. 16. FAMU/Jackson St., 8. Nevada vs. 9. Xavier (Lexington)
5. Virginia Tech vs. 12. Wright St., 4. Lousiville vs. 13. Holy Cross (Buffalo)
6. Boston College vs. 11. Syracuse, 3. Texas A&M vs. 14. Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (New Orleans)
7. Vanderbilt vs. 10. VCU, 2. Memphis vs. 15. Belmont (Lexington)

VS.

WEST

1. UCLA vs. 16. Weber St., 8. Kentucky vs. 9. Winthrop (Sacramento)
5. Maryland vs. 12. Gonzaga, 4. Pitt vs. 13. Davidson (Buffalo)
6. Notre Dame vs. 11. Drexel, 3. Southern Illinois vs. 14 Penn (Columbus)
7. Duke vs. 10. Arizona, 2. Kansas vs. 15. Niagara (Chicago)

EAST

1. North Carolina vs. 16. CCSU, 8. Villanova vs. 9. Michigan St. (Winston-Salem)
5. Tennessee vs. 12. New Mexico St., 4. Washington St. vs. 13. Long Beach St. (Spokane)
6. Marquette vs. 11. Stanford, 3. Texas vs. 14. Albany (Columbus)
7. Butler vs. 10. Georgia Tech, 2. Wisconsin vs. 15. Eastern Kentucky (Chicago)

VS.

SOUTH

1. Florida vs. 16. North Texas, 8. USC vs. 9. Indiana (New Orleans)
5. Virginia vs. 12. Kansas St., 4. UNLV vs. 13. Oral Roberts (Sacramento)
6. Creighton vs. 11. Old Dominion, 3. Oregon vs. 14. George Washington (Spokane)
7. BYU vs. 10. Texas Tech, 2. Georgetown vs. 15. Miami (OH) (Winston-Salem)

Getting all 34 at-larges will result in some serious gloating later this evening. Stay tuned.

The deep sleepers

If I had the kind of time to put together clips for YouTube, and was also the sort of person who would spend said time putting together clips for YouTube, I would have put together the following clip this week:

RECE DAVIS: So which of that list of automatic qualifiers do you think has a chance to make some noise in this year’s Tournament?
DIGGER PHELPS: Well, I think Winthrop …
DOUG GOTTLIEB: Winthrop.
DICK VITALE: Winthrop, baby!
RICK MAJERUS: When you look at Winthrop …
TOKEN BLACK GUY HUBERT DAVIS: Winthrop.
JAY BILAS: North Carolina.
RECE: Uh, Jay, Carolina’s not …
JAY BILAS: You’re inviting these teams to play for a championship.
RECE: ... Right.

Suffice it to say, if we were voting mid-majors into a high school yearbook, Winthrop would win “Most Likely To Succeed” in a landslide. And despite the previous fate of similar honorees (somewhere, Western Michigan is crying into its beer and muttering “Like we asked Vegas to make us a favorite”) Winthrop is so good and so experienced and so incredibly overdue it may not matter.

Still, the discussion of Cinderellas-in-waiting shouldn’t both begin and end with Winthrop. Here’s five more, all flying at various levels under the radar, one of which I all-but-guarantee will be good for an upset next week:

Akron

The MAC is due. The one-time year-in-year-out giant slayer (think about it … Kent St in the Elite Eight. Central Michigan and the Hulkster dumping Kyle Korver’s Creighton. Miami (OH)’s Wally Sczerbiak beating Washington and Utah one-on-five.) hasn’t scored an upset since 2003. And the Zips are the far-and-away the best bet to snap that streak. Point guard Dru Joyce (4.4 apg) and forward Romeo Travis (15.1 ppg, 5.8 rpg) form a sweet senior inside-outside duo and juniors Cedrick Middleton and Nick Dials round out the MAC’s best backcourt. The Zips have the 12th-best shooting percentage in the country. They just flattened Central Michigan 82-53, beat back a good Kent St. team, and saw the 1-seed (Toledo) fall in the other semi. If this team survives the final, the MAC will be back.

Texas A&M-Corpus Christi

Ladies and gents, if you’re looking for the next Winthrop or Davidson—i.e., a mid-major who will basically contend for their auto-bid every single year for the foreseeable future—this is it. The Islanders have crazy mid-major size (7-0 center Chris Daniels averages 15.3 and 6.8), crazy efficient guard play (senior Josh Washington shoots 46.8 from three), and a seriously crazy giant-killing pedigree from their days as an independent. They wiped the floor (14-2) with the same Southland that sent Northwestern St. to glory last year. If the two-year return of the 14-over-3 upset is to continue, this is the team that will do it.

Wright St.

To this point, Wright St. has just been “that team that kept Butler from winning the Horizon.” No one’s seemed to notice this team has an excellent shot at upsetting teams other than Butler. First, consider that the Raiders won a regular-season title in a league that’s won five NCAA games the last four years. Second, consider Dashaun Woods, and the fact that he could win a game all by his scrawny self. Third, consider that Brad Brownell has NCAA experience from his time at the Dub. Wright was a better team than Butler in Horizon regular-season play, better in the Horizon tournament, and it shouldn’t surprise anyone if they're better in the NCAAs as well.

Delaware St.

If there’s going to be the national holiday, ticker-tape parades, and days of feasting that will surely, surely accompany the first 16-over-1 upset in history, it’s going to come courtesy of the Hornets. Yes, they’re a MEAC team, yes, they may very well be a 16. But how many 16 seeds boast an NBA prospect (6-6 guard Jasha Blunt), a 6-6 Cincinnati transfer that also averages 15 a game (Roy Bright), and a wicked slow-down game (this is the 334th-fastest team in the country) that could throw the right opponent (go-go-go North Carolina?) way off-kilter. Plus, two of the four 15 seeds to ever pull upsets (Coppin St. 1997, Hampton 2001) were from the MEAC—and Delaware St. is every bit the equal of those squads.

Holy Cross

Ralph Willard and the Crusaders might be the only coach and team more due than Gregg Marshall and Winthrop. 2001: the 15th-seeded Cross leads Tayshaun Prince and Kentucky midway through the second half, loses by four. 2002: the 16th-seeded Cross leads Kansas and their boatload of NBA players early in the second half, loses by 11. 2003: the 14th-seeded Cross leads Dwyane Wade’s Marquette team midway through the second half, loses by four. With Keith Simmons and Tim Clifford, Willard has more than enough tools to finally get his team over the hump.

Belly buttons, excuses, and ...

Opinions. Everyone who follows college hoops at all’s got one these days. (They also have Winthrop pegged as their tournament sleeper. All of them.) Opinions on who gets in, who should get in, who’s got a Sweet 16 run in them, who’s got a Final Four run in them, whether South Carolina will get a chance for their unprecedented third consecutive NIT championship … it’s just one giant water cooler in college hoop these days. (As an aside, I’m going to watch every minute I can of the NBA playoffs. But the hot topics in NBA-land right now? Next year’s free-agent class and the top centers of all time. What a brutal ass-kicking. The Association needs to cut its regular season in half, honestly.)

The JCCW’s got ‘em too, of course. Here they are, with just three days to go to Selection Sunday:

Missouri St. had their chances. An underrated method of evaluating NCAA candidacies is a team’s record against teams in the at-large field. (Well, I don’t know if it’s underrated. I don’t know if it gets discussed by the Committee or not. But it should be.) The Bears’ 12-6 record in the MoVal is costume jewelry--looks nice, but with Bradley’s and Wichita’s demise none of those 12 wins is over a serious at-large candidate. Following the Bears’ (admittedly terrific) neutral-court win over Wisconsin in November, they’ve had six chances against at-large quality teams, three at home and one on a neutral court—and lost every one of them. Twice to SIU, thrice to Creighton, once to Winthrop. Much as I would love to see another MVC team at the expense of mediocrities like Purdue or Florida St., especially after the Bears got the snub from the Worst Committee Ever last season, those teams have taken advantage of at least one or two of their opportunities. The Bears haven't. They're toast.

This is the best Championship Week in memory. Can’t say “Best C-Week Ever,” since I don’t really remember the ones from my junior high years well enough. But the Big South, OVC, Horizon, MAAC, Mid-Con, Colonial, and NEC have all produced outstanding games while the Sun Belt, MoVal, SoCon, and Big Sky have been competitive or slightly better than that. The Atlantic Sun (boo!) has tossed up the only clunker, and that was just because Belmont was so hot they could have thrown a camel through the eye of a needle, figuratively speaking. And Holy Cross-Bucknell is next up. It’s only going to get better.

Neither Purdue nor Illinois deserve bids. Drexel does. The best wins RPI-wise for both the Big 10’s bubble boys are identical—Indiana and Michigan St., neither of which is nearly as good as beating, oh, either Creighton or Villanova on the road. Sure, Purdue has also beaten Virginia (and Illinois) so they’re a notch ahead of the Illini, but Drexel will see those wins (both at home) with a road win over Syracuse and raise them with road wins over Hofstra, St. Joseph’s, and a half-dozen other decent teams. Bottom line: Drexel has six road wins over the RPI top 100. Purdue and Illinois have zero combined. It’s not even close.

For whatever reason, the NIT auto-bid policy has resulted in better tourney performance from mid-major favorites. No clue why this is the case—maybe the NIT bid removes the slightest bit of win-or-you-get-jack pressure?—but it is. Since the NIT decided last season to award auto-bids to any regular-season champ that didn’t make the NCAAs, precisely two mid-major conferences have sent less than their most dangerous team or an equally dangerous team to the Tournament. Those conferences are the 2006 MEAC, won by play-in fodder Hampton, and this year’s MAAC, which saw Marist go down in the semis. (You could make a case for this year’s Sun Belt, won by the five-seed North Texas, but regular season champ South Alabama was in total collapse by the end.) The upshot is that solid teams like 2006 Oral Roberts ends up as a 16 and 2007 Weber State—regular-season and tournament champs of the RPI No. 24 conference—can get projected into the play-in game. And the up-upshot is that a team like Northwestern St. can bring the long-thought extinct 14-over-3 upset back into the tourney. So, yeah, the JCCW’s more than a little pleased with this development.

No one knows how good Butler is anymore. On the one hand: Butler went 3-4 in their final seven DI games and won one of those three in overtime on some questionable calls. It’s not exactly a record that screams “future NCAA success.” On the other hand: three of those four losses came down to the wire, and they came to a) a very good and well-coached Wright St. team on the road b) the RPI No. 6 team in the country c) a decent Loyola-IL team with arguably the conference’s best player, again on the road d) Wright St. again, again on the road. None of those come close to being “bad losses”—in fact, taken individually, each falls under the category of “perfectly explainable losses.” So is Butler an overrated, tired, peaked-too-early bust waiting to happen? Or are they the same team that rose as high as a 3-seed in bracket projections, just with an ill-timed stretch of bad luck and feeling a target on their back that won't be there next week? Who knows? We won’t until the Tournament, and anyone who tells you they know otherwise is lying.

One of my favorite Saturdays

The heart attack-serious, no-exaggeration list of the JCCW’s top six favorite annual days* of the year:

6. “Fall back” Night of One Hour of Extra Sleep
5. New Year’s Bowl-o-Rama
4. First Full Saturday of College Football Extravaganza
3. Opening Saturday of Championship Week Joy
2. Christmas
1. Two-Day First Round of NCAAs Festivus

OK, so maybe No. 6 is an ever-so-slight exaggeration. But No. 3 is not. And Saturday and its four back-to-back-to-back-to-back mid-major conference championship games (eight precious hours worth!) proved why once again. Here’s a collection of scattered observations from each:

Big South: Winthrop 84, VMI 81

--I suppose it’s hopeless to expect ESPN’s 14th-string announcers to come in from calling the Great Outdoor Games and not be a complete train wreck. But just for the record, the team assigned to this game was a complete train wreck. First, they only gave the slightest indication that VMI’s numerous statistical landmarks (NCAA record for team steals in a season, Reggie Williams’ DI-leading scoring total, etc.) were a function of the Keydet’s espresso-fueled freakshow pace. Pretending that the 2007 VMI Keydets are better tat stealing the ball than Billy Tubbs’ ’88 Oklahoma team (which oh-by-the-way made the national championship game) without even mentioning the context of VMI’s pace practically redefines “disingenuous.” The play-by-play clown also called Gregg Marshall “one of the best young coaches in the country that no one knows about.” All right, first of all, Marshall’s been at Winthrop since the mid-90s; he’s not John Wooden, but I really think he’s a few years past “young” by now. Secondly, the announcers had made a big deal just a few minutes earlier about Winthrop’s massive USA Today spread. I don’t think “no one knows about” coaches whose teams just headlined the USA Today sports section … especially when, I swear, their picture has shown up on the ESPN college hoops page more often over the last month than Coach K’s.
--I’m not sure the Eagles were really, really ready for VMI to play as well as they played. That’s understandable since Winthrop beat them by a combined 3,245 points in their two regular season meetings (approximately). But there were a few too many 3’s jacked up against the zone (even by the likes of the usually heady Torrell Martin) and a few too many difficult passes attempted under the “Hey, these guys are going to fall apart any second now, we’ll save our discipline for when we truly need it” heading.
--The bright side of that? Maybe this will tone down a little of the all-but-overwhelming “Winthrop is this year’s George Mason!” talk emanating from, well, just about anywhere you care to look on the Internets these days. It’s not likely, since mostly just former Big South geeks like me actually watch these games and very few members of the mainstream media know how bad VMI was this season … but Marshall can only hope. Having every bracket in the country settle on his team as their Cinderella won’t help them actually become that Cinderella.
--Speaking of Marshall … a five, Gregg? Come on. Have you forgotten last year already? You’ll be lucky to get that 10 you turned your nose up at. Remember that despite your close calls you’ve still only beaten two top 50 RPI teams and that the Committee just saw you survive a terrible team by three with your season on the line at home. Take your 11 and quit yer’ bitching.
--Of course, if the Committee was actually watching, they might notice that VMI played a hell of a game. 1.22 points-per-possession against a team with Winthrop’s D? Dizzamn! And where has that Travis Holmes been the last couple of seasons. What I was expecting to be a savage blowout ended up being far-and-away the best—and best-played--game of the day. The Keydets’ sudden transformation into an efficient offensive machine has gotten Duggar Baucom some national credit (mostly deserved), but I have to ask: if Baucom is such a genius, why didn’t he try having them slow the pace down in the regular season? Was he visionary for realizing that his team needed to try something different, or a stubborn coot for not realizing it earlier?
--Kudos to the Winthrop and VMI cheering sections for producing an atmosphere so insane you could feel the insanity leaking from the JCCW’s television. But these kudos come with a bitterness so bitter you can probably feel it leaking from your monitor. Because they come from a fan of a deceased Big South program who once swore on everything holy that if his Panthers ever played for an NCAA bid, he would be there in person come hell or high water. Last year, it would have been ludicrous to suggest that a VMI fan would be able to live that dream before a Birmingham-Southern fan. And yet there the Keydets were Saturday, cheering like lunatics and living the game of their lives, while my team twiddles its thumbs before rebooting in D-III next year. Sigh. Sigh, sigh, sigh.

Atlantic Sun: Belmont 94, East Tenn. St. 67

--I feel gypped. Both the regular-season meetings between these teams ended up in overtime. This one was over, oh, right about the time six minutes in when both teams realized Belmont was never going to miss a three and ETSU’s comeback strategy was a series of12-foot fallaway jumpers from an AI-wannabe named Courtney Pigram. Bleah.
--The announcing was barely better for this one. The color guy told us at one juncture that ETSU had a huge advantage playing at home in front of their too-awesome-to-be-believed fans. Later, Tweedle Dum subtly suggested that the fans at ETSU were very demanding and their unhappiness with the Bucs’ performance might create pressure on the team. In the end, though, the contradicting of himself is secondary to the fact that I seriously doubt ETSU’s fans are especially unique one way or the other.
--If Belmont shoots as well as they did against ETSU and can sneak into a 15 seed, they’ll have a shot in their first-round game. Unfortunately, what’s more likely is that they’ll be a 16 seed and shoot much, much worse. Sorry, Bruins.

SoCon: Davidson 72, College of Charleston 65

--This game was U-G-L-Y, it ain’t go no alibi, it's UGLY … it's UGLY! One team (Davidson) couldn’t shoot for crap. The other team turned the ball over every time their opponents looked at them cross-ways. The SoCon has long considered itself several haughty degrees above the Big South. Last year’s RPI poked one hole in that balloon, and even if the Big South’s RPI collapsed this year, the quality of the conferences’ title games (or lack thereof in the SoCon’s case) suggest there’s still not too much difference (if any) between the two leagues.
--Stephen Curry’s obviously a good player, but the announcers (and maybe Pat Forde) should hold off on the “Curry for President!” chatter. Yes, he scored 29 points, but he did it on 24 shots—many of which would have been quickly labeled “ill-advised” by an announcing crew that wasn’t busy suggesting Curry was capable of solving world poverty. (Admittedly, the eight boards and positive assist-to-turnover ratio were nice.)
--Charleston’s Dontae Drayper singlehandedly ended Appy St’s at-large hopes with a career-high 38 points in the semis. He then scored all of eight on 2-of-11 shooting in the final. If I’m a Mountaineer fan, right now I’m mulling over a serious decision … whether Dontae Drayper’s car deserves to be egged or keyed.
--The ESPN crew argued at length that Davidson had a bid locked up on the basis that all of their losses came on the road to major-conference teams except for their home loss to Appy St. Uh, guys? That’s a mighty big “except” and it’s not like two of those major-conference teams (Michigan and Missouri) have set the world on fire. Davidson wasn’t just not a lock—they didn’t have a prayer of an at-large.
--Ironically, as awful as they looked, I think Davidson’s doink-fest against the Cougars might actually improve their chances of pulling a first-round upset. Because I can’t imagine they’ve got too many bricks left. Better to save your best performance for later if you can help it, I’m thinking.

Ohio Valley: Eastern Kentucky 63, Austin Peay 62

--Terrifically entertaining game. What Championship Week is all about—two teams with absolutely everything on the line giving it their all and having it come down to the wire, where a guy who hadn’t hit a basket all game drives for the winning finger-roll (!). God bless college hoops.
--My biggest (only?) pet peeve about Championship Week: idiot ESPN directors who instead of giving us the off-the-charts celebrations that inevitably accompany every automatic bid, show us the two coaches shaking hands. We got a morsel of EKU’s dogpile on the floor, but not enough—and we saw more of the Colonels celebration than any of the other four. Wake up, ESPN.
--EKU is going to be a 16 seed and they are going to get crushed. No shot at an upset. No biggie—they’ve got what they came for this season.

*Auburn football would be on here, but those days sort of change in excitement each year--and even getting up on the day of the Iron Bowl is sometimes a reason for worry rather than real excitement.

A happy Appy? plus other randomness

It’s been probably a solid decade since bracket projections first started hitting the web, it’s been 22 years since the 64-team field was unveiled, and you get the sense there’s still more agreement in Congress on Iraq than amongst bracket-watchers on the evaluation of mid-major teams with potential at-large cases.

The latest evidence? Appalachian St., most recently seen extending their winning streak to seven with a 72-63 win over Elon. Joe Lunardi (as of Sunday morning) thinks the Mountaineers aren’t even on the cusp of the bracket. Bracketography and The Bracket Board see them as worthy of consideration, but out. Stewart Mandel, though, thinks that a SoCon title-game berth gives them an all-but-certain at-large.

Who's right? The case for boils down to Appy St.'s sterling 5-2 record vs. RPI top-100 teams, with all five of those wins coming either on the road or on a neutral court, while both losses came at ACC teams before Virginia transfer Donte Minter became eligible. The case against? Three losses (all with Minter) and runner-up status in an utterly mediocre SoCon.

Up until last season, I'd have agreed with K-Dub: A second-place team in the SoCon ain't getting any bid that's not automatic. But then the 2006 Committee took a pair of mid-major teams (well, Air Force is mid-majoresque) with worse resumes than Appy St's this year. And while more than one writer has asked why Appy St. would get in when Davidson got the shaft after running the SoCon regular-season table two years ago, that Davidson team both faced a tougher bubble and accomplished much less in the nonconference.

My guess? Despite the unconscionable Butler and Utah St. NCAA snubs earlier this decade, by and large the Committee has gradually been more forgiving of mid-majors and less forgiving of run-of-the-mill power-conference teams, with the stiff-arm of perfectly deserving Cincinnati last season the biggest middle finger to the Big Boys yet. I think if Appy can make the SoCon final and give Davidson a strong game, they'll sneak in.

Elsewhere ...

How SWEEP it is! We all know most Auburn fans could care less about any sport not played with a ball with points on both ends, but winning two straight against the Tide would be a big deal if we were talking varsity marbles. Just a week after some smart-assed fans were making pithy comments about how much progress was being made, The Jeff Lebo Project gets as big a win as it could ask for. If the JLP can get four games over .500, they might be able to snag an NIT bid. Doesn't sound like much, nut hey, we'll take what we can get ...

The struggles of Creighton and Missouri St. recntly led some to suggest the MoVal might even be a one-bid league, but the JCCW is calling it first: it's going to be a four-bid league. With power-conference teams tripping over themselves left and right, Creighton and Missouri St. should be fine after their wins Saturday. SIU is obviously in and probably a three-seed. But the MoVal tourney never goes to seed and with the top three all looking good entering Arch Madness, either Bradley or Wichita St. (despite their recent suckage) will have motivation they won't. And that'll be enough to steal the automatic bid ...

One of the regets I have about the last few months is that after the move to Ann Arbor, between the jobbity job, the Official Girlfriend of the JCCW, the blog, and the laziness, I haven't carved out the time to effort to check out any of the nearby mid-majors. Which is too bad, since they've been worth watching: Eastern Michigan continued a season of revival from the depths this afternoon by downing Ball St. at home. After winning three games in last year's MAC, the Eagles are a win away from doubling that this year. And a little ways down the road at Oakland, the Golden Grizzlies edged Mid-Con champ Oral Roberts in OT and will enter the MCC tourney as far-and-away the biggest threat to the Jayhawk-killers. Next year, I promise fellas, next year ...

Winthrop is in solid position for an at-large if they need it, but after crushing the closest thing they have to a "rival" by 14 last night on the road, is Gregg Marshall's best team yet really going to be beaten at home in the Big South tourney? Sure, and I hear Rick Majerus is going to be Weigth Watchers' next spokesperson ...

Would someone besides Penn or Princeton please win the Ivy one of these years? Seriously, wouldn't it be great if just once we got to see Dartmouth or Cornell or Harvard play in the NCAAs? Penn's out in front as expected, but after beating the Quakers at home, Yale could have set up a chance to pull even with the frontrunners if they handled 5-6 Columbia at home. Instead they coughed up an 18-point loss. In the meantime, Penn snuck by Dartmouth by two. Sigh.

Weekend in hoops

10 quickie thoughts, one long post, on the weekend that was in mid-majordom:

1. Two Saturdays ago, when I watched Creighton go to Carbondale, it looked like the party line for the last couple of seasons concerning the Salukis—transcendent D, but not enough offense to win in the NCAAs—was probably dead-on. I liked the Jays a little better as a tournament team because of Josh Dotzler’s ability to run the point (the Salukis don’t have a pure PG), more offensive balance (four Jays were in double figures) and chalked up the SIU victory to a flukish 9-12, 25-point performance from forward Matt Shaw.

But there Shaw was again against Butler yesterday, going 4-4 from the field (including 3-3 from 3), grabbing six boards, and scoring 15. The Creighton and Butler games were the first two times Shaw cracked the 15-point mark since New Year’s. If he can keep it up and give SIU a genuine second scoring-option behind previous one-man-band Jamaal Tatum, the Salukis should be able to claim their first power-conference scalp since dismissing Georgia in 2002.

2. Butler is still an Elite 8 type of team. Don’t read too much into Saturday’s game—yes, they lost at home, yes, that’s two losses (the other to future at-large thief Wright St.) in a week. But A.J. Graves looked like Death on two legs against SIU. Actually, make that Death on one leg—it looked like he had a hell of a limp for long stretches in the second half. He fouled out. He missed a free throw (only his second one at home this year). Surely, surely he had some kind of illness or injury, or both.

Butler without Graves isn’t really Butler at all. And they still could have swiped a win in the last minute. As long as Graves is fine, Butler will be fine.

3. Frickin’ Drexel. With road wins over ‘Nova, Syracuse, and now Creighton, the Dragons would have been in primo at-large position if they could have just avoided losing to any of the dregs of the Colonial and maybe taking one decent win at the CAA tourney. Instead they looked past William and Mary, a team so traditionally dreggy they make James Madison look like a contender, and coughed up a 60-47 loss. (To be fair, the much-improved Tribe have gone 8-8 so far in the CAA this season.) Now? It going’s to take a perfect run to the CAA title game and even then Drexel would have to hope for a very soft bubble and a little bit of Air Force-esque luck. Losses to teams like Rider and W&M are just too much when you’re in fourth place in your conference.

4. In the other half of the CAA-MVC Challenge, VCU’s at-large hopes are pretty much toast after their home loss to Bradley. The Rams’ most impressive nonconference win is either UAB or Albany. Their most impressive conference win is either home vs. Old Dominion or at fourth-place Drexel. They whiffed on road shots at Hofstra and ODU and couldn’t even really keep up at home with the MVC’s fourth-best team. They could win the CAA by three games and it won’t matter—they have to have the auto-bid.

5. It tears great rents in my soul to agree with Jay “Spawn of Evil” Bilas, but on the basis of five MVC games I saw all or part of this weekend, I have to say the Valley is, yes, a touch overrated this season. As noted above, SIU is as good as advertised. But Missouri St. and Wichita St. lost at home to schools from the Big South and SoCon. Creighton honked an 11-point second-half lead, again at home, to (it’s worth repeating) the fourth-place team from the CAA. At least Northern Iowa hung with Nevada for a half … but in the end, the MoVal’s six flagship teams went 2-4, and 0-3 at home. Eek.

6. Lord Winthrop is officially in the at-large race after not just beating Missouri St., but pretty well wrapping the game up with a few minutes to play and doing it with a subpar effort from a still-working-his-way-back Torrell Martin (only five shots from the field?). More evidence Gregg Marshall is a great coach: Michael Jenkins, former shot-a-minute bricklayer, went 7-12 from downtown and scored 25. With the Eagles’ road win over Old Dominion looking better all the time and still no loss to a non-tournament team on the ledger, the guess here is that Winthrop sews up a bid if they close out a perfect regular season (not easy: the last two are home against High Point and on the road at semi-nemesis Coastal Carolina) and avoid a first-round loss in the Big South tourney. The caveat: the Committee could sacrifice the Eagles to send a message about scheduling non-DI games (Winthrop played four.) Marshall defends himself (and Katz pronounces Winthrop at-large worthy) here.

7. Appalachian St. remains a stronger at-large candidate than SoCon buddy Davidson. Not only did they push Wichita St. off the bubble for good by winning in Wichita, those Vandy and Virginia wins are only increasing in value. Appy St. also beat Davidson on the road in their only meeting. Still … a 18-6 overall DI record whilst playing in a conference as weak as the SoCon is still a 18-6 overall DI record whilst playing in a conference as weak as the SoCon. They’ll need to sweep their way to the SoCon final, lose it to Davidson, and hope teams like Illinois, Syracuse, and Kansas St. to suck down the stretch.

8. Despite the conference’s well-covered inability to land an at-large big, the MAC is good for an NCAA upset as often as not and they’ve got a great under-the-radar candidate in surging Akron. The Zips have lost five games, but by a total of 18 points and the only home loss was to Nevada by two. They crushed runaway OVC-leader Austin Peay by 17 yesterday. If they can survive the MAC tourney minefield, your annual 12-over-5 winner is right here.

9. The JCCW candidate for conference with the toughest BracketBusters Saturday? The Big West, which saw its top two teams (Long Beach St. and Cal-State Fullerton) rocked by 15 points each at the hands of Hawaii and Wright St. and had its third-best team, UC-Santa Barbara, lose by two to Big Sky middle-of-the-pack team Eastern Washington. Looks unlikely there are any Pacific’s or Utah St.’s in this year’s crop.

10. It’s not mid-major related, but the JCCW does keep tabs on the Jeff Lebo Project. After a brief flirtation with respectability midway through the conference season (apparently leading to some delusional belief about the difficulty of the selection process amongst certain football followers), Auburn’s hoopsters have regressed to their inevitable mean—four straight losses, a 4-8 SEC record, and a no. 113 RPI, worst in the conference. Everyone who knows anything about Auburn hoops knows that patience is needed and that progress is being made—but especially given what Andy Kennedy has been able to do in a single season at Ole Miss, we’re talking about what looks several more seasons' worth of patience.

BracketBusters Busters

The announcement of the match-ups for BracketBusters, our joyous national celebration Saturday of all things mid-major (and, therefore, American in our purest Horatio Alger-ian, bootstrapped sense … I think celebrating BracketBusters is hella more patriotic than, say, a Labor Day barbecue), is essentially the quarter-pole for mid-majors. The Big Boys on the bubble can still survive a slip-up or three and snag an NCAA berth, but mid-majors that haven’t won the pre-season NIT or are in relative command of the Gonzaga Conference* have no such margin-for-error—from this point, in terms of at-larges, it’s win out (or come damn close) or else.

Many times, of course, teams win out and get “or else” anyway. Sometimes, BracketBusters games change that formula—ask George Mason, which never would have even been on the dance card last season without their BB road win over Wichita St. Sometimes it doesn’t—ask Missouri St., which got the snub despite knocking off UW-Milwaukee in Milwaukee.

So which teams got dates that might propel them along the GMU route, and which got nothing to help—or worse? The JCCW would break it down by “winners, maybes, and losers” if that didn’t seem like so much less fun than by Busters—“Keaton” for the lucky ones (seriously, give “The General” a watch if your library has it), “Douglas” for the to-be-determined (he was horrible, but he did single-handedly free boxing from Tyson’s rule via iron fists) and “Bluth” for the shaftees (“The guy who thought the blue on the map was land?”).

Keatons

Winthrop: There’s more at-large opportunity here than some seem to think. If Winthrop runs the table in the Big South—a distinct possibility with the trip to closest competitor High Point already out of the way—they will finish their regular season having beaten every single team on their schedule that wasn’t a top-3 seed or Maryland. (Admittedly, that also includes a whopping four D-II games.) That would count for a lot, but not enough without at least one win over another tournament-quality team. That’s where a road win over Missouri St. would come in. It won’t be easy and even in this scenario Lord Winthrop would have to hope for a very soft bubble come Selection Sunday, but the Eagles at least have a beatable opponent (unlike, say, Nevada) that would make it worth discussing (unlike, say, Toledo or Hofstra). Gregg Marshall really doesn’t have anything to complain about.

Butler, Southern Illinois: These two already have at-larges under wraps (especially after SIU’s win in Wichita yesterday), so the next step is a top-5 seed and the protection (well, alleged protection) from a homecourt disadvantage in the first two rounds of the NCAAs. There really couldn’t be any better opportunity than this one, in prime TV position against the season’s OTHER dominant mid-major, to grab the kind of win that would make that happen. Win here and avoid collapse (if you’re Butler) or take your conference by a couple of games (if you’re SIU) and it’s a 4-seed at the worst.

Appalachian St.: Losses to inferior SoCon teams mean that the Mountaineers (in my humble opinion) don’t have quite Winthrop’s chances of sneaking an at-large, but with their wins over Vandy and Virginia looking better all the time, a quality BracketBusters win would demand the Committee at least take a look. They’ll have their chance taking on Wichita St. on the road.

Toledo: The Rockets—a complete nonfactor in the nonconference schedule—aren’t getting an at-large. But if they could still maneuver themselves into the 12- or -13 seed line (a huge difference in terms of NCAA upset potential) if they could nab a quality BB win at home, and a team like Old Dominion is perfect for them—a fringe at-large candidate and possible Colonial tourney champion, but not either of the CAA’s two truly dangerous teams.

Samford: The Bulldogs obviously have to worry more about catching Ohio Valley leader Austin Peay at the OVC tourney than what seed they would get if they did. But nonetheless getting to host a solid MVC team at home (Evansville) is a great chance for a feather in their cap (and the OVC’s)—the sort of feather that might bump them from a 15 to a 14 if they need it.

North Carolina-based mid-major fans: UNC-Wilmington at UNC-Greensboro. Bragging rights aplenty. Why did it take BracketBusters to get it on the schedule?

Oral Roberts: The win over Kansas has probably already pushed ORU out of the 16-seed line, but a very attainable home win over a decent-but-hardly-intimidating Utah St. team would seal it.

Douglases

Northern Iowa: The rapidly-fading Panthers need to claim a big ol’ honkin’ scalp if they’re going to make up for a joke of a nonconference schedule (No. 282) and a weakening MVC profile. Beating Nevada in Reno would qualify, and would set up a bid if they could finish even 9-7 in conference with a MoVal tourney win or two. But only SIU has a tougher assignment—the Panthers might have been better served with a more winnable game, say, at VCU.

CAA hopefuls: Drexel can’t complain too terribly much, since a win at Creighton would put them back squarely in the at-large hunt, if still leave them with a lot of work to do. But the way the Dragons are playing, will they really be able to take down the resurgent Bluejays in their building? If the CAA had their druthers, they’d have preferred league leader VCU—who’s both playing better and now looking like the stronger at-large—to go to Omaha. Instead the Rams will host Bradley, which will help if the Braves can finish strong in the MVC. If they continue on their current mediocre track, though, a home win over them won’t make the at-large difference for VCU. And oh yeah, as mentioned above, Old Dominion gets a road date at a h-o-double-t HOTT Toledo squad.

TV viewers: Sure, Butler-SIU, Drexel-Creighton, and to a lesser extent Winthop-Missouri St are all must-see TV. But couldn’t the WWL have tried to show some of mid-majordom’s most exciting players as well as their best teams? I’m not sure Albany at Boise St. or Ohio at New Mexico St. couldn’t have been sacrificed to make room for Jared Jordan (at Marist), Rodney Stuckey (at Eastern Washington), or even LeBron’s old high school teammates (at Akron)?

Albany: In theory, the Great Danes would be quite happy snagging a TV game in spite their lackluster performance thus far. Whether it’s worth traveling from upstate New York to Boise is the sort of thing that might make up that difference between theory and practice.

Bluths

Wichita St.: After blowing an opportunity to get back into the at-large race yesterday so golden it may well have come with and engraved invitation, the Shox desperately needed a big-time opponent (Drexel?) to make a difference on the résumé or, failing that, a patsy they could put away for some confidence and momentum on their trench run into Arch Madness. They got neither: Appy St. is a scrappy, hard-nosed opponent that will do next-to-nothing for their at-large case.

The MAAC: Marist has drastically disappointed in MAAC play, but … Colgate? And Siena’s season-to-date is really so unimpressive they have to host CAA uber-dreg James Madison? Loyola-Md. has a reasonable opponent in Tennessee St. … but with all the eastern seaboard teams in the BB, did they really have to make the trek to Tennessee?

Ohio, New Mexico St.: Ohio probably didn’t want to travel all the way to Las Cruces, New Mexico. NMSU might be able to put together an at-large résumé if they could sneak past Nevada a second time and probably didn’t want a run-of-the-mill MAC team that won’t help that résumé a lick. Ohio got NMSU and NMSU got Ohio anyway.

Cal-State Fullerton: Speaking of travel issues, even for TV, did the Titans really want to travel all the way to Ohio to play an underrated but nonetheless utterly nondescript Wright St. team?

Fresno St.: somehow, I don’t see the Bulldogs packing out the House that Tark Built for the Sam Houston St. Lumberjacks.

Delaware St., Jackson St.: Because of the weakness of their conferences, BracketBusters is the only thing standing in the way of these classes of the MEAC and SWAC, respectively, and a 16-seed. Or at least, it would be, if the MEAC and SWAC let their teams play in it. You would think that since both conferences (like all mid-majors) are desperate for some NCAA success, they would do everything they could to avoid the brutality of a 16. You’d think wrong.

*When your conference is looking at three bids as a disappointment and you've got your own separate box on things like ESPN's Bubble Watch, you're officially straddling the line between mid-major and, uh, not. Not unlike a certain WCC team.

Recapping the recaps

Check it: you can now relive every bit of Auburn excitement that was broadcast on national television* in the year 2006 right here via the magic of hit-or-mostly-miss jokery, irrelevant links, and hyphens masquerading as bullet points! Here's your handy guide to the JCCW's first season of recaps:

1. The Capital One Bowl vs. Wisconsin
2. The Washington St. game
3. The LSU game
4. The Arkansas game
5. The Florida game
6. The Iron Bowl, Half the First and Half the Second
7. The Cotton Bowl vs. Nebraska, Half the First and Half the Second

It's been fun. Going to post some mid-major hoopery before the various sites I conned into adding me to their blogrolls last spring kick me out, then wrap up the 2006 Auburn season in the fairly near future, well after everyone has stopped worrying about it.

*Georgia game not included

Iron Bowl recap, half the second

And we’re back! Only two full months and another handful of days after the game was played!

Third quarter

--Coming out of halftime, Tubby tells Tracy Wolfson that the disastrous suicide-blitz at the end of the first half was a “stupid call” (that’s true) that was “my fault” (not true). Nice to see Tubby fall on his sword for his defensive staff like that, transparent as it was. This is you why some coaches are able to hire great assistants and some (currently unemployed) coaches aren’t.
--Gary Danielson explains that what he’s really looking for in a man, what he really wants out of a relationship, is honesty. “I love Tubby,” he says dreamily. (This is an actual quote. Though maybe it wasn’t actually said “dreamily” … maybe.)
--Alabama takes page from of the Book of Nutt and lines up Jimmy Johns in the shotgun. Auburn stuffs it twice. As it turns out, this is much less effective when you line up Jimmy Johns instead of Darren McFadden and can’t put Felix Jones on the field at the same time.
--If you’ve been playing a drinking game where every time Gary Danielson says “gash” or “gashed” during this broadcast, after that last replay montage you’re most likely unconscious.
--Wilson converts on third down, he finds Oakley a couple plays later for like 30 yards, but no biggie, they keep running it and don’t gain any more than a couple of yards each time, Wilson might have just completed another … wait, they’re already on the AU 13? How did that happen? Oh crap, they just scored. Crap. Weird drive—hard to say the AU D really looked bad at any point other than the well-executed Oakley play, but 80 yards in 11 plays is 80 yards in 11 plays. The hell?
--Fortunately, Shula’s somewhere-south-of-intelligent decision to throw the ball from the 1 on the Tide’s previous extra-point try means the Tide is saddling up for two again. Wilson is nearly sacked and flings it incomplete. It’s 15-14 ‘Bama, but I’m not sure when the last time Auburn was behind and I felt this confident, because there is NO way those missed extra points don’t bite the Tide in the ass. One you can get away with. But a second, on a forced-hand decision caused by the first horrible decision? The Tide is doomed.
--Well, perhaps not. It's 2nd-and-10, and you’re never going to believe this, but Cox was sacked on his first pass of the second half! It’s true! I know, it’s shocking!
--To be fair, the line gives him time on his next couple of throws, and Auburn moves out to the Tide 47. To be equally fair, the line fails to give Irons a crease any larger than the ones on my church slacks on first and second down, and then on third … I mean, do I even have to tell you Cox was sacked? Auburn punts, and if the Tide score on this next possession, it’s time to break out the heavy-duty worrying.
--Interview with Shula coming out of the commercial break, in which he uses the phrase “felt that” (“the fans want to win, and we’ve felt that, and the players have felt that, and the waterboys have felt that …”) approximately 12 times in seven seconds.
--Bit of a break there for Auburn as a holding penalty wipes out what would have been 3rd-and-inches and backs the Tide up inside the 10. Coverage holds on second and third and we should get good field position.
--Hmph, turns out we should have had better field position than we got. Smith clearly calls for a fair catch, makes it, and gets bumped and just about wrapped up whilst standing there. But no flag? Danielson agrees with the call, saying “If you’re an Auburn player or fan who thinks that play deserves a flag, I’ve got a lovely pink tutu-and-leggings set that would be perfect for you,” (I'm paraphrasing) but you’re opening up a mighty wriggly can of worms if you start letting there be any contact after a fair catch. There are places the rules can bend, but this shouldn’t be one of them.
--Cox hits Stewart on the same wheel route that’s already worked once this game and has worked approximately 749 other times this season (and will go on to work for a touchdown against Nebraska). Honestly, I’m not sure why Borges ever calls anything else.
--Ugh. The next two snaps start with a snap from Joe Cope to his own groin (prompting Verne and Gary to make with the obligatory tee-hee-he-hurt-his-balls jokes) as Cox was busy audibling. 1st-and-15. Then Cox runs into his own wideout in the backfield and overthrows Gabe Mackenzie. 2nd-and-15. Then Cox narrowly avoids a delay-of-game whilst painstakingly audibling against a stacked Bama line into … a toss sweep with Montez Billings, the wideout, as the lead blocker. 3rd-and-15.
--So we all know what’s coming. By now, I’ve got “Cox is sacked” pasted into the clipboard,” it’s a huge blitz, and sure enough … wait, TOUCHDOWN! Cox tossed it up for Prechae Rodriguez, who adjusted, went up, and got it! Shades of Pat Nix to Frank Sanders! Auburn leads 20-15 ... whew!
--After the TD, those forever classy Bama fans throw something, a can or a water bottle, at the celebrating Auburn players. OK, so Rodriguez wasn’t exactly a complete model citizen (after senidng a “Shhhh” maneuver i nthe crowd's direction) but I think we’ve established long before now that throwing things at players moves you to the very front of the line of Class A Jerks.
--Stewart hits Guess on the smoothest halfback pass since Cadillac's in the 2004 UGa game, and it’s 22-15 Auburn. In case you’re keeping track, that’s two blown extra points by the Tide with the Tigers picking up one extra—and entire field goal’s worth of swing on extra-point tries alone. Thanks, Mike!
--Not surprisingly, it appears the touchdown woke the Auburn hitters up. Patrick Trahan levels Johns on the kickoff, and Antonio Coleman flattens Darby on a draw play. I like our chances entering the …

Fourth quarter

--PUNT BAMA PUNT! CBS atones for the Van Tiffin footage by opening the fourth with replays of (objectively speaking and without any hint of bias on my part) the greatest ending of any football game—NAY, any sporting event, anywhere—of all time. I don’t understand why something that happened several years before I was born involving people I’ve never met and never will gives me goosebumps, but I’m glad it does.
--CBS tells us Mike Shula is 0-18 as Bama head coach when entering the fourth quarter. 0-18! Not one comeback, even over the likes of Mississippi St. or Northern Illinois! Again: and the national media wondered why Bama fans wanted to get rid of the guy?
--Groves is, once again, all over Wilson. Danielson says he managed it despite Bama “putting two guys” on him, but the replay shows that despite Danielson’s perfectly reasonable assumption that Bama wouldn’t leave their backup right tackle (Kyle Tatum) alone facing arguably the most dangerous pass-rusher in the entire SEC … Bama most certainly did leave their backup right tackle alone facing arguably the most dangerous pass-rusher in the entire SEC. Good job, Kines. Bama punts.
--It’s Kenny Irons time! 18 yards over right tackle! Now he’s got room over left end and … FUMBLE. Bama ball. Dammit, Kenny. Replay shows that Bama’s #91, backup end Chris Harris, sprinted all the way around from the weak side to knock the ball away from Irons’s blindside. Have to admit that’s a tremendous play.
--HA! So is that! Not to be outdone in the “defensive linemen who hustle and are rewarded with game-changing plays” category, widebodied Auburn nose tackle Josh Thompson runs 10 yards downfield to pop Keith Brown, who’s in the grasp of Herring. Ball comes out! Auburn falls on it! Herring is given all the credit by the booth even though Thompson had nearly everything to do with the fumble! I would stop using exclamation points, but this is the IRON BOWL!
--Tracy Wolfson tries to report Herring’s ambition to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a chiropractor (somewhere, the M.D.-carrying Official Father of the JCCW is gritting his teeth), but Wolfson is, peculiarly, so hoarse that I’m much more worried about Wolfson’s future career plans than Herring’s. CBS can’t get lozenges and a bottle of water onto the sideline?
--The Auburn drive goes nowhere, but Bliss uncorks a 53-yarder that gets returned for -1 yards to the Bama 11. Yeah, a net of 54 ain’t bad.
--A terrific job by Nikita Stover to get both feet in bounds on a long pass play (you only need one, son!) takes Bama to the AU 13. That’s not so good. Will Herring agrees, storming through to damn near take Jimmy Johns’s head off on the next play. Five yard loss. Tell me again, why did we ever have that guy playing safety?
--Whew! Wilson gets chased out of the pocket and his lob pass juuuuust misses his man in the back of the end zone. It’s now 4th-and-15, and this is precisely where Mike “Dr. Decisive, the Avatar of the Perpetually Overwhelmed” Shula loses his job. First he keeps his offense on the field, then tries to rush the FG unit on, then has to call time-out when it’s obvious there’s not enough time to get the snap off. Then, because he’s wasted the time-out, he sends the offense back on. It’s not really the indecisiveness here that’s so appalling. It’s the expression on his face CBS gleefully gives us multiple times, which says, basically, “I should have applied for that opening at the post office … Why can’t Dad hang around on the sidelines to help me out at times like these … I am so taking a long, hot bath when I get home,” etc. It doesn’t really matter that, in the end, he gets the call right—since a field goal doesn’t change the fact that Bama will have to score a touchdown at some point, it’s better to go for it. (Though the reason for that is, again, Shula’s brainless first-half extra-point call. It should be 21-17 at this point.) When it’s the fourth quarter of the biggest game of the year and your coach looks like a 10-year-old who wandered away from his Mom and got lost in the J.C. Penney’s, it’s probably time to get a new coach.
--Wilson’s fourth-down pass is easily broken up by Irons in the end zone. There’s a moment of comedy when the Bama bench notices a flag on the field and celebrates, but of course the flag is for Andre Smith’s hold on who I think is Marquies Gunn, a hold so egregious the Bama coaches transferred Smith to the defensive line on the spot for his “takedown ability.” Auburn ball!
--An anonymous Auburn player just broke out a premature thumb. Don’t like the tempting of fate there one bit, dude. Patience!
--A long drive here, with the Tide only holding one time-out, could end the game. Looks like Irons is paying penance for his fumble—it’s five straight carries for Lester. Can’t complain, I guess (though I bet Kenny Irons is) as Lester gets one first down and burns the clock inside of two minutes. Still, Javier Arenas gets 22 yards' worth of return following a 46-yard punt. Yeah, a net of 24 yards at this stage of the game ain't so good. C'mon Auburn.
--All right, one more stand, Auburn D! Let’s go! You can do this! You … Good grief, I’m not even done with my pre-drive cheers before there’s an INTERCEPTION! David Irons! YESSSS! Auburn will win the Iron Bowl!
--Bust out the thumbs! War … Damn …Eagle!
--Alabama’s classy #55 Terrence Jones classily nails Carl Stewart in the back as Auburn kneels to end the game in a typically classy Bama move. Mmmm …. classy.
--That’s it! The final whistle! w00t! Tubby and Shula meet at midfield, David Irons runs around in various directions screaming like the crazy screaming person he is, Jonathan Wilhite heads to the locker room showing off his best celebratory M.C. Hammer moves. (I have to say, they’re good moves.) As Wolfson gears up for the post-game interview Lundquist coins a euphemism for the ages concerning Tubby, calling him “among the least shy” coaches he knows. That’s as great a way to say “pretty much insufferably arrogant” as I’ve ever heard. Tubby lives up to his billing by saying that pulling off Auburn’s series of wins in T-town is “almost impossible.” And yet, whaddya know, his teams managed it. Tommy Tuberville: Among the Least Shy! Little wonder why Auburn fans love him (yours truly included on days like today), but it’s hella understandable why other fans might not.
--Five in a row, folks. Five! Where’s my “Fear the Index Finger on the Opposite Hand” shirt? War Eagle!

Ack

Real life got even more real than usual this weekend. The JCCW will be back Thursday or Friday, hopefully. Until then.

Iron Bowl recap, half the first

It’s been a while since this game was played. I know.

But I think that’s OK, since reliving an Iron Bowl win has to be one of the best ways—if, let’s face it, not the best way—to get over the end-of-college-football-season depression. Might not have been the prettiest Auburn performance (this wasn’t the prettiest Auburn season) but watching this game again is a Thumb-derful experience anyway.

So here’s me sharing the first half of that experience. Enjoy. War Eagle.

Pregame

--Wow, CBS really splurged on the intro: nice footage of old-fashioned villagey ironworking interspersed with shots of Vulcan and the obligatory classic Iron Bowl highlights (Bo Over the Top, Lawyer Tillman, assorted insignificant Tide plays) and Verne Lundquist intoning “This … is the Iron Bowl.” That was shockingly well done. But given that this game is taking place a few channels over from a certain other game featuring certain other overrated teams in a certain other overrated conference, you have to wonder if CBS shouldn’t have spent part of their limited supply of Don’t-Suck another week.
--Verne says that Tiger and Tide fans say with “some justification” that this is “the most intense, bitter rivalry in college football.” Uh, yeah. It ain’t bragging when it’s the truth. (As an aside, the only other rivalry worth even including in this discussion is Army-Navy. That’s it. No one else.)

--VERNE: With me today is Gary Danielson! Gary, last year you were with ABC as Burnt Hamburger’s right-hand man, and if you’d stayed there you’d probably be calling your alma mater in the 1-vs.-2, Big 11-deciding, biggest regular season game in college football in a decade. Instead, you’re lucky enough to call today’s game between a 6-5 team whose biggest win came in a home squeaker against Hawaii and another team that spent last week getting owned so badly Georgia’s lawyers drew up a deed! How excited are you to be here?
GARY: …
VERNE: Gary?
GARY: …
VERNE: Gary?
GARY: …
VERNE: Gary?
GARY: …
VERNE: Gary?
GARY: Verne, shut the hell up right now or I strangle you with the telestrator cord. [sound of phone ringing] Yeah, Rich? Hey, how’s my favorite agent. How long’s my contract again? And how hard is it going be to wriggle out of that? Yeah. Yeah. [To Verne] Look, I’m going to hang around. But do NOT bring up that ... other game ... again, or you’re going to end up flying solo on this snoozer.
VERNE: Sure thing. Fans, don't forget, we’ve got Tim Brando on hand in New York to keep you up-to-date with every development in the big Michigan-Ohio St. game!
GARY: Sigh.

--Verne’s characterization of Auburn’s performance against UGA is that they “laid a huge omelet.” Um, not really the worst joke idea ever, Verne, I guess. But goodness gracious we need to work on that delivery.
--Tyrone Prothro walks onto the field in full uniform to present the game ball. Well, maybe “walks” is overstating things. I’m sure the Tide players and fans were totally fired up by his appearance, but, from here, uh, let’s just hope Tyrone is paying very, very close attention to his studies.

First quarter

--After a good kickoff return and four Irons rushes for 17 yards, it’s 3rd-and-3 on the Tide 45, and Cox gets his first chance to redeem himself after the implosion against the Dawgs. He delivers a quick slant straight into the hands of his intended receiver, Bama’s Simeon Castille, who drops it. At least, I hope Castille was the intended receiver. I don’t know why he would be, but I don’t have another explanation for why Cox would throw the ball right at him--and a full five yards from the closest Tiger. Eep.
--During the possession, Vern makes a reference to “the dreaded 4-4-4: four completions, four picks, four sacks.” Uh, Verne? I don’t think anybody “dreads” that set of stats in particular. Like the omelet thing, it sort of sounds nice, yeah. But you’re not really making any sense, Verne. You’re trying too hard! Let the game come to you, Verne!
--At least the defense seems to have overcome any hangover from the UGa debacle. Kidding! Bama drives 77 yards to the Auburn 3 in 7 plays.
--Fortunately, like President G.H.W. Bush and broccoli or David Lynch and comprehensibility, scoring touchdowns in the red zone just isn’t really something the Tide does. Three times they plunge ahead on the ground, three times Auburn stops them short.
--The AU defense celebrates the third stop with, ahem, a lot of “in-your-face” spirit, leading to this exchange as Mike “Dr. Decisiveness” Shula chooses whether to go for it on fourth down:

GARY: Auburn is really challenging the Alabama players here. If you’re Mike Shula, if you don’t go for this, you’re basically admitting to your players that you’re an 11-year-old girl who’d rather be at home designing a pink business suit for your “Climbing the Career Ladder” Barbie. You have to go for this.
VERNE: Shula will send out the field goal unit.
GARY: God, Mike, grow a pair for chrissakes! Alabama has put together a nice drive here. It’s too bad they’re being coached by the world’s single biggest wuss. Can we check that with Guiness? He’s got to be the world’s biggest, right?

(I’m paraphrasing.)

--The field goal is good. 3-0 Bama.
--CBS gives us a U-M-OSU update. As I suspect a quarter of their viewership just went “Omigosh! U-M-OSU! I totally forgot!” and switched over, this may not have been the best idea.
--The Iron Bowl is the kind of game when lesser players like AU receiver Montez Billings can rise up and become legends. Well, maybe not like Billings in particular, since on second down he runs the wrong way on a wide-open end around for no gain, and then bobbles a third-down pass out-of-bounds.
--Auburn punts, with David Irons making a solid tackle on coverage. He follows with his trademark “jump up and take several quick steps in a random direction” move, which would drive me bonkers if he wasn’t a Tiger but which instead I just find highly amusing. It’s fun to imagine the reasons Irons does this, what’s in his head at the time. “HEY is that hundred-dollar bill over there?” “HEY is that an ice cream truck going by?” The possibilities are endless.
--Bama punts after receiver Will Oakley falls down on a third-down sideline route. Oakley, in for the injured Keith Brown, has not had a good game. I knew a guy in college named Will Oakley, a gangly, comic-book-loving English major. It’s unlikely Bama’s Will Oakley is related, though he is playing like a gangly, comic-book-loving English major.
--Lee Guess is open on a third-and-short underneath route, and despite the fact that Cox is no more than a dozen yards away from Guess he throws it a dozen yards over Guess’s head. Cox is 0-4 to this point, and 4 of his last 18. Brandon, we’re all sympathetic because of the whole MG thing. But unfortunately, these are football fans we’re talking about. Sympathy will only extend so far …
--Auburn commits a penalty after Bliss pins the Tide deep, leading Gary to say that the Tigers are playing “like a gaggle of snot-covered three-year-olds on the day-care playground who missed their morning Ritalin,” or something to that effect. Gary seems a little on edge this game. Like, maybe, there was some other game he wishes he was broadcasting somewhere. Weird.

Second quarter

--CBS gives us the obligatory flashback to Van “Down by the River” Tiffin’s accursed field goal. As long as we get our Punt Bama Punt fix later, I can deal.
--Groves! Auburn’s Big Bright Green Big Play Machine* does it again, nearly removing poor J.P. Wilson’s head with a direct blow to the trachea. Fumble, Auburn ball.
--Borges understandably decides that this is too good an opportunity to risk putting the ball in the air. Four Brad Lester runs, 27 yards, touchdown, 7-3. It’s a start.
--The kickoff from Clark is a line drive fielded just inside the goalline, but the Tide returner takes a knee anyway. Danielson, in shock at the lack of aggression, stops just short of accusing the returner of having (or being) female genitalia. Let go of the bitterness, Gary.
--I’m not sure he’s deserved every bit of the abuse heaped on him, but Alabama right tackle Chris Capps isn’t doing much to stem the tide (ha!) either. First Sen’Derrick Marks blows past him for a six-yard loss, then Groves whips him (again) for a fumble (again) and it’s Auburn ball deep in Tide territory (again). Somewhere, Chris’s family is unlisting their number as we speak.
--Irons, touchdown. On the yardage meter: Alabama 476, Auburn 12. On the scoreboard: Auburn 14, Alabama 3. HA!
--Next Tide possession it’s 3rd-and-1 on their 46. Darby has had several good runs. As Arkansas will tell you, Auburn’s biggest defensive weakness is a strong up-the-middle ground game. It’s a pass! Incomplete, punt.
--Someone in this game does most certainly have cojones, and his name is Gorgeous Al Borges. (Well, not legally.) Pinned at the 1 with a quarterback who hasn’t completed a pass since two-a-days? Air it out! Sure enough, Cox hits Rod Smith for 9 and then for 31 (on third down, no less!) and Auburn is out to the Tiger 45.
--As if that big pass wasn’t surprising enough, Tommy “Not a Blocking Tight End” Trott blows up Tide lineman Keith Saunders for an Irons nine-yard run and a first down in Tide territory. I’m sure we’ll see the “reversion to the mean” here in a sec.
--Yup. False start, incomplete pass, draw for nothing, failed (you guessed it) screen pass. Here comes Vaughn for a loooong field goal, which if he misses will give Bama good field position. Gary calls the decision “paramecium-brained.” (OK, he doesn’t, but he wanted to.)
--Gary is right. Vaughn misses the figgie to the surprise of no one but his mother, and on third-and-10 comes what is without question the worst defensive call of Auburn’s season. It’s a double safety blitz, it gets picked up, and Nikita Stover torches it for a 52-yard score. 14-9. How horrible a call was this by (I’m assuming) Muschamp? Let us count the ways: 1. The half was almost up. No way Alabama scores a TD unless it’s a big play 2. The safeties blitzed from their regular positions seven yards off the line. By the time Wilson had taken his drop, they had 15 yards to cover just to reach the QB 3. Your defense has gotten oodles of pressure without the blitz. Was there really so much to gain by calling an all-out blitz?

Tubby’s screaming on the sidelines, the crowd’s going nuts, Gary is referring to Auburn’s staff as “special needs” coaches … so much for going into the half with momentum.

--Wait, I forgot, Mike Shula is on the opposite sideline! Tristan Davis was called for roughing Wilson, so the ball’s on the 1. Everyone in the stadium knows that going for it now will only result in the Tide missing out on a point they will desperately need later. But Shula takes the bait anyway. In his favor, Darby has had several good runs and as Arkansas will tell you, Auburn’s biggest defensive weakness is a strong up-the-middle ground game. It’s a pass! Pressure, interception.
--On his way to the locker room, Shula says he wouldn’t have gone for 2 if the ball hadn’t been moved closer by the penalty. So why did you throw the ball?!? The play you called would have been just as likely to succeed from anywhere inside the 10!!! And the national media wondered why Bama fans wanted him gone.

Halftime

--Tim Brando is impressed by Bama. But Spencer Tillman gives Borges his props and subtly implies that Brando is maybe impressed a little too easily.
--The AJC’s Tony Barnhart reports that if Brad Lester is healthy for the entire second half, Auburn will win the game. Because the season has shown that if there’s any one position and player Auburn cannot deal with an injury to, it’s running back and Brad Lester.

The thrilling second half coming soon!


*I know this is stupid. Shut up.