There was really one thing to do after a crazy weekend that saw just about everyone on the bubble lose.
Well, that’s not fair. But as loyal reader FearTheNoodle pointed out, the teams listed between No. 25 and No. 42 on the last at-large board went 8-11 over the weekend.
SEE RELATED:
So the only logical choice? Blow the whole thing to smithereens. And in the rubble, Maryland sits just outside the field behind Miami.
Talk about two comparable teams. Road records are similar. Number of lousy losses are similar. Miami has a slight RPI edge; Maryland has a nice pair of marquee victories. They split two meetings.
For the purposes of this exercise, I just looked at how the two teams play when they’re off. Miami loses by a dozen. Maryland loses by 25 or more. And that, unscientific as it is, was the difference.
Onto the full 50-team board, which welcomes Creighton and Davidson in places those schools would rather not be at this stage of the season:
1. Pittsburgh
2. Connecticut
3. Oklahoma
4. Wake Forest
5. Duke
6. Villanova
7. Missouri
8. Florida State
9. Clemson
10. Illinois
11. UCLA
12. Syracuse
13. Purdue
14. Arizona State
15. Texas A&M
16. Marquette
17. West Virginia
18. California
19. Texas
20. Oklahoma State
21. Brigham Young
22. Ohio State
23. Tennessee
24. Wisconsin
25. Dayton
26. Boston College
27. Minnesota
28. Michigan
29. Arizona
30. Saint Mary’s
LAST FOUR IN
31. Florida
32. Penn State
33. UNLV
34. Miami
LAST FOUR OUT
35. Maryland
36. South Carolina
37. New Mexico
38. Providence
NEXT FOUR OUT
39. Southern California
40. Virginia Tech
41. Creighton
42. Auburn
ON THE MARGINS
43. San Diego State
44. Kansas State
45. Georgetown
46. Northwestern
47. Davidson
48. Notre Dame
49. Cincinnati
50. Kentucky
—- Patrick Stevens
