PonyFans.com

Rough night for the WACs western teams tonight as Nevada lost to Santa Clara, Hawaii got upset by San Diego State, and San Jose State got blown out by Cal State Northridge.
Wasnt a good day for our RPI ranking, either. Texas Tech lost to Wyoming, TCU lost to La. Monroe, and Oral Roberts lost to Stephen F Austin. Wyoming is a decent team, but U.La. Monroe and SFA were both winless, and below 300 in the Sagarin rankings. Ugly losses.

I couldn't help but notice those scores this morning. Ouch! The question is: was this just the result of "post exam week" eratic play, or is this going to be the year that only the WAC tourney champ gets a bid to the NCAA tourney? Tulsa looks like the only team capable of getting an at-large bid. Their 16 pt win at SW Missou tells me they will be consistently tough all year. At least the rest of those losses were road games. Let's just hope the Ponies have a good road trip this way. I'd like to see a respectable showing tonight and a win at App State. I had hoped to make this trip (only 5 hrs from here) but have been sick as a dog this weekend. Oh well, at least we're televised tonight.

That Oral Roberts/SFA game is unexplainable. SFA was 1-3 with losses at home to Centenary and at Texas Southern?? Go figure.

ORU shot well, hitting 50% from the field and .550 from 3 pt range. They turned it over 22 times and some of their key guys had foul trouble, but you're right...that's a big win for SFA. ORU plays their top 5 most of the way and SFA spread their minutes around to 8-9 guys, so fatigue may have been a factor coming off exams.

Weird things sometimes happen in the weekend after exams, thats not such a big surprise. TCU's chances of making the NIT just took a hit, though, that loss will look ugly at the end of the year.
The WAC is starting to look pretty soft. Tulsa will make the NCAA tournament, and if they get upset in the conference tourney (which Hawaii has done the last couple of years,) then a 2nd team will get in.
Fresno State seems to be playing well, but they lack anything close to a high profile win, something that would catch the selection committees eye. They also just announced some self-imposed sanctions related to their NCAA investigation, giving up scholarships and post season in 2004 and 2005. There might be an emotional letdown from that.
Hawaii is an unknown quantity, they havent played a whole lot of games yet. The San Diego State loss isnt anything that will kill their post-season chances, but they also dont have a quality win.
Whoever does the scheduling for La. Tech should be slapped. Lots of unwinnable road games against top-20 teams where they get beat bad, and the rest of their games are against Div.2 or Div.3 schools that may be big wins, but they dont count in the RPI, and wont make a good impression on the selection committee at the end of the year. Every team needs some in-between games that are winnable, and Tech didnt schedule any. Techs chances of going anywhere postseason will depend totally on how they do in conference play.

Thats about it for the WAC. SJSU is pitiful this year, and UTEP may not win a single game. Boise state was bad last year, and they lost their best player. Nevada has a chance to break even, but thats borderline. Rice is the only WAC team that seems to actually be a little improved from last season, the Owls might have a shot at finishing in the top half of the conference.

This is looking REALLY bad. We have hit 1 FG. We look like a JV team..

[This message has been edited by Pony_Fan (edited 12-15-2002).]

Well If we dont find out how to score on these guys quick then we're gonna lose to WF! Come On Guys!!!

SMU-11 Wake Forest-23 8:23 1st Half