Mar 2 to Mar 4 - Bubble Discussion

[jncuse]

Something to watch out for. Gonzaga should pull away, but if they don't it puts pressure on St. Mary's to finish this thing off themselves.

 

[llandz]

Hey guys. Once again, can we first beat Wake Forest on Tuesday night. Let's not jump ahead of ourselves....

 

[Knicks411]

One thing I didn't realize, NC State likely wont be a top 50 team in RPI (they arent now, so if they lost to us, even less of a chance) so a win against them wouldn't have been a quad 1 win.

You gotta figure 2 wins gets in now.

 

[Alsacs]

One thing I didn't realize, NC State likely wont be a top 50 team in RPI (they arent now, so if they lost to us, even less of a chance) so a win against them wouldn't have been a quad 1 win.

You gotta figure 2 wins gets in now.

This was my point as to why I wanted UNC.
Our depth will make it almost impossible to win 3 games.
We can win 2 games. If we beat NC State it’s a decent win but it’s not a decider that gets us in.
We beat UNC we are in.

For our resume purposes we got the best draw. To advance obviously not but 2 wins and we are in a lot more likely now than if we beat NC State.

 

[Briancuse]

This was my point as to why I wanted UNC.
Our depth will make it almost impossible to win 3 games.
We can win 2 games. If we beat NC State it’s a decent win but it’s not a decider that gets us in.
We beat UNC we are in.

For our resume purposes we got the best draw. To advance obviously not but 2 wins and we are in a lot more likely now than if we beat NC State.

I think beating wake and nc state would still get us in.

 

[Knicks411]

This was my point as to why I wanted UNC.
Our depth will make it almost impossible to win 3 games.
We can win 2 games. If we beat NC State it’s a decent win but it’s not a decider that gets us in.
We beat UNC we are in.

For our resume purposes we got the best draw. To advance obviously not but 2 wins and we are in a lot more likely now than if we beat NC State.

Yeah I see your point; it's obviously a very thin distinction to make, but State not being a quad 1 win would worry me a little.

 

[Alsacs]

I think beating wake and nc state would still get us in.

It’s not a great win.
It would have been just a good win.
Our biggest problem is lack of marquee wins. NC State isn’t a marquee win.

 

[pearl31]

It’s not a great win.
It would have been just a good win.
Our biggest problem is lack of marquee wins. NC State isn’t a marquee win.

hear ya, but with the right results w other teams, Wake then NcSt coulda been enough

 

[Briancuse]

It’s not a great win.
It would have been just a good win.
Our biggest problem is lack of marquee wins. NC State isn’t a marquee win.

We do have 5 top 50 wins which is good.our numbers are good This year we just need more wins.nc state is a much easier game.

 

[obliterata]

I think beating wake and nc state would still get us in.

I agree. At the start of the day I thought 3 wins in a row would get us a bid, didn't matter who we played in the ACCT.

 

[jncuse]

Hey guys. Once again, can we first beat Wake Forest on Tuesday night. Let's not jump ahead of ourselves...

\
A loss vs Wake ... we are done.
A win vs Wake, and a loss to UNC... we are done.

It's a meaningless game if we don't follow up with a win. So that is why we are talking about the next game.

I understand your point that no game is easy with this squad.

 

[ORRange]

LOL. We put ourselves in this position. WE HAVE TO BEAT WAKE AND NC. Quit the whining. LGO.

 

[blust2i3d4]

It’s not a great win.
It would have been just a good win.
Our biggest problem is lack of marquee wins. NC State isn’t a marquee win.

On the other hand, losing to NC State will be a disaster, but losing to UNC will be not. If we lost to UNC and other bubble teams are doing no good, we still got a chance to get to the dance. Losing to NC State definitely will end our hope. This assumes we get our 20th win from Wake first. And teams like Baylor, Alabama, UCLA, Washington, Mississippi State all lose their conference tournament games early.

 

[Marty McFly]

USC fell apart down the stretch. too bad. Is there any conceivable way that we can win against wake and still get in without beating UNC too? Well Pinson can't have 25 against us again can he?

 

[djorange1989]

USC fell apart down the stretch. too bad. Is there any conceivable way that we can win against wake and still get in without beating UNC too? Well Pinson can't have 25 against us again can he?

I don’t think so, we will need to beat NC to get in. Brutal draw with them as a 6 seed but gives us a quad 1 opportunity that we badly need. One game at a time, Wake stinks but played well against us. Pinson might not get 25 again but someone else may unexpectedly do it. It’s the SU way!

 

[djorange1989]

LOL. We put ourselves in this position. WE HAVE TO BEAT WAKE AND NC. Quit the whining. LGO.

Amen. If we had beaten ND and even split at Wake and Ga Tech we would probably be in. Gotta win the next 2 for sure

 

[jncuse]

MAJOR Q4 Upset Alert

Pepperdine is RPI #320

This loss could knock St. Mary's out.

 

[jncuse]

62-57 Pepperdine (apparently on ESPN 2)

SMC goes on a clutch 8-0 run to take the lead 65-62

 

[jncuse]

SMC Survives -- win by 3

 

[Marty McFly]

as good as the noon/2pm games were the afternoon/evening games almost all went the wrong way. would've been nice if 1 of texas, ucla, marquette, or smc could have lost. We made have righted the ship, which was almost an impossible feat today, but even with that, it feels like the intangibles are lining up so we almost for sure need to win 2 to even bother watching on sunday- as most have been saying.

 

[JoeySimz]

SMC Survives -- win by 3

This game had a weird ending that had 3 or 4 long trips to the monitors and some weird calls where the refs seemed to disagree with each other.

One was a crazy scramble that ended up in a jump ball but then was ruled that smc never had possession so the shot clock didn't reset. Pepperdine got the ball with 4 seconds. I couldn't figure out what happened since no jump ball and no foul. So what was it? Inadvertant whistle? (I was trying to read the captions).

So now 4 seconds on shot clock. Pepperdine inbounded and nailed a game-tying three but it was waived off bc the shot clock didn't start!!! (hmmmm...) and they had to inbound with 2 seconds. Supposedly the ref blew the whistle before the shot but I still can't believe they disallowed the shot.

It took an hour to play the last few minutes.

On a side note, St. Mary's...eh. (Against 2-16, 6-26 Pepperdine)

 

[MikeDamone]

This was my point as to why I wanted UNC.
Our depth will make it almost impossible to win 3 games.
We can win 2 games. If we beat NC State it’s a decent win but it’s not a decider that gets us in.
We beat UNC we are in.

For our resume purposes we got the best draw. To advance obviously not but 2 wins and we are in a lot more likely now than if we beat NC State.

This guy gets it

 

[CusefanATL]

we were fortunate to be as close as we were vs them the first time

Depends on how you look at it. We had the ball 3 times with the score tied and less than ish minutes

We also gave them a steal fast break layup for the game winning basket.

Some would say that losing by 4 was worst case scenario with the stats above.

 

[orangenirvana]

This was my point as to why I wanted UNC.
Our depth will make it almost impossible to win 3 games.
We can win 2 games. If we beat NC State it’s a decent win but it’s not a decider that gets us in.
We beat UNC we are in.

For our resume purposes we got the best draw. To advance obviously not but 2 wins and we are in a lot more likely now than if we beat NC State.

Good, smart way of looking at it.

After working on my bracketology this morning, IMO we have a much higher hill to climb than I had originally thought. SU is currently the 7th team out in my humble estimation.

Which means you're right - facing UNC second might be our best (only?) chance of sneaking in, barring a miracle (although beating UNC might be a miracle in and of itself).

Meanwhile, Jerry Palm (the best bracketetologist out there, imo) has Syracuse in Dayton as of this morning. So that's nice. Surprising to me, but nice.

 

[richmondcuse03]

Good, smart way of looking at it.

After working on my bracketology this morning, IMO we have a much higher hill to climb than I had originally thought. SU is currently the 7th team out in my humble estimation.

Which means you're right - facing UNC second might be our best (only?) chance of sneaking in, barring a miracle (although beating UNC might be a miracle in and of itself).

Meanwhile, Jerry Palm (the best bracketetologist out there, imo) has Syracuse in Dayton as of this morning. So that's nice. Surprising to me, but nice.

View attachment 124118

He’s usually more right than wrong. Need to win the next two and eliminate any doubt. We could have easily had four more wins this year but a bunch more loses too. Still pretty impressed with the overall performance given what we started with and the injuries.

 

[orangenirvana]

Current situation (just my own opinion, I can't trust all of the brackets out there)...

Locks: 26
Houston, TCU, Creighton, Butler, Kentucky, West Virginia, Arizona, Clemson, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia, Michigan State, Xavier, Villanova, Duke, Michigan, Auburn, Ohio State, Texas Tech, Wichita State, Kansas, Cincinnati, UNC, Gonzaga, Purdue, Florida

Automatic bids: 25 (I estimate that 7 of the 32 conference tourney championships will be won by a locked team)

Which leaves 17 spots available.

Ranking the Bubbles - Sagarin/KenPom/BPI = Average...Quadrant 1 record (Q2 wins, Q3 wins, Q4 wins)

In

1. Virginia Tech - 35/31/29 = 31.7...6-7 (3,4,8)
2. Miami - 29/35/33 = 32.3...5-5 (3,7,7)
3. Texas A&M - 26/32/38 = 32.0...5-7 (8,3,4)
4. Seton Hall - 28/29/30 = 29.0...4-7 (3,6,7)
5. Nevada - 36/20/26 = 27.3...2-2 (5,13,6)
6. Florida State - 39/37/37 = 37.7...6-6 (1,4,9)
7. Baylor - 22/34/34 = 30.0...4-10 (3,3,7)
8. Arkansas - 33/37/36 = 36.7...5-7 (4,6,6)
9. Louisville - 21/33/31 = 28.3...3-9 (1,8,7)
10. Notre Dame - 30/28/32 = 30.0...2-7 (4,4,7)
11. Oklahoma - 34/44/43 = 40.3...6-8 (3,3,6)
12. Saint Mary's - 32/23/22 = 25.7...1-1 (2,11,13)
13. Missouri - 43/42/50 = 45.0...5-7 (5,6,2)
14. Penn State - 40/30/28 = 32.7...3-7 (2,6,10*)
15. Texas - 37/40/42 = 39.7...5-10 (3,5,5)
16. Arizona State - 46/38/44 = 42.7...3-4 (4,8,5)
17. Kansas State - 44/43/47 = 44.7...3-7 (6,6,6)

Out

18. Middle Tennessee - 50/44/43 = 45.7...3-3 (2,7,11)
19. NC State - 47/43/48 = 46.0...5-7 (3,4,8)
20. Marquette - 46/49/45 = 46.7...4-7 (4,3,7)
21. Alabama - 53/53/54 = 53.3...5-6 (5,5,2)
22. USC - 38/46/49 = 44.3...3-6 (5,8,5*)
23. St. Bonaventure - 48/63/54 = 55.0...4-2 (3,7,9*)
24. Syracuse - 52/51/50 = 51.0...3-7 (3,8,5)
25. UCLA - 45/50/56 = 50.3...2-6 (4,8,5)
26. LSU - 71/59/63 = 64.3...6-6 (3,2,6)
27. Oklahoma State - 51/57/58 = 55.3...4-10 (4,1,8)
28. Maryland - 41/48/40 = 43.0...0-11 (2,7,9)
29. Loyola - 66/45/52 = 54.3...1-1 (3,14,7*)
30. Oregon - 48/65/65 = 59.3...2-5 (4,7,6)
31. Boise State - 57/52/53 = 54.0 ...1-2 (4,5,11)
32. New Mexico State - 70/54/71 = 65.0...1-2 (2,7,11)
33. Mississippi State - 64/62/70 = 65.3...3-7 (3,6,8)
34. Nebraska - 60/56/64 = 60.0...1-7 (3,8,10)
35. Providence - 51/71/72 = 64.7...4-8 (5,5,5***)
36. Utah - 58/61/81 = 66.7...2-5 (5,6,5)
37. San Diego State - 55/60/60 = 58.3...1-3 (2,5,9*)
38. Davidson - 67/55/39 = 53.7...2-6 (0,6,10**)
39. South Carolina - 68/77/87 = 77.3...3-9 (2,6,4)
40. Louisiana - 72/70/51 = 64.3...0-1 (1,8,15)
41. Washington - 92/97/115 = 101.3...3-5 (3,8,6)

* 1 Q4 loss
** 2 Q4 losses
*** 3 Q4 losses

Hope I'm wrong.