Updated Metrics (2/26/23)

[BFieldHusky]

NET: 8
KenPom: 5 (moved up a spot yesterday)
ESPN BPI: 5
Sagarin: 6

As for the AP rankings, the following ranked teams lost this week:

#5 Purdue
#6 Virginia (2x)
#7 Arizona
#8 Texas
#9 Baylor
#11 Tennessee
#13 Miami
#15 St. Mary's
#16 Xavier
#17 Indiana
#19 Creighton (2x)
#20 Providence (also plays Sunday on the road)
#21 Northwestern (also plays Sunday on the road)
#23 Iowa State (2x)
#24 TCU

I bolded the teams that were ahead of us last Saturday in the projection show. They include Virginia (seed #10), Arizona (#6), Texas (#5), Baylor (#7), Tennessee (#9), Xavier (#16), Indiana (#13), and Iowa State (#11).

Based on what's happened in the last 8 days, I'd like to think we are ahead of:

Iowa State (lost 3 in a row)
Indiana
Xavier (yes, they beat us twice, but our metrics are superior to them)
Virginia (who lost to 2 bad teams this week).

I think we are on the 4 line as of today, and possibly the last 3. Which would add up. The other teams they mentioned with us (Creighton lost twice this week), St. Mary's (lost last night) and Miami (lost yesterday) should be behind us.

Thoughts?

 

[shizzle787]

NET: 8
KenPom: 5 (moved up a spot yesterday)
ESPN BPI: 5
Sagarin: 6

As for the AP rankings, the following ranked teams lost this week:

#5 Purdue
#6 Virginia (2x)
#7 Arizona
#8 Texas
#9 Baylor
#13 Miami
#15 St. Mary's
#16 Xavier
#17 Indiana
#19 Creighton (2x)
#20 Providence (also plays Sunday on the road)
#21 Northwestern (also plays Sunday on the road)
#23 Iowa State (2x)
#24 TCU

I bolded the teams that were ahead of us last Saturday in the projection show. They include Virginia (seed #10), Arizona (#6), Texas (#5), Baylor (#7), Xavier (#16), Indiana (#13), and Iowa State (#11).

Based on what's happened in the last 8 days, I'd like to think we are ahead of:

Iowa State (lost 3 in a row)
Indiana
Xavier (yes, they beat us twice, but our metrics are superior to them)
Virginia (who lost to 2 bad teams this week).

I think we are on the 4 line as of today, and possibly the last 3. Which would add up. The other teams they mentioned with us (Creighton lost twice this week), St. Mary's (lost last night) and Miami (lost yesterday) should be behind us.

Thoughts?

Iowa State all of a sudden is in a precarious spot. If they lose their last two and their first game in the Big 12 tournament, they would be 17-14. Very possibly would be out entirely.

 

[Son of Robert]

We should have a nice jump.

 

[REB1094]

13, 15, 17, 18 all lost and we had a 2-0 week including a blowout win of a top 20 team

Are we going to be closer to 10 than 15 tomorrow?? lmao

 

[August_West]

NET: 8
KenPom: 5 (moved up a spot yesterday)
ESPN BPI: 5
Sagarin: 6

As for the AP rankings, the following ranked teams lost this week:

#5 Purdue
#6 Virginia (2x)
#7 Arizona
#8 Texas
#9 Baylor
#11 Tennessee
#13 Miami
#15 St. Mary's
#16 Xavier
#17 Indiana
#19 Creighton (2x)
#20 Providence (also plays Sunday on the road)
#21 Northwestern (also plays Sunday on the road)
#23 Iowa State (2x)
#24 TCU

I bolded the teams that were ahead of us last Saturday in the projection show. They include Virginia (seed #10), Arizona (#6), Texas (#5), Baylor (#7), Tennessee (#9), Xavier (#16), Indiana (#13), and Iowa State (#11).

Based on what's happened in the last 8 days, I'd like to think we are ahead of:

Iowa State (lost 3 in a row)
Indiana
Xavier (yes, they beat us twice, but our metrics are superior to them)
Virginia (who lost to 2 bad teams this week).

I think we are on the 4 line as of today, and possibly the last 3. Which would add up. The other teams they mentioned with us (Creighton lost twice this week), St. Mary's (lost last night) and Miami (lost yesterday) should be behind us.

Thoughts?

We can really right a lot of January wrongs by winning both this week and at least 2 in BET .
Win out and the BET and the worse we would be is a 2 with a punchers chance at a 1.( lot of variables) If we go 1-1 this week and lose game one of BET we are a 5 probably maybe 6. We are in charge of our destiny now again. Let’s take advantage

 

[shizzle787]

We can really right a lot of January wrongs by winning both this week and at least 2 in BET .
Win out and the BET and the worse we would be is a 2 with a punchers chance at a 1.( lot of variables) If we go 1-1 this week and lose game one of BET we are a 5 probably maybe 6. We are in charge of our destiny now again. Let’s take advantage

I don't think we can get a 1 but we have an outside chance of a 2 if we win out. I would be content with at least a 3. I think that gives us better than 50/50 odds to get to the Sweet 16.

 

[August_West]

I don't think we can get a 1 but we have an outside chance of a 2 if we win out. I would be content with at least a 3. I think that gives us better than 50/50 odds to get to the Sweet 16.

We would be an absolute 2 lock with a win out

 

[McLovin]

My thoughts were (and still are) we should have been on the 3 line even before the NCAA revealed their stupid bracket.

But given the results of the other teams ahead of us since the reveal, we absolutely should be right on the cusp of that 3 line now.

Still need to take care of business vs DePaul and then Nova could potentially be another Quad 1 win opportunity (plus at least 1 more Q1 opp at MSG).

 

[7774]

Iowa State all of a sudden is in a precarious spot. If they lose their last two and their first game in the Big 12 tournament, they would be 17-14. Very possibly would be out entirely.

No, they wouldn’t.

 

[shizzle787]

No, they wouldn’t.

Against teams that actually matter, they would be 11-14.

 

[7774]

Against teams that actually matter, they would be 11-14.

Hopefully those other 6 teams don’t find out that they don’t actually matter. It could hurt their feelings.

 

[lange10]

Despite losing this week Indiana may still be ahead of us in the eyes of the committee with their win @ Purdue yesterday.

I’m curious how big of a leap we’ll make in the polls. Last week some still had us unranked, which is insane to me. A lot of bulletin board material for Hurley and co. as we close out the season & are now clicking again. I love it.

 

[navery12]

13, 15, 17, 18 all lost and we had a 2-0 week including a blowout win of a top 20 team

Are we going to be closer to 10 than 15 tomorrow?? lmao

I'd be surprised if we move up any higher than 15. Indiana will probably still be ahead of us considering they beat Purdue. I bet we pass Xavier, St Mary's, Miami though

 

[Matt1010]

I'd be surprised if we move up any higher than 15. Indiana will probably still be ahead of us considering they beat Purdue. I bet we pass Xavier, St Mary's, Miami though

Could potentially see us passing UVA too, they should plummet.

 

[Vuce]

Could potentially see us passing UVA too, they should plummet.

Yeah I was going to bring them up. They are 38th on Ken Pom now and 28th on NET. But ranked 6th at the beginning of last week in AP. Will be very interested to see how far they drop. And metrics aside if we use the eye test they don’t even look good. They are 4-3 in their last 7 and play Clemson next who decimated a decent NC State team yesterday

 

[Matt1010]

Yeah I was going to bring them up. They are 38th on Ken Pom now and 28th on NET. But ranked 6th at the beginning of last week in AP. Will be very interested to see how far they drop. And metrics aside if we use the eye test they don’t even look good. They are 4-3 in their last 7 and play Clemson next who decimated a decent NC State team yesterday

Agreed, they are the dream matchup in a 3v6 or 4v5 game.

 

[CTBasketball]

Seeing the bubble include Texas Tech makes me vomit.

I’m hoping we jump Virginia. That team blows.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Based on the first round of seedings, the Committee is clearly including momentum in how they seed teams, even though they are not supposed to. With UConn's momentum, all the quality wins, and everyone else losing, I think UConn should be comfortably on the 3 line. It is hard to move up from there.

 

[Tenspro2002]

Slow down, folks. Indiana lost, but also beat Purdue. They are a darling of the Committee as already shown. They will be ahead of us.

That said, Iowa State is clearly now behind us, Xavier should be as well. Virginia...maybe.

I think we should be around the #15 overall seed, on the 4 line, but not securely so. If we lose next week, probably down to a 5 and needing to win 1-2 games in MSG to get back there.

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

I'll start with the cliches (or similar), because they seem particularly apt.

Heads we lose a lot; tails we don't win much

For every punch, there's a counter punch.

Any loss counts hugely against us and means we're not that good.

But any victory is no big deal and can be explained away so that we're not that good:

The margin wasn't big enough, so we're not that good

We beat a team that lost, so we're not that good

The second half margin was smaller than the first half, so we're not that good

We were the home team, so we were expected to win, so the victory wasn't all that great, so we're not that good

Our good opponents really aren't all that good, so we're not that good

The final 8, 4, or 2 minutes saw the margin shrink, so we're not that good

One false move and we aren't that good.

Any success and it's ephemeral.

The losses are proof positive that we aren't that good. They can and must be trusted.

The victories are at best provisional, and always undeserving of trust.

Remember:

We were great in the beginning of the season, but that was months ago not now.

We were terrible in January, and must never forget this.

We must always know that the January bad could re-emerge at any time.

None of these notions apply, for example, to Purdue which is 3-4 in February.

Except that our victories over Iowa State and Oklahoma State don't really mean much, because those teams have both lost a lot in Big 12 play recently.

And our victory over Oregon counts even less because their roster was depleted by injuries when we played.

The 15-point victory over Alabama was from when we were good and they weren't yet great. Brandon Miller was a freshman, playing in only his 6th game. Plus, we let them close an earlier double digit gap. Besides, their losses to Tennessee and Oklahoma were on the road, and the Oklahoma game was a fluke anyway, so it shouldn't be held against them, and their Gonzaga loss wasn't a home loss because the game was played in Birmingham not Tuscaloosa, and they beat Houston in an away game coming back from a large margin, but the UConn loss that featured a closed margin that got reopened as a second large margin doesn't mean as much because it was done on a neutral court which wasn't as hard as coming back in a true road game, so WE'RE not that good AND they are not bad AND it wasn't so great a UConn win.

Remember, no other team is viewed by its fans through the UConn lens. And no other team is viewed this way by the AP voters or the NCAA Committee, and the computers are not trustworthy.

No other fan base subjects its team to such scrutiny, and no other team catastrophizes their teams or its losses:

Not Miami for losing at home to Florida State after being up 25. That was a fluke, and all teams have a let down and it doesn't matter that FSU isn't very good, and besides, Alabama lost to Oklahoma a bottom-dweller in the Big 12 but it was a road game, and besides, Oklahoma just beat Iowa State on the road, and Iowa State was a Top 16 reveal, even if they've lost 3 in a row, so that UConn's neutral court 18-point win back in December doesn't count much. And besides, Big 12. And, oh yeah, Miami is only 1 game behind the Pittsburgh in the ACC, which is a much better conference that people think, because ACC.

Not Purdue for being swept by Indiana. That just means that Indiana is really good, and besides, B1G.

When UConn plays DePaul on Wednesday, nothing good can come of it. It's a home game against a perennial bottom dweller. NO matter how large a victory margin is, so what? That's supposed to happen, so it's meaningless. ANYTHING less than a huge margin means (you guessed it), we're not that good at best, and every worst fear has been confirmed at worst. In the latter case, we may be relieved of pain by the world ending.

And next Saturday holds only the slimmest possibility of anything good. If UConn wins convincingly on the road against a full-strength Nova team, who will take notice and care? Nova is a .500 team in a non-P5 conference, with a new coach who might be in over his head after being hastily-chosen after the unexpected retirement if a legend, so how good a victory can it be considered? But anything other than a convincing win will be regarded as something ranging from troublesome to horrifying. OK, maybe not horrifying, but it would hurt UConn while pushing the narrative that Nova is back!

In other words, after these many many words, there is NO winning EXCEPT for winning the games, as they are played...

One
Game
At
A
Time

Go Huskies

 

[upstater]

I'd be surprised if we move up any higher than 15. Indiana will probably still be ahead of us considering they beat Purdue. I bet we pass Xavier, St Mary's, Miami though

I see them at 15, unless they jump Tennessee. Which they should because Tennessee is unraveling. 14 would be fair.

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

Seeing the bubble include Texas Tech makes me vomit.

But but but, in February they avenged their January road losses to Iowa State, Texas, Kansas State, West Virginia, and Oklahoma

I’m hoping we jump Virginia. That team blows.

Your pith pounds my palaver!

 

[CTBasketball]

But but but, in February they avenged their January road losses to Iowa State, Texas, Kansas State, West Virginia, and Oklahoma

Your pith pounds my palaver!

I’ll show you something to pound your palaver. And it ain’t in Charlottesville VA.

 

[Hunt for 7]

I don't think we can get a 1 but we have an outside chance of a 2 if we win out. I would be content with at least a 3. I think that gives us better than 50/50 odds to get to the Sweet 16.

If we win out I think it would be a shock not to be a 2 seed. We will have another 3 quad three wins on a “neutral” court. Neutral in quotes as we saw yesterday MSG is really not a neutral court for us. In fact I think it may be more of a home court than the XL center. Hope to see another legendary UConn run this time lHawkins and Sanogo are playing the roles of Gordon and Okafor. Let’s go Huskies!!

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

I’ll show you something to pound your palaver. And it ain’t in Charlottesville VA.

But Houston won there!