Odds for SLU to make the Tournament

[RealisticBilliken]

Since a lot of you are satisfied with our start so far, who wants to put something behind that statement?

How many people think at this point, with this team, Brad has us in a position to make a run at the tournament - strickly speaking on our performance over the first 7 games.

If anyone is encouraged by what we've seen, I am willing to make a friendly wager. Furthermore, is anyone actually more hopefully of making the tourny after these first 7 games then before the season started? I know I've been disappointed as my expectations were fairly high to begin the season. I really hope I lose the bet and see us in a tournament game, but RealisticBilliken sees no Realistic way we get in. Thoughts?

[NashvilleBilliken]

I'll take it. $20 says we make the tourney. Made payable via check the day after selection sunday.

No, I'm not impressed with 2 of our games, but we're young and have talent. Can't tell you the last time we started this good or had this much talent. I feel this season hinges on Ian's ability to grow a pair. I've seen it done and think it will happen.

A response to this will take the place of a handshake and I will expect payment.

[Westy03]

I am encouraged with some of things the team is doing. The one thing im not encouraged by is the play IV. But, being a REALISTIC billiken fan I feel he will turn it around and make this team A LOT better. Yes I believe this team is a NCAA tourney team

[ACE]

I think we can't lose more than one game in December. That puts us at 10-3. In other words, let's say we lose to UNC, we better win at Pacific and beat Missouri State and Ole Miss at home. That keeps the at-large bid possibility alive.

[TheRaginCajun]

I don't think anything has really changed too much as far as my opinion of this team. I felt we were going to be right around a tournament team and we are right on par where I had predicted us record wise. We have won all of the games we needed to win and lost the two games I felt we would lose to this point. My biggest concern heading into the season was the power forward position and I have not seen anything to aleviate that concern. The other concern I have is a new concern and that is the lack of heart and desire from Ian Vouyoukas. I feel like Lisch has really elevated his game to kind of make up for that and Luke Meyer has been solid at the 4 for us thus far. I feel like the next month will give me a better idea of how good this team is with big non-conference games against Pacific, Missouri State, UNC, and Mississippi. I had us only losing one of those, so we will see how it goes. I would have to think going into conference play with 3 losses is right where most people would have wanted us to be. My biggest concern has to be with whether or not we will be able to pull an at-large bid come Selection Sunday, but that is a long ways away. The SIU loss was not a bad loss, but it would have given us that quality win we may need come that day. Loyola kind of got exposed last night by Purdue and Houston is currently not very good to this point either, so neither of those are really quality wins at this point.

[RealisticBilliken]

Ok - interesting thoughts so far.

Nashville, I agree to your conditions.

I know it is early to be talking tourny, but then again, its never to early to talk tourny. I agree with Ragin when he said SIU is not a bad loss, but what it did was prevent us from getting another "quality win" on our resume.

[kshoe]

and honestly I think our play to date would make me revise that estimate down a little to maybe 40/60. We have the exact same record as I expected at this point but in the 2 decent wins we have we barely won and in the two losses we didn't really have a shot. That is not a good formula as you can expect to lose some of those close ones later down the line.

Add in that the A-10 is off to a crappy start and the negative effect it will have on our RPI and I think we are at 40/60. I never make bets for even money that i think I'll win 40% of the time.

I echo everyone else's sentiments though that if we can finish conference play at 10-4 (allows a loss to UNC and one other) and goe 12-4 in conference that should be good enough but the 12-4 in conference really allows no slip-ups. One thing that has been shown year in and year out is we will slip-up somewhere.

[billiken_roy]

realistic, what has changed imo is that it appears that the a-10 is a repeat of last year in the form of strength. i truly expected the a-10 to be much stronger than what it has shown thus far. and because of that, we now have to dominate the ooc schedule more so than i originally believed and then probably dominate the a-10 to the point of being a top 2 team.

nothing other than ian backsliding thus far and the power forwards not getting an opportunity to play is less than what i expected. in fact, i think that lisch and liddell have exceeded what i expected of them, same can be said for polk and meyer.

we have won a couple of games against teams that last year we would not have held on to win as in houston and loyola. while apparently you arent impressed, i believe your insatiable attitude also shows as our two losses were against formidable opponents on the road. i wanted to win one of the two, but i didnt think that would happen. i originally expected 4 losses coming in the ooc schedule, i cant say i have any reason to believe that still wont happen, but i honestly now believe we will put ourselves in "we have to win the a-10" position if we lose 4 or more now.

but again that is more a slap at our conference than it is at our billikens.

[aj_arete]

Right now, I see the A-10 as a 2-bid league at best. If SLU can't finish in the top 2 of this mediocre league, then they don't deserve to go the Dance.

[billiken_roy]

kshoe said about the carbondale game:

"but in the 2 decent wins we have we barely won and in the two losses we didn't really have a shot."

i totally disagree. that was a winnable game. ian and lisch make their free throws that game is ours to lose. now a&m, that was a "didnt really have a shot" game.

[TheRaginCajun]

Every team will have a slip-up in conference, the problem is we don't have many teams in the A-10 to really make up for that against (other than X). In the Big 10 if you lose to a team like Northwestern, you have a chance to make up for it and get a sexy win against a team like Ohio State or Wisconsin not to mention the chance to play many other quality opponents. We don't have the luxury of playing in a conference where we can get that resume making victory or the resume building wins. We have an uphill battle due to our conference being so down.

[brianstl]

*

[Battlecat455]

I agree with Roy that SIU was winnable until the last minutes. I also believe that a 9 point loss on the road to SIU will hurt the RPI or the teams profile too badly, particularly if the Salukis are strong here on out. BTW, I find it ironic that "Mr. True Fan" just offered to book bets against the team's success. Way to go, guy.

[kshoe]

nm

[Billikenexpress]

We can only lose 1, maybe 2 non-cons and then run the weak A10. I don't see us beating either NC or MO State. Nothing we do in the A10 is going to raise any eyebrows unless we run it but that's not going to happen. I say we hope for another NIT. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.

[slu72]

It's reasonable to expect going into conference play, we'll be 10-4. We CANNOT lose any unexpected games in conference play, ie get upset by Richmond or the like. In fact I think 3 losses is all we can stand in conference play to have a legit shot...and then it's no lock. Alos, many good mid majors making noise out there, and mid majors are sexy right now. Agree totally w/ Cajun's reasoning (BCS'ers always get shots at a biggie or two) that plus the mid major factor...it's going to be tough. We could end up being the Missouri State of 2007.

[slufanskip]

Are you saying we need to go undefeated in the A10?

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[DoctorB]

2 shots at Xavier -- both would be excellent wins. And it looks to me that Xavier is a definite at-large bid team. They are showing up in polls regularly and will probably get an upset or two more along the way. So, unless they win the A10 tourney, the A10 will be at least a 2-bid conference.

If SLU (or some other yet to emerge team) runs most of the rest of the schedule (hard to imagine as that is right now), and both SLU and Xavier fall out of the tourney, it is not out of the question that the A10 becomes a 3 TEAM CONFERENCE!!!

Looks like a lot is riding on the MoState game, huh?

[slu72]

I don't know if that was for me, Skip. But no, I don't think we've got to run the A-10 table. But more than 3 losses will be tough to overcome. Again, middle of the road BCS'ers who post some upsets, eg Maryland, Purdue, Missouri...will be given more cred than us. Toss in a couple of mid major conferences getting a couple of bids or more...we've got problems in river city if we don't defeat some quality non con opponents.

[Hardball]

I still think we are on the bottom half of 50%. A win against Texas AM or SIU would have helped. A Win against UNC could help alot. But we are running out of opportunities to help ourselves. Providing we don't win against UNC we are going to have to either win the end of the tourney or place in the top two of the league. I am not sure right now if I would bet any jack on beating UNC, winning the end of the year tourney or placing in the top two in the league.

[Battlecat455]

" I am not sure right now if I

>would bet any jack on beating UNC, winning the end of the

>year tourney or placing in the top two in the league."

Good thing you don't have to then, isn't it? Don't let the sky hit on the head on your way to RealisticBilliken's bookie to bet against the Bills.

[slufanskip]

No ... to Bexpress who said if we lose 2 more non conf we need to run the A10. I would take run it as meaning undefeated

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Official Sponser of the Stemmler and Ahearn could and would have helped club.

[kwyjibo]

KSHOE:

>Add in that the A-10 is off to a crappy start and the

>negative effect it will have on our RPI and I think we are

>at 40/60. I never make bets for even money that i think I'll

>win 40% of the time.

>

>I echo everyone else's sentiments though that if we can

>finish conference play at 10-4 (allows a loss to UNC and one

>other) and goe 12-4 in conference that should be good enough

>but the 12-4 in conference really allows no slip-ups. One

>thing that has been shown year in and year out is we will

>slip-up somewhere.

I am guessing KShoe was just eyeballing his estimate but it also happens to be reasonably correct in that SLU going 22-8 (ignoring conference tournament) will give us a final RPI around the low 40's (whether that will get us a bid is a different question that depends on WHO we beat, WHY we beat them, WHERE we beat them and WHEN we beat them). Anyway he is basically right if the goal is to get a serious look.

Sadly I think we will likely have a narrower window to get a bid, as I would like to see us get into the low 30's so we don't actually need to beat UNC or beat Xavier in Cincy or make a deep conf tourney run to get in. I think 23-7 and 2-1 would be the minimum I would shoot for right now. I will still wait until just before conference play to make a more formal estimate as these numbers are still going to move around a bit (they become fairly stable once conference play starts as teams are just playing each other and only Opponents' Opponents' Win Percent is hard to predict).

Every year in early January I estimate what SLU needs to do in conference to get into a bubblicious position. I can start that early this year (and teach you how to do your OWN calculations) because of RPI Forecast (http://www.rpiforecast.com/ ). This used to involve a lot of computation on my part but now I can pretty much let RPI Forecast do all the heavy lifting (I can use the work there to get a forecast of the final SOS and final RPI and back in the winning percentage we would need to get a good final RPI). I would be happy to answer any more detail questions but you should be able to do it yourself with a few cells in a spreadsheet.