Bracket Projection: 12/31

	HOUSTON, TX	LOS ANGELES, CA	NEW YORK, NY	INDIANAPOLIS, IN
1	Kansas	Gonzaga	Duke	Ohio St.
2	Oregon	Auburn	Butler	San Diego St.
3	Maryland	West Virginia	Baylor	Louisville
4	Memphis	Penn St.	Michigan	Villanova
5	Dayton	Wichita St.	Florida St.	Michigan St.
6	Marquette	Creighton	Colorado	Iowa
7	Saint Mary's	Seton Hall	Arizona	Virginia
8	Kentucky	Indiana	Georgetown	Arkansas
9	Utah St.	Stanford	BYU	Xavier
10	Texas Tech	Oklahoma	N.C. State	Oklahoma St.
11	Northern Iowa	Houston	DePaul	Washington
11				Tennessee
12	Yale	Virginia Tech	East Tennessee St.	Liberty
12		Florida
13	Louisiana Tech	Akron	Belmont	Vermont
14	Sam Houston St.	Colgate	Wright St.	Georgia St.
15	Rider	Oral Roberts	New Mexico St.	Northern Colorado
16	Prairie View A&M	UC Irvine	Northeastern	Radford
16	Bethune Cookman		Sacred Heart

Bracket Projection: 12/23

	LOS ANGELES, CA	INDIANAPOLIS, IN	NEW YORK, NY	HOUSTON, TX
1	Gonzaga	Ohio St.	Duke	Kansas
2	Louisville	Baylor	Auburn	Butler
3	San Diego St.	Oregon	Maryland	Dayton
4	Memphis	Florida St.	West Virginia	Michigan
5	Villanova	Wichita St.	Michigan St.	Virginia
6	Indiana	Iowa	Arizona	Penn St.
7	Liberty	Tennessee	Stanford	Kentucky
8	Texas Tech	Marquette	Colorado	Creighton
9	DePaul	Saint Mary's	Georgetown	Arkansas
10	Washington	Xavier	Seton Hall	North Carolina
11	BYU	Utah St.	Florida	Oklahoma St.
11			Duquesne
12	Purdue	Yale	East Tennessee St.	Northern Iowa
12	VCU
13	Stephen F. Austin	Kent St.	Louisiana Tech	Georgia St.
14	Belmont	Wright St.	Northern Colorado	Vermont
15	Rider	Oral Roberts	New Mexico St.	UC Irvine
16	Hofstra	Colgate	Radford	Prairie View A&M
16			Sacred Heart	Bethune Cookman

Watch Grid: 12/16-12/22

The non-conference season is approaching its close. This is your last jam-packed grid of non-conference games before things trail off for Christmas next week, followed by conference play getting going the week after that. Let's see what we've got this week:

Monday, December 16th



Don't watch tonight. Finish your Christmas shopping.

Tuesday, December 17th

Oklahoma-Creighton should be a close game, but the shine on this one has faded quite a bit since the season began. Both teams look to be near the outside of the bubble, so they could both be desperate for a nice non-conference win.

Wednesday, December 18th

What's this? The 2017 National Championship rematch doesn't even take precedence over Saint Mary's-Arizona State? It was a top-10 matchup at the beginning of the year, but honestly UNC has fallen so far after losing 4 of their last 5 games that they are down to an 8 point underdog against the Zags. There's still good game potential there, but I have to instead recommend checking out the other good WCC team and introducing yourself to Jordan Ford and the fine-tuned Saint Mary's offense. Earlier in the evening, ranked Tennessee has to follow up a hideous outing against Memphis with a tough road game in Cincinnati.

Thursday, December 19th

Seton Hall has struggled a bit, losing their last 2 games after incredibly named Sandro Mamukelashvili went down with an injury (including an embarrassing blowout to Rutgers), but they've got really good bounce-back potential in a home game against Maryland, featuring another awesome point guard duel for Myles Powell, this one against Anthony Cowan. Later, undefeated Auburn somehow made it 9 games without playing a single power conference opponent, but that changes as they host a solid NC State team.

Friday, December 20th

Not much tonight. Make some Christmas cookies or something.

Saturday, December 21st

A jam-packed pre-Christmas buffet of quality games to choose from today. I have no idea how Villanova got Kansas to agree to come play them in Philly, but as a neutral fan I'm not going to question it. We'll see if this time Kansas remembers to defend the 3 point line against the Wildcats. Next we get an epic showdown in the Crossroads Classic, which is always a treat when it happens to get the two best teams in Indiana playing each other. After that, a Final Four quality showdown in Las Vegas, as Kentucky gets their first crack at a team with a pulse since opening night against Michigan State. That wraps up the super epic showdown portion of the day, but if you still haven't had your fill by that point, LSU-USC should provide quality late night entertainment without the gravity of the earlier games.

Sunday, December 22nd

A calmer Sunday after a busy day of games Saturday, the one highlight today is Xavier trying to notch one power conference win in their 3rd try before heading into conference play. Nothing else really jumps out, although somehow we are not done with early-season tournaments, as the Diamond Head Classic kicks off in Honolulu, for some reason.

I'm not going to do a formal Watch Grid post next Monday since there are just so few games during the week next week, but I'll tweet out individual grids on Saturday and Sunday for the sake of completeness. Until then, enjoy the games this week!

Watch Grid: 12/9-12/15

Welcome back to the Watch Grid, where we've reached the part of the season where most of the games are just regular ol' non-conference games. No conference vs. conference challenges, no preseason tournaments (a few neutral site games though), just teams that scheduled each other because they wanted to. The quality of games will slowly decline until around New Year's, where they will abruptly pick back up again. Let's take a look:

Monday, December 9th

Hmm I don't think so. Minnesota-Iowa could be interesting, but neither team looks anywhere near a tournament team right now.

Tuesday, December 10th

One of my favorite types of regular season games in college basketball is "top 10 team plays a road conference game against a good but not great team." The hit rate of upsets in these games is really high, and although Maryland just flipped to a 1 point favorite on Kenpom, I would consider Maryland-Penn State the first such game of the year, and it should tell us a lot about both teams. Later, undefeated Butler faces their biggest test of the year so far in Waco.

Wednesday, December 11th

Another game that meets the same description above, Illinois needs to beat Michigan to avoid falling to 0-2 in conference. Like Maryland, Michigan is still a 1 point favorite, but the two teams have been heading in opposite directions since the start of the year. Hopefully Michigan fares better in Juwan Howard's first conference road game than they did in their first non-conference road game.

Thursday, December 12th

We need a nickname for the basketball edition of the Iowa-Iowa State rivalry that isn't El Assico. Because unlike their football teams, the basketball rivalry regularly produces competitive, exciting games and not the magnificent parade of incompetence we know and love in football. Anyways, this game should be pretty good.

Friday, December 13th

Unless you're from the state of Colorado, you can skip tonight.

Saturday, December 14th

Wow, that's a lot of games. The true end of the college football regular season pushes more basketball games to TV, but honestly the quantity of really good games is probably a bit less than the past 2 Saturdays. The top is strong though, with Michigan and Oregon giving us the "best game that didn't happen in Atlantis," while Michigan goes for revenge for the 2017 Sweet Sixteen. Next, the Tennessee state championship should be a lot of fun with the teams much closer in quality than they were last year. After that, Wichita is on an amazing quest to beat every DI team from the state of Oklahoma. They've already beaten Oral Roberts and Oklahoma State, they play Oklahoma here, and they get 2 games against Tulsa in conference play. They are favored in all of these games. This is now the thing that I will become way too invested in this season. After dark, Gonzaga tries to continue it's dominance over the Pac 12 and gain another transitive conference championship.

Sunday, December 15th

Oklahoma State-Houston could have late season implications if both teams end up on the bubble, but having not watched either team play this year I can't really tell you anything else interesting about that one. Meanwhile, OSU-Minnesota doesn't quite carry the upset alert of the previous 2 Big Ten games highlighted in the grid (Minnesota does not qualify as a "good but not great" team), but any conference road game can be a tough challenge, which provides mild intrigue here.

Watch Grid: 12/2-12/8

We're back to regularly scheduled Watch Grids here, where I don't have to look up the schedule every single day and can instead do an entire week at once. I also can go back to just typing team names and not having to constantly look up what country a game is being played in and whether or not there are more games after that one not currently being listed. Anyways, here's this week's grid:

Monday, December 2nd

Nothing too notable today. The Big Ten/ACC Challenge kicks off with some mid-level games, before the really interesting ones happen later in the week.

Tuesday, December 3rd

Now that's more like it. While Kenpom has both Louisville and Michigan State as pretty significant home favorites, there's still a lot of preseason projections worked into those predictions, which don't yet fully account for a vastly over-performing Michigan and a slightly under-performing Michigan state (relative to preseason expectations).

Wednesday, December 4th

The fun keeps rolling tonight, as Virginia's historically dominant defense and historically slogging tempo faces their first top 50 team of the season. Will Purdue get to 50 points? Kenpom says no. The late shift might give us our game of the week, as undefeated OSU heads to Chapel Hill for what should be an awesome matchup. But if my theory of Ohio State living out the exact plot of last year's Michigan team holds up, the Buckeyes should win in a blowout.

Thursday, December 5th

Aaaand the challenge is over so there are no good games tonight.

Friday, December 6th

Friday has potential to be interesting, with those weird December conference games happening in the Big Ten and ACC. Duke lost in Blacksburg last year but is a bigger favorite this year, and Michigan-Iowa on a Friday night always has weirdness potential. Meanwhile I have no idea why TCU is playing a game in their home city but not on their home court and I don't feel like looking it up.

Saturday, December 7th

Well look at that, our first loaded Saturday slate! The early game between Baylor and Arizona is probably the most interesting game of the day, with two teams that look greatly improved from last year. NC State/Wake might be a matchup of 2 NIT teams, but it's the best we've got in the early afternoon window. I'm particularly interested in finding out if Indiana is any good as they travel to Madison, since the best team they've played so far this year (by far) is Louisiana Tech. Colorado taking their undefeated record into Phog Allen will probably not go well for them, but stranger things have happened. Finally, ending the night with watching Markus Howard need to score 40 points on 30 shots is always recommended.

Sunday, December 8th

We finish off the week with some rare Sunday evening excitement. UNC/Virginia is always a fascinating clash of styles (although after watching Michigan's defense handle the Tar Heels, I have a feeling Virginia is going to suffocate them). Gonzaga heads to Washington, who really shouldn't be ranked, but will still give the Bulldogs a solid test. And if after all that you still want one more game, enjoy the bizarre experience of Iowa State and Seton Hall playing each other for the second straight game (The Pirates won the 5th place game in Atlantis before traveling back to New Jersey for a previously scheduled matchup).

Watch Grid: 11/18-11/21

Remember how last week I said the Gavitt games were really propping up the quality of games? Well now we see what happens in a late November week with no inter-conference showdown or major preseason neutral site tournaments. Buckle up for (hopefully) the sleepiest Watch Grid of the season. Let's see if we've got any interesting games...

Monday, November 18th

Nope.

Tuesday, November 19th

Not really, unless you're a big believer in the Buccaneers.

Wednesday, November 20th

Still not much.

Thursday, November 21st

Hey, would you look at that: a game worth watching! The 2 vs. 3 game of the "2K Empire Classic Benefiting Wounded Warrior Project" features two teams heading in opposite directions after Texas tallied a huge road win at Purdue while Georgetown went out and got knocked around by Penn State. Meanwhile, the state of South Carolina provides almost the entirety of the rest of today's entertainment, as the Myrtle Beach Invitational and the Charleston Classic both kick off today.

And because of that, the Watch Grid cuts off here today, because we don't fully know the schedule for the rest of the weekend. This will be a theme this month as more preseason tournaments get going. Many of them involve matchups being determined one day in advance, and for some tournaments, those games will be pretty high on our watchlist. This week, I'll tweet out the rest of the weekend as the matchups become determined. Until then, enjoy not watching college basketball.

Watch Grid: 11/11-11/17

The Watch Grid returns for its first full week of college basketball action! This week doesn't have the day one fireworks of last week's schedule, but there are many good games sprinkled throughout the week, headlined by the Gavitt Games, as the Big East and Big Ten battle for indisputable definitive evidence of which conference is definitely way better. The good games will wake up eventually, but the week gets off to a sleepy start:

Monday, November 11th

Yeah, don't watch college basketball today. Read a book or something.

Tuesday, November 12th

Tuesday provides the widest variety of decent games. Readers of this page are probably mostly Michigan fans, and will care very much about seeing Juwan Howard's first game against a high quality opponent. After that, we get the Phil Knight Invitational, which I have decided to call the PK82. This will feature a fascinating first game, as Memphis's superstar James Wiseman appears to be continuing to play despite being ruled ineligible by the NCAA. That game will be followed immediately by Oklahoma-Oregon State, which will be your first chance to see the amazingly named TRES TINKLE, who has been playing for his dad Wayne Tinkle at OSU for what seems like a decade now, and does just about everything well for the Beavers. 

Wednesday, November 13th

Villanova will try to get back on track in the Gavitt Games after getting run off their home floor by Michigan last year. A big win for the Buckeyes could make a similar splash to the one the Wolverines enjoyed last season. Those two games aren't really all that related, I just wanted to reminisce on the fact that Michigan beat Villanova by 27 points on the road. Purdue-Marquette is the Kenpom darling game of the week, as the two unranked teams in the AP Poll are #9 and #15, respectively, to the computers.

Thursday, November 14th

First, Penn State-Georgetown will give us good insight as to how good those two somewhat mysterious teams are this year. Later, Michigan State-Seton Hall should be the marquee matchup of the week, as the Spartans try to get back on track after a heartbreaking (but not at all discouraging) loss in the Champions Classic. Cassius Winston v. Myles Powell should be a heck of a point guard duel. 

Friday, November 15th

The difficult conference schedules of West Virginia and Pitt make their game against each other pretty important from a resume-building standpoint, as both teams are looking at seasons that could fall off a cliff pretty quickly with a few losses. Later, Gonzaga will try to do their annual thing where they remind us all that they're still a major player in the national picture by beating a power conference team on the road, something they seem to do every year. 

Saturday, November 16th

Until college football ends, Saturdays are probably going to continue looking kind of like this. 

Sunday, November 17th

Marquette's big week continues to Madison, where they renew what has been one of the best non-conference rivalries in the country, after a wild one in Milwaukee last year that the Golden Eagles stole away in the final seconds. And if you're still in the mood for more basketball after all that, see if Florida can get back on track against a mediocre UConn team, after the Gators appear to be maybe not quite what we thought they might be in the preseason. Enjoy!

Watch Grid: 11/5-11/10

College basketball is back! This year, I'm debuting  a weekly college basketball watch grid, a concept inspired by (aka completely plagiarized from) the great Jason Kirk of Banner Society, who every week puts together a matrix of college football's most watchable games. I've decided to do the same for college basketball, with less of an emphasis on wackiness than Jason's and more emphasis on "will this game be close, interesting, or somewhat important?" Think of this page as your tour guide through the world of college basketball, every evening showing you where and when to hop on and hop off the bus. Let us begin!

Tuesday, November 5th 

While I long for the return of ESPN's 24 hour college basketball marathon to kick off the season, this year still has a very strong opening night, highlighted as always by the Champions Classic, college basketball's most reliable early-season hype generator. Rest assured, whichever team looks best tonight will enjoy lofty rankings and endless media coverage all season long. And this year it might not be unwarranted! The computers see the headliner MSU-UK matchup as a legit 1 vs. 2, and while the numbers aren't quite as high on Kansas as the humans, their opening act against Duke should be plenty entertaining.

Additionally, hipster fans of slow-motion swampball 54-52 brick fights will enjoy Wisconsin-Saint Mary's, who for some reason are playing in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in an arena called the Sanford Pentagon. I just really wanted to type that sentence.

Wednesday, November 6th

Three good-ish games in the later time slots, with the ACC for some reason going straight to conference games in the first game of the season. I gave the nod to the in-state non-conference matchup featuring two teams with pretty lofty expectations despite one featuring a first year coach and the other a freshman point guard. 

Thursday, November 7th

Don't watch college basketball today. Do something else with your time.

Friday, November 8th

Today we become world travelers! That early spot might not look like much, but the computers only have the Tigers as a 4 point favorite over Davidson, and the Wildcats knocking off a defending Final Four team would be quite the start to the young season. Then we start to get weird. Baylor and Washington decided to play a game out on The Last Frontier, followed by Arizona State and Colorado traveling 7,000 miles across planet Earth to play a game in Shanghai (in a game that is technically on Saturday morning local time, but for our purposes goes in the Friday grid). 

Saturday, November 9th

You should probably watch college football today instead, unless you're a big fan of one of the teams above. Also another game in the Pentagon, for some reason.

Sunday, November 10th

Pay no attention to the AP poll numbers today, because these two games are closer than you might think. Kenpom has UF-FSU as #12 vs #14, making this the most high profile matchup of the weekend. Finally, Arizona and Illinois are programs on completely different trajectories. Arizona will probably still win, but Illinois keeping it close could mean good things for a team hoping to make a big leap this year.

That's all for Week 1! Send me your feedback on Twitter if you think this is at all helpful, or if you have any suggestions on how to make it better. Enjoy the start of the season!

Bracket Projection: 3/17

	WASHINGTON, DC	LOUISVILLE, KY	KANSAS CITY, MO	ANAHEIM, CA
1	Virginia	Duke	North Carolina	Kentucky
2	Tennessee	Gonzaga	Michigan	Michigan St.
3	Houston	Texas Tech	Kansas	Florida St.
4	Wisconsin	Purdue	LSU	Kansas St.
5	Virginia Tech	Auburn	Marquette	Mississippi St.
6	Iowa St.	Villanova	Maryland	Buffalo
7	Nevada	Wofford	Louisville	Cincinnati
8	Seton Hall	Washington	UCF	Iowa
9	Minnesota	Mississippi	Baylor	Syracuse
10	VCU	Florida	Utah St.	Oklahoma
11	Ohio St.	Oregon	Arizona St.	Temple
11			St. John's	TCU
12	Saint Mary's	Murray St.	New Mexico St.	Northeastern
13	Northern Kentucky	UC Irvine	Liberty	Vermont
14	Georgia St.	Old Dominion	Yale	Saint Louis
15	Montana	Colgate	Gardner Webb	Bradley
16	Fairleigh Dickinson	North Carolina Central	North Dakota St.	Prairie View A&M
16	Iona	Abilene Christian

Bracket Projection: 3/11

	WASHINGTON, DC	LOUISVILLE, KY	KANSAS CITY, MO	ANAHEIM, CA
1	Virginia	Duke	North Carolina	Michigan St.
2	Tennessee	Michigan	Kentucky	Gonzaga
3	Texas Tech	Purdue	Houston	LSU
4	Florida St.	Kansas	Wisconsin	Virginia Tech
5	Kansas St.	Auburn	Buffalo	Nevada
6	Marquette	Villanova	Mississippi St.	Maryland
7	Wofford	Louisville	Cincinnati	Iowa St.
8	VCU	Iowa	UCF	Oklahoma
9	Washington	Mississippi	Baylor	Syracuse
10	Minnesota	Utah St.	Clemson	North Carolina St.
11	Florida	Temple	Texas	Seton Hall
12	Arizona St.	New Mexico St.	Murray St.	Ohio St.
12	St. John's			TCU
13	UC Irvine	Liberty	Vermont	Hofstra
14	Georgia Southern	Northern Kentucky	Old Dominion	Yale
15	Montana	Colgate	Nebraska Omaha	Gardner Webb
16	St. Francis PA	Prairie View A&M	Bradley	Sam Houston St.
16	Iona	Norfolk St.

Bracket Projection: 3/10

	WASHINGTON, DC	LOUISVILLE, KY	KANSAS CITY, MO	ANAHEIM, CA
1	Virginia	Duke	North Carolina	Michigan St.
2	Michigan	Tennessee	Kentucky	Gonzaga
3	Texas Tech	Purdue	Houston	LSU
4	Florida St.	Kansas	Wisconsin	Virginia Tech
5	Kansas St.	Buffalo	Nevada	Maryland
6	Marquette	Mississippi St.	Auburn	Wofford
7	Cincinnati	Villanova	Louisville	Iowa St.
8	VCU	Iowa	Oklahoma	UCF
9	Washington	Baylor	Mississippi	Syracuse
10	Clemson	Minnesota	Utah St.	North Carolina St.
11	Florida	Texas	Ohio St.	St. John's
12	New Mexico St.	Indiana	Murray St.	Temple
12		Seton Hall		TCU
13	Lipscomb	UC Irvine	Vermont	Hofstra
14	Georgia Southern	Northern Kentucky	Old Dominion	Yale
15	Montana	Radford	Colgate	Nebraska Omaha
16	St. Francis PA	Prairie View A&M	Bradley	Sam Houston St.
16	Iona	Norfolk St.

Bracket Projection: 3/4

	WASHINGTON, DC	LOUISVILLE, KY	KANSAS CITY, MO	ANAHEIM, CA
1	Virginia	Duke	North Carolina	Gonzaga
2	Michigan	Kentucky	Michigan St.	Tennessee
3	Kansas	Purdue	Texas Tech.	Houston
4	Florida St.	Wisconsin	LSU	Virginia Tech
5	Marquette	Buffalo	Maryland	Iowa St.
6	Cincinnati	Kansas St.	Nevada	Mississippi St.
7	Auburn	Wofford	Villanova	Louisville
8	Mississippi	Baylor	Washington	Iowa
9	Oklahoma	Ohio St.	VCU	North Carolina St.
10	Texas	Syracuse	Florida	UCF
11	Utah St.	Belmont	St. John's	TCU
12	Indiana	Clemson	New Mexico St.	Minnesota
12	Alabama	Temple
13	Lipscomb	UC Irvine	Vermont	Old Dominion
14	Montana	South Dakota St.	Hofstra	Yale
15	Georgia Southern	Northern Kentucky	Radford	Colgate
16	Quinnipiac	Prairie View A&M	Sam Houston St.	Loyola Chicago
16	Fairleigh Dickinson	Norfolk St.

Bracket Projection: 2/18

	WASHINGTON, DC	LOUISVILLE, KY	KANSAS CITY, MO	ANAHEIM, CA
1	Duke	Virginia	Michigan St.	Gonzaga
2	Kentucky	Michigan	North Carolina	Tennessee
3	Kansas	Houston	Texas Tech	Purdue
4	Wisconsin	Marquette	LSU	Nevada
5	Virginia Tech	Iowa St.	Villanova	Louisville
6	Maryland	Kansas St.	Iowa	Florida St.
7	Buffalo	Mississippi St.	Auburn	Cincinnati
8	Baylor	TCU	Mississippi	Washington
9	Wofford	Ohio St.	North Carolina St.	Oklahoma
10	Syracuse	VCU	Texas	St. John's
11	UCF	Minnesota	Clemson	Alabama
12	New Mexico St.	Florida	Nebraska	Lipscomb
12		Belmont	Temple
13	Yale	Murray St.	Vermont	Hofstra
14	South Dakota St.	Texas St.	Old Dominion	UC Irvine
15	Montana	Northern Kentucky	Radford	Bucknell
16	St. Francis PA	Prairie View A&M	Sam Houston St.	Loyola Chicago
16	Quinnipiac	Norfolk St.