NCAA Weekly Dish - 01/21/06
With the college basketball season in full swing, Matt Fargo takes a look at three big games on tap that you cannot miss this Saturday. West Virginia Mountaineers at UCLA Bruins 3:45 PM ET This is easily the best non-conference game of the day and while most teams are thinking about conference action, there two teams are thinking about quality wins before the NCAA Tournament. Both of these teams are leading their respective conferences and both want this one badly. This is the first of two straight non-conference games for the Mountaineers, the second coming against Marshall so they will be fully focused here. At 13-3 including wins over Oklahoma and Villanova, West Virginia still has a very low RPI of 49. The Mountaineers have played the 102nd ranked schedule in the country which isn’t bad yet aren’t getting the rankings. They aren’t going to give you pretty stat lines as they are only +0.2 percent in shooting margin and -7.7 in rebounding margin but they are efficient in two huge categories, free throw shooting and assist/turnover ratio. UCLA is 9th in the RPI with two of its losses coming against Memphis and Washington, ranked 2nd and 39th respectively. All three losses have been by eight points or less and it makes you wonder how this team is able to do it with an injury list that seems to grow every week. The Bruins are 14th in shooting at 49.2 percent while the defense is allowing just 43.3 percent. One problem is an assist/turnover ratio that is below 1.00. These two teams have not met but UCLA head coach Ben Howland is very familiar with the Mountaineers in his days at Pittsburgh and owns a 5-2 career mark against West Virginia. The Mountaineers are a completely different team from then however as head coach John Beilein has completely turned this program around. West Virginia is a perfect 2-0 in true road games while UCLA has two home losses in its last four games. George Washington Colonials at Charlotte 49ers 4:00 PM ET First place in on the line in the Atlantic Ten as George Washington looks to remain undefeated while Charlotte will be looking to pick up its second A-10 home victory. This will be the first road game for the Colonials since January 7th as they are 3-1 on the road this season. Charlotte has played three of its first five conference games away from home and is surprisingly 3-0 in those games but just 1-1 at home. George Washington is 13-1 on the season with the only defeat coming against NC State in Raleigh. The Colonials have won five in a row and with the exception of the Wolfpack and games against Maryland and Temple, they really haven’t played anyone. Their schedule is ranked 323rd in the country as they have played some real cupcakes this season. The only good sign about that is that they have blown those teams out. The 49ers are 4-1 in the conference and coming off a big win at St. Joe’s on Tuesday. They were defeated pretty handily in their last home game against Xavier and their home record of 4-4 is not very intimidating. Charlotte is being outshot by 5.4 percent in its home games while outscoring opponents by just 1.3 ppg. Blowout losses to Mississippi St. and Indiana are the main cause for those discrepancies. Charlotte leads the A-10 with 42 rebounds per game and is third with a +7 rebounding margin. The problem has been the offense as the 49ers are shooting just 39.7 percent which is 13th in the conference while George Washington leads the A-10 in that category at 48.8 percent. Charlotte has played the 54th ranked slate in the nation so a lot of its shooting problems can be traced to that. George Mason Patriots at NC-Wilmington Seahawks 2:00 PM ET This has always been one of the best rivalries in the Colonial and it won’t be any different on Saturday as the winner will be in first place, tied with preseason favorite Old Dominion. The Patriots are the hotter of the two teams as they have won six straight games, all six being conference tilts with three of those on the road. Wilmington has lost only one game at home this year, a non-conference game against Charleston. George Mason has been winning big of late as its last five wins have all been by 11 points or more. The defense has been the story as the Patriots have the 7th best shooting defense in the country, allowing opponents to hit just 37.4 percent of their shots. Not to be outdone, the offense is 22nd, hitting 48.5 percent of its attempts. The Patriots 11.1 percent shooting margin is 4th in the country behind Texas, Florida and Xavier. The Seahawks defense isn’t far behind, ranked 51st in the country by allowing just 40.6 percent from the floor. The problem is the offense that is shooting just 42.9 percent on the season and will be facing its biggest test of the year. Wilmington is shooting 45 percent from the floor at home but negating that is its 65.7 percent success rate at the free throw line. However, the Seahawks have hit 75 percent in their last two home games. Wilmington is coming off a great defensive game against Towson, holding the Tigers to a season low 46 points. With two solid defenses we can expect a low scoring game but there won’t be a lot of value in the posted total. The home team has won 12 of the last 13 meetings while George Mason has lost 7 of the past 8 games at Trask Coliseum. Surprisingly as big as a rivalry as this is, seven of the last 11 meetings have been decided by double digits.
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