Needed that. CU no longer has the signature win for the PAC. Finally. (Still has 2 of the top 3 tho)
God, Washington is just miserable right now. Battling with 0-8 Jackson State in Seattle for 40 minutes? Ouch. I'll still stick with saying they enter conference play 8-5, but if they play like they did today, Cal Poly will beat them. Cal Poly is bad, but they did beat UCLA...
USC beats UC-Riverside 70-26 :lol:. This is the same Riverside squad that only managed to score 30 on Fresno State. Woof.
Murray State in a tough one at home today against a good Western Kentucky team. 48-47 with 12:10 to play.
Oregon State should win at home against Chicago State.
TX Southern lost at home to CS Fullerton. Now 1-9, they better go on a hell of a run in conference play or that win will be pretty useless for us.
Stanford loses 79-88.
Utah beat SMU, Wyoming beat DU and Zona whipped Oral Roberts.
Pac-12 is much better than last year since the bottom isn't nearly as awful and there is actually a great team at the top with UA. But once again there are going to be few quality wins to come by in conference play and a lot of landmines of mediocre teams with bad RPIs that are good enough to beat a team on CU's level.
Those Utah games may have been wins last year but that was some of the worst basketball I can remember.Our Buffs HAVE to go out and beat the Wazzu's and Utah's of the league on the road. Road games at Utah, etc. aren't the guaranteed wins they were least year, as they're improved. However, these teams are still bad and losses would present an RPI nightmare that we don't want to fall into.
Those Utah games may have been wins last year but that was some of the worst basketball I can remember.
After Tuesday's games, here's the RPI outlook (updated RealTimeRPI):
Pac-12: #3
Conference Team Ranks:
#2 Colorado
#8 Arizona
#32 Oregon
#42 Cal
#70 Utah
#79 Arizona State
#85 Washington
#103 UCLA
#117 Stanford
#122 USC
#155 Oregon State
#182 Washington State
OOC Opponents Rank:
#7 Kansas (L)
#17 Murray State (W)
#40 Wyoming (L)
#41 CSU (W)
#64 Baylor (W)
#67 Dayton (W)
#146 Northern Arizona (12/21)
#158 Hartford (12/28)
#172 Air Force (W)
#205 Wofford (W)
#230 Fresno State (W)
#241 TX-Southern (W)
Basically, we need our Pac-12 mates to finish non-conference play strong. And we need our OOC opponents to have great records the rest of the way.
I fully expect CU to enter conference play at 10-2. Based on what I'm seeing with where the Pac-12 teams rank, we really need to see a 12-6 conference season (22-8 overall) for me to feel strongly confident of an at-large bid to the Dance this year. There's a ton of work to do. I'm very happy about our ridiculously inflated RPI right now, though. Look no further than Southern Miss last season to see what an inflated RPI can mean on Selection Sunday.
Dayton falls to Illinois State 74-73. Dammit. Flyers now 8-3 on the season. Finish their OOC slate with Murray State, @ Southern Cal and UAB. They really needed this win tonight. Painful loss for them at home.
In general, the A-10 hasn't been anywhere near as good as I expected this season. Lots of pretty good teams, but no one standing out as "really good". Butler looks like the best of the bunch and that's more coaching than talent.