Searching for college basketball's tough spots
By Marc Lawrence
With the clock on the NCAA tournament down to three weeks, the noose begins to get tighter and tighter for teams with Big Dance dreams.
Adding to the burden are teams facing schedules with history clearly working against them. Take a look at the chore at hand of these three games.
Tuesday, February 24
Creighton at Missouri State
On the surface this looks to be a Missouri Valley mismatch with the first-place Bluejays (23-6, 12-5) taking on the conference cellar-dwelling Bears (11-7, 3-13). Appearances can be deceiving, though.
Creighton is just 6-12 SU on this court and 6-12 ATS as conference road chalk when playing off a win against an opponent also off a win (Missouri State upset Tennessee-Martin as 8-point road dogs in a Bracket Buster game over the weekend).
To further complicate matters, the Bears are an eye-popping 16-2 SU and 12-6 ATS on this floor when playing off a SU underdog win in their last game. With the Bluebirds eying up second-place Illinois State (22-6, 11-5) in its season finale at home Saturday, expect a bump in the road for Creighton here tonight.
Wednesday, February 25
Northwestern at Indiana
Some things never change. You can move into a new home. You can put a new President in office. You can divorce and remarry. The bottom line is that while appearances may look different, the inside remains the same.
Take the case of these two teams. Northwestern has not won a game in Bloomington since at least 1981 (they’ve lost 24 games in a row here dating back to 1982), with only two losses by less than 10 points. Adding to their umbrage, the Wildcats have been installed as favorites on the conference road only three times since 1990 and never more than 1.5 points.
While the Hoosiers are certainly not the team we learned to love in the Bobby Knight era, they have played hard during this down season. An upset would be no surprise whatsoever.
Thursday, February 26
Gonzaga at Santa Clara
Something strange happened to the Zags on the way to clinching the West Coast Conference title this year. They got nice and fat.
Not only are the Bulldogs on a roll after 91-54 and 92-58 wins over Loyola Marymount and Pepperdine, they leveled the Broncos 95-53 in what proved to be Santa Clara’s worst loss in WCC history earlier this season.
With little to play for while waiting on the start of the conference tourney in two weeks and knowing it has won 18 of the last 19 games in this series, look for Gonzaga to have a tough time staying up at the Leavey Center.