Nice, Big Win for Vikes Tonight

[peeker643]

Get by Valpo tonight at Convo Center 76-65. Give a at least a game cushion on Valpo and moves CSU to 21-3 on the season.

A beatable Butler team Saturday at Convo and they have an ass-kicking to make up for and a monkey to get off their back in that one.

Butler may be down but the name has meaning with tourney folk.

[hermanfontenot]

At what point does this team start to get at-large consideration? Although they probably won't need it if they get the Horizon title game at home.

[peeker643]

At what point does this team start to get at-large consideration? Although they probably won't need it if they get the Horizon title game at home.

They get a win over both Valpo and Butler and get to 25 on the season I have to think they get an at-large, no?

[comish]

At what point does this team start to get at-large consideration? Although they probably won't need it if they get the Horizon title game at home.

They have laid eggs on TV so far against good competition. A win Saturday, and an even BIGGER win against ODU in the Bracketbusters and you can probably punch their ticket regardless of conference tourny result.

If they make it, they are very dangerous. It takes guard play to make a run...guards they got.

[neoleo]

At what point does this team start to get at-large consideration? Although they probably won't need it if they get the Horizon title game at home.

They have laid eggs on TV so far against good competition. A win Saturday, and an even BIGGER win against ODU in the Bracketbusters and you can probably punch their ticket regardless of conference tourny result.

If they make it, they are very dangerous. It takes guard play to make a run...guards they got.

The ODU game is huge. That would be a top 30 win, and we currently have zero top 50 wins with Valpo and Butler both dropping out yesterday. Kent is our only other top 100 win with Wright State and St. Bonnies both just on the outside.

If we can avoid any bad losses and take out ODU on the road, I still think we'd need Valpo and/or Butler to get back into the top 50 and Wright State and Bonnies to sneak into the top 100. Bonnies has a chance with the A-10 schedule, but Wright State may fall off because they're playing without two of their best players for the rest of the season.

You usually need at least 4-5 top 100 wins with 2-3 of those being top 50 and some of those need to be on the road. As I wrote above, we currently have 2 top 100 wins, both at home, and 0 top 50 wins. We need the ODU game.

It does help that we have no "bad" losses. All three were on the road, to West Virginia, Butler and Valpo.

[neoleo]

All that being said, great win last night against a very good Valpo team. It's so much fun to see people starting to get behind this team. They're dangerous when the crowd gets behind them because they feed of the emotion and it shows in their inspired play on defense and with their patented hustle plays.

Norris Cole is an NBA player. I thought it would be quite some time until we saw somebody do what Cedric Jackson did at CSU and it only took 2 years. Cole is having by far a better senior season than Jackson did. The only thing keeping Jackson from making a consistent NBA paycheck is his shooting. Cole doesn't have that problem.

[Rat_Tail]

Anyone else go to the Butler game yesterday? Officiating was pretty awful.

Stevens was able to get the Refs to change a call at least twice. I guess you can do that when you've made it to the championship game.

So CSU has lost to WV, Butler (twice), and Valpo. Butler's a weird team. They had just lost to Youngstown State but (with the Refs help) still end up beating us by 12.

CSU has been able to keep it close early against teams like Butler and WV but end up losing by double digits.

The only thing keeping Jackson from making a consistent NBA paycheck is his shooting. Cole doesn't have that problem.

Big fan of Cole, but he didn't do all that great yesterday. Maybe just an off game but he missed 2 big free throws late in the game yesterday.

[peeker643]

Gonna need to win the conference tourney now. That was nationally televised crap yesterday.

Be a big boost if they could keep the tourney here by winning the conference.

[neoleo]

Anyone else go to the Butler game yesterday? Officiating was pretty awful.

Stevens was able to get the Refs to change a call at least twice. I guess you can do that when you've made it to the championship game.

So CSU has lost to WV, Butler (twice), and Valpo. Butler's a weird team. They had just lost to Youngstown State but (with the Refs help) still end up beating us by 12.

CSU has been able to keep it close early against teams like Butler and WV but end up losing by double digits.

The only thing keeping Jackson from making a consistent NBA paycheck is his shooting. Cole doesn't have that problem.

Big fan of Cole, but he didn't do all that great yesterday. Maybe just an off game but he missed 2 big free throws late in the game yesterday.

Cole's worst game yesterday. He's always clutch from the line. I don't remember him missing a pair all year. He's somewhere in the mid 80's from the line on the year. Just an all-out bad game yesterday for everybody, including the refs.

I have absolutely no idea how Butler was awarded possession after being called for a foul. Maybe the worst call I've ever seen just out of the sheer impossibility of the call. That's like calling a batter out on the 2nd strike. There's no judgment, you are just completely out of your effing mind wrong. And it was the same ref every time. He was the same guy that came running clear across the court to overturn a call to give Butler possession after the other ref ruled it out on Butler.

Even without the refs sucking so bad, we still didn't play well. We left Butler open all day, took bad shots on O, missed easy layups, missed wide open threes, etc.

If we win out and lose in the championship game, I think we still have an outside shot at an at large, but we need the help that I pointed out in my previous post (Wright State (100 rpi), Iona (110), St. Bonnies (105) getting into/staying in the top 100 and Valpo (54) getting back into the top 50).

Our remaining schedule includes a rematch with Wright State and the Bracketbuster game at Old Dominionm (29) plus whoever we would face in the tourney semifinals (Wright State, Valpo, Butler) so there's still a chance to add some top 100 wins.

If all of those things happen, winning out would give us seven top 100 wins in the regular season (Kent, Iona, St. Bonnies, Wright State (twice), Valpo and ODU) and two top 50 wins (Valpo, ODU).

Those are a lot of dominoes that have to fall perfectly for CSU, and it might be enough. A resume with a 28-5 record, regular season champion, top 40 rpi, 7-11 against top 100 competition and two top 50 wins seems pretty reasonable. I just doubt all of those dominoes fall the right way for CSU. We'll probably finish with somewhere around 4 or 5 top 100 wins. I don't think that's enough.

I'm also not sure we win out. Tomorrow at Detroit will be very tough, especially on such a short turnaround after two emotional games this weekend. We've won two-of-three in Detroit the last three years. Those are the only two wins at Detroit in program history. Calihan Hall has always been a nightmare for CSU.

The best bet is obviously just winning the tourney. Besides the fact that they play well at home, I think it would be huge for this program to host the tourney here in Cleveland. Those types of games are the ones that are going to get the city behind this team for the long haul and not just once a year.

[Kingpin74]

Sucks, last night's loss to Detroit was a death knell for at-large consideration and probably for hosting the Horizon tourney as well. I think they have a decent shot of winning out but the Butler sweep really hurts their tiebreaker standing. After head to head(they split with Valpo, who I think they would tie with if they went 14-4), it goes to record against the next best team and I think Butler wins out on an easy remaining schedule to go 13-5 and finish second. Valpo split with Butler so they would win the tiebreak. Wright State is in the mix as well but CSU plays them and if CSU doesn't win, it's a moot point anyway. I still think they'd have a good shot to win the tourney and at least it probably won't be at Hinkle Fieldhouse, but having it at Wolstein would have been a nice boost.

[neoleo]

Sucks, last night's loss to Detroit was a death knell for at-large consideration and probably for hosting the Horizon tourney as well. I think they have a decent shot of winning out but the Butler sweep really hurts their tiebreaker standing. After head to head(they split with Valpo, who I think they would tie with if they went 14-4), it goes to record against the next best team and I think Butler wins out on an easy remaining schedule to go 13-5 and finish second. Valpo split with Butler so they would win the tiebreak. Wright State is in the mix as well but CSU plays them and if CSU doesn't win, it's a moot point anyway. I still think they'd have a good shot to win the tourney and at least it probably won't be at Hinkle Fieldhouse, but having it at Wolstein would have been a nice boost.

Yeah, I doubt Butler loses which would mean they finish third, giving Valpo the tie breaker. Butler has lost to some bad teams this year though so anything is possible. It's also possible that Valpo loses twice (I'm looking at the two games in Wisconsin and home vs. Wright State as possibilities for Valpo losses). We need to win out and have them lose twice in order to host. Or win out, have Valpo lose once to either Wright State or Milwaukee and have that team finish ahead of Butler in the final standings so we get the tiebreaker.

As good as it will be to not have Butler host, I really don't want to face Butler in the semi finals in Indiana at Valpo and that's exactly the way it's shaping up.