The Mid-Major Mailbag is back! We didn’t do one in November, but at least not we have a month-plus of games to inform our opinions. We’ll try to make this a more regular thing as the season goes on, so keep those questions coming. You can hit me up anytime on Twitter at @GBrianBennett or look for mailbag links on the college basketball page of The Athletic.
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Long live the little guys.
Dayton has it rolling and deserves its Top 25 ranking. Are the Flyers really good enough to be a top-five seed in the NCAA Tournament? Sunday’s game against Saint Mary’s in Phoenix should tell us a lot about both teams. — Tom H.
I was high on the Flyers all offseason, especially after getting to watch them practice back in September. But even I didn’t know they would look as good as they did in Maui. If the season ended today, I think they would be right on that 5/6 line. But — thankfully! — there’s a whole lot of basketball left to be played.
And that’s why it’s hard for me to say exactly how high Anthony Grant’s team can climb in terms of seeding. For as impressive as the wins in Maui were, Georgia and Virginia Tech seem likely to end up outside the top 50, making those Quad 2 wins for Dayton. Sunday’s game against Saint Mary’s is important, as is a Dec. 21 neutral-site matchup with Colorado, because those could well be Quad 1 opportunities. The strength of the Atlantic 10 will help as well, as the Flyers can pick up several quality wins thanks to the solid nonconference performance of the league in general.
So if you could tell me how Dayton fared against Saint Mary’s and Colorado, how it finished in the A-10 and whom it beat and whether it took any bad losses along the way, I’d have a much better feel for where this team would and should be seeded. But I do know that this is a deep and versatile team with a legitimate superstar in Obi Toppin. Wherever it ends up in the bracket, Dayton should have a chance to do some damage.
Early read … Is the MWC a multi-bid league again this year? – Derrick M.
Absolutely. The real question is whether the Mountain West can get more than two bids.
Barring injuries or unforeseen collapses, San Diego State and Utah State should be NCAA Tournament teams. The Aggies were the overwhelming favorites to repeat as league champions and haven’t done much to contradict that. They’ve beaten LSU on a neutral floor, and their only loss was at Saint Mary’s. And they’ve done it without having their second-best player, center Neemias Queta, all year long. If Queta returns — and that is a larger “if” than it seemed a month ago, given the lack of information coming out of Logan on his knee injury — then this team’s one major weakness, rim protection, is automatically solved.
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Meanwhile, if you haven’t been paying attention to the Aztecs, now is the time to rectify that. They’re 9-0 with double-digit wins over Iowa and Creighton and a victory at BYU. This program has been known for its defense and is top 20 in KenPom.com’s defensive efficiency metric. But Brian Dutcher also has a little more offensive firepower now, thanks in large part to transfer guards Malachi Flynn and K.J. Feagin. This team is the real deal, and San Diego State could conceivably be undefeated when it goes to Utah State on Jan. 4.
The only other Mountain West team that looks like an NCAA Tournament contender right now is New Mexico. Paul Weir has assembled a bunch of high-major transfers in Albuquerque, including former Ohio State guard JaQaun Lyle. He’s averaging 18.2 points, 5.0 rebounds and 4.4 assists and just had 31 points in a key win over Boise State. The Lobos have beaten Wisconsin and won on the road at New Mexico State, though a loss at UTEP could be a résumé blemish by March.
Barring a surprise winner of the conference tournament, which could happen if Boise State or Nevada gets hot at the right time, those are the league’s three best hopes. The Lobos have the most ground to make up.
Is Northern Iowa the clear favorite to win the Missouri Valley? If it beats Colorado, would it have any shot of an at-large bid? – Samuel S.
Clear favorite? I don’t think there is one in the Valley. Missouri State was the preseason pick, but the Bears have been erratic thanks to a lack of outside shooting and some poor late-game execution. They’re currently the fifth-best team in the league, according to KenPom.
Northern Iowa leads the conference in KenPom rating and is 8-1, but the Panthers’ best win is over a mediocre South Carolina team. They did lead West Virginia by 15 points in the second half in Cancun but couldn’t hold on. Ben Jacobson has a nice blend of youth and experience, and his team shoots it pretty well. UNI looks like the best team in the Valley right now, but I still think Loyola-Chicago, Bradley and Missouri State will be heard from. I don’t see anybody from the Valley earning an at-large bid unless someone just dominates the league and loses a close one in the conference tournament title game.
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Let’s say Saint Louis loses to Auburn, beats Kansas State and wins out in the rest of their nonconference schedule. That would put the Billikens at 11-2 heading into conference play with wins over K-State, Boston College and Belmont and losses to Auburn and Seton Hall. Is that enough to put them on the NCAA Tournament bubble? – Andy T.
Fun(ish) fact: My wife got her master’s degree from SLU. She still can’t tell me what a Billiken is, though.
Anyway, beating Auburn would be a major scalp, but the Tigers have brutalized good mid-majors this year, with double-digit wins over Davidson, Richmond and New Mexico. So going into Birmingham and beating Bruce Pearl’s team on a netural-in-name-only floor is quite the ask.
In the end, the fate for Travis Ford’s team will probably owe a lot to its A-10 performance. Can the Billikens go on the road and beat VCU or Dayton, while finishing third or fourth in the league and avoiding losses to the bottom-feeders? That would keep them in the bubble picture.
And boy, could that be an enormous bubble, the way the early season has gone. Good luck with Bubble Watch, Eamonn Brennan!
Rider is 5-2 with a great neutral-court win over Vermont. If we win at Temple and Wisconsin in a few weeks, what kind of seed can we get? The committee has been fairly good to the MAAC in the past decade, with Siena and Iona getting favorable seeds. — Bryan Y.
Where else but the Mid-major Mailbag are you going to find chesty Rider fans?
The Broncs have looked like the best team in the MAAC early on, and that win over Vermont at Mohegan Sun was a nice one, even though the Catamounts have had their struggles lately. Rider has some good size with Tyree Marshall, a 6-foot-9, 240-pound senior who’s averaging a double-double, and 6-8, 230-pound junior Frederick Scott, who has 25 points and 13 boards against Vermont.
But can Rider earn an at-large bid? The MAAC has only received two in its history: Iona in 2012 and Manhattan in 1995. So I find it doubtful, unless there’s a lot of luck from elsewhere in bubble land. Winning the MAAC tournament will almost certainly be the pathway, and in the last 10 years, the MAAC champ has been seeded anywhere from seventh (2013 Manhattan) to 15th. With the conference ranked 26th in KenPom, a double-digit seed seems most likely.
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How can schools like Dayton get the power-conference teams to agree to home-and-home games with mid-majors. They even refuse to play a two-for-one. It is clear that some mid-majors can play competitively with the power conferences. But with so many power schools refusing such games, these schools are disadvantaged. Saint Mary’s, Gonzaga and a few are getting games, but dozens of others are not. – Ron K.
First thing you do is call Bobby Hurley. Arizona State has played at Princeton and San Francisco this season, so he’s apparently willing to go anywhere.
Scheduling is the age-old problem without a clear solution. I tackled this in the first edition of This Week In Mid-Major, offering some creative ideas. One way forward is to have mid-major conference alliances and potentially events where top mid-majors play each other. I also believe some schools should offer two-for-ones to certain Pac-12 teams that have their own struggles getting people to come out West.
Neutral-site games remain the best opportunity for mid-majors to get high-profile games — see what Dayton did in Maui to build its reputation. I take issue with your statement that Saint Mary’s has been able to attract home games; Utah State went to Moraga, but power teams aren’t going there. Instead, the Gaels — who were criticized for their soft schedules until recently — lined up some good neutral-court games against the likes of Wisconsin, Dayton and Arizona State.
See? Bobby Hurley is not afraid. If only more coaches had the same attitude. Just don’t count on it.
(Photo of Dayton: Brian Spurlock/USA Today Sports)
