With this year’s CUSA 11-team lineup, the conference tourney in Frisco schedules first-round byes to the top 5 seeds (by conference standings). Earning a top-five seed will be crucial to any team with serious ambition of winning the tournament (and it’s NCAA auto-bid). It means the tourney can be won with 3 wins in three days (teams seeded lower would need 4 wins).
Earning a top-three (#2 or #3) seed is even better. It ensures playing a non-rested team in the first round, and also ensures avoiding the #1 seed until the final (improving the chances that someone can knock them off before you have to face them.

Seedlings matter more, this year, to both our Women’s and Men’s teams this year, than in previous years. Not just for the above reasons, but also that our Men are now good enough to win the whole thing — especially if they earn a good draw. And the women may have dropped just enough from their early hot start that they know they’ll need to earn their way to a high seed and the best chance of advancing to the NCAA via the auto-bid.

Ladies first…

With Rice idle today, the rest of the league is in action, and the 4-way logjam tie for 4th place has been broken.

The so-called “bad” news is that Rice is no longer tied for 4th.

The good news is that we are alone in 5th, as two of the three other teams that had been tied with us (FAU and LaTech) have lost to fall to a T-6. That puts us “above the cut line” by a half game.

More good news is that (ignoring unbeaten MTSU for the moment) that Rice is 2-0 against one of the teams ahead of us in the standings (UTEP). That could come in handy for tiebreakers if things stay close down the stretch. Unfortunately we’re 0-1 against the other T-2 team WKU.

Charlotte’s win against Western Kentucky puts the 3-seed just 1.5 games away (but it also adds to the three team pack at T-6 as Charlotte tries to make a move).



After that inglorious 1-4 start to conference play, this is definitely our best position so far in the seeding race.

We lost to WKU at home (bad game - I thought we should have won easily but we had a brutal 4th quarter).

(01-21-2023 06:53 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  We lost to WKU at home (bad game - I thought we should have won easily but we had a brutal 4th quarter).

I know that! I listened to it on the radio (app). Did you think I’d forgotten?

Over on the Mens side… we currently sit in the 4-spot at 5-3 as UNT bounces back from their home loss to us and moves to 7-3. Also, MTSU wins to sneak a half-game up on us. We’re still tied for 2nd with both of them “in the loss column”.

Tonight 4-4 UTEP hosts unbeaten (8-0) and ranked FAU

Nice to see our sweeps of both UTEP teams could also have seeding implications as they currently sit #5 just behind us in the Men’s standings.

Since conference play began (in earnest) on December 29, there have been (and will continue to be) 10 teams playing conference games each day, with one “bye” (although FIU played an OOC game on one of their conference “bye” dates in December)

The dates themselves have bounced around a bit, squeezing in an extra Monday game earlier this week (and moving the preceding Thursday to a Wednesday to space it out a bit). But from here on out, it’s a straight Th/Sat schedule every week until March 4.

I believe that we’ve already had our two “bye” dates, which is why UNT (for example) has played two more games than us. Their two byes are still ahead.

*There is one exception on the women’s side where it looks like UTEP/Charlotte have moved a Thursday game up to the day before (a Wednesday)

FAU Men continue to roll.
They won at UTEP last night to make it a 3-0 road trip on the week (M/th/Sa).
They’ll likely improve their #24 national rank and are looking very good for the 1-seed in Frisco right now. They had a number of close wins last month but won each game this week by 8+ and just seem to be still improving.

I see four clear strata right now in the conference standings.
1- FAU (0 losses)
2-4 UNT, MTSU, Rice (3 losses)
5-10 Pack (5 or 6 losses)
11 - UTSA (9 losses)

1. Will those strata hold?
2. If so, which of stratum II will draw FAU in the semis (vs potentially the final)
3. And which of stratum III will survive to earn the top-5 bye?

6-6 for the men down the stretch should be enough to earn a top 5 (11-9 overall)

Really glad you are doing this and looking forward to future commentary.

+3

On the men's side, preseason favorites UAB and WKU continue to struggle big time. Both teams are dealing with key injuries too - Jelly Walker is in a walking boot for UAB and has missed 4 straight games (they are 1-3 in those 4 games). Although even when he was healthy and scoring a ton, UAB wasn't playing any defense and they were struggling against teams they should have been easily beating.

WKU is in an even deeper funk. Their head coach has missed 9 straight games with some undisclosed illness (which started in the game against us), and last night they were without two starters in their home loss to Charlotte. Their big 7-5 center (Sharp) has a hip injury, although that's not expected to be long term (?), and then 6th year guard Luke Frampton suffered a knee injury last night which sounds like it could be serious. That would be a big loss for them (he's easily their best shooter) if Frampton can't come alive the remainder of the season (in a basketball sense I'm talking).

I still think UAB will get their act together, but WKU probably has nothing to play for at this point. I doubt Stansberry retains his job for next year as their head coach.

FBO:
Baby, I love your way.

(01-22-2023 11:16 AM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  On the men's side, preseason favorites UAB and WKU continue to struggle big time. Both teams are dealing with key injuries too - Jelly Walker is in a walking boot for UAB and has missed 4 straight games (they are 1-3 in those 4 games). Although even when he was healthy and scoring a ton, UAB wasn't playing any defense and they were struggling against teams they should have been easily beating.

WKU is in an even deeper funk. Their head coach has missed 9 straight games with some undisclosed illness (which started in the game against us), and last night they were without two starters in their home loss to Charlotte. Their big 7-5 center (Sharp) has a hip injury, although that's not expected to be long term (?), and then 6th year guard Luke Frampton suffered a knee injury last night which sounds like it could be serious. That would be a big loss for them (he's easily their best shooter) if Frampton can't come alive the remainder of the season (in a basketball sense I'm talking).

I still think UAB will get their act together, but WKU probably has nothing to play for at this point. I doubt Stansberry retains his job for next year as their head coach.

Stansbury has to be gone. He'll be a good assistant coach addition for some high-major school because he's a very effective recruiter (assuming his health problems aren't too serious). But he's had some of the best talent in the conference at WKU and can't seem to win enough. That's an Xs and Os problem.

Middle Tennessee's women are in the top 25 this week, so 2 of Rice's 4 losses are indeed to ranked teams (now, not at the point of the game). FAU moves up to #21 in the men's poll.

Getting back to the women's poll, no teams from the state of Texas are in this week's poll - a first in the 835 weeks the poll has been conducted (dating back to the first poll in 1977 when Wayland Baptist, SFA and Baylor appeared in the initial poll).

https://www.espn.com/womens-college-bask...exas-teams

(01-22-2023 06:12 PM)owl at the moon Wrote:  FBO:
Baby, I love your way.

Frampton out for the year. I could probably find a song but I don't want karma to hit us back, so I will refrain from making light of the situation.

(01-23-2023 02:52 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  Middle Tennessee's women are in the top 25 this week, so 2 of Rice's 4 losses are indeed to ranked teams (now, not at the point of the game). FAU moves up to #21 in the men's poll.

Getting back to the women's poll, no teams from the state of Texas are in this week's poll - a first in the 835 weeks the poll has been conducted (dating back to the first poll in 1977 when Wayland Baptist, SFA and Baylor appeared in the initial poll).

https://www.espn.com/womens-college-bask...exas-teams

Surprised it’s been 9 years since MTSU were in the poll. Seems like they had more recent good teams. But I guess that’s just the time flying by.

(01-23-2023 06:41 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  

(01-22-2023 06:12 PM)owl at the moon Wrote:  FBO:
Baby, I love your way.

Frampton out for the year. I could probably find a song but I don't want karma to hit us back, so I will refrain from making light of the situation.

hope we don't feel like he do....or play like he do now, either.

(01-24-2023 10:05 AM)GoodOwl Wrote:  

(01-23-2023 06:41 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  

(01-22-2023 06:12 PM)owl at the moon Wrote:  FBO:
Baby, I love your way.

Frampton out for the year. I could probably find a song but I don't want karma to hit us back, so I will refrain from making light of the situation.

hope we don't feel like he do....or play like he do now, either.

'76 was an awesome summer.

With tonight’s loss at Charlotte, Rice drops to 4-5 which is currently 2 games out of 3rd and 1/2 game behind Charlotte and LT in 4th/5th.

FIU and WKU are in a tight game currently in the 4th quarter. An FIU win would keep Rice just 1.5 games behind WKU for the 3rd seed.

WOMEN

WKU held on to win, so Rice remains 2 games behind 3rd and 1/2 game behind 5th.

Over on the Mens side:
FAU wins again! (20-1 and ranked #21)
They beat MTSU, allowing Rice to slide past the Raiders in to that 3rd place spot!

Meantime UNT is in a battle with pesky UTSA. UNT couldn’t possibly lose that one at home. But if they did… Rice could advance another spot tonight…

Clutch win tonight, Owls!