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Sweet 16...Buy Or Sell?


mrjoelabs

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2 minutes ago, mrjoelabs said:

I am buying 100 percent. I think this is finally the year we get out of the first weekend. Of course barring injury, this should be our most complete team in decades, possibly ever. 

 

 

I tend to think so, but the tournament is mostly luck, more to do with who is hot, and match ups. 

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5 minutes ago, NextYearBill said:

need a 6 seed or less

Random brackets have us somewhere between 7 and 10.  A 7 seed plays a 2 seed in the second round.  A 6th plays a 3 seed.  That could be a significant difference. 

8 or 9 plays a 1.  10th plays the 7th seed and then follows the same pattern, 2 next.

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1 hour ago, wgstl said:

I tend to think so, but the tournament is mostly luck, more to do with who is hot, and match ups. 

1 hour ago, JMM28 said:

Talent is there. Unfortunately there is a 25 year track record that says Travis Ford isn't going to the Sweet 16 even when the talent is there.

WG is spot on that luck / matchups play a big role in the NCAA tournament.  Travis Ford's NCAA record is a great example.  You say 25 year track record, but Ford has been in 7 out of 21 NCAAs during his 22 year DI coaching career (2020 didn't have a tournament). 

Here are the results:

2005: #15 Eastern Kentucky loses to #2 Kentuck 64 - 72.  EKU had very little chance of winning this game.  Without looking it up, I'm sure an 8 point loss was less than the spread.

2009: #8 OSU beats #9 Tenn 77-75.  This was a toss up game that Ford won.  Then #8 OSU loses to #1 Pitt 76-84.  Again, OSU would've been a big underdog in this game.  No shame losing it by single digits.

2010: #7 OSU loses to #10 GA Tech 59-64.  Toss up game lost by single digits.  Not really underperforming.

2013: #5 OSU loses to #12 Oregon 55-68.  This is the biggest upset loss Ford has suffered, but #5s lose to #12s all the time and it really isn't that big of an upset PLUS Billiken fans know 1st hand in a painful way that #12 Oregon was horrible underseeded that year and somehow got favorable geographic placement compared to the #4 & #5 seeds in that pod.

2014: #9 OSU loses to #8 Gonzaga 77-85.  Toss up game loss in 1st round to freaking Gonzaga by single digits.  Not underperforming.

2015: #9 OSU loses to #8 Oregon 73-79.  Toss up game loss by single digits.  Not really underperforming.

2019: #13 SLU loses to #4 VA Tech 52-66.  SLU was a heavy underdog & lost.   Nor really underperforming.

8 games played by 7 different teams over a 14 year span is a horribly small "sample" to try to draw any conclusions.  Ford's overall NCAA record 1-7.  I'd say 1-4 in games they could reasonably be expected to win with no egregiously bad losses and 0-3 in games they were heavy underdogs.

I'm not trying to argue Ford is a great NCAA coach, but his failures are vastly overblown.  Unless you are a top 20 coach, I'm guessing your NCAA record is spotty at best.

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I’d love to say 100 percent for Sweet 16, but two things are holding me back. 1, a lot of the tournament is luck of the draw. This team is going to be very good, and win a lot of games, but could still get hit with a bad matchup in March. 2, it is really hard to make a Sweet 16. In the entire history of the program, it has never made one in the NCAAT. No time like the present to change that, but tempering expectations just a little bit. 

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35 minutes ago, RUBillsFan said:

WG is spot on that luck / matchups play a big role in the NCAA tournament.  Travis Ford's NCAA record is a great example.  You say 25 year track record, but Ford has been in 7 out of 21 NCAAs during his 22 year DI coaching career (2020 didn't have a tournament). 

Here are the results:

2005: #15 Eastern Kentucky loses to #2 Kentuck 64 - 72.  EKU had very little chance of winning this game.  Without looking it up, I'm sure an 8 point loss was less than the spread.

2009: #8 OSU beats #9 Tenn 77-75.  This was a toss up game that Ford won.  Then #8 OSU loses to #1 Pitt 76-84.  Again, OSU would've been a big underdog in this game.  No shame losing it by single digits.

2010: #7 OSU loses to #10 GA Tech 59-64.  Toss up game lost by single digits.  Not really underperforming.

2013: #5 OSU loses to #12 Oregon 55-68.  This is the biggest upset loss Ford has suffered, but #5s lose to #12s all the time and it really isn't that big of an upset PLUS Billiken fans know 1st hand in a painful way that #12 Oregon was horrible underseeded that year and somehow got favorable geographic placement compared to the #4 & #5 seeds in that pod.

2014: #9 OSU loses to #8 Gonzaga 77-85.  Toss up game loss in 1st round to freaking Gonzaga by single digits.  Not underperforming.

2015: #9 OSU loses to #8 Oregon 73-79.  Toss up game loss by single digits.  Not really underperforming.

2019: #13 SLU loses to #4 VA Tech 52-66.  SLU was a heavy underdog & lost.   Nor really underperforming.

8 games played by 7 different teams over a 14 year span is a horribly small "sample" to try to draw any conclusions.  Ford's overall NCAA record 1-7.  I'd say 1-4 in games they could reasonably be expected to win with no egregiously bad losses and 0-3 in games they were heavy underdogs.

I'm not trying to argue Ford is a great NCAA coach, but his failures are vastly overblown.  Unless you are a top 20 coach, I'm guessing your NCAA record is spotty at best.

Real strong analysis here (2013 is a bit painful). He's done about what the teams he had would have expected. I think his teams here are on a strong trajectory, although the Goodwin/French NIT team is a black mark. I don't hold the first 2 years against him at all since I don't think anyone could have won in that situation. 

 

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Same as every year, by the time November comes we will have talked ourselves into believing we are definitely going to go above sweet 16. Then MBMs will start declaring they want to die every time we blow a game we should have won... The same as every year.

Let's look at basketball play as a military operation. When you do what the opposition expects you to do, you tend to lose. If you win this way you will have lots and lots of casualties. To say you did as well as was expected is not a pass, it is really a fail. To win you must do better than expected. To win you must keep the opposition confused and unable to beat you by doing things the opposition does not expect you to do. Then you have a chance to win, even if you are the underdog. Predictability, "doing as well as can be expected," is the way to achieve defeat, not winning.

We cannot afford to play games in a predictable manner, we must change the way we play and use the talent in the bench to its full potential if we are going to win consistently. I think that by the time conference play starts, every opponent is aware of the way we play and how they can defeat us. To avoid defeat, we need to use all of our talent in play, and do what they do not expect us to do. Let's not do the same thing again and again, let's use new players and new methods in every game to keep them confused.

Let's not use the phrase "they did as well as could be expected" any longer. This is the formula for defeat, not the formula for winning. Let's avoid any "I want to die" posts this season, by using all the talent we have on board fully and beat the opposition even when we are not expected to do so. That is the way to get to the top. Hit them in ways they are not expecting to be hit.

 

 

 

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6 hours ago, mrjoelabs said:

I am buying 100 percent. I think this is finally the year we get out of the first weekend. Of coe barring injury, this should be our most complete team in decades, possibly ever. 

 

 

The teams who make it out of the first weekend are either top 5 seeds or they pulled off an upset.  Which one are you predicting?

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On 8/26/2022 at 8:08 AM, mrjoelabs said:

I am buying 100 percent. I think this is finally the year we get out of the first weekend. Of course barring injury, this should be our most complete team in decades, possibly ever. 

 

 

“100%” 😂

After our first loss you will be in the GDT calling for Ford’s job 

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On 8/26/2022 at 11:35 AM, JettFlight5 said:

Real strong analysis here (2013 is a bit painful). He's done about what the teams he had would have expected.

Not an overly strong analysis in my opinion. Theoretically you would need to look at the talent of those rosters heading into the season. A lot of talented rosters that ended up around .500 in conference and as bubble teams. Not taking a shot since I don’t overly care, but a lot of underachieving teams at Oklahoma State that one might not see doing this lazy analysis of how his teams performed by their seed. I think you can still be excited about the prospects of this season and the chances of this group making a Sweet 16 though, but that analysis was a waste of time and not indicative of how Ford often underachieved at Oklahoma State which is why he was fired.

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3 hours ago, TheChosenOne said:

Ford often underachieved at Oklahoma State which is why he was fired.

Underachieved compared to what? The high expectations for the high level recruits that he brought in? He compares pretty well to any other OKSt coaches since 2006.

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We first have to make the dance. After that anything’s possible. See St Peters and Loyola. But, says Captain Obvious, so many factors come into play in making it out of the first weekend, it’s really a crap shoot. For example, in last year’s ESPN bracket contest, one whole side of my sheet was wiped out of the sweet 16. However, I did have KU winning the whole thing. 

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