Path to NCAA Tourney

[NH]

1 minute ago, 3star_recruit said:

So did Houston.  But they were not out 33 days.  That's a response to local policy.

Many of the Houston guys got it before the season started and they certainly didn’t all come down with it at the same time. It’s very possible that the city’s restrictions delayed our ability to practice. But considering how bad our outbreak was and the fact that Ford/May never cited city policy as a reason for why we couldn’t practice, I just don’t know how you can say that for certain.

[3star_recruit]

2 hours ago, cheeseman said:

Wouldn’t have mattered anyway. (Seems our post Covid play was less stellar than we wanted so playing more games wouldn’t have changed anything.  

 

It's the weeks of inactivity sitting in a room that sapped our players' energy, not testing positive for Covid.  Ford got hit the worst. The symptoms some players experienced, per the Post Dispatch article, were minor.  If we had resumed practice 10 days after testing positive, as most teams were allowed to do, we wouldn't be wringing our hands over bracketologists right now.

[kshoe]

1 minute ago, 3star_recruit said:

So did Houston.  But they were not out 33 days.  That's a response to local policy.

As much as I would like to blame government officials, I don't think you can do that here. Part of it is the timing of when various players tested positive. It was 7 days after the previous game on Dec 23 that they first learned of the positive tests. So that's 7 days. They didn't all test positive the same day which extends the delay. That likely added another 5 days or so before all positives were known, now we are up to ~12 days. Then you have your usual 10 day isolation period for anyone that has tested positive, so now we are up to 22 days.

And finally, SLU added on a 7 day return to play program which didn't let people practice in full until they had undergone 7 days of slow return to play activities. Now we are at 29 days before Ford could practice in full and we played about 4 days later.

Nothing in there was related to city of St. Louis specific health regulations. 

[billiken_roy]

11 minutes ago, NH said:

Many of the Houston guys got it before the season started and they certainly didn’t all come down with it at the same time. It’s very possible that the city’s restrictions delayed our ability to practice. But considering how bad our outbreak was and the fact that Ford/May never cited city policy as a reason for why we couldn’t practice, I just don’t know how you can say that for certain.

you have to admit it isnt typical for may or ford to point fingers let alone even publically speak specifics about much of anything.  

[Bay Area Billiken]

50 minutes ago, billikenbill said:

And meanwhile, Colgate, that's right, frickin' Colgate, is 8th in the NET. An explanation of how 5 wins over Boston University, 4 wins over Holy Cross, and 3 wins over Army, along with a loss to Army merits a ranking of 8th in the NET.

Colgate’s NET is a statistical anomaly. No one believes Colgate is the #8 team in the nation. Colgate’s conference, the Patriot League, is and will be a one bid conference with the automatic bid being its only bid. 

What are not statistical anomalies are (1) playing no one in a non-conference schedule composed of assorted cupcakes and cream puffs (Drake), and (2) finishing below .500 in conference games (Maryland and Michigan State). 

[JMM28]

1 hour ago, NH said:

How do we know they were “held hostage” by the City of St Louis? It’s not like we had one positive and then had to shut down the whole program. Basically everybody including our coach actually contracted the virus during that time.

The city just shoved it in the Valley's ass on an over the top covid policy. 

I'm sure everyone else is wrong and the City of St Louis is right. Because the city of St Louis is so innovative and ahead of the curve on everything.

[Bay Area Billiken]

34 Maryland and 67 Michigan State both finished below .500 (9-11) in Big Ten. MD is 14-12, Mich. State 15-11. Why do they get in ahead of SLU?

[Bay Area Billiken]

19 minutes ago, JMM28 said:

The city just shoved it in the Valley's ass on an over the top covid policy. 

I'm sure everyone else is wrong and the City of St Louis is right. Because the city of St Louis is so innovative and ahead of the curve on everything.

In its regulation of the the MVC Tourney, City of STL, likely unwittingly, along with the Valley response, helped Drake in the process, allowed Drake at minimum to avoid playing a NET killer vs. 190 UNI. Plus, Drake could have lost that game, unlikely but possible. 

[NH]

23 minutes ago, JMM28 said:

The city just shoved it in the Valley's ass on an over the top covid policy. 

I'm sure everyone else is wrong and the City of St Louis is right. Because the city of St Louis is so innovative and ahead of the curve on everything.

My point has nothing to do with the valley. I don't know any of the specifics of that situation. Literally nobody is saying that the city is ahead of the curve on anything. I just don't think we have known reason to blame our extended pause on local regulations.  

[JMM28]

7 minutes ago, NH said:

My point has nothing to do with the valley. I don't know any of the specifics of that situation. Literally nobody is saying that the city is ahead of the curve on anything. I just don't think we have known reason to blame our extended pause on local regulations.  

The city has instituted much more strict controls on any sort of athletic events including contact tracing that gives no credit for mask wearing or previous covid positivity. That manifested with the SLU program along with the MVC this weekend. 

[NH]

5 minutes ago, JMM28 said:

The city has instituted much more strict controls on any sort of athletic events including contact tracing that gives no credit for mask wearing or previous covid positivity. That manifested with the SLU program along with the MVC this weekend. 

How did it manifest with the SLU program? You cannot answer that unless you have insider information that isn't privy to the public. Just because you disagree with the City's policies doesn't mean they are responsible in this instance. We were shut down for so long because, over the course of two weeks we had 10-15 personnel test positive for COVID. We could not return to practice because our coach was sick in his basement. There are no instances of games that we would have wanted to play but couldn't because of St. Louis' regulations. 

[billiken_roy]

28 minutes ago, Bay Area Billiken said:

34 Maryland and 67 Michigan State both finished below .500 (9-11) in Big Ten. MD is 14-12, Mich. State 15-11. Why do they get in ahead of SLU?

because the tourney remains corruptly in favor of the p5 conferences.   i am telling you all, this will never change.   we have a better chance of getting the tournament expanded to like 128 teams or best everyone in than ever having a system that allows the committee to let the vast majority of the p5 teams in.  

[kshoe]

1 minute ago, NH said:

How did it manifest with the SLU program? You cannot answer that unless you have insider information that isn't privy to the public. Just because you disagree with the City's policies doesn't mean they are responsible in this instance. We were shut down for so long because, over the course of two weeks we had 10-15 personnel test positive for COVID. We could not return to practice because our coach was sick in his basement. There are no instances of games that we would have wanted to play but couldn't because of St. Louis' regulations. 

Agreed, seems like Kshoe did a good job of explaining the timeline about an hour ago in this thread 

The real problem wasn't the city of St. Louis but rather SLU's own "Return to Play" policy which tacked on another 7 games to the delay. As others pointed out, we sucked when we came back so not sure returning earlier would have been good anyway.

[brianstl]

30 minutes ago, Bay Area Billiken said:

34 Maryland and 67 Michigan State both finished below .500 (9-11) in Big Ten. MD is 14-12, Mich. State 15-11. Why do they get in ahead of SLU?

Maryland has 4 Q1 wins, has lost no Q3 or Q4 games and has won 4 games on the road.  Michigan St. has 5 Q1 wins, no Q3 or Q4 losses and has won 3 games on the road.  They both have better resumes than SLU.

[Bay Area Billiken]

38 minutes ago, billiken_roy said:

because the tourney remains corruptly in favor of the p5 conferences.   i am telling you all, this will never change.   we have a better chance of getting the tournament expanded to like 128 teams or best everyone in than ever having a system that allows the committee to let the vast majority of the p5 teams in.  

True + .

[Bay Area Billiken]

34 minutes ago, brianstl said:

Maryland has 4 Q1 wins, has lost no Q3 or Q4 games and has won 4 games on the road.  Michigan St. has 5 Q1 wins, no Q3 or Q4 losses and has won 3 games on the road.  They both have better resumes than SLU.

Sub-.500 9-11 intra conference, 11 and 12 loss Power 5 also rans, do not have better resumes than SLU. The Quad system is more self-perpetuating Power 5 mumbo jumbo. What it really is is the application of The Golden rule: He who who holds the Gold makes the Rule. 
 

Even the Power 5’s own NET malfunctions with #67 Michigan State. That’s a low seed NIT team, not an NCAA team at all, much less an NCAA Bye team.  

[Bay Area Billiken]

50 minutes ago, NH said:

How did it manifest with the SLU program? You cannot answer that unless you have insider information that isn't privy to the public. Just because you disagree with the City's policies doesn't mean they are responsible in this instance. We were shut down for so long because, over the course of two weeks we had 10-15 personnel test positive for COVID. We could not return to practice because our coach was sick in his basement. There are no instances of games that we would have wanted to play but couldn't because of St. Louis' regulations. 

How did the Head Coach reportedly being sick stop the team from being able to practice? SLU has an Associate Coach, multiple Assistant Coaches, and other staff who could assist at practice. 
 

There are legitimate questions that need to be addressed. Coach Ford himself, in lobbying for an NCAA bid Saturday night, cited our SLU team having faced protocols (restrictions) that no other team faced. 

 

[3star_recruit]

3 hours ago, brianstl said:

Maryland has 4 Q1 wins, has lost no Q3 or Q4 games and has won 4 games on the road.  Michigan St. has 5 Q1 wins, no Q3 or Q4 losses and has won 3 games on the road.  They both have better resumes than SLU.

The NET is a composite index of Michigan St.'s resume.  And their composite resume, even with those 5 Q1 wins, says they are  #67.  The NET ranking is applied one way for the top leagues and another way for everybody else.  If Q1 wins versus P5 teams have extra weight, then it should be stated upfront and reflected in the rankings so everyone can see what the deal is.

[brianstl]

36 minutes ago, 3star_recruit said:

The NET is a composite index of Michigan St.'s resume.  And their composite resume, even with those 4 Q1 wins, says they are  #67.  The NET ranking is applied one way for the top leagues and another way for everybody else.  If Q1 wins versus P5 teams have extra weight, then it should be stated upfront and included in the rankings so everyone can see what the deal is.

Net isn't the only thing that goes into a team's resume and it isn't just the Q1 wins for MSU.  They have no bad losses.  They have 2 Q1 road wins.  I am not saying they belong in the tournament.  I am saying they have a better tournament resume than the Billikens.  The selection committee places heavy value on how teams performs away from home and bad losses play a factor in how the committee views teams.

[BillsBeliever!!!]

For Maryland, they played only 6 non con games (because of the 20 game conference schedule). They beat three Q4 teams and 2 Q3 teams. The only “good” team the played was Clemson, who they lost to. In conference play, they didn’t even play a team not in the NET top 90 (other than Nebraska)
 

you’re really going to congratulate them for having no “bad losses” when they have losses against Penn St, Northwestern, Indiana?? 
 

the reason they have no “bad losses” is because the NET props up bad teams in good conferences for playing good teams.

Maryland played 18 Q1/Q2 games, went 6-12

We played 8 and went 4-4. 
 

Only reason they have more Q1/Q2 wins is because they play in the Big 10 where apparently even losing to 8-14 Northwestern can be considered a “good loss” 

[billiken_roy]

the big ten shouldnt be allowed to have it both ways which it seems the NET allows via programming.   a team with a sub 500 conference record shouldnt have better NET then teams like Drake who only lost 4 games or slu who only lost 6.

[A10Ref]

Need Boise and Xavier to lose their first games and then we are a toss up imo. 

[HoosierPal]

2 hours ago, brianstl said:

Michigan St. has 5 Q1 wins, no Q3 or Q4 losses and has won 3 games on the road.  They both have better resumes than SLU.

Yes.  Forget the NET.  Michigan State beat Illinois, Michigan and Ohio State, three top 10 teams in the nation.  They also beat Duke, but that doesn't count for much anymore.

[A10Ref]

7 minutes ago, HoosierPal said:

Yes.  Forget the NET.  Michigan State beat Illinois, Michigan and Ohio State, three top 10 teams in the nation.  They also beat Duke, but that doesn't count for much anymore.

MSU is in. High quality wins. Need to look elsewhere for a chance to get in. Washington Post has us in this AM, CBS first out and ESPN third out. Xavier ans Boise St. are both poised for a bad loss (Nevada and Butler playing their best bball right now). 

[Bay Area Billiken]

17 minutes ago, A10Ref said:

Need Boise and Xavier to lose their first games and then we are a toss up imo. 

Another question: Why is Xavier (NET 57) getting all this deference?  Xavier is 1-2 Quad 1, 5-5 Quad 2. 

I’ll give you the real reason, not the mumbo jumbo. The real reason is the New, now 11 school, Big East gets a minimum of 4 bids, and possibly 5. When St. John’s, NET 68, lurks this close, a Way is interestingly found to include the Johnnies and the #1 NYC TV Market. 
 

If SLU from the A10 was sitting there with that same NET as Xavier (57 rather than SLU’s 44), SLU would be out of all NCAA bubble lists, OUT, just like 62 Davidson.