Every Game Counts

Taking a quick look at CBS Sports expert Jerry Palm's latest bracket, which came out Monday, shows you how important each and every game is on each team's schedule.  Well maybe not each team, but the top 100 or so.  Take Maryland.  Sitting with a nice won-loss record, now at 14-3, the Terps are nowhere to be found on Palm's bracket.  Well, at least not on the current one, as Maryland did not have a marquee win this year until last night's last-second edging of North Carolina State.  Now they did play the Wolfpack at the best time, fresh off their beating of Duke, but when it comes to a team's resume that will not be held against them come March.  Of course the Terps have a lot more to do and with games this month on the road at UNC, Duke and FSU, they can greatly enhance their shaky standing with continued good play.
As for the Pack, they are currently playing for a high seed.  Palm has them at a 3 and a late loss on the road in conference should not damage that placement.  They are no longer tied with Miami atop the ACC and that is the biggest setback at the moment.  Winning the regular season championship will go a long way toward earning that team a 1 or a 2.
UNLV's impressive road win last night over San Diego State is, as of now, important to both teams for just seeding purposes--but those spots are very important to any Mountain West squad.  San Diego State, and for that matter 2012 co-champion New Mexico, had an excellent season last year before losing in the conference title game to the Lobos and ended up with a 6 (New Mexico got a 5 so apparently that one game decided a one spot difference in the seedings).  On Monday Palm had the 15th-ranked Aztecs sitting on a 5 (surprise, surprise) and UNLV was looking at the dreaded 8 spot.  Do you want to know how bad that 8 is?  If Palm is correct--and of course a lot will change from now until March 17--the Rebs were looking at a first round match-up with Marquette with the winner facing Kansas in...drum roll please...Kansas City.  Good luck.  And so UNLV won a huge game last night that will help get them off that 8 spot and, most importantly, pulled them into a tie with San Diego State for second place behind the Lobos.
Those are just two obvious examples of how each game played, especially from this point forward, is huge for teams scrambling for spots in the NCAA tournament.  I also like to see which players perform best in these spotlight games and take notes on who is clutch and who is not.