Pac12 gotta be the easiest path in the Major conferences. | Syracusefan.com

Pac12 gotta be the easiest path in the Major conferences.

jordoo

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Wow what an easy path to a 1 seed for AZ. Just watched Oregon loose again. Colorado lost their best player for the season and they already played and beat UCLA the one time they will see them to the conference tourney. Cal is shaping up and looking pretty good but against who? AZ will probably fall asleep and lose one game maybe but I doubt they lose two. They are very good, have all the pieces and play good defense.

We are sitting in great shape and I think we get the one seed in the east but man AZ is not going to be overtaken for the overall one seed. I'm glad that they are out west.
 
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All this talk that the Pac was back to being a legit power conference was wayyyy premature. They are a 3 bid conference (4 max) and the two outside of AZ will probably be first weekend exits.
 
All this talk that the Pac was back to being a legit power conference was wayyyy premature. They are a 3 bid conference (4 max) and the two outside of AZ will probably be first weekend exits.

No way they are getting 3 or 4. Its a 5 or 6 bid conference.

1) The bubble is weak as usual in the 68 team format,
a) There appears to be a lack of any potential bubble busters this year.
b) The "strongest" conference, the Big Ten is top heavy and will likely only get 6.
c) The old ACC is only good for 4 seeds.
d) The teams in the old Big East would not get more than 7 seeds.
e) The MWC which has been a 4 team conference out west for a few years, is now looking at 2 (3 if lucky). Its down to the benefit of the Pac-12

Everything is helping a conference like the PAC-12 who has good conference RPI heading into January.

2) The biggest determinant of the # of seeds a conference gets is not what happens during the conference, but what happens before the conference. Your pre-conference RPI helps out everybody, and essentially generates a pool of top 50 wins.

The Pac-12 may be losing pod level teams, but those teams by losing are giving top 50 wins to somebody else.

Right now off the rpiforecast resume projectionsI actually have 7 in, but I expect it to settle at 6 or 5 if bottom 4 of conference play havoc.

3) I agree zonal has had things open up for them. Sort of like us in Acc this year.

But that doesn't mean it's a 3 or 4 bid league.
 
All this talk that the Pac was back to being a legit power conference was wayyyy premature. They are a 3 bid conference (4 max) and the two outside of AZ will probably be first weekend exits.

There are 32 auto bids and 36 at-large bids. Pac-12 did good out of conference.

Go check out the other conferences and you will see those at-large bids will be spread around with the Pac getting 4-5 of the at-larges and of course the auto-bid.

Even the weak SEC looks like they will finish with at least 4 bids.

Cheers,
Neil
 
Pac 12 will get 5 teams in. Mark it down.

Arizona
UCLA
Cal
Colorado
Utah
 
Arizona is going undefeated in the regular season unless Cal can pick them off.
 
Colorado was a tourney team before Dinwiddy, but I don't know if they will still make it.

Arizona, UCLA, Cal are pretty much locks. Oregon and Colorado look like should be in the tournament teams, and Stanford is the bubble team that could make 6.
 
Have you seen Colorado lately? Oregon? If the bottom feeders beat up on the mid of the pack teams (ex Utah losing to WSU) you will see what has become the new normal from the Pac in the tourney, 3 or 4 teams without a lot of strength.
 
Pac 12 will get 5 teams in. Mark it down.

Arizona
UCLA
Cal
Colorado
Utah

I agree with the top 4.

I don't think Utah will make it, they have an OOC SOS of 344 which is horrible - of the 11 non conference wins, 2 are non D1 teams, 5 were teams with a projected RPI over 280, and 2 more are teams with a projected RPI over 250. Its two other (best) wins are projected RPI #38 BYU and #165 Fresno St. Its the double hammer.
- They accomplished nothing OOC, so if they go say 11-7 in the PAC, they still end up on the bubble.
- Once on the bubble the bubble teams with really poor OOC, are usually the first teams dismissed. You can get away with a modest or even poor schedule, but teams with a really poor schedule get dismissed.

Oregon is interesting because their OOC would support an at-large for 9-9. Will they be able to get back to that after a 1-4 start in conference. Just a disastrous start.

The bubble is so weak I could see Stanford getting in at 10-8 in conference with a road win at UConn.
 
I agree with the top 4.

I don't think Utah will make it, they have an OOC SOS of 344 which is horrible - of the 11 non conference wins, 2 are non D1 teams, 5 were teams with a projected RPI over 280, and 2 more are teams with a projected RPI over 250. Its two other (best) wins are projected RPI #38 BYU and #165 Fresno St. Its the double hammer.
- They accomplished nothing OOC, so if they go say 11-7 in the PAC, they still end up on the bubble.
- Once on the bubble the bubble teams with really poor OOC, are usually the first teams dismissed. You can get away with a modest or even poor schedule, but teams with a really poor schedule get dismissed.

Oregon is interesting because their OOC would support an at-large for 9-9. Will they be able to get back to that after a 1-4 start in conference. Just a disastrous start.

The bubble is so weak I could see Stanford getting in at 10-8 in conference with a road win at UConn.

True but they just beat UCLA and still have 2 games each with Colorado and Arizona so there are plenty of chances. I have eatched them a few times and there is talent on this team so dont be surprised to see them in the tournament.
 
True but they just beat UCLA and still have 2 games each with Colorado and Arizona so there are plenty of chances. I have eatched them a few times and there is talent on this team so dont be surprised to see them in the tournament.

I dont disagree with your assessment that they are a quality team (top 5 in Pac). They have a KP ranking of 50 as well, so it suggests they are around a tourney level team talent wise. But the resume numbers are just squarely against them already.. they have to excel in the Pac-12 while other teams can cruise to a 9-9 or 10-8 record.
 
I agree with the top 4.

I don't think Utah will make it, they have an OOC SOS of 344 which is horrible - of the 11 non conference wins, 2 are non D1 teams, 5 were teams with a projected RPI over 280, and 2 more are teams with a projected RPI over 250. Its two other (best) wins are projected RPI #38 BYU and #165 Fresno St. Its the double hammer.
- They accomplished nothing OOC, so if they go say 11-7 in the PAC, they still end up on the bubble.
- Once on the bubble the bubble teams with really poor OOC, are usually the first teams dismissed. You can get away with a modest or even poor schedule, but teams with a really poor schedule get dismissed.

Oregon is interesting because their OOC would support an at-large for 9-9. Will they be able to get back to that after a 1-4 start in conference. Just a disastrous start.

The bubble is so weak I could see Stanford getting in at 10-8 in conference with a road win at UConn.
Utah has as good a shot as teams like Stanford, UCLA, Oregon and probably Colorado (if they continue to struggle) at this point. Actually, Oregon stinks, they won't be making the tourney. Utah's OT loss to them could hurt them a great deal in the end, though.

The Utes have some high end players which is why they'll have a shot. Jordan Loveridge and Delon Wright are studs, and they have a solid PG in Brandon Taylor. Not sure they'll have enough offensive from the rest of the team, but with a wide open Pac12 behind UA/Cal, who knows...
 
I'd be surprised if Arizona loses at all in the regular season.
I actually made a post like a week or two ago saying the same thing. Oregon has imploded, and Colorado has lost 2 of their last 3 games, and their star player for the season, as well as another key player on their team. The big thing is though, they play home and away against each team in the conference I believe. Can you imagine playing on Oregon's court? That must suck. I would feel like I'm tripping balls seeing all those trees everywhere.

Although I will say, the Pac 12 has been noticeably better these past couple seasons than they have been in the past decade or so.
 
Utah has as good a shot as teams like Stanford, UCLA, Oregon and probably Colorado (if they continue to struggle) at this point. Actually, Oregon stinks, they won't be making the tourney. Utah's OT loss to them could hurt them a great deal in the end, though.

The Utes have some high end players which is why they'll have a shot. Jordan Loveridge and Delon Wright are studs, and they have a solid PG in Brandon Taylor. Not sure they'll have enough offensive from the rest of the team, but with a wide open Pac12 behind UA/Cal, who knows...

Jason, I respect your opinion (like Marsh) that UCLA has tourney level talent. Don't disagree with it at all, or that they could beat Oregon and Stanford in the Pac012. But the issue is the massive hole they have put themselves in because of the schedule.

To be honest, when I did my projected field based on rpiforecast.com this weekend I didn't even consider Utah because of their projected RPI of 93.

Oregon and Stanford don't need to be as good in the Pac-12. I will show the example below.

http://www.rpiforecast.com/confs/P12.html

Oregon 9-9 in Pac-12, #36 RPI, SOS 26, 3-6 top 50, 8-8 top 100, OOC wins against Georgetown (n), Illinois (n), at Ole Miss, BYU (OOC SOS of 59). No great wins, but its a solid OOC resume against a good schedule with no losses

Utah is projected at 8-10 in Pac-12, but has a projected RPI of only 93. It is based on OOC SOS of 344. They had one nice win against BYU and all other wins were garbage - 9 out of 10 were sub 250 teams.

Let's say Utah goes 11-7 in the Pac-12, instead of 8-10. Instead of being 17-11 with a SOS of 100, they would be 20-8 with an SOS of 100 and an RPI in the mid 50's. (Note - I calculated that based on looking at teams with a similar projected record to 20-8 and SOS around 100). There record would probably be around 4-5 vs top 50, and 7-6 vs top 100. That's bubble material.

In the scenario above Oregon gets off the bubble because there numbers are adequate and they had a good OOC. But Utah is not so lucky (at a fall two games better than Oregon) - there numbers vs top 100 are similar, but they stay on the bubble because committee hates borderline teams with a really bad OOC.
So basically 9-9 Oregon is in, 10-8 Utah is clearly out, 11-7 Utah needs to keep its fingers crossed (and has the resume that typically gets burned). I think they need to go 12-6 to create so much good to just take them off the bubble discussion.

** Note those records are estimates, and based on a standard mix to the results. If it goes and beats Arizona twice and ends at 11-7 its a different story.
 
Although I will say, the Pac 12 has been noticeably better these past couple seasons than they have been in the past decade or so.

Its been a while. I think around 2005 or 2006 the Pac-10 had two #1 seeds (UCLA and Washington). You are correct things went really down and they are on an upturn.

I think it was 3 years ago, that not one Pac-10 team had an OOC top 50 win before January.
 

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