Too early to speculate on Bracketbuster opponent?
As the High Roller mentioned earlier this month, ESPN officially announced which schools would be playing in this year's Bracketbuster. This news confirms what Coach Wolff told me this summer, that BU would host a Bracketbuster game at The Greek this year, the first ever home BB matchup for the America East.
The games feature a whopping 102 schools. Thirteen of the games will get the Hollywood treatment on ESPN, ESPNU (which I don't get), ESPN Classic (which I don't get), and ESPN360.com (which I don't get). So even if the Terriers are good enough to play in a TV game this year, odds are I won't be able to watch anyway.
Unlike the High Roller though, I don't think February 20-21 seems too far away to speculate about matchups, does it?
Here's the full roster, separated into Home and Away teams, and sorted by last year's RPI:
HOME TEAMS | ROAD TEAMS |
---|---|
Drake | Butler |
Kent State | Illinois State |
Davidson | VCU |
St. Mary’s | George Mason |
Creighton | Southern Illinois |
Siena | Cleveland State |
Nevada | Utah State |
Wright State | Miami (Ohio) |
UC Santa Barbara | Akron |
Portland State | CS Fullerton |
San Diego | Ohio |
Valparaiso | Austin Peay |
Winthrop | Boise State |
Rider | UMBC |
Marist | Bradley |
Niagara | CS Northridge |
Western Michigan | Missouri State |
New Mexico State | Northern Iowa |
UNC Wilmington | Morgan State |
Indiana State | Pacific |
Old Dominion | Loyola-Maryland |
Georgia Southern | Green Bay |
Illinois-Chicago | UC Irvine |
William & Mary | Appalachian State |
Fairfield | Northeastern |
Milwaukee | Hartford |
Central Michigan | Delaware |
Murray State | Toledo |
Vermont | North Dakota State |
Wichita State | Gardner-Webb |
Bowling Green | Elon |
Bucknell | Iona |
Tennessee-Martin | Morehead State |
James Madison | Montana State |
Cal Poly | Hofstra |
Tennessee State | Fresno State |
Loyola Chicago | Liberty |
Youngstown State | Buffalo |
Towson | Manhattan |
Eastern Michigan | Tennessee Tech |
San Jose State | Fairleigh Dickinson |
Boston U. | Georgia State |
Drexel | Detroit |
Evansville | UC Riverside |
Eastern Kentucky | Northern Illinois |
Hawai’i | Saint Peter’s |
Southeast Missouri State | Canisius |
Ball State | Louisiana Tech |
Idaho | South Dakota State |
UC Davis | Eastern Illinois |
Long Beach State | Jacksonville State |
Although it's a rough estimate, last year's rankings dictate that we would have gotten Georgia State this year - a serious upgrade from St. Peter's (who you'll notice is 4 spots lower than BU). Vermont (North Dakota State) and Hartford (Wisc.-Milwaukee) got cool matchups too.
Based on past history, we'll get a shitty MAAC team again. Luckily, we can't get St. Pete's again since we're already playing them this year, but I guess that puts Manhattan back into the mix. Somehow, ALL 10 TEAMS from the MAAC make it into the Bracketbuster! It makes no sense! So of course, we'll probably end up with Iona, or Canisius, or someone equally as lame.
For selfish geographic purposes, I'd love to draw VCU or George Mason, or maybe Morgan State or Loyola if we suck this year. And the High Roller would I'm sure enjoy UC-Irvine or UC-Riverside or Cal State Fullerton.
But part of me just wants some random team we've never faced before - kind of like Albany randomly got Boise State a couple years ago. I'd gladly take Utah State or Austin Peay or Detroit or South Dakota State.
Labels: Bracketbuster, ESPN, Georgia St., MAAC, Manhattan, St. Peters
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