Tracking the Bubble

[CorduroyG]

i dont care what the #s say, beating duke at cameron is a better win than maryland at home.

 

[CusefanATL]

i dont care what the #s say, beating duke at cameron is a better win than maryland at home.

maybe historically. but not this year. the eye test proves that, the numbers prove that, everything proves that.

Duke is a top 20ish team. Maryland is 1 of the 3 best teams.

 

[Alsacs]

Maryland looks good but they don't have many good wins this year. That is why they would be a high 3 seed or low 2 seed on the S-Curve. They beat Georgetown, Rhode Island, UConn, @Wisconsin, Purdue, and Iowa.

Not a good resume for 1 seed. Maryland is living on potential right now. Iowa is a great win though.

Our win at Duke because it was on the road is more helpful than beating Maryland at home right now.

 

[CorduroyG]

maybe historically. but not this year. the eye test proves that, the numbers prove that, everything proves that.

Duke is a top 20ish team. Maryland is 1 of the 3 best teams.

maryland may be a better team than duke, but cameron is 1 of the toughest places to win in the country no matter what kinda team duke is. and its not like they suck this year. beating duke at cameron is more impressive than beating maryland at home, to me it aint even close.

 

[pearl31]

maybe historically. but not this year. the eye test proves that, the numbers prove that, everything proves that.

Duke is a top 20ish team. Maryland is 1 of the 3 best teams.

Bunk. A win at Cameron trumps beating Maryland at home. A neutral-site win over A&M trumps beating Maryland at home. And that Maryland win is ostensibly what Mich are hanging their collective hat on. Lunardi is WAY off with Mich, ucon and LSU, just to name a few

 

[jncuse]

A few points that I will just consolidate as replies to some of the above.:

1) If you want to say Nova is not a legit #1 that is fine. They are 2-3 against elite opponents this year, and are tracking to be 2-4 if they lose at Xavier.

2) What Nova is really good at is this: They do well at not losing who they are not supposed to in a year when no team in America other thenVillanova has been able to do that ... and it's not because they are facing WCC Level teams (that is ridiculous) Here is a list of 17 games of non elite teams the other 9 teams in the top 10 have losses to (an average of 2 per team( -- Oklahoma St, Kansas St, Northern Iowa, Michigan, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, Florida St, George Washington, Dayton, Texas (2), Georgetown, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Florida. Notre Dame (x2). Nobody elite -- some legit tourney teams, some bubble teams, some NIT or CBI level teams.

As a group - Butler, Seton Hall, Georgetown, Creighton, Marquette are fairly in line with the sample above. Villanova has managed to beat them all and Nebraska, Akron, St Joes, Stanford, Georgia Tech.

Any of them elite? Nope. But everybody in the top 10 has seemed to drop a couple of these types of games. Villanova hasn't. And that is why they are #1 in AP. (I think Fact #1 will hurt them more on Selection Sunday)

3) . Just remember it is a 10 team league and the ACC is a 15 team league. Villanova, Xavier or Providence has to play 12 of its 18 regular season games against KP top 58 teams which would be on par with most top conferences I think. And if you believe Providence is a legit top 15 school (I am skeptical), then they play 22% of their games against AP top 20 schools, which isn't really that much out of line with many other power conference schools outside of the Big 12.

4) The Big East is not the like the WCC or close to it. That is totally ridiculous.

26-17 against the P5 teams this year.
List of top victories as noted in an earlier post

The WCC never came close to that -- taking out Gonzaga and St Mary's (and now BYU in the past 2 years), the other league teams may have won 10% of its games against P5 teams.

5) I think people bad mouth the Big East because they remember how crappy Providence and Seton Hall were at the end. And there is not enough respect for Xavier and Butler - these are top 25 programs the last 10 years, IMO. There is an easy way to check if these teams are better because of the conference or not. Look at the KP rankings of schools as at December 31 before confernece play. These schools have up and down periods. They are up right now.


6) Do I think Nova is #1. No, but I see why it is happening (#2 above)

Do I think Nova is a clear #1 seed. No because of #1 above.

That being said neither of those points have anything really to do with the Big East being down..

 

[jncuse]

This might not be the right place for this, but I was reading Bubble watch on ESPN, and Eamon Brennan was talking about Michigan, who has 3 top 100 (100!) wins this year, and I had to check Lunardi's update.

He has Michigan as a 9 seed. He has us as one of the last 4 in, playing in Dayton.

Michigan has an RPI of 56. We're 44. They have two top 25 wins; good wins. Home Maryland and Texas on a neutral site. We have 5 top 50 wins, A&M and UConn on a neutral site, Duke on the road, plus Notre Dame and St. Bonaventure at home. Maybe you can say the Maryland win was the best win of those, since A&M is struggling, but considering the location of the games, i'm not sure.

Michigan has 1 win from 51-100, @ NC State, who is 94. We have 2 more wins from 51-90, Ga Tech at home and @Wake, who is 90.

Our killer is clearly the loss to St. Johns, who is below 200 in the RPI; I have no idea how that game happened. But I really don't see how Michigan can be seeded higher than us right now. And that's without mentioning JB missing 9 games at all.

Michigan does not have enough quality wins to blow the game vs Indiana. That was a killer for them. You can certainly see them losing alot of momentum over the past week on the matrix. Most recent brackets have them 10 or 11. And they are now out on 4 people's brackets

 

[jncuse]

i dont care what the #s say, beating duke at cameron is a better win than maryland at home.

As a numbers guy I support this. Home vs Road is a 7 point difference. And purely from a fan perspective I agree as well.

Not sure what the committee will think. I think they tend not to discount home victories much, which really gives an edge to power conference teams.

 

[Alsacs]

Big East is like an MLB starting rotation made up of #2 and #3 pitchers. They have no ace. Nova/Georgetown can have ace seasons consistently because of their history but none of them are there now. Xavier is having an ace season but they are a solid #2 program.
The only dreg in the Big East is DePaul the rest are all solid 2-3s.

The other conferences have legitimate Big Dogs.

WCC is a 3 program conference Gonzaga/St. Mary's/BYU none of them have the cache of the top BE teams.

 

[CusefanATL]

Bunk. A win at Cameron trumps beating Maryland at home. A neutral-site win over A&M trumps beating Maryland at home. And that Maryland win is ostensibly what Mich are hanging their collective hat on. Lunardi is WAY off with Mich, ucon and LSU, just to name a few

I said nothing about lundardi being right. I only talked about Maryland being a much better team than Duke.

 

[Alsacs]

The committee treats road and neutral court wins like gold. Home wins help but they don't get the same level of importance.

Any road win is worth 1.25 wins. Any road win over an NCAA tournament team is worth like 1.5 wins.

Our road win at Duke will be worth more than if we beat Maryland at home. Michigan has a thin resume but Lunardi is too lazy to do the work right now he will wait till March then peek at Palm.

 

[jncuse]

Big East is like an MLB starting rotation made up of #2 and #3 pitchers. They have no ace. Nova/Georgetown can have ace seasons consistently because of their history but none of them are there now. Xavier is having an ace season but they are a solid #2 program.
The only dreg in the Big East is DePaul the rest are all solid 2-3s.

The other conferences have legitimate Big Dogs.

WCC is a 3 program conference Gonzaga/St. Mary's/BYU none of them have the cache of the top BE teams.

That is a pretty good analogy.

 

[jncuse]

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 8

9:00 (Last 4 Out) Clemson vs. Notre Dame (51%) (L 89-83)

.

That was a really tough loss for Clemson last night. They have to do a lot of good to offset the sins of early season.

It was a positive for us.

 

[pearl31]

That was a really tough loss for Clemson last night. They have to do a lot of good to offset the sins of early season.

It was a positive for us.

Let's take a scenario where Clemson manages to finish 10-8 in the ACC - do you see them in or out at that point?

 

[Knicks411]

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/nitty

Was looking at this; it's easier to look at a group of teams this way. We have 5 top 50 wins. By seed line, here are the average # of top 50 wins

1 seeds: 5.25
2 seeds: 5.75
3 seeds: 6
4 seeds: 5.25
5 seeds: 2.75 (Arizona, for instance, is 1-4 against the top 50; a home win against Oregon State
6 seeds: 2
7 seeds: 2.25
8 seeds: .75
9 seeds: 3.25
10 seeds: 2
We're on the 11 line, so I'll stop here. Top 50 wins are just one metric, and not all are created equal, but we have the top 50 wins of a 4 or 5 seed. I'm not saying we should be a 4 or 5 seed, just stating a fact. We have more top 50 wins than all 4 of the 8 seeds combined.
The teams on the 6 line have 3 top 50 wins away from home combined. We have 3 top 50 wins away from home. The 7 seeds have combined for 4 top 50 wins away from home. we have 3.

Just saying.

 

[jncuse]

I noticed that LSU has finally jumped in as the last team in on the matrix. (44 of 80). Certainly still a split decsion.

I have been against them being in for the last few weeks, but as they keep winning (and the loss to Oklahoma may help them) others losel. And it is hard to deny 8-2 in the SEC. They are a team on the rise.

Is it still hype, or have they now earned their way in?

If you look at the last 4 out, who (if anyone) do you put in front of LSU as of now.
Oregon St
Wisconsin
Kansas St
Clemson

All teams, like LSU, with many warts ...

 

[pearl31]

I noticed that LSU has finally jumped in as the last team in on the matrix. (44 of 80). Certainly still a split decsion.

I have been against them being in for the last few weeks, but as they keep winning (and the loss to Oklahoma may help them) others losel. And it is hard to deny 8-2 in the SEC. They are a team on the rise.

Is it still hype, or have they now earned their way in?

If you look at the last 4 out, who (if anyone) do you put in front of LSU as of now.
Oregon St
Wisconsin
Kansas St
Clemson

All teams, like LSU, with many warts ...

I'm fine with LSU being regarded as one of the last teams in right now but for Lunardi to have them as a 9 seed or whatever he does is just dumb

 

[Dave85]

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/nitty

Was looking at this; it's easier to look at a group of teams this way. We have 5 top 50 wins. By seed line, here are the average # of top 50 wins

1 seeds: 5.25
2 seeds: 5.75
3 seeds: 6
4 seeds: 5.25
5 seeds: 2.75 (Arizona, for instance, is 1-4 against the top 50; a home win against Oregon State
6 seeds: 2
7 seeds: 2.25
8 seeds: .75
9 seeds: 3.25
10 seeds: 2
We're on the 11 line, so I'll stop here. Top 50 wins are just one metric, and not all are created equal, but we have the top 50 wins of a 4 or 5 seed. I'm not saying we should be a 4 or 5 seed, just stating a fact. We have more top 50 wins than all 4 of the 8 seeds combined.
The teams on the 6 line have 3 top 50 wins away from home combined. We have 3 top 50 wins away from home. The 7 seeds have combined for 4 top 50 wins away from home. we have 3.

Just saying.

I like the amount of thought you put into this post!

 

[jncuse]

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/nitty

Was looking at this; it's easier to look at a group of teams this way. We have 5 top 50 wins. By seed line, here are the average # of top 50 wins

1 seeds: 5.25
2 seeds: 5.75
3 seeds: 6
4 seeds: 5.25
5 seeds: 2.75 (Arizona, for instance, is 1-4 against the top 50; a home win against Oregon State
6 seeds: 2
7 seeds: 2.25
8 seeds: .75
9 seeds: 3.25
10 seeds: 2
We're on the 11 line, so I'll stop here. Top 50 wins are just one metric, and not all are created equal, but we have the top 50 wins of a 4 or 5 seed. I'm not saying we should be a 4 or 5 seed, just stating a fact. We have more top 50 wins than all 4 of the 8 seeds combined.
The teams on the 6 line have 3 top 50 wins away from home combined. We have 3 top 50 wins away from home. The 7 seeds have combined for 4 top 50 wins away from home. we have 3.

Just saying.

Outstanding post..

 

[MSOrange]

I noticed that LSU has finally jumped in as the last team in on the matrix. (44 of 80). Certainly still a split decsion.

I have been against them being in for the last few weeks, but as they keep winning (and the loss to Oklahoma may help them) others losel. And it is hard to deny 8-2 in the SEC. They are a team on the rise.

Is it still hype, or have they now earned their way in?

If you look at the last 4 out, who (if anyone) do you put in front of LSU as of now.
Oregon St
Wisconsin
Kansas St
Clemson

All teams, like LSU, with many warts ...

Keith Hornsby missed some games at the beginning of the season due to injury for LSU and Craig Victor became eligible at the semester break after transferring from Arizona. Those are their 2nd and 3rd leading scorers. They were both out during their 3 game losing streak early in the year. That might be a factor in the projections as well.

 

[KaiserUEO]

Tribute to the Thin White Duke...

Syracuse is doing that on March 6th...

http://www.nunesmagician.com/2016/2...red-at-45th-syracuse-mens-basketball-hardwood

 

[jncuse]

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9

7:00
(#11) Cincinnati at UCF (82%) W 69-51
(#12) Monmouth at Marist (91%) W 87-61

No surprises tonight as expected.

 

[pearl31]

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9

7:00
(#11) Cincinnati at UCF (82%) W 69-51
(#12) Monmouth at Marist (91%) W 87-61

No surprises tonight as expected.

hey jn, did you happen to see the question I posed above? (post #64 in this thread) - just curious about how you think the committee will handle Clemson if they finish above .500 in conference

 

[jncuse]

Seeds in Brackets per BracketMatrix, vs.=Home Game
Win Probability per RPI Forecast
Top 50 Win Opportunity in Bold

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10

6:30
(Last 4 Out) Butler at (#9) Seton Hall (49%)

7:00
(Last 4 In) LSU at South Carolina (33$)
(Last 4 Out) Wisconsin vs Nebraska (69%)
(Last 8 Out) St Bonaventure at Fordham (60%)
(#10) St. Joes at (Last 4 In) George Washington (40%)

8:00
(Last 4 Out) Kansas St vs Baylor (53%)

9:00
(Last 8 Out) Vanderbilt vs Missouri (95%)
(Last 8 Out) Texas Tech vs Iowa St (41%)
(#9) Michigan at Minnesota (82%)
(#11) Washington at Utah (29%)

11:00
(#12) San Diego St at Fresno St (59%)

The key games on Wednesday are bolded... Those are top 50 win opportunities and 2 games where bubble teams head to head.
Seton Hall, Texas Tech, Kansas St, and George Washington have to take advantage of top 50 win opportunities at home.

Butler has really faded quick with their poor Big East play.

Can Michigan at Minnesota be the big upset that sends down Michigan to the last in / last out?

 

[jncuse]

hey jn, did you happen to see the question I posed above? (post #64 in this thread) - just curious about how you think the committee will handle Clemson if they finish above .500 in conference

I'm not sure if the RPIforecast is 100% accurate, but if they end up at 10-8 (17-13 overall) there RPI would be 118. Let's even say it will be closer to 100. No matter how many positives, that is too high.

The reason the RPI shoots up is because they have a poor ACC schedule coming up. BC twice, Georgia Tech twice, and NC St, are five of the last 6 games. So I think they can certainly get to 11-7, and possibly 12-6 based on that schedule. At 12-6 the RPI would probably still be in the 80s --- I believe Arizona St made if from there once, or just missed. RPI is not the end all of numbers, but usually when its past the sixties you have no shot.

In my view they have to go 12-6, and then they may be OK. It seems crazy that they are not in at 12-6 and we would be in at 9-9... but they were more than 3 games behind us resume wise before the ACC season started.

They state that conference record is totally ignored when they do body of work -- they can say its ignored, but I am sure they notice it and it could bias them.