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ESPN Bracket Buster: Pairings announced 1/30/06 and 1/31/06

TrueGriz

TrueGriz

Well-known member
Okay, I posted below in another thread, But since this was discussed quite a bit, and nobody uses the search engine, I decided to create a new thread.

Pairings are to be announced Jan. 29, 2006.

Here is a link to the teams in the bracket buster:

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=2163397

Pay close attention to the teams on the right side of the column. Those are teams that are on the road and would be eligible to play Montana.

Northern Iowa is on the left side, so is at home.

My ticket has the Griz playing MVC team. Since there are only 4 of them, I will list them according to the link I provided.

Drake
Illinois State
Indiana State
Missouri State

And if my ticket is wrong on the conference, then it could be any team that is listed on the right column, the teams that will be traveling. NOTICE NORTHERN IOWA ISN'T ONE OF THEM.

ESPN bracket buster's one purpose is to allow some teams to improve their RPI.
The conferences themselves are the ones that selected the teams to be in it, and I believe will be the ones matching up the teams.

I suspect the teams that are on the road are the team's most in need of help in improving their RPI based on last years results. I really haven't checked last years RPI's so this is just some theory of mine.

why? because the way RPI is calculated, road wins are heavily weighted counting as 1.4, while home wins are worth only .6.

Thus, Montana is not likely to benefit from a win as much as whoever the Griz play. But, Montana stands to lose big if Griz lose. Especially if my theory is correct and they are matched up with a team ranked much lower in RPI than the Griz.

If my ticket is correct and Griz play a MVC conference team and one of those 4 teams listed above, I hope it is Missouri State. Missouri State is the only team ranked above 100 in RPI at 42. Drake is ranked at 100, so would be my second choice.

The other two are ranked in the 150 - 200 range.

Anyway, January 29, 2006 according to the link provided is when the pairs are announced.

****************EDIT 01/29/2006 ************
I believe the teams are being paired on 01/29/2006
But announcements are to be made on two separate days.

01/30/2006 is when the games that will be televised are announced.

01/31/2006 is when all the rest of the games will be announced.
 
TrueGriz if your ticket is wrong which away team would you like to play most? I say Bucknell because they have already beaten some heavy weights this year & I think a win against them would go farther than beating anybody else. But if it is an MVC team I go w/Mizzou St. They have an awesome 3pt. shooter whose name is escaping me right now.
 
Just out of curiousity, I took all of the home and away teams for the bracket buster and lined them up according to RPI. I moved teams if they played a same-conference opponent.

That comes up with a matchup with Illinois-Chicago for the Grizzlies, but I think True's MVC ticket is a safe bet. Plus I have also heard that an MVC opponent is in the works.

If you use the list I generated, the closest MVC team to Montana is Illinois State. The reason for this is because of how stacked the home teams are compared to the away teams.

There are 18 home teams currently in the top 100 and only 9 away teams. Right now, Montana is the 15th best home team, so we could use some losses for the teams ahead of us. That would make a televised game more likely, since they are only broadcasting 11 games.

I suppose it all depends on what other conferences have been paired up with the MVC. The Horizon, Colonial, Sun Belt, Metro, WAC and MAC all have teams higher ranked than Montana and would surely get Missouri State before the Griz.
 
So for the weekend, we should all be rooting against the following: :thumb:

Virginia Commonwealth: @ Delaware 1/26, @ Georgia State 1/28
Nevada: @ Boise State 1/26, vs Hawaii 1/28
Manhattan: @ Fairfield 1/27
Ohio: @ Buffalo 1/26
Utah State: South Dakota 1/27 (this one is pretty far-fetched)
Western Kentucky: UL Lafayette 1/26, New Orleans 1/28

Anyways, keep an eye out on those scores and hope for a pair of Griz wins this weekend! :clap:
 
And TrueGriz is also right about the home game not helping too much. Even playing a 18-6 (hypothetically) Missouri State team would only raise the RPI maybe 0.0090 points, which is good for about a 7 or 8 spot jump. While losing to them would lower the RPI 0.0150 points, which would mean a drop of about 20 spots.

It would be nice to play a really good team though, to get UM ready for BSC tourney play. It probably doesn't matter too much either way. The BSC is only sending one team and so the Griz have to win the tourney if they want to go dancing.
 
Haven't had time to study the other teams.

But, have to consider that whoever we play, have to play them next year on the road.

Better the team we play that will also be good or better next year will help RPI of next year's Grizzly team.
 
That's pretty clear to me, True! Thanks!

I'm pretty sure they don't care who they get, the Griz will want to win, as they hope to do in every game.

My only remaining question is will the Griz game be nationally televised on ESPN or the Deuce?
 
I would have to say ESPN2 if anything.

ESPN is going to have Northern Iowa, Old Dominion, UW-Milwaukee for sure. Probably at least one more of the other 3 outstanding MVC teams (Southern Illinois, Creighton and Wichita State).

I'm sure Bucknell is going to be up against one of these teams above. That'll be the highlight game. George Mason and Missouri State would be the most desirable road teams to show next.

After that, who knows. If the Griz do get Missouri State as their matchup (fingers crossed), I'd be willing to bet that it'll be on ESPN2.
 
GrizGuy said:
...

My only remaining question is will the Griz game be nationally televised on ESPN or the Deuce?
Click to expand...

Hopefully, the games on tv will be announced when they announce the matchups. Personnally, I would rather have everybody get off their butts and head over to the fieldhouse whether you got to fly over or drive a long ways (I know that isn't what most out of towners want to hear). Sell out the place. Make Dennison regret they remodeled the field house in way that they lost 1,500 seats.
 
According to the Missoulian, We will know by Monday if Montana's game will be televised.

Also, According to Missoulian, the matchups will be announced on Tuesday, Jan. 31. So, either the ESPN website is wrong on 01/29/06 date, or the Missoulian is wrong on 01/31/06 (tuesday) date. Anyway, we will all know who we play quite soon.
 
Mung said:
So we're playing Northern Iowa, right?
Click to expand...

Wrong. I think it has been explained enough in the previous posts in this thread, and the link to the teams that are in the bracket.
 
Mung said:
I'm just giving you a rough time Truegriz... :thumb:
Click to expand...

Now, if they do have Northern Iowa coming here, ESPN will have some heavy explaining to do with misinformation on their website.

ESPN website may have the wrong date that the pairings are going to be set. But, date is just a minor technicality. Changing a team to be a home team to visiting team is quite major. So, that would be less likely to happen.
 
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