Tag Archives: NCAA
LSU Tigers Survive First Round, Beat Butler 75-71
Ahhhhhh, the first game of the NCAA tournament. The ‘madness’ has begun. For the next 4 days, college basketball fans everywhere will be glued to the TV, to the CBS Sports.com’s live stream, or to ESPN’s update page. Hopefully everyone got their brackets in on time and they’re not too roughed up after the first day.
This morning the LSU Tigers came out on fire with a quick 3 by Bo Spencer. Then he stole Butler’s next possession and laid it in. Next Marcus Thornton got a steal and Tasmin Mitchell hit a jumper. Garrett Temple then got a steal and Marcus Thornton made a layup. The score was quickly 9-0 after only the first 1:40 of play…..Butler timeout. More after the jump……
Then, for whatever reason, the Tigers slowed things down and allowed the Butler Bulldogs from Indianapolis to creep back into the game and make things interesting. Butler chose to go with the one option that definitely works against LSU this year…… give it to the big guy in the middle. Butler’s Matt Howard got off a few layups in the first half, while drawing fouls from Chris Johnson and Quinton Thornton. Butler also began to do what they do well, which is make three’s. Pretty soon, they were back in the game.
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LSU Basketball Moves Further Up in National Polls, #11 & #12
The Tigers piled on two more wins last week and continued their hot streak in the SEC. Now, LSU has won 13 straight conference games, 10 straight overall and for the 3rd week in a row, rise in the national ranks. The Tigers find themselves at #11 in today’s ESPN/USA Today poll and #12 in the AP poll. See the new polls here.
Some quick poll-analysis: the only teams with higher winning percentages than LSU are UCONN, UNC, Memphis, Pitt, and Oklahoma. The top 10 in both polls are almost identical, however, the 11-20 ranks of both polls involve the same teams, but the order is comparably different. For example, Villanova is #11 in the AP and #16 in the ESPN/USA Today. (more after the jump…)
All that doesn’t really matter, just something I noticed.
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LSU Basketball in Top 25 of Both Polls
The first achievement of this year’s LSU team has been met as the Tigers finally landed a spot in both polls’ top 25. #23 in the AP’s and #24 in the ESPN/USA Today poll.
LSU sits atop the SEC at 9-1 and are 21-4 overall. After wins over Miss. State and Ole Miss last week, LSU has won 9 straight SEC games, including 4 on the road. The only teams ranked higher nationally than LSU in each poll with a better winning percentage at this point are UCONN, Oklahoma, UNC, Pitt, Memphis, Missouri, and Butler. Also at 21-4 are Marquette and Xavier. Xavier beat LSU by 10 in Baton Rouge back on Jan. 24.
So much has been said to date about the SEC being down this year. I’m not really sure how you judge something like that. The Pac-10 has three teams in the ESPN top 20, what makes them better than the SEC this year? They are beating up on each other, same as in the SEC. No Pac-10 team has less than 3 conference losses. Also, Tennessee has the 3rd best RPI in the nation……. On the flip side, LSU’s out of conference schedule is probably pretty weak compared to other top teams. Same may go for other SEC teams. So who knows….
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BCS Title Contenders and Pretenders
Now that we are about 2 months into the NCAA season, one can start to separate the contenders from the pretenders in the national title picture. I think LSU is an actual contender. As with every team in the SEC, we control our own destiny here. I mean, win the SEC with only one loss and your are damn near ensured a place in the title game. Below, I’ll give you my “still maybe too early to really tell” list of contenders and pretenders.
Contenders:
- Oklahoma – They’re playing at another level. I think they are the team to beat in college football and they will prove it this weekend.
- Alabama – If they beat us, they’re in the driver’s seat. They’ll still have to beat either Florida or Georgia again in the SEC championship…so maybe I’m giving them too much credit.
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