Katz Bracketbuster Article

[MSUDuo]

I'd be really surprised if Creighton got a TV game. Our RPI is above 100 and we have no good wins. I'm expecting us to get some no name school from some no name conference. I hope I'm wrong and our name recognition can get us a good game, getting ODU or some type of "name" team net year at the Qwest would be nice...I suspect if we win the next two games, we might have a shot at a TV game.

Yeah, CU is a little far down the line in terms of RPI. Just depends who they get. I would suspect at least 4 Valley games: MSU, WSU, UNI, and ISUb.

With Valpo losing like they did, the only two that could help us would be St. Mary's and ODU. We are now in a true must win because a loss to Valpo, Drexel, or Madison will absolutely kill us. None of them are going to continue to compete for their league title I don't believe

[beatingrillz]

I doubt ESPN will put ISUb on tv bad crowds and they will likely have 3 more losses by then.

[MSUDuo]

I doubt ESPN will put ISUb on tv bad crowds and they will likely have 3 more losses by then.

The match-ups are announced on Monday. If they are tied for 2nd in the Valley, they will be getting a TV game. There were 14 TV games last year I believe. Someone has to be on TV. ISUb is 8th in home RPI right now and would draw nicely I think with a game against Kent State or Hofstra

[beatingrillz]

I guess we will find out next week then but I cant imagine ESPN would take that risk. Would be an absolute drag of a game.

[Bearvision]

The Valley is easily the flagship of this thing with no Butler or Gonzaga. They'll put ISUb on tv.

Bears are going to be stuck in the unenviable position of having a nothing to gain, everything to lose, game it appears.

Plus a poor return game next year.

[MSUDuo]

The Valley is easily the flagship of this thing with no Butler or Gonzaga. They'll put ISUb on tv.

Bears are going to be stuck in the unenviable position of having a nothing to gain, everything to lose, game it appears.

Plus a poor return game next year.

If we think they are going to be poor next year, why not push it back a year?

FWIW, they go 9 deep and only 3 are SRs

[Shox21]

The Valley is easily the flagship of this thing with no Butler or Gonzaga. They'll put ISUb on tv.

Bears are going to be stuck in the unenviable position of having a nothing to gain, everything to lose, game it appears.

Plus a poor return game next year.

Hope I'm not showing my ignorance here, but I thought they changed the format and the return games were every 2 years now. Please correct me if I'm wrong (as if I have to ask to be correct).

[Bearvision]

I thought I read that was a one time thing to balance it out.

Valpo can return their entire team and I'd still call them a poor return game. No name recognition and a perennial also ran in their conference, which is traditionally poor. ODU or St Mary's are good programs with solid names (which seems to matter to the committee).

[RoyalShock]

I thought I read that was a one time thing to balance it out.

It only works (one home, one away per season) if they continue pushing the return game off for two years instead of one. The one time thing is in reference to no one playing a return BB game this season.

Now that someone at ESPN has voiced his preferred matchups we can rest assured that many of them probably won't happen.

[squirrel]

I don't know if it was a one-time thing or not. I may be wrong, but I believe the way it was explained to me was that the allowance was granted to Valley schools only, because of the addition of the MVC-MWC Challenge. Without the change, it could have been possible, based on the BB rotation, to have a school have all 3 (BB, BB return game from previous year and "challenge" game) all be on the road in the same year (for the schools that participated in the inaugural event which had only a dozen or so participants, it was possible to have had 2 home games or road games consecutively).