Recently, ESPN Bracketologist Joe Lunardi participated in a mock draft in which the final bid came down to Siena and Notre Dame. ESPN Analyst Doug Gottlieb said they had discussed Siena “ad nauseum” in this recent mock draft. Ten days ago, friend of the blog Kyle Whelliston participated in a mock draft that came down to Siena and Minnesota. With Davidson’s At Large chances now minimal, no clear cut favorite in the MVC or CAA, there’s no doubt that Siena is now one of the top mid major teams deserving of an At Large bid.

Siena needs teams like Providence*, Notre Dame*, Maryland*, Michigan* to start playing their way out of the NCAA tournament. Teams winning in the middle of the major conferences take away bids from mid-major conference teams.

The warning signs are clear; it seems like whether Siena is considered for an At Large is out of Siena’s hands (assuming we win out of course). All we need is 4-0 in March.

This week, Siena is ranked #3 in the CollegeInsider.com Mid Major Poll.

* – Hover over the teams to see their recent activity.

Without Stephen Curry, Davidson lost [convincingly] to Citadel tonight, continuing to lower their resume for an NCAA At Large bid. Butler lost its second straight; 63-60 at the hands of Milwaukee, and will likely drop out of the Top 25 come Monday.

Kansas and Oklahoma State won tonight and Pittsburgh won Monday night against #1 UConn– bettering Siena’s RPI.

It’s safe to say Siena is within the top 5 best Mid Major teams in the country. (Butler, Utah State, Gonzaga, St. Mary’s, Siena– probably in any order). Saturday will be a true test, but with these top mid majors losing now, expect the national media to start looking other directions, and perking their ears up when they hear the name Siena.

Oh yeah, and Siena is guaranteed at least the NIT. Overall, a pretty good night.

^ – they’re moving up tomorrow.

Butler smoked second place Wisconsin-Milwaukee yesterday taking control of the Horizon Conference.

Tomorrow at 9PM on ESPN, Oklahoma State will face Oklahoma in what should be a great game. Big Monday = money. Oklahoma and Pitt are by far the two best teams I have watched this year, Duke not far behind– should be interesting to see how Keiton Page [, his threes] and the Cowboys play against one of the best teams in the nation.

Another round of 32 squad that has underachieved is the Saints, who have lived under the mid-major microscope after their crushing 13-over-4 victory over Vanderbilt (in the same Tampa pod that produced the San Diego shocker). A virtually intact team simply hasn’t been up to a murderous schedule, going 6-4 with wide losses to Pitt, Tennessee and Oklahoma State. Fran McCaffery’s bunch hasn’t been able to find compensation for the size disadvantage, something that was overcome with hot shooting and ball control last season. Neither has arrived yet.

Now look, I think honestly the best this team could be right now is 7-3. I don’t think it’s as drastic a disappointment as he makes it out to be– but that is how they’re going to view us on a national media level, and we just have to accept it.

To his second point, yes we do miss three point shooting dearly.

Boxscore

The “Kenny Hasbrouck Slump Saga” continues– he had another night to forget, and Fran let him know it. He finished 0-6 from the floor and did not have a point.

It was tough for Rossiter or Franklin to get going early as they were riddled with foul trouble. Pitt did not give Franklin any easy looks. Out of the gate, you could tell that Siena would have to rely on their guards tonight, and Ronald Moore did not bring his game. I’m not worried about Moore– he’ll break out of his slump, he did hit two big threes down the stretch.

I’m just starting to get sick of the slump excuse. It’s getting to be way too long now, let’s focus and break out of it already. The team felt like they didn’t have to play defense in the begining of the second half, and we really only turned things around when Fran shook up the lineup. Our guys seem selfish and frustrated out there.

Great game for Kyle Downey and Owen Wignot, both played tenacious defense and Wignot has got some vision from beyond the arc too. I thought Downey had earned some minutes down the stretch, but you can’t argue with putting Ronald back in there, especially since he came alive. Apart from the free throws, Edwin Ubiles had another good game, even running the point. He finished 6-14 with 5 rebounds and 5 assits while running the point for Siena for a large portion of the game. Josh Duell found his stroke from beyond the ARC tonight.

Clarence Jackson had a decent game– the usual, some great moves and some missed assignments. He took some bad shots from beyond the arc in transition too. A lot of people sent me hate mail for saying that I wasn’t sure about how CJ will contribute. You can’t argue with me now folks, through nine games this season, he’s consistently inconsistent and he hasn’t been overly impressive defensively. Sure there’s plenty of basketball to play in 2009, but I see Downey and Wignot making a much bigger contribution before I see CJ making one.

I think Kyle Downey’s basketball IQ is very encouraging. There’s a lot of time between now and March and I like where his head is at now. I would not be surprised to see him consistently being the number one option off the bench as we move forward in the season.

The Siena Saints will take on the Buffalo Bulls on Tuesday. Buffalo shouldn’t be overlooked as they’ve played close with UConn, Temple, and Niagara. It will be Siena’s last home game before the new year.

I think tonight, you’ve got to put this game in perspective– Pitt is unanimously the third best team in the nation and we played them as close as any team had all season. We saw some interesting lineup shake ups tonight– it will be interesting to see how that plays out in the next couple of games.

So much for no freshmen on the road– Wignot and Downey got minutes quickly. Wignot and Downey hitting their foul shots– figures our freshman are fine.

Clarence Jackson had a nice dunk, but I swear for everything CJ does right, he does something totally wrong. A missed rebound assignment, trying a dunk rather than the easy layup, or he greedily fires threes in transition on consecutive possessions. Though it does seem like Ubiles and CJ have some chemistry. Edwin seems to have whatever look he wants whenever he wants, and he’s running the point NOT Kenny.

Good for McCaffery for defending Kyle Downey, that was a bad call. The call on Kenny toward the end of the first half– another horrible call. As pointed out by Bob Wishuzen, a home team and a ranked team for that matter is going to get a lot of the calls.

Tom Brennan had a nice love fest for Duell on the air. Great call by Fran at the end of the first half.
Other than DeJuan Blair, Pitt is just 8-24 from the field, so we’ve played good defense. Great recognition by Kenny to kick it out to Kyle Downey.

Great job by the freshmen in the first half, lets see if we can sustain the run starting in the second half.

It’s no secret, this team is physical. They only take good (mostly inside) shots, they out rebound their opponents on both ends of the floor, and they play unbelievable defense. On average, they have held their opponents to 57 points per game, just 39% shooting, and have yet to win a game by less than 13 points. Jamie Dixon, Panthers head coach and Pittsburgh native, is a defensive mastermind, and his players respect and buy into his system.

Pittsburgh is comfortable with rotating 11 guys in the game at any time– ten players have logged over 110 minutes already this season. To put that in perspective, Siena has 5.

While literally anybody could step up for Pittsburgh and hit shots, I’d keep close tabs on every one of these players, especially on the defensive end of the floor–

As Dicky V says “get it inside-kick it out, it always works”. That’s what makes me nervous, we can’t let Pitt gain confidence by running an efficient offense. Easier said than done. No team in their (light OOC) schedule has stopped them yet.

To me, offensively this game comes down to two things. First, staying fresh while still running faster than the Panthers– making them play our up-tempo transition game. This is a great time for Josh to step up and be smart; take charges where he can, maybe even sink a three. It’s also timely to get Cory Magee back for tonight. Fran probably wont give him a lot of minutes, but anything to keep Rossiter fresh– he’s in for the most physical game of his life. Secondly, we’ve got to hit perimeter shots. Think about the Stanford win, the Vandy win, what did we do– knocked down the three ball. No more Tay, no Downey on the road, Kenny and Josh don’t seem to be hitting them– Clarence, maybe tonight’s the night?

Defensively, the Saints may find some success with a zone if they can get going early– it hasn’t been their best defense so far this season, but if they can execute by forcing tough shot and denying the basketball inside, it will keep them fresh to run on the Panthers.

Regardless of the outcome, this game will be a good experience for the players. I think its important that Siena (at a minimum) plays with Pitt the entire game– This team could really use a confidence boost and staying with the #3 team in the country will do that.

The early betting line is Siena +18. Doug Gottlieb and former Vermont coach (who recruited Josh Duell) Tom Brennan will be on hand to call the action on ESPN2. The action starts at 9:30PM,– so take a nap in the afternoon if necessary.

Links

…Update 9:42am…

Half of the Big East conference is ranked in the Top 25, including three teams in the Top 10. Only 4 of the teams have 3 or more losses. In the early goings, Joe Lunardi has 9 teams from the Big East going to the NCAA tournament.

Tennessee really played poorly and Temple controlled the tempo for all forty minutes. The Volunteers were beaten of the dribble, made lackluster passes and did not get out and defend Dionte Christmas. Christmas finished up with 7 3-pointers and 35 points on the afternoon. After the loss, Bruce Pearl talked about how young his team is and that they’re not forcing enough turnovers. They forced 13 on Saturday. Last year at this time they were averaging 22 forced turnovers per contest. That is Pearl’s system, he’s got the guys to do it, they just need some time together. I still think this team will be playing very late into March.

Kansas vs. UMass was really an awesome game. It’s too bad it had to compete with Memphis @ Georgetown– hard to pass that up, but we’ve got to watch the Jayhawks when we can. It was back and forth pretty much the whole game, with the Jayhawks constantly trying to catch up to the Minutemen. UMass had a plethora of three point shooters who picked the team up with a 3 every time they needed to stop a Kansas run. This is what we don’t have– established three point threats. This is why I don’t see us beating Kansas. Chris Lowe, their PG has 533 career assists, and can shoot from beyond the arc. He’s chasing the all time record in assists at UMass 633. Tony Gaffney is also a treat to watch. He may be 6′8″, but he was beating Kansas defenders to the bucket on Saturday afternoon. Oh yeah, he finished up with 13 boards and 6 blocks too.

To upset a major (ranked) team, you need to have (at least) one athlete who is just phenomenal. Temple has Dionte Christmas, UMass has Tony Gaffney who is an extremely tough assignment, and of course, Davidson has Stephen Curry. Siena is the complete opposite, we’ve got a team of role players. Edwin Ubiles might be that guy, but I sincerely doubt he will break out and have that kind of night against that caliber of an opponent. Let’s face it; if the aforementioned guys are on Earth, Edwin is on Neptune.

FYI– Xavier is still unbeaten.

Congratulations to Sam Bradford who won the Heisman Trophy Saturday night. Sam, this national championship better come quick because lots of people are starting to focus on how Oklahoma hoops looks unreal.