New Bracketology out

[Cuse House]

We just have to win the games we should and we will be fine. It's not ideal for us to be in a play in game but who would want to meet us as a 12 seed? We can legitimately make noise in the tourney no matter what seed we are. The important thing is that we just get in.

 

[NorSyr66]

All first four games are in Dayton...don't want to have to 'play in' but would be better than sitting out.

Totally agree. To look at the positive side, it would give Jimmy "another game" not normally considered in a season, ACC Tournament and possible NCAA rounds.

 

[chlywtr]

Didn't you know, LSU has Ben Simmons! That's right, the next coming of LeBron, Michael and Larry all rolled into one. That makes LSU a great team, regardless of who they have beaten...or who they've lost to.

And hornsby has range

 

[obliterata]

Are they changing the naming of the rounds? I saw something calling it the "first four" and the next the first round. Back to the way it should be.

That would be beyond great. They need to go back and fix things the last few years, call the second round the first round and go from there.

 

[jgeorge322]

Quality Wins
Syracuse has wins over the following current tourney teams - Texas AM, UConn, Duke, Notre Dame
LSU has wins over the following current tourney teams: Kentucky, (Vandebilt??)

Bad Losses
Syracuse has one bad loss against teams projected sub 100 RPI - St. John;s
LSU has 5 losses against teams projected sub 100 RPI - Marquette, Charleston, NC St, Houston, Wake Forest

A few of those teams may end up top 100, but my point is the losses are no good

RPI
Syracuse: Current 42, Expected 53 (9-9 conference record)
LSU; Current 82, Expected 90 (11-7 conference record). If they get to 13-5, which is possible, they get up to 60

Consensus
21 Brackets on the Matrix submitted since January 30
Syracuse is in 21 of 21
LSU is in 4 of 21

For Lunardi to have LSU higher, much less even in the tourney on an "As of Now" basis, is an absolute farce. Beyond ridiculous.

*drops the mic*

 

[UnderHisOwnPower]

Lunardi has us as a 12 seed in a play-in game vs. UCLA, with the winner playing Kentucky.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/bracketology

We simply have to win these next three games. With a lot of tough games down the stretch, I think a loss in any of these three games would be a damaging step back for us.

Quality Wins
Syracuse has wins over the following current tourney teams - Texas AM, UConn, Duke, Notre Dame
LSU has wins over the following current tourney teams: Kentucky, (Vandebilt??)

Bad Losses
Syracuse has one bad loss against teams projected sub 100 RPI - St. John;s
LSU has 5 losses against teams projected sub 100 RPI - Marquette, Charleston, NC St, Houston, Wake Forest

A few of those teams may end up top 100, but my point is the losses are no good

RPI
Syracuse: Current 42, Expected 53 (9-9 conference record)
LSU; Current 82, Expected 90 (11-7 conference record). If they get to 13-5, which is possible, they get up to 60

Consensus
21 Brackets on the Matrix submitted since January 30
Syracuse is in 21 of 21
LSU is in 4 of 21

For Lunardi to have LSU higher, much less even in the tourney on an "As of Now" basis, is an absolute farce. Beyond ridiculous.

Maybe the 40 year old virgin only takes the first 40 or so teams of his bracket seriously, then he uses the marginal teams to troll college basketball fans and generate page clicks, depending on the reaction he gets from his bubble blather day to day? Don't believe the hype.

 

[CusefanATL]

I find it hard to believe that there are approximately 40 better teams than Syracuse right now (based upon seedings). With a 12 seed or even a 10 seed, it's clear that the absence of Coach Boeheim for the 9 games isn't being factored in. With Boeheim, the team has lost 3 close games, Wiscy (home) in OT, UNC (home) - 3 point game with 3 minutes to play and Virginia (away) - 3 point game with 2 minutes to play. It also includes wins over Texas A&M (neutral), UConn (neutral), Duke (away) and Notre Dame (home).

The effort with Boeheim back is night and day vs. when he was out, IMO.

Don't count on a Boeheim factored decision by the NCAA. Dont forget, that we had our signed sealed and delivered coach in waiting coaching for those 9 games. If it happens, great. But dont count on it. Imagine if it comes down to Cuse or Clemson and/or Wiscy. Think we are getting in because JB didnt coach?

 

[SoBeCuse]

I'd take that. Kentucky blows

Not the usual dominant UK team but they hardly blow. Taking it OT against Kansas at Phog Allen isn't an easy task.

 

[jncuse]

http://www.bracketmatrix.com/

I thought I would update my prior post on the Bracket Matrix as some older brackets from early last week are rolling off and our consensus position is becoming more clear today than yesterday.

In (out of 76 brackets) these are the last teams in:
Seton Hall 70
Syracuse 66 **
St. Joes 66
UConn 65
Florida St 60
Washington 57
Butler 50
Gonzaga 50
George Washington 38

That would project us as the 8th last team in. That would be the 10th line most likely. But we are still dealing with small margins that could move us a few positions with a good or bad result.

** Remember this is a rolling weekly forecast, so there a few brackets still remaining from early last week. In terms of the last 50 or so brackets submitted, Syracuse is in on every single bracket except one. This dolt has us as his first team out. (probably not a bad guy, but why is Tulsa in instead of us?) http://www.noahsports.net/


In terms of seed distribution for the recently submitted brackets:
10 is the most common
A decent number of 9's and 11's.
A few 12's

Lunardi is one of the few that would have us in a play in game as of now.

 

[jncuse]

Fair enough, I wasn't saying LSU had a better resume than we do. I was simply responding to that one point.

No problem -- my response was not to you but to Lunardi's viewpoint, and to provide my perspective and information on why I believe he is wrong. Of course it is only my belief, which for many situations will not ultimately be correct. I felt fairly comfortable about the LSU one though.

 

[Eric15]

No problem -- my response was not to you but to Lunardi's viewpoint, and to provide my perspective on why I believe he is wrong. Of course it is only my belief, which for many situations may not ultimately be correct. I felt fairly comfortable about the LSU one though!!

JN, you said in another thread that you don't think it's possible for SU's RPI to get up to 35. Do you still feel that way? We're currently at 42. Just curious.

 

[jncuse]

If you go strictly by KP, Duke is ranked slightly higher than Kentucky. But then throw in the location of the game and I don't think it's close. UConn is about 10 spots behind Kentucky, but again, I think neutral site makes up the difference.

Pomeroy wrote a little about this a few weeks ago
"It turns out those adjustments are important. Beating the 90th-ranked team on the road is about as difficult as beating the 50th-best team on a neutral floor, which is roughly as difficult as beating the 20th-best team on one’s home floor."

Kentucky is ranked around 20 in KP, so according to his research, that win is roughly the same as winning at Boise State or something. Do I think that is a perfect way of looking at things? Not necessarily, but I think we have 3 wins better than home Kentucky this year.

I am not sure if the NCAA commitee fully has this perspective. They do value road wins. though

But I very much agree with your point on location -- a road win vs a 50-100 level team is just as good as a home win vs a 25-50 team. But it seems they only value top 50 as key wins,

 

[jncuse]

JN, you said in another thread that you don't think it's possible for SU's RPI to get up to 35. Do you still feel that way? We're currently at 42. Just curious.

I probably did say that our RPI would start falling a bit (even if we play at a level to stay 9-9 rf 10-8), because our schedule vs other P5 teams is a tad weaker in the second half of the season.

But can we get to 35? Sure at 11-7. I beleive we could. This is the RPI forecast for our record.

9-9, RPI = 55
10-8, RPI = 43
11-7, RPI = 33

I am placing quite a bit of reliance on this tool, and while I have looked at it in past years, I have never looked at it so much for a bubble level team. I will find out after this year if it is a reliable tool in terms of making assessments mid-season in terms of where our records needs to get.

 

[Knicks411]

I am not sure if the NCAA commitee fully has this perspective. They do value road wins. though

But I very much agree with your point on location -- a road win vs a 50-100 level team is just as good as a home win vs a 25-50 team. But it seems they only value top 50 as key wins,

You may be right, and it's kind of frustrating, because all top 50 wins aren't created equal. Beating #51 on the road is better than beating #49 at home, but in the first case, that won't show up as a top 50 win, while the second will.

 

[cusetown1]

Don't count on a Boeheim factored decision by the NCAA. Dont forget, that we had our signed sealed and delivered coach in waiting coaching for those 9 games. If it happens, great. But dont count on it. Imagine if it comes down to Cuse or Clemson and/or Wiscy. Think we are getting in because JB didnt coach?

http://www.syracuse.com/orangebaske...m_boeheims_suspension_into_consideration.html

 

[MGP]

It's baaack!
http://espn.go.com/ncb/bubblewatch

 

[CusefanATL]

http://www.syracuse.com/orangebaske...m_boeheims_suspension_into_consideration.html

We've talked about this ad nauseam. You can trust that if you want.

 

[jncuse]

It's baaack!
http://espn.go.com/ncb/bubblewatch

1. I think what is relevant about the article is the lack of schools outside of the top 7 conferences ( P5 + Big East + A10) that could be at large. Only 2 teams in consideration for the AAC. Only 1 spot for the MWC right now and Missouri Valley. Not many potential bubble busters from smaller conferences.

The fall of the Mountain West, could be predicted in December, is quite significant. It seems that the Pac-12 fared very well against the MwC teams in out of conference, which basically shifted at larges from the MWC to the Pac12.

The at large will be even more dominated by these 7 conferences this year.


2. I also laugh at the comments to the article of people upset that team "X", or in this case Xavier, is not a "lock". I have a very hard and similar definition of a lock as well. A lock means that you can lose every single remaining game on your schedule and get into the NCAA tourney. Sure those teams are basically 100%, but they still need to win a game or two.

 

[Trueblue25]

We'd tear LSU a new one.

 

[jncuse]

We've talked about this ad nauseam. You can trust that if you want.

My point has always been many things get considered. However, historically from my observations rarely have I seen injuries of any team override the overall body of work for any at large team in terms of getting in / left out. That does not mean it was not considered -- just that the threshold for acting on it seems quite high -- its hard to eliminate all other factors and isolate just one.

My other major problem is part of the article itself. The key excerpt is attached below.

Gavitt had four DIRECT quotes in the article, NONE that directly inferred what was written above.

The key point people are relying upon, appears to be the author's interpretation of what Gavitt said - NOT something Gavitt actually said. If Gavitt did indeed say something similar to that, it should also have also been a DIRECT quote. It is after all the most critical aspect of the article.

Waters is entitled to his interpretation of what Gavitt said... just as much as me. But please realize the what most people are grabbing at in the article is something Mike Waters wrote -- and not something direct from a committee member.

 

[RandygoCuse]

Is it better for us to get a bye in the first round of the ACCT and risk losing a game, or play in the first round where we are likely to get a win? I guess I would say the former as us getting a bye would most likely mean we were fairly certain to make the NCAAT. On the other hand, the selection committee has been known to be screwy in the past.

 

[andyw715]

It's baaack!
http://espn.go.com/ncb/bubblewatch

I like that ESPN acknowledges all of JB's wins.

"We're beginning to think Jim Boeheim is good at this whole coaching basketball thing. Our first hint? The 981 career victories."

 

[two3zone]

i wouldn't want to be anywhere near UK in a bracket...even though they are under performing, that talent can "click" at any time...no thanks

UK and Cal lover!!!!