Jump to content

March Madness


Recommended Posts

What record does everyone think the Billikens need to feel comfortable that their name will be called on Selection Sunday? Just curious what everyone thinks the magic number of wins is. It seems like we are building a nice resume with home victories over New Mexico and Butler, but the Santa Clara and Rhode Island losses at home obviously hurts. What is the typical RPI break point as far as making or not making the tournament?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What record does everyone think the Billikens need to feel comfortable that their name will be called on Selection Sunday? Just curious what everyone thinks the magic number of wins is. It seems like we are building a nice resume with home victories over New Mexico and Butler, but the Santa Clara and Rhode Island losses at home obviously hurts. What is the typical RPI break point as far as making or not making the tournament?

Top 3 in the A-10 final standings, whatever record that is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What record does everyone think the Billikens need to feel comfortable that their name will be called on Selection Sunday? Just curious what everyone thinks the magic number of wins is. It seems like we are building a nice resume with home victories over New Mexico and Butler, but the Santa Clara and Rhode Island losses at home obviously hurts. What is the typical RPI break point as far as making or not making the tournament?

If we finish with a final record of at least 23-7 (12-4 in conference), I will be entirely comfortable on Sunday regardless of what we do in the A-10 tourney.

If we're at 22-8 and get bounced early from the A-10 tourney, I still think we'd probably be OK, but that Sunday might be a stressful one.

21-9 with an early departure from the A-10 tourney and I think it's NIT time. This could change with a strong run through the A-10 tourney.

All that said, if this team continues playing like it did this last week, we'll win the conference and the only conversation will be about seeding.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If we finish with a final record of at least 23-7 (12-4 in conference), I will be entirely comfortable on Sunday regardless of what we do in the A-10 tourney.

If we're at 22-8 and get bounced early from the A-10 tourney, I still think we'd probably be OK, but that Sunday might be a stressful one.

21-9 with an early departure from the A-10 tourney and I think it's NIT time. This could change with a strong run through the A-10 tourney.

All that said, if this team continues playing like it did this last week, we'll win the conference and the only conversation will be about seeding.

you are so smart, must be that additional year added, starting to remind me of your brother

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think if we go 11-5 in conference we are in. So 3 more losses would be the breaking point

As my brother said, I sure wouldn't want to go 11-5 and get bounced in the first round of the A-10 tourney, but if we go 11-5 and win at least 1 I think we'll have done enough. Maybe enough to be in the play-in game, but enough nevertheless.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As my brother said, I sure wouldn't want to go 11-5 and get bounced in the first round of the A-10 tourney, but if we go 11-5 and win at least 1 I think we'll have done enough. Maybe enough to be in the play-in game, but enough nevertheless.

Yeah you are probably right. So 3 more losses and a win in Brooklyn would the breaking point

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Feb 6

8:00 PM ET Feb 9 6:00 PM ET Feb 16 7:00 PM ET Feb 19 9:00 PM ET Feb 22 7:00 PM ET Feb 27 8:00 PM ET Mar 2 4:00 PM ET Mar 6 9:00 PM ET Mar 9 1:30 PM ET

Winning out at home and taking 3 out of 5 on the road puts us at 12 wins in conference. I think its doable.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If we continue to play like we did last week I can't see us losing more than 2 games down the stretch. And those would be roadies. But it's a must we beat VCU at home. I really don't think losing to RI will come into play if we end up 12-4(with Ws over Butler and VCU). 11-5 will put as 22-8 and may raise a red flag on the RI game. No one should feel real comfortable w/ 22-8 regular season unless we end up in the championship game in Brooklyn. Of course, a lot of this is out of our hands, ie how the rest of the bubble teams play out, surprise conf tourney champs, etc. But still 12-4 in the A-10 will make it difficult for the committee to scratch us.

A note on the Butler game: The NBC analyst said on Saturday that he thought Butler was the best in the A-10. However, he said it with the caveat that they're not that athletic and any team that can take them out of their game plan is capable of beating them. That's what we did to them at the Fetz. Hard to believe we're more athletic than the no 9 team in the country, but we were. Point being, we can give Butler a lot of trouble at home and we shouldn't be so ready to concede that game as an L. I'm more worried about VCU at the Fetz.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As my brother said, I sure wouldn't want to go 11-5 and get bounced in the first round of the A-10 tourney, but if we go 11-5 and win at least 1 I think we'll have done enough. Maybe enough to be in the play-in game, but enough nevertheless.

I think your brother put it more accurately. 11-5 and bounced means stress but unless a lot of unlikely things happen (it always depends on how many at-large spots are available), SLU will be in (of course that presumes 2 top 25 wins as well). 11-5 and a win means no real stress (I am sure plenty of the people will be hatching conspiracy theories here). The case for 10-6 and in is a lot better than emphasized here. In fact, while there would be even more stress, I would still put them in more times than not. Sure, 10-6 and bounced will likely be out but even one win and a quality loss would mean a greater than 50% shot. Also, there have been fewer at-large stealing upsets in other conferences lately (the smaller conferences have made their tournaments easier for their better teams with more byes and home games). This is the scenario that gets SLU possibly into a Tuesday in Dayton game.

The issue is a lot of people are focusing too much on the current RPI and not where the RPI will be with a decent quality schedule (after Fordham) and 5 away games. But even focused on current RPI most bracketologists are putting SLU in. The RPI will get better simply by going 5-4 and even better with each additional win.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Don't want to argue with Kwijibo about RPI and selection Sunday, but the committee tends to put their BCS Bias/Jay Bilas hats on and some is sure to bring up the two home losses to run of the mill SC and a crappy RI team. I think the only thing that would get us in at 10-6 would be we win at Butler and beat VCU at home. Of course if we do that, we should end up at 12-4 or even 13-3 and all will be well in Billiken Nation.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Don't want to argue with Kwijibo about RPI and selection Sunday, but the committee tends to put their BCS Bias/Jay Bilas hats on and some is sure to bring up the two home losses to run of the mill SC and a crappy RI team. I think the only thing that would get us in at 10-6 would be we win at Butler and beat VCU at home. Of course if we do that, we should end up at 12-4 or even 13-3 and all will be well in Billiken Nation

I think if Jay Bilas is arguing against SLU on selection day it works in our favor as he is usually wrong about everything. There is no evidence against bias against the A10 or even any top 10 conferences. And most of that bias is older (things change people and right now there is probably more of RPI bias than anything). There is evidence of bias against conferences that usually get 1 or 2 bids if a bubble team loses their conference tournament. So, yeah North Dakota State better win the Summit conference because they will get screwed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 total conference wins (regular season and tournament combined) and we're a mortal lock. 12 wins and we should feel comfortable but not a lock. Anything less than that, who knows. We have 2 wins better than any wins we had last year. New Mexico is projected to have a top 10 RPI and Butler should be in the top 25 also.

There is no "BCS bias." They left out "BCS" (this is a football term, no idea why it's ever used when talking about basketball) school in favor of VCU, UAB, Iona, and BYU. They left out the Pac 12 regular season champion last year, the first time a "BCS" regular season champ has ever been left out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 total conference wins (regular season and tournament combined) and we're a mortal lock. 12 wins and we should feel comfortable but not a lock. Anything less than that, who knows. We have 2 wins better than any wins we had last year. New Mexico is projected to have a top 10 RPI and Butler should be in the top 25 also.

There is no "BCS bias." They left out "BCS" (this is a football term, no idea why it's ever used when talking about basketball) school in favor of VCU, UAB, Iona, and BYU. They left out the Pac 12 regular season champion last year, the first time a "BCS" regular season champ has ever been left out.

-what term do you suggest? propose a good one that has universal understanding and is short and to the point and I'll use it

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think the point is Iona was selected last year and Seton Hall (and Drexel) were not. The year before VCU, USC, and UAB were selected (an obvious 3 letter acronym bias) while Va Tech, Colorado, and St. Mary's were not.

There has been a history of BCS bias in seeds (two years ago Utah St. was a 12 seed when they should have been at least 9). Last year there was nothing really bad in seeding though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lunardi now has us in as a 12 seed squaring off agasint Creighton with the winner liking facing the #4 seed Lobos in the next round. While there is no reason to think this will come to pass it's definitely an intriguing possibility.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lunardi now has us in as a 12 seed squaring off agasint Creighton with the winner liking facing the #4 seed Lobos in the next round. While there is no reason to think this will come to pass it's definitely an intriguing possibility.

On another board, one of my friends came up with the delightful suggestion that Creighton should change its mascot to a Barrel.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...