We need a reality check...

[Briancuse]

We have 15 games left. Our record is 10-6. I think to make the tournament we will need 19 or 20 wins. 19 depending on who we beat in the remaining games. So out of the remaining 15 games we need to go 10-5.

According to Massey Ratings we are 96. We need to get below 64 to make the tournament:

College Basketball Ranking Composite

Here's our next 15 games and each team's Massey rating:

Virginia Tech 24
Boston College 159
North Carolina 13
Notre Dame 22
Wake Forest 44
Florida State 11
NC State 54
Virginia 8
Clemson 23
Pittsburgh 50
Louisville 7
Georgia Tech 103
Duke 9
Louisville 7
Georgia Tech 103

It's really going to be tough getting 10 wins out of that list.

To have any chance we need to get the next two and win at Notre Dame.

 

[obliterata]

Win all the home games and 2 away and that's 11-7 which might be good enough to make it. Really is a shame we lost to BC.

 

[Briancuse]

No way will SC be a bad loss... but yes 9-9 with 3 bad losses with 0 good wins OOC isn't getting it done and probably not 10-8 without some deep ACC tournament run. I think 12-6 is not required in this good of an ACC this year and 11-7 will get us in not just on the bubble. I guess 11-7 with a first round ACC tournament exit would make me nervous.

The fact is it's only two decent wins and going 5.5 deep. We are not even to the point of thinking about the tournament yet. 4-14 is still a distinct possibility if things break wrong, someone gets injured, etc. This team may not be as bad as we feared after BC but it's very thin and probably not as good as we look when we are hitting every jumper the last two games.

Not sc, St Johns, Uconn, Bc, and possibly Gtown.

 

[AZcuse77]

Not sc, St Johns, Uconn, Bc, and possibly Gtown.

Ahh... you said in our non-conference schedule, but I guess you just meant that for the 0 quality wins part.

 

[STEVEHOLT]

Listen, I just as much as most, thought this team was dead. They've put together two nice home wins and the offense looks better along with the zone. However, this team is still very much fighting for the NCAA tournament. They currently have 1 good win over Pitt and still have a lot of very tough teams ahead of them. And while I have seen vast improvement I'm not ready to say this team is going to beat the Duke's, L'Ville's, UNC's. Lets just take this thing one game at a time but a 5 man rotation might not hold up well over the course of the season.

Hold on. This is classic straw man stuff here. Nobody here is diving in back head first into the water just yet. They dismantled two teams far better than the three former big east foes that they lost to...so it's a start

As far as depth ...it's vastly overrated . This team plays zone and the offense is perimeter oriented ..not exactly a recipe for getting worn down when u are 18-22 years old and play two games a week

 

[STEVEHOLT]

Did we think Chris McCullough was leaving after he averaged 10 points per game and tore his ACL after 11 games? Come on man you just as well as I would not be shocked if Battle goes, its so unpredictable, you see the upside and you know the NBA drafts based on upside. Richardson essentially scored 23 points and played bad defense and thats why he left. Look at it through a bigger picture. But yeah keep it in your mind, its good for you to know!

The classic is chuckwu the next steifel tower

 

[jdubs30]

I believe 11-7 is the number. The ACC presents of chances for quality W's. Let's say we do win 11 games, let's by default make our 6 additional losses the 6 toughest games on our schedule, so - UNC, ND, FSU, Duke, Ville x2. (thereby giving us our worst possible resume with 11 ACC wins)

These are the wins we would end up with:
Miami, Pitt (twice), VaTech, NC State, UVA, Clemson

That is still a pretty good set of wins, and if we go 11-7, that is pretty much a worst case for our "best wins". You could make an argument that all those teams will be in the NCAAT discussion with the possible exception of NC State. I'm with jncuse, the committee likes good wins more than it punishes bad losses. We have 3 games left vs. GaTech and BC - if go 1-2 in those games but still end up at 11-7, I don't think it will effect us getting in or not.

We have been fairly successful vs. FSU and ND in recent years - I could see a split with Ville.

11 wins and we're in. 10 wins we better go 4-2 in that first batch of "tough" games. 9-9 all but dead barring an ACCT run to Saturday.

If we beat GaTech twice and BC at the Dome - that gives us 5 wins - which means we just have to go 6-6 in the rest of our games.

 

[SoBristol]

I believe 11-7 is the number.,,,,,

We have been fairly successful vs. FSU and ND in recent years - I could see a split with Ville.

11 wins and we're in. 10 wins we better go 4-2 in that first batch of "tough" games. 9-9 all but dead barring an ACCT run to Saturday.

If we beat GaTech twice and BC at the Dome - that gives us 5 wins - which means we just have to go 6-6 in the rest of our games.

I agree with a lot of your post, but I am reluctant to base any projections on where we have been successful in past seasons. There are 11 ACC teams with records of 11-4 or better, we have already seen upsets of Duke and NC. There are a handful of elite teams in the league (top 4), followed by a tough group of another 8 teams in the middle bunch (including, we hope, SU).

How does that bunch of 8 sort out? Our 5.5 rotation looked vastly improved in a home game against Miami and Pitt (2 of those 8). So at least we are talking about what it takes to get to 11-7.

 

[Cusefan0307]

We get a lot of the good teams at home. Plenty of opportunities for big wins. Have to beat the bad teams on the road. Until then you guys need to let Jncuse do his Job!

 

[Eric15]

I believe 11-7 is the number. The ACC presents of chances for quality W's. Let's say we do win 11 games, let's by default make our 6 additional losses the 6 toughest games on our schedule, so - UNC, ND, FSU, Duke, Ville x2. (thereby giving us our worst possible resume with 11 ACC wins)

These are the wins we would end up with:
Miami, Pitt (twice), VaTech, NC State, UVA, Clemson

That is still a pretty good set of wins, and if we go 11-7, that is pretty much a worst case for our "best wins". You could make an argument that all those teams will be in the NCAAT discussion with the possible exception of NC State. I'm with jncuse, the committee likes good wins more than it punishes bad losses. We have 3 games left vs. GaTech and BC - if go 1-2 in those games but still end up at 11-7, I don't think it will effect us getting in or not.

We have been fairly successful vs. FSU and ND in recent years - I could see a split with Ville.

11 wins and we're in. 10 wins we better go 4-2 in that first batch of "tough" games. 9-9 all but dead barring an ACCT run to Saturday.

If we beat GaTech twice and BC at the Dome - that gives us 5 wins - which means we just have to go 6-6 in the rest of our games.

Good post -- this breaks it down well.

 

[dan7800]

Less than a week ago, look how many people were saying we wouldn't win another single game all season. Now people are talking about the tournament.

 

[orangenirvana]

Thank goodness this thread was made. I was just about to purchase Final Four tickets for my family and friends until this poster snapped me back to reality.

 

[MSOrange]

Thank goodness this thread was made. I was just about to purchase Final Four tickets for my family and friends until this poster snapped me back to reality.

Those are refundable right? Please tell me they are refundable!

 

[realorange]

Those are refundable right? Please tell me they are refundable!

Refundable on StubHub.

 

[MSOrange]

Refundable on StubHub.

Thanks for the info but I was really just goofing on the idea about people getting carried away.

 

[Ryand877]

Not to state the obvious, but tomorrow is crucial.

 

[Knicks411]

I think you are definetely heading in the right direction (as you are adding some good ACC tournament wins). In earlier threads when people were suggesting 13-5 or 12-6, I had brought up 11-7 as a number that would at least give us a good bubble resume (whether it is enough or not) based on my projected analysis of other bubble teams.

If the team wins it next couple of games I may do an analysis again. It has to prove to me that it is capable of getting to 10 or 11 wins first.

The number I had without doing any research, just my gut feeling, was 12 wins in conference.

The out of conference resume is brutal. Just brutal. The good news is of course the ACC has plenty of opportunities for quality wins.

Lunardi's (I know, I know) last bracketology has Pitt in, and Miami as an 8, so we have added 2 wins over tournament teams recently, albeit home wins against fringe top half of the field teams. If you look at the rest of our schedule, we have 3 games against teams that have no chance to make the tournament (BC home, home/road Ga Tech) plus Wake Forest at home, who is #44 in KP but doesn't appear to have much of a resume. For sake of the argument, say we win all 4 of those, that's 6 ACC wins. Here is the rest of our ACC schedule, along with their current seed in Lunardi's field

@ Va Tech (7)
@ UNC (2)
@ Notre Dame (5)
FSU (3)
@ NC State (next 4 out)
Virginia (3)
@ Clemson (6)
@ Pitt (9)
Louisville (4)
Duke (2)
@ Louisville (4)

So 11 wins means 5 wins out of that group. So let's say you win @ Nc State, who probably doesn't make the tournament, and then you add in 4 more wins, let's say Virginia, @Virginia tech, Louisville at home and maybe Florida State?

Does that get you in the conversation? That's going to give you probably 6 wins over tournament teams, 1 of them on the road, and probably 2 of them over teams who will be protected seeds. No way I'm going to project out the ACC tournament field yet, but maybe it puts you in a spot where if you add a win over a tournament team in Brooklyn you're in the convo?

Schedule for the rest of the month is @ Virginia Tech, home BC, @ Unc, @ ND, Wake, and FSU. If they win 4 of those 6 I think you can start to think about it? @ Virginia tech is a big one I think.

 

[br801]

Not to state the obvious, but tomorrow is crucial.

Just don't say it's a "must win" game. At this point, with plenty of opportunities to play their way back into or out of the NCAAT conversation, there is no such thing.

 

[Newhouser]

Win all the home games and 2 away and that's 11-7 which might be good enough to make it. Really is a shame we lost to BC.

We need a road win over a ranked team.

 

[Knicks411]

To follow up on my last post, the last four in last year (and remember, there was a hell of a lot of controversy with some of these teams) were

Michigan
Tulsa
Wichita State
Vandy

Eyeballing their KP page, so I hope i don't miss anything, Michigan beat Texas on a neutral, Maryland at home, Purdue at home, and indiana on a neutral. So 4 wins over tournament teams. Texas was a 6, the other 3 were 5's.

Tulsa got Wichita State (last four) at home, Uconn (9 seed), plus SMU, who wasn't eligible, but was a 4 or 5 seed type team I'd think.

Vandy got A&M at home (3) and Kentucky (4) at home.

I'd throw out Wichita State (not going to bother lookign them up) and Tulsa, the model is more Michigan or Vandy, the power conference team who plays a lot of good teams. Vandy only had 2 wins over tourny teams, Michigan had 4. We could have more, but we're also going to have some rough losses that we need to offset.

(I eat this stuff up, so apologize for any rambling)

It's also worth pointing out all "wins over tournament teams" aren't created equal. The two we just added are relatively low value. You can basically break the remaining schedule into these groups, the way I see it

Games against bad teams (3) home BC and Ga tech, @ Ga tech. Keeping in mind BC blitzed us, these are 3 games we have to win.

Road games against good but not great teams (5) Nc State, Clemson, Pitt, Virginia Tech, Notre Dame. It's looking like 4 of these 5 are going to make the tournament.

Home games against good teams: (4) Louisville, Duke, Virginia, Florida State.

Road games against really good competition: (2) Unc, Louisville.

That covers all but one of our remaining games, not really sure where to put Wake at home, that's another game that has to be a win, but they're much better than BC or Ga Tech.

Those 9 games in the middle are going to be the key, how many of those 9 can you get? @UNC and @Louisville are going to be super tough, so you probably need like 4 or 5 of those middle 9 to really get in the conversation.

 

[Knicks411]

We need a road win over a ranked team.

I would change ranked to "tournament team" but I agree with the sentiment.

 

[realorange]

Thanks for the info but I was really just goofing on the idea about people getting carried away.

Just having fun myself.

 

[OrangeDW]

Nah, we aren't on the team. We don't have to keep focused or do the whole "don't get too high after wins or too low after losses" thing. After a horrid start to the season, we've played two very good games in a row. I'm a fan, I'm just going to enjoy it.

 

[Jasoncuse]

No way will SC be a bad loss... but yes 9-9 with 3 bad losses with 0 good wins OOC isn't getting it done and probably not 10-8 without some deep ACC tournament run. I think 12-6 is not required in this good of an ACC this year and 11-7 will get us in not just on the bubble. I guess 11-7 with a first round ACC tournament exit would make me nervous.

The fact is it's only two decent wins and going 5.5 deep. We are not even to the point of thinking about the tournament yet. 4-14 is still a distinct possibility if things break wrong, someone gets injured, etc. This team may not be as bad as we feared after BC but it's very thin and probably not as good as we look when we are hitting every jumper the last two games.

We already have more than 3 bad losses...2 bad ones in GTown and BC and 2 horrific ones in St John's and UConn. The UConn one is probably the worst. That was like losing to St. Peter's or Fairfield.

 

[jncuse]

We already have more than 3 bad losses...2 bad ones in GTown and BC and 2 horrific ones in St John's and UConn. The UConn one is probably the worst. That was like losing to St. Peter's or Fairfield.

Georgetown may well not end up a bad loss (numbers wise) anyway. If they get to 6-12 in the Big East their RPI will be better than #100 (which is the cutoff for a bad loss under the metric). Although it certainly felt like one.

The other 3 are tracking as bad losses, but there is a real outside shot one of them could move up.

UConn is projected at #150. That is based on a projected record of 11-18 and 7-11 in the AAC. They need to get to 11-7 in the AAC to get into the top 100 (possibly 10-8 would work as well)

St. John's is projected at #141 based on a 13-18 record (7-11 in Big East). 10-8 in Big East would clearly get them in the top 100. 9-9 might also get them into the top 100.

Boston College is projected at #206 based on a 10-21 record and a 3-15 record in the ACC. Sub 200 is a really a bad loss, and this looks like it will be the worse. Boston College would need to get to 10-8 in the ACC to get in the RPI top 100.