How good is San Diego State?

SDSU is already a Top 10 team only 1 month into the season

     For years the Pac-10 conference and its darling team UCLA have dominated basketball in California. Since three Final Four appearances from 2006 to 2008, Ben Howland and the Bruins have fallen off the map, and with it went the reputation of the Pac-10 conference. If not for a Cinderella-like finish in the Pac-10 tournament from Washington, the Pac-10 conference would’ve most likely only had one NCAA Tournament bid last season. Three teams made the NCAA Tournament from the state of California last season: California, Saint Mary’s and San Diego State. As an 8 seed California knocked off Louisville in the first round, 10 seeded Saint Mary’s made an upset run to the Sweet 16 and 11 seeded San Diego State lost in the final seconds to Tennessee in the first round. Out of those three teams, only one of them has built off their tournament bid of 2010 and has themselves primed and ready for a deep run in the 2011 NCAA Tournament. That team is the San Diego State Aztecs.

     The real question right now is “How good is San Diego State?” When it is so early in the season it is really hard to figure out how good a team is and how they stack up to other similar competition. Throughout the year we will feature a thing called “Blind Bubble Team Resumes” on the website. This is where you compare three or four teams using RPI, poll rankings, records, neutral site records, quality wins and bad losses. You do this without knowing the identity of the teams. From there, you pick which of the teams you would put in the NCAA Tournament, and which teams you would leave out. For right now however, we will compare three teams and try and determine which one is better.

     Now that you have had time to look the teams over, try and guess which one is San Diego State. If you guessed Team B, then you guess correctly. With a 10-0 record and wins over teams like Gonzaga, Wichita State, California and Saint Mary’s, the San Diego State Aztecs have gotten off to a rather impressive start for the 2010-2011 college basketball season. With conference games against top teams like UNLV, Brigham Young and New Mexico, San Diego State will surely have a chance to improve their resume as March Madness nears.

     The reason for the chart is to see who San Diego State compares to currently, so now try and guess who teams A and C are. Team A is pre-season Final Four favorite Kansas State, while Team C is pre-season Final Four favorite Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is most likely a better team than San Diego State, but not by much. The only win that is more impressive than any of San Diego State’s is Pittsburgh 2 point victory over an unproven Texas team on November 19th.

     Kansas State on the other hand has a much more similar resume to San Diego State than Pittsburgh does. Both the Wildcats and Aztecs played Gonzaga in the CBE, and both walked away with victories. While Kansas State did beat Gonzaga by more points, they did win on a neutral location. Neutral location victories are nice, however so is beating Gonzaga at their home arena in Spokane, Washington. That is exactly what San Diego State did on November 16th. With the win the Aztecs became only the fourth team to knock off Gonzaga in their home arena since it opened in 2004. Kansas State’s other key victories over an unproven Washington State and a struggling Virginia Tech team compare pretty evenly with San Diego State’s other victories outside of Gonzaga. In fact, California, Saint Mary’s and Wichita State all have better records then Virginia Tech. While they may be better then San Diego State, the Kansas State Wildcats are not too far ahead. Both Pittsburgh and Kansas State got beat down in their only losses. Pittsburgh played on a neutral site (virtually a home game however, as it was played in Pittsburgh) and needed a late run to lose respectably to Tennessee, while Kansas State got absolutely trashed by Duke in the CBE Classic. Even with a 9-1 record, Kansas State has some puzzling single digit wins against Presbyterian and Loyola-Illinois. Meanwhile San Diego State has won all of their games by an average of 15 points.

     So you get the picture, if you were to group San Diego State with other teams in college basketball right now, you would place them with the likes of the Kansas State’s and maybe the Pittsburgh’s of the college basketball world. If 99.9% of the people who watch, coach and play college basketball believe those teams are good, then that basically answers the pending question. San Diego State is a pretty damn good basketball team. Now that it can be determined how good, at this point in the season, San Diego State is, the next question is “Why are they good?” This question is much simpler to answer. They are good for two reasons: balance and experience.

The rest of the story is after the jump

How will the loss of Irving effect Duke?

Kyrie Irving has dominated the competition in his first collegiate season

     Even with loads of talent returning, Duke came into the 2010-2011 with one question: Who will replace Jon Scheyer? As Duke trotted onto Coach K court on November 11^th to face Princeton for their first game of the season, the college basketball world was about to see the immediate answer to that question.

     Duke was going to be good regardless if anyone stepped up to fill Scheyer’s shoes or not, however with the immediate emergence of freshman sensation Kyrie Irving Duke’s frontcourt seemed to have potentially gotten better than last year. Jon Scheyer is an outstanding basketball player - don’t get me wrong. I am not sure if Duke would have won the National Championship without the leadership and on-court abilities of Scheyer. That all being said, with only eight games under his belt, Kyrie Irving was showing talents and skills that not many true freshman possess, especially against the level of competition Irving faced in the first weeks of the season. Through eight games (against teams like Michigan State, Kansas State, Marquette and Butler) Irving averaged 17.4 points per game, 5.1 assists per game and shot 53% from the floor. The do-it-all point guard even made 14 three-pointers on only 31 attempts in those eight games.

     Unfortunately for Irving, a great start took a turn for the worse when Duke took on Butler this past Saturday. Irving helped Duke take down Butler with 21 points, however a toe injury took Irving down and sidelined him for the final minutes of the game. Initially nothing seemed out of the ordinary with the injury, but as the week went on reports began coming out about the severity of the situation. After official word that the injury was ligament damage in his right toe, his month long injury turned into a potential season ending one. It is also evident how much this hurts Kyrie Irving, as he has tweeted about how devastating the injury is.

JeffDBracket's Bracketology - Version 3.0 - 12/07/10

It is time for the third JeffDBracket's Bracketology by @JeffDLowe of the year. One week ago we began to wonder if some of these teams were for real or not. We knew that conference play would be starting soon, so it meant that schools had some final chances to impress voters with their out of conference play. Some schools have stunned people so far (Cleveland State and Central Florida), some teams have racked up tough wins to further prove they are for real (San Diego State) and other schools have suffered head scratching losses (Florida, Virginia Tech and Texas). So far a college basktball fan would have to admit the level of play has lacked greatly. The Big East is showing superior dominance in terms of overall conference power (yeah I know you probably think they're overrated - however, in terms of top to bottom the Big East is the best conference, especially right now). Some might argue though that the Big Ten is just as powerful. After those two conferences the only conference that has been impressive is the Mountain West Conference. San Diego State leads that charge, followed by a Nevada-Las Vegas team that bathes in tournament experience under Lon Kruger, Jimmer Fridette and Brigham Young and the Steve Lavin led New Mexico Lobos. Oh I also should probably mention that Duke is pretty good. However, even they looked poor at times against Butler, but thanks to two very unfortunate injuries and one foul issue with Butler's top three players, Duke was able to cover up their mess in the end. Basically what has become clear, is that this is a very equal season of college basketball and could spell for a balanced and exciting NCAA Tournament.

By the way, the son of "His Airness" is beginning to make a name for himself in Orlando, Florida right now. Stephen Curry, George Mason and Butler are fun and all, but imagine an NCAA Tournament Cinderella run led by the son of the greatest basketball player of all time? Fun to think about.

Who made the bracket:

American East - Vermont

Atlantic Coast - Boston College, Duke*, Florida State, North Carolina

Atlantic Sun - Jacksonville

Atlantic 10 - Temple, Dayton, Richmond*, Xavier

Big East - Pittsburgh*, Cincinnati, Connecticut, Georgetown, Louisville, Marquette, Notre Dame, St. John's, Syracuse, West Virginia, Villanova

Big Sky - Northern Arizona

Big South - Coastal Carolina

Big Ten - Michigan State, Illinois, Minnesota, Northwestern, Ohio State*, Purdue, Wisconsin

Big XII - Kansas State*, Baylor, Kansas, Missouri, Texas, Texas A&M

Big West - California-Santa Barbara

Colonial - Old Dominion*

Conference USA - Memphis*, Central Florida

Horizon - Butler*, Cleveland State

Ivy - Harvard

Metro Atlantic - Fairfield

Mid-American - Kent State

Mid-Eastern - Hampton

Missouri Valley - Wichita State

Mountain West - San Diego State*, Brigham Young, New Mexico, Nevada-Las Vegas

Northeast - Quinnipiac

Ohio Valley - Morehead State

Pacific-10 - Arizona, California-Berkley, Washington*

Patriot - American

Southeastern - Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee*, Vanderbilt

Southern - Wofford

Southland - Stephen F. Austin

Summit - Oakland

Sun Belt - North Texas

Souhtwestern - Alabama A&M

Western (WAC) - Utah State

West Coast - Gonzaga*, St. Mary's

* - Automatic Bid

Italic - New Addition


The rest of the bracket is after the jump