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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 3231569, member: 289"] At least that's what the guy who sold it to me said it was: [ATTACH type="full" alt="1577737944408.png"]174709[/ATTACH] Everyone is speculating on how we will do in January and February, considering that we stumbled to an 8-5 record in Novembers and December. The assumption is that the level of completion is going to be so much higher that we will wind up with a very poor record, the winning streak will be broken and we won’t see ‘Syracuse’ on any march brackets. The alternative view is that this was possibly the strongest November and December schedule that we’ve had and that the ACC is down so maybe there isn’t that great a difference. We may be able to continue muddling through and still secure the streak and dance in March. I decided to look at the Sagarin ratings, not because he’s the best but because he rates everybody and I’m just trying to get a glimpse of what might happen. Here is a breakdown of this year’s schedule: [URL='http://sagarin.com/sports/cbsend.htm']College Basketball Ratings Page[/URL] NOVEMBER & DECEMBER Virginia is currently ranked #42. Colgate is #148 Seattle is #292 Cornell is #293 Bucknell is #252, (They are usually a strong mid-major but are just 4-9 this year.) Oklahoma State is #47 Penn State is #19 Iowa is #16 Georgia Tech is #94 Georgetown is #36 Oakland is #192 North Florida is #180 Niagara is #291 JANUARY & FEBRUARY (plus MARCH) Notre Dame is #69 Virginia Tech is #62 Virginia is #42 Boston College is #123 Virginia Tech is #62 Notre Dame is #69 Pittsburgh is #64 Clemson is #100 Duke is #1 Wake Forest is #102 North Carolina State is #30 Florida State is #15 Louisville is #18 Georgia Tech #94 Pittsburgh #64 North Carolina is #46 Boston College is #123 U of Miami is #74 Observations: - The average Sagarin rating for the November and December opponents is #146. - The average Sagarin rating for the January and February opponents is #64. - That’s obviously skewed by the fact that Colgate, Seattle, Cornell, Bucknell, Oakland, North Florida and Niagara are all significantly worse than anyone in the ACC. But that’s hardly unimportant. - Syracuse is ranked #56 by Sagarin. By that ranking, we’ve beaten the teams we should have beaten and lost to the teams we should have lost to. That’s not a great performance but it isn’t an alarming one. We haven’t looked good in the losses and in some of the wins but we haven’t really had a ‘bad’ loss yet. - Here’s the fun part: Our Sagarin rating is better than 12 of our 18 remaining opponents. If form continues to hold, we’ll go 12-6 and wind up 20-11 and 13-7 in the ACC, 50 winning seasons in a row and a decent seed in the NCAA tournament. - But you have to ask: how many of our 8 wins, 7 of them against teams ranked well below the worst ACC team, have been wins against those ACC team ranked below us in Sagarin? How many of those games would the effort against Niagara have won? - Then, again, would we have played the way we did against Niagara if we were playing an ACC team. - How much will this team evolve in these last 18 games? - Then there is the ACC tournament, which might be all-important to us this year. We’re kind of due for a run there. And a team that can bomb away from the outside is often the kind of team that surprises people in tournaments where the next game is the next day. Get hot and stay hot! [/QUOTE]

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