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Key Games -- NET standings and eventual bubble implications ..

u could argue either. the A10 is not down, it's improved on the margins, but still not good enough to help us.

That's why i was so big on winning at VCU. I don't want to trigger anyone, but that was basically our best chance rest of reg season. We could have really used a signature road win, at least based on our resume.

I always lean OOC bc we can control that more and we know basically what we're going to get with A10. Our NET OOC sos is 217. That's not good enough. I always like to be harder bc I don't expect a ton from A10. But what hurts the most is the 6 dog games we scheduled. And we knew all 6 would be around 300+ or worse. 5 of 6 are pretty horrendous.

Is that Lunardi? Lack of Lunardi? Who knows.

It's a big drag on the numbers when the numbers aren't helping. That said we probably still could have overcome had we won a couple of UNI/BC/Wichita or taken 1 of the FLA/Colorado games. We still had opportunities there, that's why I put on OOC. Now we are stuck with trying to duplicate another 8-1 A10 run.
 
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People will always quibble about which part of the schedule is "responsible" for not being in solid bubble territory. The A-10 is strong enough that running the table should probably overcome even the weakest OOC schedule. It's just not reasonable to expect running the A-10 table to be possible.

The OOC should be such that combining with a solid A-10 performance (like 14–4 or better) ought to be enough. That OOC performance could come from the SOS side or the W/L side, but those two sides didn't add up well enough for us, leaving us with this big uphill climb to get into contention.

(I will acknowledge that the marquee wins are important and do more for the résumé than just SOS. Swapping out many of those 290+ OOC opponents for ~175–200 range opponents and still winning those games would have boosted our OOC SOS significantly, but I think our existing schedule with a win over Florida or Colorado would have done more in the committee's eyes.)
 
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SFspidur said:
People will always quibble about which part of the schedule is "responsible" for not being in solid bubble territory. The A-10 is strong enough that running the table should probably overcome even the weakest OOC schedule. It's just not reasonable to expect running the A-10 table to be possible.

The OOC should be such that combining with a solid A-10 performance (like 14–4 or better) ought to be enough. That OOC performance could come from the SOS side or the W/L side, but those two sides didn't add up well enough for us, leaving us with this big uphill climb to get into contention.

(I will acknowledge that the marquee wins are important and do more for the résumé than just SOS. Swapping out many of those 290+ OOC opponents for ~175–200 range opponents and still winning those games would have boosted our OOC SOS significantly, but I think our existing schedule with a win over Florida or Colorado would have done more in the committee's eyes.)
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Our OOC seemed like a bottom weighted barbell this season…
 
GKiller said:
u could argue either. the A10 is not down, it's improved on the margins, but still not good enough to help us.

That's why i was so big on winning at VCU. I don't want to trigger anyone, but that was basically our best chance rest of reg season. We could have really used a signature road win, at least based on our resume.

I always lean OOC bc we can control that more and we know basically what we're going to get with A10. Our NET OOC sos is 217. That's not good enough. I always like to be harder bc I don't expect a ton from A10. But what hurts the most is the 6 dog games we scheduled. And we knew all 6 would be around 300+ or worse. 5 of 6 are pretty horrendous.

Is that Lunardi? Lack of Lunardi? Who knows.

It's a big drag on the numbers when the numbers aren't helping. That said we probably still could have overcome had we won a couple of UNI/BC/Wichita or taken 1 of the FLA/Colorado games. We still had opportunities there, that's why I put on OOC. Now we are stuck with trying to duplicate another 8-1 A10 run.
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I felt winning at vcu would have really helped, too. But in reality, vcu is just one of a pile of teams in the A10 ranked about the same. There are other wins available of similar value. We over inflate vcu because of the rivalry and lack of success with them. They are nothing more in the committee's eyes than all the rest of us lumped together. Let's just win the home game with them like we should, and then there's nothing to see there. Our win over Dayton will elevate us above the rest. We need Dayton to keep winning too.

Go 8-1 the rest of the way and win the regular season, and we're in. Tall order, but this team is definitely capable!
 
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mr.spider said:
I felt winning at vcu would have really helped, too. But in reality, vcu is just one of a pile of teams in the A10 ranked about the same. There are other wins available of similar value. We over inflate vcu because of the rivalry and lack of success with them. They are nothing more in the committee's eyes than all the rest of us lumped together. Let's just win the home game with them like we should, and then there's nothing to see there. Our win over Dayton will elevate us above the rest. We need Dayton to keep winning too.

Go 8-1 the rest of the way and win the regular season, and we're in. Tall order, but this team is definitely capable!
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I disagree there. The committee is made up a humans and VCU still carries more name cache than those others. Plus I think VCU still has a higher ceiling rest of way. Just based on their history. Had we won I would feel more confident they would do well, validating our win, than I would with other teams. They look equal on paper to some others right now, but that will change imo, even tho no guarantees.
 
We dig ourselves the same hole every year, lose early and take ourselves out of the conversation. Other than winning the A10 tournament, really our only hope would be to close the season with 20 wins out of 22 (assuming we win a first round game in the tournament); that would be pretty hard for the Committee to completely ignore.
 
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When you are on the bubble, any single loss in your record could be seen as the difference between getting a bid or not. In retrospect, it makes every game seem really important.
 
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GKiller said:
u could argue either. the A10 is not down, it's improved on the margins, but still not good enough to help us.

That's why i was so big on winning at VCU. I don't want to trigger anyone, but that was basically our best chance rest of reg season. We could have really used a signature road win, at least based on our resume.

I always lean OOC bc we can control that more and we know basically what we're going to get with A10. Our NET OOC sos is 217. That's not good enough. I always like to be harder bc I don't expect a ton from A10. But what hurts the most is the 6 dog games we scheduled. And we knew all 6 would be around 300+ or worse. 5 of 6 are pretty horrendous.

Is that Lunardi? Lack of Lunardi? Who knows.

It's a big drag on the numbers when the numbers aren't helping. That said we probably still could have overcome had we won a couple of UNI/BC/Wichita or taken 1 of the FLA/Colorado games. We still had opportunities there, that's why I put on OOC. Now we are stuck with trying to duplicate another 8-1 A10 run.
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Yes - And I think going 16-2 overall in the A10 is a rare feat and a difficult ask on a consistent basis. That is where the OOC steps in - so if you have a 4 loss A10 season, you have the OOC to make up for it (assuming you win the big games there). As opposed to scheduling light OOC and saying to yourself - lets go win 16 out of the next 18 games to close out the season.
 
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SpiderTrap said:
Yes - And I think going 16-2 overall in the A10 is a rare feat and a difficult ask on a consistent basis. That is where the OOC steps in - so if you have a 4 loss A10 season, you have the OOC to make up for it (assuming you win the big games there). As opposed to scheduling light OOC and saying to yourself - lets go win 16 out of the next 18 games to close out the season.
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I don't think we scheduled light. We had Florida and Colorado, two great Quad 1 games. On paper, @Witchita State, @ Northern Iowa and @ Boston College are all good road win opportunities. Now, WSU and Northern Iowa have underperformed this year, so they are not as good as maybe we expected but that is somewhat out of our control.

Yes, the home slate blew, although Charlotte turned out to be an unexpected positive point. I'd be happy with a similar OOC next year that allows us to both stack wins and get some quality wins. As always, when we are presented with the opportunity to notch a quality win, you have to actually win some of those and we didn't so here we are.
 
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GKiller said:
I disagree there. The committee is made up a humans and VCU still carries more name cache than those others. Plus I think VCU still has a higher ceiling rest of way. Just based on their history. Had we won I would feel more confident they would do well, validating our win, than I would with other teams. They look equal on paper to some others right now, but that will change imo, even tho no guarantees.
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Valid. Still not sure how VCU is ranked as high as they are in the NET. Zero Quad 1 wins, we are their best win of the season, followed by Samford, and they have 2 Quad 4 losses. Also, played zero OOC road games, which again, we are all told should be a huge ding on your resume and in the NET.

All of that and they 6 spots behind us in the NET, a team with 6 Quad 1 and 2 wins, zero Quad 4 losses and a team that actually went out and left their building during the OOC schedule.
 
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97spiderfan said:
I don't think we scheduled light. We had Florida and Colorado, two great Quad 1 games. On paper, @Witchita State, @ Northern Iowa and @ Boston College are all good road win opportunities. Now, WSU and Northern Iowa have underperformed this year, so they are not as good as maybe we expected but that is somewhat out of our control.

Yes, the home slate blew, although Charlotte turned out to be an unexpected positive point. I'd be happy with a similar OOC next year that allows us to both stack wins and get some quality wins. As always, when we are presented with the opportunity to notch a quality win, you have to actually win some of those and we didn't so here we are.
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I don't think the OOC was bad for this year's team, which was expected to finish bottom of the A10, you schedule to what you think you are going to be. BUT - now with the transfer portal - this becomes very hard, so your probably going to see more consistency in scheduling. The only thing that might help us is we usually rely heavily on those OOC tourney's to get us good games, and generally speaking - if you have a good season one year, the next year you get a better invite to those OOC tourneys. So hopefully with our overachieving this year - we get a good invite next year or after as a result.
 
Unfortunately, we seem to be locked in to the Gazelle Group events due to the Mooney relationship and can't get into the higher-profile ESPN ones.
 
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I feel like if everything was the same, but we had won 1 of the road games at BC, UNI, or Wichita we would still be in the exact same place needing to go 8-1 or maybe 7-2 and make it to Sunday in Brooklyn to have a decent chance.
 
dobbiethespider said:
I feel like if everything was the same, but we had won 1 of the road games at BC, UNI, or Wichita we would still be in the exact same place needing to go 8-1 or maybe 7-2 and make it to Sunday in Brooklyn to have a decent chance.
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Probably right - the only thing that probably would have changed anything - winning the Florida or Colorado game. And really all that does - is possibly give you room for 1 more loss.
 
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Don't think it matters. Dayton wins - just makes our win with them a little stronger. Not much.

VCU wins - it helps VCU a lot, and COULD help us more assuming we beat them in our next matchup.

VCU is interesting - they could play their way into bubble talk, but they have to beat Dayton, then run the table up to our game on March 2nd. That would mean they need to win the next 5 and that would give them 7 in a row heading into our game. It would help us a lot as I said - but only if we can beat them.

Personal choice - hope they win, and hope they win everything leading up to game with us. That makes that rivalry game that much more exciting. And then maybe - our guys will treat it like the super bowl, like some have mentioned on here already.
 
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SpiderTrap said:
Don't think it matters. Dayton wins - just makes our win with them a little stronger. Not much.

VCU wins - it helps VCU a lot, and COULD help us more assuming we beat them in our next matchup.

VCU is interesting - they could play their way into bubble talk, but they have to beat Dayton, then run the table up to our game on March 2nd. That would mean they need to win the next 5 and that would give them 7 in a row heading into our game. It would help us a lot as I said - but only if we can beat them.

Personal choice - hope they win, and hope they win everything leading up to game with us. That makes that rivalry game that much more exciting. And then maybe - our guys will treat it like the super bowl, like some have mentioned on here already.
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I think if they lose to Dayton, it will not make our game with vcu any less important. If vcu loses to Dayton and then wins the rest of their games until we beat them at home, it will still be impactful to our rank. Of course, it will be very helpful for us to be 1st place in the league to give us extra bubble credibility. Dayton needs to lose again somewhere for that to happen. I want outright 1st place, not a tie.
 
mr.spider said:
I think if they lose to Dayton, it will not make our game with vcu any less important. If vcu loses to Dayton and then wins the rest of their games until we beat them at home, it will still be impactful to our rank. Of course, it will be very helpful for us to be 1st place in the league to give us extra bubble credibility. Dayton needs to lose again somewhere for that to happen. I want outright 1st place, not a tie.
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Sign me up for a tie with Dayton at 17-1 in A10 play.
 
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SpiderTrap said:
Don't think it matters. Dayton wins - just makes our win with them a little stronger. Not much.

VCU wins - it helps VCU a lot, and COULD help us more assuming we beat them in our next matchup.

VCU is interesting - they could play their way into bubble talk, but they have to beat Dayton, then run the table up to our game on March 2nd. That would mean they need to win the next 5 and that would give them 7 in a row heading into our game. It would help us a lot as I said - but only if we can beat them.

Personal choice - hope they win, and hope they win everything leading up to game with us. That makes that rivalry game that much more exciting. And then maybe - our guys will treat it like the super bowl, like some have mentioned on here already.
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The way the net works, a VCU win at home vs Dayton probably lifts their NET by 6 spots like UR’s did. Not enough to make a UR win vs VCU at home that much more important.
I hope Dayton crushes VCU. But my gut tells me VCU will take it at home
 
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SFspidur said:
I don't care that VCU counts double in our SOS, it's Dayton all the way. I want the best shot at clear separation of us and Dayton as the top 2. Plus, it's VCU.
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VCU need to lose 2xDayton, UMass & Us and finish in a tie for 4th with the Bonnie’s.
 
vcu already has two Q4 losses. Their only chance at an at-large is to sweep Dayton, beat us again and then beat us or Dayton in the A-10 tourney and lose to the other one in the championship game. In other words, they have no chance.

Go Dayton.
 
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fatherspider said:
The way the net works, a VCU win at home vs Dayton probably lifts their NET by 6 spots like UR’s did. Not enough to make a UR win vs VCU at home that much more important.
I hope Dayton crushes VCU. But my gut tells me VCU will take it at home
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Yes - but in my scenario, VCU would need to continue to win. If they won up till our game - they would be 20-8 entering the game with us and probably have a net around 65-70. Again - not saying that puts them in the NCAA tourney - but they likely start showing up on bubble conversations entering our game. Which just makes our game that much more exciting and better for our resume. But we have to win. Not to mention - VCU gets a 2nd game with Dayton, which is beneficial for them.

VCU is a long shot right now for the tourney. I think they need to finish A10 slate with only 1 more loss, and then they need to make the A10 finals and even then - they probably need help from other bubble teams falling off and little upsets in conference tourneys.
 
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CBS bubble watch lists 6 bubble teams in action tonight - a good list of who to root against for the night: St Johns, Cincinnati, Indiana State, Texas A&M, Ole Miss, New Mexico
 
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Robbie Avila and Indiana State promptly take one on the chin courtesy of a bad Illinois State squad right after getting ranked.

Cincinnati also goes down, and St. John's gets nipped by Providence.

Oh, and Syracuse storms the court after taking down UNC. Act like you've been there, guys.
 
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SFspidur said:
Robbie Avila and Indiana State promptly take one on the chin courtesy of a bad Illinois State squad right after getting ranked.

Cincinnati also goes down, and St. John's gets nipped by Providence.

Oh, and Syracuse storms the court after taking down UNC. Act like you've been there, guys.
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Storming the court for beating #7...I'm ok with that..we stormed after beating the 16th ranked team....besides syr is .500 in conference, big win for them!
 
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I think he was being facetious. But we all know vcu would never storm the court after a win like that. It's so beneath them.
 
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A&M falls to Vandy on a buzzer beater.

Ole Miss down 14 to Kentucky with under 11 minutes left.

New Mexico and Nevada not tipping off for another 15 minutes.

 
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