Notre Dame and Gonzaga both have big games tonight — at Seton Hall at 5pm MDT, a crucial game for the Irish’s bubble hopes, and vs. St. Mary’s at 9pm MDT for the WCC lead, respectively — and of course, USC hosts UCLA on Sunday, hoping to reprise the 21-point beatdown the Trojans laid on the Bruins at Pauley last month. But I want to briefly focus (again) on a more local college basketball story.
I’ve blogged before about Northern Colorado’s quest to win a Big Sky Conference regular-season title, which would give them home-court advantage for the conference tourney. This isn’t just another run-of-the-mill bandwagon rooting interest for me — I have a vested interest in it, because the right outcome might allow me to personally witness some Championship Week Fortnight madness here in the Denver area (specifically Greeley) on March 9 and 10. Which would be awesome.
Anyway, things have gone well since my earlier post, with NoCo winning in overtime over Northern Arizona, and Weber State losing one of two on its Montana road trip. So the Bears are now in position to challenge for the Big Sky title. But tomorrow and — especially — Saturday will tell the tale.
Northern Colorado (RPI #96, and ranked #10 in College Insider’s Mid-Major Top 25) is now 8-3 in conference play, one game behind 9-2 Weber State (RPI #80, ranked #25 by College Insider). But Weber lost the teams’ previous meeting, in Greeley, and if Northern Colorado can beat the Wildcats again in Ogden on Saturday (and assuming both teams first take care of business in classic potential “trap games” against inferior opponents on Friday), the Bears and ‘Cats will be tied atop the conference standings at 10-3 — but Northern Colorado will own the tiebreaker for the #1 seed and home-court advantage.
So, for NoCo (I have no idea if anyone calls them that, but I like it — I think the student section should wear t-shirts that say “I’m with NoCo“), the to-do list is as follows: 1. Win at Idaho State (3-8 in conference, 6-17 overall, RPI #274) on Friday. 2. Win at Weber State on Saturday. 3. Profit! Well, not quite: the Bears would then need to hold serve in home games against last-place Eastern Washington (2-8, 6-18, #301) February 18 and Portland State (5-5, 10-13, #214) February 20, and on a road trip to Sacramento State (3-9, 9-16, #304) February 27. Win all of those games, though, and they’d be the #1 seed… and the Big Sky auto bid would be decided in Greeley, Colorado.
If, on the other hand, Northern Colorado loses to Weber State on Saturday, they’d fall two games behind the Wildcats, and would basically be out of the hunt for the #1 seed. So, barring unexpected surprises in other games that the Bears and Wildcats should win easily, Saturday’s tussle in Ogden is pretty much a battle for the regular-season conference championship and home-court advantage in the tournament. (Incidentally, I’m told by bracketologists that either NoCo or Weber would be a #14 seed, or possibly a #15, if they made the NCAA Tournament.)
Go Bears!
And if USC wins Mike Tran will have to dress up like a USC song girl, get on the Bruin statue and hum the USC fight song for 24 hours straight. I think he picked the wrong millenium to bet on UCLA.