8-5 rest of the way gets us in

[jncuse]

Hey man. No problem. You and a few others did great work last year. My point is: can we wait until we even have a chance to be in the discussion before we figure out how many wins we need? We are not even close to that yet. But carry on.

No problem. The problem is I can't wait, even if I think we won't get to 11 wins.

 

[OrangeTarheel]

Our advantage come tournament time is that this is a tale of two teams. Pretty clear, compelling story that explains away at least a part of a less than stellar record and disappointment at preseason expectations.

That said, I am still skeptical. Give us a good road win and I'm back to believing.

 

[jncuse]

Just looking at the bubble teams from last year and the P-12 at large teams and what they accomplished on the road, as this could be a wart for us. The reason I bring up the Pac-12 teams is because they had depth in the top 60 last year as well, but not the elite.

Regarding our discussion of needing quality road wins -- look at Oregon St below who built there entire resume beating P-12 teams at home in conference. For that reason I remember thinking they should be on the bubble, but they were not even really considered.

The only slight issue with the RPI's below are that they moved slightly as they are post tourney numbers from the site I am getting them from. But given that most of these teams were one and out they did not move much)

Tulsa (RPI around 70) - 6 road wins. 1 good road win (#14 SMU). Beyond that they had 4 top 50 wins (but other than that SMU win only 1 against a top 8 seed), 3 bad losses, and were the major surprise to get in.

Vanderbilt (RPI around 70) - 3 road wins, (best road win at Florida, RPI #45 but an NIT Team). They also had 2 neutral wins against sub 150 teams. They had 4 top 50 wins (2 at home against Top 25 teams, and beat Florida twice an NIT Team). They also had 3 bad losses. It stuns me how Lunardi thought this was a reasonable selection but not us.

And now a few of the Fake 12 teams from last year. This is the impact of a conference with good RPI mates.


USC (RPI Around 60) - 8 seed, with 3 road wins but none of quality (best one was #99 RPI), 2 neutral wins (1 quality vs an 11 seed in Wichita St). They had 5 top 50 wins (all at home except for a win over an 11 seed on a neutral court). They only had one bad loss. But this was a #8 seed.

Oregon (RPI Around 50). 18-12 record, a 7 seed!! They won 4 road games, and 1 neutral game. None of the wins were of any quality (highest was #87 RPI Stanford). Their entire resume was beating Oregon, Utah, Cal, Colorado, and USC at home. (That is 2 top 25 wins, 2 other top 50 wins, and one win against a sub 50 tourney team in USC). They also had 2 sub 100 RPI losses, although nothing as bad as St. John's or BC.

Pac 12 teams last year proved you could largely build a resume at home if your conference is numerically good enough,.

 

[upperdeck]

you cant look at our record and say we are out without looking at other teams too..

TT is in many brackets with 2 solid wins and no good road wins and 1 bad loss.. they dont look much different than us and neither do many teams that are ahead of us right now.

is Iowa State better than us? win over miami like us. they probably finish under .500 in the b12 and will have 1 solid win OC.

too many games left to know if 10 is enough

 

[Briancuse]

We need one of the next two to start the discussion.

 

[CaptainJ]

I didnt bother reading the whole thread, but once I saw people going on about "bad losses", I wonder if folks had forgotten about the bet I won on here last season about the team getting in? Bad lossess are not the be all end all, there are plenty of factors which apparently the majority of folks on here didn't understand at that point, and a number don't seem to at this point.

Brevity isn't my strong suit, but for a change I can call on it. This is like that Supreme Court Justice said about not being able to define pornography, but knowing it when he sees it.

There are many different possible scenarios, some that havent happened before. Ive seen strange things happen, things others might not believe. For the people beating their chests about certainty(about anything, either way), I invite you to look at last season's threads. No need to beat each other up over a number of scenarios that may never even happen.

 

[orange79]

Hey man. No problem. You and a few others did great work last year. My point is: can we wait until we even have a chance to be in the discussion before we figure out how many wins we need? We are not even close to that yet. But carry on.

It's an internet message board. It's what people do. There were RPI threads in November. :noidea:

 

[jdubs30]

I also think this crap about we got deeper in the tourney is dumb... sweet 16 .. elite 8... final 4. Titles matter. We have no shot this year so everything we do is to look less bad for growing players, recruits, and winning future titles.

There is no doubt that this team has A LOT to work on. But this time last year did you think we'd make the Final 4? If we end up in the field, that means we made progress and beat good teams. Just by getting in we'd have a better shot than most teams - we probably have 3 NBA 1st round picks, the returning B10 scoring leader, the zone and JB. It is a ridiculous conversation to have in January - we have so much work to do - but to say "no shot" on January 15th is unfair, IMO. The 2010 team didn't get to the Final Four but the 2016 team did - crazy stuff happens in March. You just gotta get in.

 

[iommi]

It's an internet message board. It's what people do. There were RPI threads in November. :noidea:

I wasn't really taking offense, just having fun with it.

 

[tbonezone]

it's not just the number of wins but also the quality. (unless you're WICHITA STATE of course).
we have the BAD losses already. we need some GOOD wins.

 

[Briancuse]

Miami's rpi is dropping like a stone, right now our only top 50 win is Pitt, and they are 1-4 in the conference, we probably need to steal two road wins against top 50 teams, we need one of the next two.