The Fadeaway: Who’s on the bubble in college hoops?

Sorry we’ve been out of commission this past week. Life got busy. But we did have time to catch a bunch of college basketball and bring you the news if you missed some of the action due to all the Linsanity going on.

Win of the Night: New Mexico’s upset of #15 San Diego State, on the road, not just shifted the lead league to the Lobos, but put New Mexico in position to secure an at-large bid if it winds up not winning the Mountain West. At a time when road wins are getting more and more sparse, the Lobos getting the job done in southern California was impressive. Just as impressive as forward Drew Gordon scoring 17 points and grabbing 17 rebounds. How about the job of head coach Steve Alford?

Loss of the Night: It was just a few weeks when Saint Mary’s was looking like the leader in the West Coast Conference, and, even after falling at home last night to Loyola Marymount, the Gaels still share the conference lead with Gonzaga. But as the number of games remaining on the schedule decrease, and the ability to strengthen your resume decreases with it, giving away wins on your home court doesn’t help. Can Saint Mary’s secure a bid without winning the conference? It’s going to be a close call.

Eye on First Round Upset Teams: You’re a team from a power conference in line to get a four, five or six seed. Raise your hand if want to play Davidson in the first round. Davidson crushed Samford to move to 14-2 in Southern Conference play. While they still might need to win the Southern Conference tournament to make the NCAA tourney, you know they’ll be a threat to beat whoever they face.

The Atlantic-10 race is going to come down to Temple, which is 9-2 in the league after winning at St. Bonaventure, and Saint Louis, which is now 9-3 in league play after beating Richmond 64-50. Not sure both teams will make the tourney, but whoever does will be a real threat to make it to the second round.

With Creighton’s collapse, and Wichita State winning 73-58 at home over Missouri State, the Shockers are now atop the Missouri Valley Conference at 14-2, a two-game lead over Creighton. Don’t think anyone will want to face Wichita State in the first round tourney, either. Maybe not even the second round, too.

What Else You Should Know: South Florida, which beat Villanova at home, may be in line (at this point) to possibly finish in the top four in the Big East, but the Bulls might not have a resume to make the tournament. They are the biggest bubble team in the Big East right now – and we’ll need a strong performance in the Big East tournament to alter the perception that they have just fed on the bottom tier teams of the Big East.

I thought the MAC race was going to be one of the best, but Akron, who won again at home over Miami (Ohio) 74-59, is now 11-1 in conference play and has the regular season title just about in the bag. A very impressive performance against a league that had been showing strong competitive balance.

The MEAC race is now totally up in the air after Norfolk State lost at home in overtime to Delaware State. Five teams still have a legitimate chance to win the league.

UAB won at SMU 47-28. Just think about that. UAB scored 47 points – and won by 19. That’s stunning offensive incompetence by SMU, who shot 8-46 for the game (17.4%).

With their win at Stephen F. Austin, Texas-Arlington remained perfect at 12-0 in the Southland Conference.

In Other News:  What a race brewing in the America East. Vermont won at Albany 50-47 to move into a tie with Stony Brook at 12-2. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it’s the regular season conference champion that should get a league’s automatic bid, not the conference tournament champion. Better to reward a season’s worth of good work rather than one long weekend.

Binghamton: winless in 25 games this season. What an awful ride that program has been on.

Loyola (MD) losing at Marist was a huge loss. Now Iona, which one last night at Rider, has a full one game lead in the MAAC standings. Marist is third to last in the standings, and they beat Loyola (MD) convincingly, 72-54.

Southern Miss almost blew it, but came back to beat Tulsa in overtime to remain tied with Memphis for the Conference USA lead. Memphis won big at Tulane to keep pace.

South Dakota State has an impressive 13-3 record in Summit League play, but still trails league-leader Oral Roberts, which is 16-1.

Purdue’s 67-62 win at Illinois might have doomed both Illinois’s chances of making the NCAA tournament, and the tenure of head coach Bruce Weber. Would anyone disagree that Illinois hasn’t met its own standards in recent years? The Illini are now just 5-8 in the Big Ten.