Tracking the Bubble

[Alsacs]

It's probably enough this year -- I was just quickly scanning the OOC's of some of the top teams right now, and no one was dominant.

Villanova has done well against middle seed / bubble level / top 100 teams. Similar to last year, they pile up the resume against those type of teams. (Butler, Seton Hall, Georgetown + the teams you mentioned). It's not gaming by any means, but the Big East gives you a chance to get a lot of decent victories.

But this year's team is looking to possibly only go 2-4 against Elite teams in the regular season. They are currently 2-3, and the last game is at Xavier. If they go 2-4 in those games it has to take some shine off them.

But in the end if they continue to beat all the mid-level competition and get to the BET Final ... either them or Xavier will get a #1 I suppose.
I would like them in our bracket -- we had them beat last year.

I see they are #1 in KP. (actually seems Iowa just jumped a fraction ahead of them). What is interesting, is that 6 teams had a higher rating last year compared to the top team this year. Shows the lack of dominance this year.

I would rather play Villanova than
Oklahoma/Kansas/North Carolina/Iowa/Michigan State/Maryland/West Virginia/Iowa State/Xavier

They would be favored against us but they are just not scary at all. They seem like paper tigers.

 

[jncuse]

A few more interesting results from this evening

1. Vanderbilt loses at Ole Miss. This team is an enigma. They started the season around #15 I believe. They have talent, The KP numbers are fairly good. Many bracketologists seem to give them the benefit of the doubt - they were the last team out in the matix (25 out of 80 in) But they just lose a lot of games that they are favoured in. Tonight was another one. 10 losses.

Any one who argues that the bubble is not weak need only look at the fact that Vanderbilt was the best team on the outside entering today.

2. Oregon St held home floor and beat Colorado. This is the advantage P12 teams have this year -- many games like this against not great teams, but top 50 wins nonetheless.

I suspect Oregon St will move in to in on the "Matrix" after today, and Clemson will move out. Wisconsin will probably be the consensus first team out. And LSU has probably now moved into the Last 4 Out.

 

[jncuse]

A very quiet day tomorrow with nothing of impact expected to happen. 2 games that are near automatic.

Seeds in Brackets, vs.=Home Game
Win Probability per RPI Forecast
Top 50 Win Oppoerunity in Bold

SUNDAY FEBRUARY 7

12:00 - (#10) UConn vs East Carolina (95%)
2:00 - (Last 8 Out) St Bonaventure vs St Louis (91%)

 

[kidorange]

And LSU has probably now moved into the Last 4 Out.

I have to wonder if LSU would get pushed in if they were anywhere close for media hype.

 

[FrancoPizza]

Nothing like sniffing the bubble to confer significance to individual regular season games. With a couple of our best teams in recent history, we were favored in practically every matchup, and at times the regular season just felt like a huge formality that we had to put up with.

 

[CorduroyG]

Nova as a 1 seed is comical. Big east is garbage now. Dont take any big east team seriously. Except st johns haha

 

[nycfan]

Nova as a 1 seed is comical. Big east is garbage now. Dont take any big east team seriously. Except st johns haha

Well considering Xavier was 5 and this matrix hasn't been updated since UNC and Oklahoma lost last night, it's very possible the Big East could actually have two 1-seeds this week. Also, Providence is having their best season since '87 (and looking at a 5-seed) and the Hall has one of their better teams in a number of years (was at 10 before their win last night, has an rpi of 35). Butler has their usual decent squad, and is currently the 5th Big East team in (consensus-wise) at 11. So 5 good teams, and their 8th place team (Marquette), although they won't Dance actually has a bunch of quality wins over LSU, at Providence, at Wiscy, Butler, and Arizona St (all top-75) . And of course, their last place team despite being winless in their own conference, did beat that ACC powerhouse Syracuse. So in terms of that being a "garbage" conference, you are a very tough grader!

http://www.bracketmatrix.com/

 

[jncuse]

Nothing like sniffing the bubble to confer significance to individual regular season games. With a couple of our best teams in recent history, we were favored in practically every matchup, and at times the regular season just felt like a huge formality that we had to put up with.

We would have to amuse ourselves with making sure we would play our first 2 games in "X" city.

 

[FrancoPizza]

Dont take any big east team seriously. Except st johns haha

if only St John's could be this year's lemoyne.

 

[jncuse]

Well considering Xavier was 5 and this matrix hasn't been updated since UNC and Oklahoma lost last night, it's very possible the Big East could actually have two 1-seeds this week. Also, Providence is having their best season since '87 (and looking at 5) and the Hall has one of their better teams in a number of years (was at 10 before their win last night). Butler has their usual decent squad, and is currently the 5th Big East team in (consensus-wise) at 11. So 5 good teams, and their 8th place team (Marquette), although they won't Dance actually has a bunch of quality wins over LSU, at Providence, at Wiscy, Butler, and Arizona St (all top-75) . And of course, their last place team despite being winless in their own conference, did beat that ACC powerhouse Syracuse.

http://www.bracketmatrix.com/

I agree. The Big East did very well in out of conference. Its member teams beat the following teams that are in as of now as a top 13 seed (Or last 8 out) ... I am excluding teams that are in but 14 seed or below.

4 Seed - Purdue (Neutral)
4 Seed - Dayton (Neutral)
5 Seed - USC (Neutral)
6 Seed - Arizona (Neutral)
7 Seed - Wichita St
8 Seed - Michigan (Road)
10 Seed - Syracuse
10 Seed - Syracuse
11 Seed - St Joes
11 Seed - Cincy
11 Seed - Cincy (Road)
12 Seed - George Washington
13 Seed - Akron
Last 4 Out - Wisconsin (Neutral)
Last 4 Out - Wisconsin (Road)
Last 4 Out - Iowa (Neutral)
Last 8 Out - Stanford (Neutral)
#282 - Rutgers (Classic wins by St John's)

A lot of nice wins, although they couldn't pull it off in the handful of games against top 3 seed teams. It is certainly far from a joke keague,

IT is certainly enough for their best team to be a #1 seed, and it was earned. Doesn't mean that Nova scares me as a #1 seed.

 

[UnderHisOwnPower]

A very quiet day tomorrow with nothing of impact expected to happen. 2 games that are near automatic.

Seeds in Brackets, vs.=Home Game
Win Probability per RPI Forecast
Top 50 Win Oppoerunity in Bold

SUNDAY FEBRUARY 7

12:00 - (#10) UConn vs East Carolina (95%)
2:00 - (Last 8 Out) St Bonaventure vs St Louis (91%)

The Billikens may have just burst the Bonnies bubble.

 

[jncuse]

SUNDAY FEBRUARY 7 - FINALS

12:00 - (#10) UConn vs East Carolina (95%) W 85-67
2:00 - (Last 8 Out) St Bonaventure vs St Louis (91%) W 65-62


Both Uconn and St. Bonnie won as expected.

Not the type of games that help your resume you just want to avoid disaster. And for Bonaventure they needed a late shot to pull it off.

 

[jncuse]

The Billikens may have just burst the Bonnies bubble.

Bonnies won barely.

 

[jncuse]

Seeds in Brackets per BracketMatrix, vs.=Home Game
Win Probability per RPI Forecast
Top 50 Win Opportunity in Bold

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 8

9:00 (Last 4 Out) Clemson vs. Notre Dame (51%)

Another light scheudule for the bubble tomorrow, but the game is a big one. Clemson has a chance for another top 50 victory. Due to their bad OOC, they can't let this one slide. They only have one other top 50 chance remaining this year - vs Virginia.

 

[CorduroyG]

Seeds in Brackets per BracketMatrix, vs.=Home Game
Win Probability per RPI Forecast
Top 50 Win Opportunity in Bold

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 8

9:00 (Last 4 Out) Clemson vs. Notre Dame (51%)

Another light scheudule for the bubble tomorrow, but the game is a big one. Clemson has a chance for another top 50 victory. Due to their bad OOC, they can't let this one slide. They only have one other top 50 chance remaining this year - vs Virginia.

i guess we rooting for the irish tonite

 

[CusefanATL]

*Log into realtimeRPI. Sees we've dropped 6 spots since Friday. No game played in 6 days, another 3 to go before next game. Logs out*

 

[jncuse]

*Log into realtimeRPI. Sees we've dropped 6 spots since Friday. No game played in 6 days, another 3 to go before next game. Logs out*

Not sure if you are just saying how much you look at the bubble right now -- which is a fair viewpoint.

As you may already be alluding to in your post above, RPI goes down while you sit -- as teams from all the P5 conferences play each other the SOS of those teams just keep going up and up (as the impact of cupcakes fade with each passing game). So while we sit on the sideline for a long time, other teams that are playing have an increasing SOS and ours is going down.

 

[jncuse]

Seeds in Brackets per BracketMatrix, vs.=Home Game
Win Probability per RPI Forecast
Top 50 Win Opportunity in Bold

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9

7:00
(#11) Cincinnati at UCF (82%)
(#12) Monmouth at Marist (91%)

Another quiet day on Tuesday. Nothing much to say about these games -- these are 2 road wins that should be easily had... but if they slip it will really hurt the team's resume as it is a bad loss.

Wednesday will be the big night this week. I quickly counted 10 games involving bubble teams - including 3 games between bubble teams, and 3 other games for which teams will have a chance at top 50 victories. There are also 9 games on Thursday based on my quick scan, and the most important game of all (Syracuse - Florida St!!)


On a side note - What is Maryland doing playing Bowie State in the middle of February?

 

[Cuse44]

Nova as a 1 seed is comical. Big east is garbage now. Dont take any big east team seriously. Except st johns haha

A conference with three ranked teams (I believe the ACC has four) and two top five teams in the nation is garbage??? Sounds like sour grapes to me.

 

[Alsacs]

A conference with three ranked teams (I believe the ACC has four) and two top five teams in the nation is garbage??? Sounds like sour grapes to me.

If you look at Nova's resume a 1 seed would be crazy. They have a thin packed resume
They have beaten Xavier at home, split with Providence, and beaten a bunch middle P5 teams like Arkansas, Stanford, Georgia Tech, Nebraska.

They are a good team but don't have a 1 seed resume and their conference isn't really deep.

 

[MGP]

On a side note - What is Maryland doing playing Bowie State in the middle of February?

Tribute to the Thin White Duke...

 

[CorduroyG]

A conference with three ranked teams (I believe the ACC has four) and two top five teams in the nation is garbage??? Sounds like sour grapes to me.

I just dont view the big east as a power conference anymore. Someone made a great point, nova is gonna be the new gonzaga, dominating an inferior conference and coasting to a 1 or 2 seed every year then flame out in the tourny. Big east wont get more than 1 team in sweet 16

 

[pearl31]

I just dont view the big east as a power conference anymore. Someone made a great point, nova is gonna be the new gonzaga, dominating an inferior conference and coasting to a 1 or 2 seed every year then flame out in the tourny. Big east wont get more than 1 team in sweet 16

I generally agree with you, especially about 'nova, but Xavier is very good this year - and Provvy is a legit threat (inconsistent as they are) with Dunn/Bentil

 

[Knicks411]

This might not be the right place for this, but I was reading Bubble watch on ESPN, and Eamon Brennan was talking about Michigan, who has 3 top 100 (100!) wins this year, and I had to check Lunardi's update.

He has Michigan as a 9 seed. He has us as one of the last 4 in, playing in Dayton.

Michigan has an RPI of 56. We're 44. They have two top 25 wins; good wins. Home Maryland and Texas on a neutral site. We have 5 top 50 wins, A&M and UConn on a neutral site, Duke on the road, plus Notre Dame and St. Bonaventure at home. Maybe you can say the Maryland win was the best win of those, since A&M is struggling, but considering the location of the games, i'm not sure.

Michigan has 1 win from 51-100, @ NC State, who is 94. We have 2 more wins from 51-90, Ga Tech at home and @Wake, who is 90.

Our killer is clearly the loss to St. Johns, who is below 200 in the RPI; I have no idea how that game happened. But I really don't see how Michigan can be seeded higher than us right now. And that's without mentioning JB missing 9 games at all.

 

[Alsacs]

This might not be the right place for this, but I was reading Bubble watch on ESPN, and Eamon Brennan was talking about Michigan, who has 3 top 100 (100!) wins this year, and I had to check Lunardi's update.

He has Michigan as a 9 seed. He has us as one of the last 4 in, playing in Dayton.

Michigan has an RPI of 56. We're 44. They have two top 25 wins; good wins. Home Maryland and Texas on a neutral site. We have 5 top 50 wins, A&M and UConn on a neutral site, Duke on the road, plus Notre Dame and St. Bonaventure at home. Maybe you can say the Maryland win was the best win of those, since A&M is struggling, but considering the location of the games, i'm not sure.

Michigan has 1 win from 51-100, @ NC State, who is 94. We have 2 more wins from 51-90, Ga Tech at home and @Wake, who is 90.

Our killer is clearly the loss to St. Johns, who is below 200 in the RPI; I have no idea how that game happened. But I really don't see how Michigan can be seeded higher than us right now. And that's without mentioning JB missing 9 games at all.

Michigan lost at home last week to Michigan State and Indiana.

Our resume is so much better than Michigan's right now. They lost to UConn in the Bahamas and we beat Uconn there.

Lunardi was the first person to make this popular but he is awful at it. Palm is just so much better.