Bubble Watch - March 4 to March 7 Games

[jncuse]

Rankings in Post #1
A few general comments in my Post #2 regarding recent movements.
Schedule will be in my Post #3

Here are the current standings per the matrix (based only on the 69 brackets that were updated today, fully capturing weekend games). I disregarded the 35 old brackets.

(Out of 69 brackets)
Nebraska 69 (100%) (seed 9.37)
Michigan St 69 (100%) (seed 9.38)
Florida Atlantic 68 (99%)
Virginia 60 (87%)
Villanova 58 (84%)
Seton Hall 52 (75%)
New Mexico 49 (71%)
St Johns 44 (64%)
-------In/Out Line--------
Colorado 30 (43%)
Wake Forest 29 (42%)
Utah 29 (42%)
Providence 24 (35%)
Drake 7 (10%)
Iowa 6 (9%)
Pitt 3 (4%)
Ole Miss 2 (3%)
Syracuse 1 (1%)

I would like to see a consolidation of the "Last 8 team outs" as this would give a better reflection of where we stand. Anyway expect improvement if we win tomorrow. Otherwise we are doing this exercise simply to monitor other teams, which can be interesting from a national scope anyway.

 

[jncuse]

An analysis of the biggest movers since the last round of games this weekend. This done in part to show how big wins. losses, or blown opporunities can move things, since the gap is probably pretty tight in many people's views.

As I showed in my thread for the weekend, teams above the line went 3-6 last weekend, and teams below the line went 7-0. So we saw lots of movement, not necessarily teams moving in but moving up. The interesting one is St. John's moving up 37% and into the tournament by not even playing. Teams like Wake Forest and New Mexico that had very winnable Q1 games and lost them, paid the price for that.

I bolded a few to show how a big win (Or bad loss) can change things since the gaps are tight.
Villanova got a huge Q1 road win at Providence, and moved up from 18% in to 84% in. Providence took the opposite hit for the Q2 loss at home. Iowa who nobody had in, jumped in on a decent number of brackets by getting a Q1 road win at Northwestern. And our Q1 win (if we win) will be bigger than both. So we should see decent movement (if we win)

Villanova - Up 66% (18% to 84%)
St. John's - Up 37% (27% to 64%)
Utah - Up 21% (21% to 42%
Colorado - Up 11% (32% to 43%)
Iowa - Up 9% (0% to 9%)

Providence - Down 47% (82% to 35%)
Wake Forest - Down 27% (79% to 52%)
New Mexico - Down 27% (98% to 71%)
Seton Hall - Down 17% (92% to 75%
Virginia - Down 13% (100% to 87%)

Gonzaga, also graduated off the bubble with their road win at St. Mary's College.

 

[jncuse]

Schedule

Tuesday
7:00 (Q4) Providence (4th team out) at Georgetown
7:00 (Q2) Ole Miss (8th team out) at Georgia
9:00 (Q3) Georgia Tech at Wake Forest (2nd team out)
9:00 (Q4) St John's (Last Team in) at Depaul
9:00 (Q3) Florida St at Pitt (7th Team Out)

Wednesday
6:30 (Q1) Villanova (4th last in) at Seton Hall
6:30 (Q2) Villanova at Seton Hall (3rd last in)
7:00 (Q2) Northwestern at Michigan St (7th last in)
8:00 (Q2) Florida Atlantic (6th last in) at North Texas
10:30 (Q4) New Mexico (2nd last in) at Fresno St

Thursday
9:00 (Q1) Colorado (First team out) at Oregon
11:00 (Q3) Utah (2nd team out) at Oregon St

No Games - Nebraska, Indiana St, Drake, Virginia, Iowa, Grand Canyon, Princeton

 

[jncuse]

Of the games this week (Mon-Thursday) I noted 12 games of significant.

6 of them are Q3/Q4 wins -- would be really nice if somehow 2 of those games go the wrong way (that may be optimistic)

Probably the biggest game of concern for me would be Colorado at Oregon. Don't want Colorado getting a Q1 win

 

[kingtidge]

Of the games this week (Mon-Thursday) I noted 12 games of significant.

6 of them are Q3/Q4 wins -- would be really nice if somehow 2 of those games go the wrong way (that may be optimistic)

Probably the biggest game of concern for me would be Colorado at Oregon. Don't want Colorado getting a Q1 win

Yup, that Colorado at Oregon is a trap game for us... Oregon really needs to take care of business.

We don't want the committee scrubbing our neutral court Q2 Oregon win because "...they were a depleted squad due to injuries at the time"... while also catapulting Colorado to a last 4 in because they beat a Q1 full strength Oregon team away late season.

It's the kind of storyline the committee loves on bubblewatch, because they can package wins against the same team as vastly different and the deciding factor.

 

[orangenauburn]

Looks like a lot of teams on the edge finish with favorable match ups


As you said need a couple to stub their toe.

I can see Georgia, GT, and FSU winning Tuesday to help. Heck I can convince myself GTown can pull one off.

I can see North Texas and NW coming through on Wednesday. I think the Big East is way over valued and neither team should get in but Nova will probably blast Seton Hall.

Oregon needs to pull through on Thursday

 

[Orangezoo]

The Nebraska number is wild. Wins at KSt, home vs Purdue, Wisky, ND and a bad loss at Ohio St.

They won some games by a larger MOV plus a weak non conf which boosts their NET but otherwise their resume is nothing special. Their Q1 wins are largely in part due to overall inflated Net of BIG teams in general.

Trying not to be a broken record but this whole thing is just one big MOV competition it seems. Indiana St figured that out for sure too so it’s not just the bigger conferences.

Teams like Vermont for instance should just play bottom feeder teams and a few payday games and they can hang up in the 30s and 40s for Net every year

 

[jncuse]

The Nebraska number is wild. Wins at KSt, home vs Purdue, Wisky, ND and a bad loss at Ohio St.

They won some games by a larger MOV plus a weak non conf which boosts their NET but otherwise their resume is nothing special. Their Q1 wins are largely in part due to overall inflated Net of BIG teams in general.

Trying not to be a broken record but this whole thing is just one big MOV competition it seems. Indiana St figured that out for sure too so it’s not just the bigger conferences.

Teams like Vermont for instance should just play bottom feeder teams and a few payday games and they can hang up in the 30s and 40s for Net every year

You still have to execute at the highest level (comparatively) in those games which is not always easy.

The ACC played a bunch of Q4 games as well. The ACC played 45% of them in their OOC. (So far I have calculated the Big 12 at 55%, SEC at 43%.. did a rough count on BIG at 51%)

I don't like that the system rewards the teams with 30-50 point wins in those games (which is why I would go to the 50/50 NET RPI system since RPI punishes Q4 games, but also over-values Q3 range games because of its formula) but its not like every team schedule those types of Q4 games and then "net" the rewards like others. The ACC had a fair bit of its OOC games to try to do it as well,

The Big 12 won 96% of its Q3 games (25-1), SEC 85%, ACC 74% (26-8). From that perspective it becomes clearer who will be better, or is more capable at dominating more at the next level of Q4 games as well. As I said I really don't like that Q4 margin is such a big influencer, but there is still the ability to execute. Its not a matter of saying let's schedule those games and see the results.

I try to focus more on Q1, Q2, and bad loss performance as a conference as a better gauge. This year was more muddy, it appears, in terms of correlation this year to conference dominance in NET/seeds/high seeds, unlike 2023 when there was a very correlation (based on my initial gauge) . I'll try to get those full results with all 6 and the MWC later this week.

 

[Orangezoo]

You still have to execute at the highest level (comparatively) in those games which is not always easy.

The ACC played a bunch of Q4 games as well. The ACC played 45% of them in their OOC. (So far I have calculated the Big 12 at 55%, SEC at 43%.. did a rough count on BIG at 51%)

I don't like that the system rewards the teams with 30-50 point wins in those games (which is why I would go to the 50/50 NET RPI system since RPI punishes Q4 games, but also over-values Q3 range games because of its formula) but its not like every team schedule those types of Q4 games and then "net" the rewards like others. The ACC had a fair bit of its OOC games to try to do it as well,

The Big 12 won 96% of its Q3 games (25-1), SEC 85%, ACC 74% (26-8). From that perspective it becomes clearer who will be better, or is more capable at dominating more at the next level of games as well. As I said I really don't like that Q4 margin is such a big influencer, but there is still the ability to execute.

I try to focus more on Q1, Q2, and bad loss performance as a conference as a better gauge. This year was more muddy, it appears, in terms of correlation this year to NET, unlike 2023. I'll try to get those full results

One other thing I noticed and think plays a role is there are a lot of double digit victories in conference play over the 50-100 teams in the NET across the top conferences too so you have some inflated margins there along with those Q4 wins. Thus while Wake is maybe a more extreme example they aren’t all that far from some of the likely in to locks in the Big 12, BIG and MWC.

I fully expect this years tourney results to look a lot like last years and so on with the use of the NET paired with the portal.

 

[jncuse]

The Nebraska number is wild. Wins at KSt, home vs Purdue, Wisky, ND and a bad loss at Ohio St.

They won some games by a larger MOV plus a weak non conf which boosts their NET but otherwise their resume is nothing special. Their Q1 wins are largely in part due to overall inflated Net of BIG teams in general.

Trying not to be a broken record but this whole thing is just one big MOV competition it seems. Indiana St figured that out for sure too so it’s not just the bigger conferences.

Teams like Vermont for instance should just play bottom feeder teams and a few payday games and they can hang up in the 30s and 40s for Net every year

Re Nebraska and the Big East higher Q1 wins, because the conferences were much "better" (quotations intended)

I see 4 factors here.
1) The BIG and B12 were probably helped by playing 55% and 51% vs 45% of Q4 games.
2) I didn't do the calc's but I'm sure they did as a group much better margin wise in Q4 games.
3) The ACC didn't do quite as well across the board in Q1-Q4 games, although differences were not huge.
4) Our bottom feeders have this tendency the last few years to stink in OOC, and then do much better than other feeders of the same level in conference play -- that helps nobody.

The ACC deserves to take some hit for #3 for not being as good. #3 should be a big factor. #1 and #2 probably exaggerates the hit though. And those factors need to be minimized - even if the BIG and B12 did much better margin wise in Q4 games, which probably indicates they are better, it shouldn't be such a large factor.

 

[jncuse]

One other thing I noticed and think plays a role is there are a lot of double digit victories in conference play over the 50-100 teams in the NET across the top conferences too so you have some inflated margins there along with those Q4 wins. Thus while Wake is maybe a more extreme example they aren’t all that far from some of the likely in to locks in the Big 12, BIG and MWC.

I fully expect this years tourney results to look a lot like last years and so on with the use of the NET paired with the portal.

I've thought of that as well at some point, but I concluded it may not matter too much (at least for teams in top 135 where there will be Q1 and Q2 games) - in conference games, a blowout is "good" for team A, but "bad" for team B. And conference mates play both team A and team B - so they get the good and bad impact. On the other hand what you do in OOC, is only good for everybody.

I think the argument could me made for the 2-3 conference patsies. that it is best to destroy them margin wise - but then over time its just gets harder to get a sufficient cover margin against them.

That gets to the point that teams like like Louisville and Notre Dame, irritate things by being better in confererence than they were in OOC. Drags the ACC down a bit too.

 

[Orangezoo]

Re Nebraska and the Big East higher Q1 wins, because the conferences were much "better" (quotations intended)

( see 3 factors here.
1) The BIG and B12 were probably helped by playing 55% and 51% vs 45% of Q4 games.
2) I didn't do the calc's but I'm sure they did as a group much better margin wise in Q4 games.
3) The ACC didn't do quite as well across the board in Q1-Q4 games, although differences were not huge.

The ACC deserves to take some hit for #3 for not being as good. #3 should be a factor. #1 and #2 probably exaggerates the hit though. And those factors need to be minimized - even if the BIG and B12 did much better margin wise in Q4 games, which probably indicates they are better, it shouldn't be such a large factor.

Yeah and while it’s scattered in terms of who makes those losses up- the Louisville mess paired with NDs struggles( which I expect are being corrected finally) and then add FSU and GT and the bottom of the league has to be better. We seem poised to do our part again based on the early returns under Red but outside ND it’s hard to see things getting better. Add in UVA who seems to have come back to earth some too and yikes.

All that said if the Cards alone could get their crap together it would help a great deal. The NBE is carrying both Gtown and DePaul yet doing better than the ACC

 

[jncuse]

Yeah and while it’s scattered in terms of who makes those losses up- the Louisville mess paired with NDs struggles( which I expect are being corrected finally) and then add FSU and GT and the bottom of the league has to be better. We seem poised to do our part again based on the early returns under Red but outside ND it’s hard to see things getting better. Add in UVA who seems to have come back to earth some too and yikes.

All that said if the Cards alone could get their crap together it would help a great deal. The NBE is carrying both Gtown and DePaul yet doing better than the ACC

In an ideal world we get back to being close to old Syracuse the majority of years, even if we are not all that (pre 2015), We get in the tournament no matter how the conference does OOC... it might impact us a few seed lines when things are bad in OOC but that's it.

Getting stuck in the middle of a conference exposes you to the measurement subtleties of the system and to how your conference mates do relative to others - a number of which are fair, but a decent amount of which are questionable too.

That being said, as long as we are in the middle, so many teams in the conference are down from what were successful programs in the 2010's - Louisville, Notre Dame, Florida St - us to a degree. Even Virginia I suppose.

Recent enough history though for this to head back in the right direction - but its hard to say in this new world.

 

[ROCcuse]

Thank you jncuse and pokercuse08
for the analyses.

I love following them this time of year.

I thought you guys were the same person the other week based on the threads you were posting lol

 

[upperdeck]

how does it play out and which gives us better than 50/50 chance

IN
win 24 games
win 4 in a row someplace

75% IN
win 23 games
3 in a row some place in the next 4

33% IN
22 win season
lose tonight, win 2 in the ACC and lose 2-1
win tonight win 1 in the ACC and lose 2-1

dim
21 win season
Win tonight. lose in ACC
lose tonight, win first ACC game

 

[blust2i3d4]

24 wins 100%
23 wins 80%
22 wins(win over Clemson) 60%
22 wins(lost to Clemson) 40%
21 wins 25%

 

[jncuse]

24 wins 100%
23 wins 80%
22 wins(win over Clemson) 60%
22 wins(lost to Clemson) 40%
21 wins 25%

Your 40% scenario seems way too high. Since one of those wins is going to be a meaningless Q3 game it appears

Unless one of the two wins described above is against Duke or UNC, then there is no way it makes up for this game tonight. A road game vs Clemson, can only be matched by a neutral court win vs Duke or UNC -- it wasn't just that we needed a "win" tonight -- we needed more of a signature top half Q1 win to close ground which a road game at a 5/6 seed is.

 

[jncuse]

I'll continue to track the bubble for this set of games that I laid out - the work is in setting up the first few post, and I enjoy tracking bubble to some degree. After this probably not -- maybe middle of next week - but it will be NCAA centric discussion and not Syracuse specific.

As for tonight, here are the results so-far. Brutal result so far for Wake.

Tuesday
7:00 (Q4) Providence (4th team out) at Georgetown (Providence wins 71-58)
7:00 (Q2) Ole Miss (8th team out) at Georgia (Ole Miss loses 69-66)
9:00 (Q3) Georgia Tech at Wake Forest (2nd team out) (Wake Forest losing 40-26 at the half)
9:00 (Q4) St John's (Last Team in) at Depaul (St. John's winning 54-28 at the half)
9:00 (Q3) Florida St at Pitt (7th Team Out) (Pitt winning 38-26 at the half

• I was sort of hoping Ole Miss would get a Q2 win tonight and another one this weekend, and then a Q1 in SEC tourney. Ole Miss sort of has a "Syracuse" type vibe to their resume. Nothing bad on their resume (No bad losses) but a really bad NET relatively speaking in the high 70's. But they lost a Q2 opportunity. Probably need to get a Q2 this weekend, and find a way to get 2 more quality victories (not just wins) in the SEC tournament.
• Brutal loss (it appears) for Wake Forest tonight. Not the time of year to take a Q3 loss. What's interesting right now is that there are 3 teams right around NET 30 (New Mexico, Colorado, and Wake) that is typically the safe number to get in because you inherently have enough good on the resume to get a NET that high. But not for those team

 

[SwagSocks]

Pitt is playing like a tournament team. Tea bagging FSU

 

[690West]

Wow. Wake goes down!

13 point favorites

 

[hoopsupstate]

Wake’s done. No tournament for them.

 

[hoopsupstate]

Refs screwed up at end. Salles walked on his go ahead basket and GT walked when he fell down.

 

[jncuse]

Results for Wednesday Games

Wednesday
6:30 (Q1) Villanova (4th last in) at Seton Hall
6:30 (Q2) Villanova at Seton Hall (3rd last in) Seton Hall wins 66-56 at home vs Villanova
7:00 (Q2) Northwestern at Michigan St (7th last in) Michigan St wins 53-49
8:00 (Q2) Florida Atlantic (6th last in) at North Texas Florida Atlantic wins 79-74
10:30 (Q4) New Mexico (2nd last in) at Fresno St

Some quick comments on today's games.
- Nova probably stay in ... would have only been different if Seton Hall had lost. It was a big win for whomever won though, as those 4 big east teams are all really tight against the line.

- Michigan St, if it had not locked before this, has locked it now.

- Florida Atlantic really needed a Q2 win... I think the success of USF in the AAC might actually hurt Florida Atlantic. Its hard for me to see USF as a 12 seed (as current AAC leader on the brackets). meaning most would have them out as an at-large, and everybody has Florida Atlantic in as a 9/10 seed.

USF is 23-5, (17-1 in the AAC), 1-0 in Q1, 6-3 in Q1+Q2, with 2 bad losses (both Q4)
Florida Atlantic is 23-7 (13-4 in the AAC), 1-3 in Q1, 8-5 in Q1+Q2, with 2 bad losses (both Q4)
One of the big differences is NET of 37 for FAU vs 75 for USF.

This is not necessarily an argument for USF getting in as an at-large , but more a point that if USF is deemed as clearly out by the committee or predictors, than Florida Atlantic should not feel very safe either.

Personally I would be fine with letting them both in, or both out. But I don't understand how FAU is viewed a few seed lines above USF.

 

[blust2i3d4]

Your 40% scenario seems way too high. Since one of those wins is going to be a meaningless Q3 game it appears

Unless one of the two wins described above is against Duke or UNC, then there is no way it makes up for this game tonight. A road game vs Clemson, can only be matched by a neutral court win vs Duke or UNC -- it wasn't just that we needed a "win" tonight -- we needed more of a signature top half Q1 win to close ground which a road game at a 5/6 seed is.

Chance of 40% means there are always teams doing worse. Bubble teams can be beat by sub 500 teams in the first round of their conference tournament.
To get the 22 wins is not an easy task. Meaning first win against like BC or GA Tech, then another win against Virginia or other 3rd/4th seed. I think 22 wins will be more that wins of bubble teams falling on their conference tournament first round. Still less than 50/50 chance. But there is hope. Maybe committee thinks ACC is underrated and throws us a bone.

 

[baggerbob]

Chance of 40% means there are always teams doing worse. Bubble teams can be beat by sub 500 teams in the first round of their conference tournament.
To get the 22 wins is not an easy task. Meaning first win against like BC or GA Tech, then another win against Virginia or other 3rd/4th seed. I think 22 wins will be more that wins of bubble teams falling on their conference tournament first round. Still less than 50/50 chance. But there is hope. Maybe committee thinks ACC is underrated and throws us a bone.

Not very likely, the NCAA never gives Syracuse a break.