The Bubble

[Slasher]

Good lord. All this crap is a self licking ice cone. How the model is first instantiated, seeded and weighted drives the outcomes. If you start BE and B1G teams high in the rankings, then that distortion remains and ripples through the entire model. The BE is a better basketball conference. By how much is not at all that clear.

The NET is not seeded at all. So I'm not sure where you are coming up with this. KenPom is seeded until January or so, but by now it's 100% driven only by results from this year.

 

[tzznandrew]

The NET is not seeded at all. So I'm not sure where you are coming up with this. KenPom is seeded until January or so, but by now it's 100% driven only by results from this year.

It's coming from the place that he has no idea what he's talking about.

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

Can’t hold SJU against us. No Bouknight

 

[JimHurley]

I think if we beat Tulane and make it to the final of the conference tournament, we'll at least get a look at an at-large bid. That'll put us at 22-13 with 13 wins out of our final 16 games. If we're the 7 seed and make it to the conference tournament final, that'll mean we beat the #2 and #3 seed of the conference.

 

[Huskyfan4evr]

Dratings bracketology has us as the 8th team out right now and a 2 seed in the nit.

 

[tzznandrew]

Can’t hold SJU against us. No Bouknight

They can. They will. They should.

It's inexcusable to lose to a team like that, and a good team, even sans one player, wouldn't do that. We're obviously much better now than then, but it was a really really bad loss without compensating great wins.

For comparison, our bonehead bad loss in the 2002 season everyone was up in arms about was St. Bonaventure, and they were a Top 100 Kenpom team that year, and it was Neutral, rather than Home.

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

They can. They will. They should.

It's inexcusable to lose to a team like that, and a good team, even sans one player, wouldn't do that. We're obviously much better now than then, but it was a really really bad loss without compensating great wins.

For comparison, our bonehead bad loss in the 2002 season everyone was up in arms about was St. Bonaventure, and they were a Top 100 Kenpom team that year, and it was Neutral, rather than Home.

That game was definitely at the XL center.

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

I think if we beat Tulane and make it to the final of the conference tournament, we'll at least get a look at an at-large bid. That'll put us at 22-13 with 13 wins out of our final 16 games. If we're the 7 seed and make it to the conference tournament final, that'll mean we beat the #2 and #3 seed of the conference.

This is a path to the tournament as I see it

 

[Slasher]

Bad losses are really overrated anyways. The committee cares much more about quality wins than bad losses. Providence has four and is going to get in. Cincy has four and is probably roughly 50/50 to get in.

 

[tzznandrew]

That game was definitely at the XL center.

Ha. Weird. College basketball reference marks the game as at a neutral site, but when I clicked into it, it said it was at the Civic Center. Strange.

2001-02 UConn Huskies Men's Schedule and Results | College Basketball at Sports-Reference.com

Check out the detailed 2001-02 UConn Huskies Schedule and Results for College Basketball at Sports-Reference.com

www.sports-reference.com

Point still stands: St. Bonaventure was not nearly as bad a team as St. Joseph's.

 

[tzznandrew]

Bad losses are really overrated anyways. The committee cares much more about quality wins than bad losses. Providence has four and is going to get in. Cincy has four and is probably roughly 50/50 to get in.

They're easily overlooked when you have big wins. UConn really doesn't. Two home wins against teams that will be seeded 6-9 isn't going to coax them to forget their home loss to a 6-win team.

 

[Waterbury]

Can’t hold SJU against us. No Bouknight

I am. No excuse to lose to scrubs like that. We're anywhere from 10-13th off the bubble right now. Where would we be without that miserably bad loss?

 

[businesslawyer]

The NET is not seeded at all. So I'm not sure where you are coming up with this. KenPom is seeded until January or so, but by now it's 100% driven only by results from this year.

If you translate his rant into English, I think his point was that the NET was designed to favor teams in power conferences playing a conference schedule of teams in power conferences. Which many have argued.

FWIW.

 

[tzznandrew]

If you translate his rant into English, I think his point was that the NET was designed to favor teams in power conferences playing a conference schedule of teams in power conferences. Which many have argued.

FWIW.

Which might be more compelling if 4 out of the top 10 in NET weren't from outside the P5, and 9 of the Top 20,

2. Gonzaga
3. Dayton
4. San Diego State
9. BYU
12. Creighton
13. Villanova
14. Seton Hall
17. Butler
20. Houston

There are 3 WCC teams (Gonzaga, BYU, St. Mary's) that, beating them at home, would give you Quad 1 wins. That's 3 times more than the AAC!

 

[storrsroars]

Our NET only went up 2 spots to #61 after beating the #20 NET Houston. We'll actually have a bigger jump by beating #171 NET Tulane because it's on the road. This metric is super wonky.

Yeah. Memphis went from 65 to 60 this week beating Tulane on the road by 7 and Wichita St at home by 8.

 

[tzznandrew]

I don't understand the "either, or" nature of this discussion. It is not the case that the AAC has to be either as good as the Big East or the worst conference in the history of basketball. It is allowed to be what it is -- year in and year out the 7th best conference in the country, which normally is closer to the bottom of the Big 6 than the best of everyone else.

The problem here is that you can't let you lawyerly self go here. Your statement is true in actual fact (**pushes glasses up to nose** "Well, technically there are 29 conferences, and the AAC is the 7th best, so in definition...).

But the reality is that the AAC is in a tier of conferences that have so many crappy teams that there aren't many opportunities to build your resume in conference. Because of that you cannot slip up much OOC, and if you don't schedule incredibly well, you're essentially doomed going into the conference season. See, for instance, Tulsa, who will have part of the conference crown but be left out. That doesn't happen in a conference that matters.

Or, to put it better, a conference that is not "below average" in the spirit of that statement, if not the letter.

 

[BlueDogs]

The NET is not seeded at all. So I'm not sure where you are coming up with this. KenPom is seeded until January or so, but by now it's 100% driven only by results from this year.

Seeded meaning initial data inputs into the model and underlying weighting. Not seeding as in basketball seeding. "NET, relies on game results, strength of schedule, game location, scoring margin, net offensive and defensive efficiency, and the quality of wins and losses." These require an initial state assumption for the model. I know of no model that starts without any assumptions or relations even back-propagation models require an initial state and quantitative adjustments that dictate the rate of topological change.

 

[businesslawyer]

The problem here is that you can't let you lawyerly self go here. Your statement is true in actual fact (**pushes glasses up to nose** "Well, technically there are 29 conferences, and the AAC is the 7th best, so in definition...).

But the reality is that the AAC is in a tier of conferences that have so many crappy teams that there aren't many opportunities to build your resume in conference. Because of that you cannot slip up much OOC, and if you don't schedule incredibly well, you're essentially doomed going into the conference season. See, for instance, Tulsa, who will have part of the conference crown but be left out. That doesn't happen in a conference that matters.

Or, to put it better, a conference that is not "below average" in the spirit of that statement, if not the letter.

I hear you, but it's more than being lawyerly about it. My point was, is, and remains, that the AAC is somewhere between an important basketball conference and not an important basketball conference in a world where the line between "power conferences" and everyone else is not as clear as it is in football. Most years, half the AAC would be competitive in the Pac Ten, and many years in the SEC as well. Is it as consistent top to bottom -- no, it isn't, or it would be as good as them. But in any given year, the AAC is just as likely to be closer in top to bottom quality to the Pac Ten than it is to Mountain West or the A-Ten. It remains in between, and it remains a multi-bid conference (even though some years that doesn't happen).

 

[nelsonmuntz]

UNI losing to Drake does not help our Bubble hopes.

 

[Tex-Lager93]

A slot may have just opened. Northern Iowa just lost in MVC quarters...likely still an at-large but they’re at risk.

 

[auror]

A slot may have just opened. Northern Iowa just lost in MVC quarters...likely still an at-large but they’re at risk.

Or a spot was closed to bid thief if UNI makes it anyways.

 

[navery12]

A slot may have just opened. Northern Iowa just lost in MVC quarters...likely still an at-large but they’re at risk.

That's the opposite of what we needed to happen

 

[August_West]

Syracuse is going to make the tourney with an 18-14 record barely above .500 in down ACC



Watch

 

[tzznandrew]

Syracuse is going to make the tourney with an 18-14 record barely above .500 in down ACC



Watch

And then zone their way into the second weekend because most college coaches don't prep for it.

 

[businesslawyer]

A slot may have just opened. Northern Iowa just lost in MVC quarters...likely still an at-large but they’re at risk.

You need to understand how the tournament field gets filled.