Okay college basketball diehards what bubble teams do we need to start paying attention too?

[Alsacs]

Now that we are clearly on the bubble. What teams do we need to start hoping lose games.

I don't care if we make the First Four or the main tournament outright. Just get in the tournament and this season is a success.

 

[pearl31]

Boise St.
UCLA (actually 4-5 of those middling pac12 teams)
Michigan
Clemson
Fla St
Texas Tech
Seton Hall


to name a few

 

[Full_Rebar]

I'm going to take a different approach and say root for A&M and ...UC...Uco...the team from the 6th Borough

 

[jncuse]

Based on the year-end projection date from RPIForecast I came up with the 12 following teams for the last 4 spots (Last Thursday)

Texas Tech
Texas
Arizona St
UCLA
Oregon St
Washington
Notre Dame
Syracuse (9-9 Version)
Seton Hall
St Bonaventure
Evansville
BYU

The bold were the last 4 teams in that I had.

From a bubble perspective:
1) I suspect the Pac-12 will be all over the bubble. Basically 11 of its 12 members could still reasonably build a resume. But some are going to knock others out. I think we need to wait until about the 12 game mark of the Pac-12 schedule to get a gauge as to who to cheer for.

2) You want to cheer against Valparaiso and Monmouth as those teams are bubble busters as of now if they do not win their conference tourney.

3) The Mountain West Conference is a strange one -- They did poorly OOC. A 14-4 San Diego St team has an RPI of 74. A 13-5 Boise St team has an RPI of 68. So I guess cheer against those two whenver you see them so that it may only become a 1 bid leauge.

 

[jncuse]

I'm going to take a different approach and say root for A&M and ...UC...Uco...the team from the 6th Borough

UConn doesn't have that much room for error. It plays 4 sub 100 teams on the road still -- those games don't benefit you, and lose just 1 and it is held against you.

It has Michigan and Texas as good guys on its resume, but nothing else yet. But nothing really bad either other than losing at Temple at home.

Basically there season comes down to the 4 games vs SMU and Cincy in my view. If they go 1-3 in those games they may be in trouble.

 

[pearl31]

UConn doesn't have that much room for error. It plays 4 sub 100 teams on the road still -- those games don't benefit you, and lose just 1 and it is held against you.

It has Michigan and Texas as good guys on its resume, but nothing else yet. But nothing really bad either other than losing at Temple at home.

Basically there season comes down to the 4 games vs SMU and Cincy in my view. If they go 1-3 in those games they may be in trouble.

hey jn, where do you have Michigan right now? They're going to be a bit of an odd case, too, with their best player being out and (presumably) coming back soon

 

[Full_Rebar]

UConn doesn't have that much room for error. It plays 4 sub 100 teams on the road still -- those games don't benefit you, and lose just 1 and it is held against you.

It has Michigan and Texas as good guys on its resume, but nothing else yet. But nothing really bad either other than losing at Temple at home.

Basically there season comes down to the 4 games vs SMU and Cincy in my view. If they go 1-3 in those games they may be in trouble.

I meant root for them to win their league. Would be nice to have 2 OOC wins against tourney teams.

 

[CuseHulk]

Ah. We r solidly in the field with that win.

1 BAD loss people (road ST. Johns) in a game with Hopkins which will be thrown out.

Wins vs TEXAS A & M, vs UCONN, @ Duke

All we have to do is beat the teams we r clearly better than.

BTW, I told u so all of you who gave up on this team after Clemson.

 

[jncuse]

hey jn, where do you have Michigan right now? They're going to be a bit of an odd case, too, with their best player being out and (presumably) coming back soon

I think they are fine as long as they do nothing stupid really. It's not a bad resume today (assuming you have no vision of a top 6 seed)

1. The 5 losses are forgivable for a bubble team -- Xavier, At SMU, At Iowa, At Purdue, Uconn,
2. They have a few positives in Maryland and Texas. 3 home games left against Purdue, Iowa, Michigan St. .. only one really tough road game against Maryland.

Everything is leaning positively for them in terms of getting in.

 

[pearl31]

Everything is leaning positively for them in terms of getting in.

I'd say their resume is adequate *now* - but if they drop a clunker or two while not picking up any more upsets, it won't be so adequate when it matters

 

[Cusefan0307]

One thing to keep in mind is there is one more at large birth this year due to SMU being banned and they are definitely one of the best teams in the country this year.

Hopefully we win enough games and the bubble doesn't matter.

 

[NineOneSeven]

Ah. We r solidly in the field with that win.

1 BAD loss people (road ST. Johns) in a game with Hopkins which will be thrown out.

Wins vs TEXAS A & M, vs UCONN, @ Duke

All we have to do is beat the teams we r clearly better than.

BTW, I told u so all of you who gave up on this team after Clemson.

LOL

 

[Alsacs]

We don't really need UConn to win games they are close to being a fellow bubble team. If they lose a couple more games they could be out. Our win could be a tiebreaker.

We really need Texas A&M to win the SEC.

 

[jncuse]

I'd say their resume is adequate *now* - but if they drop a clunker or two while not picking up any more upsets, it won't be so adequate when it matters

That's fair -- what could trip them up is road games at Nebraska. Wisconsin, Ohio St. A just in or bubble team can easily go 1-2, or slight chance of even 0-3 in that level of road games. That is what was impressive about our Wake win.

 

[obliterata]

There are quite a few "potential" bubble teams at this point, just looking at the ACC I think there are 5 that "might" be on the bubble in the future:

Syracuse
Duke
Notre Dame
Florida State
Clemson

Duke's next 3 are on the road, then they have to play UNC and Louisville twice which could mean 3 or 4 Ls. Their big OOC wins are Gtown and Indiana. 9-9 in conference should be good enough to get them in the tourney but they have a lot of tough games ahead, it would behoove them to beat NC St Saturday.

SU, ND, and FSU are kind of similar - they have good OOC wins and bad OOC losses. Finish 9-9 and who knows.

Clemson's riding high at 5-1 and in second place right now but they did virtually nothing OOC, their "big" OOC win is Rutgers - that's it. 4 of the next 5 are on the road and will be tough games, they better not finish 9-9 in conference and I don't know if 10-8 will even get them in.

I don't have VaTech on the bubble, I think they'll be on the outside looking in even though they're 4-1 and tied for third right now. They have no big OOC win, 9-9 won't be good enough.

Them, Gtech, WF, BC, and NC ST won't be dancing --- UNC, Lville, Virginia, Miami, and Pittsburgh will barring a total collapse.

 

[jncuse]

http://www.bracketmatrix.com/

This is always a source as well. A consensus of all brackets. Syracuse is not in because they roll them for a week and all of the older ones (pre Wake and Duke) had us out. A few newer ones have us in as of now.

Last 8 In:
Valparaiso (Auto - but in an at large seed line, i.e bubble buster)
St. Joes
Seton Hall
Uconn
Monmouth (see Valpo comment)
UCLA
Florida St
VCU

Last 8 Out:
Boise St
Washington
Cincy
Alabama
Clemson
Stanford
Evansville
LSU

The last 8 out are not strong.

 

[Alsacs]

http://www.bracketmatrix.com/

This is always a source as well. A consensus of all brackets. Syracuse is not in because they roll them for a week and all of the older ones (pre Wake and Duke) had us out. A few newer ones have us in as of now.

Last 8 In:
Valparaiso (Auto - but in an at large seed line, i.e bubble buster)
St. Joes
Seton Hall
Uconn
Monmouth (see Valpo comment)
UCLA
Florida St
VCU

Last 8 Out:
Boise St
Washington
Cincy
Alabama
Clemson
Stanford
Evansville
LSU

The last 8 out are not strong.

We are definitely on par with those last 8 teams. I mean the road/neutral wins we have are huge.

 

[pearl31]

We are definitely on par with those last 8 teams. I mean the road/neutral wins we have are huge.

we're significantly ahead of most of those teams listed (both groups) - as jn mentioned, that is from pre Wake... we're in pretty decent position right now, just gotta keep playing well

 

[SoBeCuse]

Ah. We r solidly in the field with that win.

1 BAD loss people (road ST. Johns) in a game with Hopkins which will be thrown out.

Wins vs TEXAS A & M, vs UCONN, @ Duke

All we have to do is beat the teams we r clearly better than.

BTW, I told u so all of you who gave up on this team after Clemson.

Hulk...This prompted my first 'Ignore' ever on the site. Lol. Don't worry bro it's not you; it's me. It's for my health.

 

[pearl31]

Hulk...This prompted my first 'Ignore' ever on the site. Lol. Don't worry bro it's not you; it's me. It's for my health.

 

[Marsh01]

Just need to keep winning games and cant have any more "bad" losses. (like a St Johns or an ACC bottom feeder) and the bid will take care of itself.

Having the 9 games without JB looked at differently will certainly help us if we are close come March. Also winning a game or two in the ACC Tourney will go a long way this season as the bubble is weak as ever.

 

[MSOrange]

Hulk...This prompted my first 'Ignore' ever on the site. Lol. Don't worry bro it's not you; it's me. It's for my health.

I did the same thing for awhile but then undid it. I was missing too much unintentional comedy.

 

[SoBeCuse]

I did the same thing for awhile but then undid it. I was missing too much unintentional comedy.

I suspect I will do the same. '"Unintentional comedy." Indeed. Nice!

 

[jncuse]

Just need to keep winning games and cant have any more "bad" losses. (like a St Johns or an ACC bottom feeder) and the bid will take care of itself.

Having the 9 games without JB looked at differently will certainly help us if we are close come March. Also winning a game or two in the ACC Tourney will go a long way this season as the bubble is weak as ever.

This is correct. There are so many moving parts around us that we just need to do our own thing and things will work themselves out. It's still early, so one team on the bubble in a conference will be replaced by another team in that same conference/

We do what we can -- that is 9-9 to get in that 50/50 area, and 10-8 to get safely in. With at least 1 ACC win of course. because if we lose that first game it is likely a bad loss or a loss to a non tourney team,

As for JB, I am cautious in placing much faith in this. But if we get to 9-9 it could be the tie-breaker.


Personally, as an NCAA fan I have always like tracking the bubble throughout the year, but as it is moving up and down its hard from a Syracuse fan perspective to pinpoint exact teams to worry about right now.

 

[NYCSUGrad]

I did the same thing for awhile but then undid it. I was missing too much unintentional comedy.

Cuse Hulk is kind of the anti-Igor, or maybe Bizarro Igor. It's his excessive love for Syracuse that's annoying.