Lunardi Bracketology

[PhillySpider]

Don't ask me how, but we show up on the latest bracketology on ESPN as one of the "Next Four Out" That makes us 8th team from in.

That seems awfully generous, but what it really shows is what could have been. If we had simply taken care of business in against teams we were clearly better than and/or home games (e.g. JMU, NE, Wake), we'd really be in the mix right now!

 

[wr70beh]

Well Belmont just knocked out Murray St. (66 RPI). That makes Murray a big time bubble team (4 losses, none in conference until the final). I don't see us getting an at-large.

 

[PhillySpider]

I see no way we get an at-large. Just pointing out how painful it is even seeing us mentioned given the " what might have been"

Try this on for size - - had we simply taken care of our home court and beaten teams below the RPI 150 line (i.e. beaten JMU, GMU and won at home against Wake and NE). Our RPI would be Top 25 and we'd likely already be in. And that did not require anything but winning games we SHOULD have won.

 

[The Vault]

Bubble is weak always is. I think Murray State should get a bid before us... but nobody else does. They are a fun team to watch too by the way.

We beat VCU and Davidson and drop a close one,in the finals I'm calling it now we get a bid.

 

[WebSpinner]

almost sounds like a lock is being called here

 

[MolivaManiac]

Murray State is 1-2 against Top 100 and has an SOS of 235. They are going to the NIT.

 

[SpiderGuy]

Originally posted by PhillySpider:

I see no way we get an at-large. Just pointing out how painful it is even seeing us mentioned given the " what might have been"

Try this on for size - - had we simply taken care of our home court and beaten teams below the RPI 150 line (i.e. beaten JMU, GMU and won at home against Wake and NE). Our RPI would be Top 25 and we'd likely already be in. And that did not require anything but winning games we SHOULD have won.

If we don't get a bid then I think you've nailed the games that will have kept us out.

I'd like to think with a strong finish (regular season & winning 2 games in the tournament) would look favorable to the committee.

Obviously the auto bid to winning the conference tournament is the guarantee.

 

[SFspidur]

It's going to depend on other results before and after the potential VCU game, but it's very possible VCU will just barely slip out of the top 25 RPI if we beat them on Friday, which hurts our résumé a bit. They're sitting at 20 right now, and a win over Fordham or Mason on a neutral court isn't going to do anything for them. If they then lose to us, they'll slip about 5-7 spots it looks like.

Still, wins over VCU and Davidson and a loss to Dayton in the final could get our RPI into the upper 30s. But would 3-0 against VCU and 2-1 against a Davidson team that would likely have an RPI in the 30-33 range be enough to put us in considering some our bad losses? Northeastern and La Salle both sitting at or just over 100 in the RPI right now...can they help us out and squeak into the top 100?

Lots of questions, but it all starts with a win on Friday.

 

[97spiderfan]

The Wake and Northeastern games are the ones that kill me. Both of those games we had in control and then lost by a 2 complete fluke play (Wake) and Northeastern we dominated until pretty much the final 3 minutes and they got hot and we couldn't score.

The Mason and JMU games we didn't deserve to win. We beat Wake and Northeastern and we are probably not having this discussion.

 

[fan2011]

Originally posted by 97spiderfan:

The Wake and Northeastern games are the ones that kill me. Both of those games we had in control and then lost by a 2 complete fluke play (Wake) and Northeastern we dominated until pretty much the final 3 minutes and they got hot and we couldn't score.

The Mason and JMU games we didn't deserve to win. We beat Wake and Northeastern and we are probably not having this discussion.

We beat Wake and Northeastern and we have an RPI in the 20s and are a lock. It is really frustrating for us fans, I can't imagine how frustrating knowing that is for the players. I will always support our players. We are an NCAA team, let's win the A10 tournament and put the past behind us!


This post was edited on 3/8 12:00 AM by fan2011

 

[Eight Legger]

2011, where are we in three-point percentage defense in league games? I feel like we've done a great job there, which is why playing VCU and Davidson (potentially) in the first two games actually seems like a good thing to me. I fear Davidson more because they have so many guys who can make threes from everywhere, but in general both those teams would need to make a fair number of threes to beat us, and we're not giving up many.

Or if we do, the other team has to abandon its regular offense and just fire up 30 threes to make 7, which benefits us too.

 

[fan2011]

Originally posted by Eight Legger:
2011, where are we in three-point percentage defense in league games? I feel like we've done a great job there, which is why playing VCU and Davidson (potentially) in the first two games actually seems like a good thing to me. I fear Davidson more because they have so many guys who can make threes from everywhere, but in general both those teams would need to make a fair number of threes to beat us, and we're not giving up many.

Or if we do, the other team has to abandon its regular offense and just fire up 30 threes to make 7, which benefits us too.

In conference play we are #1 in 3pt defense, allowing only 26.0%, which frankly is ridiculous (we are 30% for the season, 18th best in the country). We completely shut down Davidson when we played them at home with our switching defense. Our bigs should be able to have their way with Davidson as well, they don't have much inside. Davidson is so efficient on offense though (5th best in the country) I am a bit scared of them.





This post was edited on 3/8 12:16 AM by fan2011

 

[97spiderfan]

Count me in the group who is not looking forward to seeing Davidson. We are hot, but they are hotter right now, winning 9 in a row. The game we played against them at the Robins Center this year, was to me our best performance of the year.

 

[The Vault]

Originally posted by WebSpinner:
almost sounds like a lock is being called here

Never a lock. That's the Kiss of Death. Just making a bold statement to let some other posters know our situation isn't quite as dire as they (or ESPN) make it out to be. I was a couple of days ahead of the curve. No shocker that the bubble as always is atrocious. So yes, the possibility of two paths to get in I think is in play. Beat VCU, Beat Davidson and perform decent in finals, hard to ignore us. In that scenario we close out the year with five notable wins amid a great run. We'll compare very favorably to the bubble teams in that regard.

Also, I've heard, if Andy Katz is to be trusted, the committee this year will pay attention to how you close out a year, and put more importance on your good wins vs. your bad losses. If true... again, that favors us.

As for Murray State, MM, I agree they probably don't get in, their own fault for scheduling (...to a degree, who would want to play that team this year?) but after watching a few of their games hard to argue they aren't one of the top 25 30 teams in the country. That was my more point, not that their numbers were worthy. If they played in our league I think they'd make it pretty easily this year, and would have been fighting Davidson for the one seed.

Fortunately, they are like a few others "in the discussion" who are labeled out at this point, with no more games to play. Also, a positive for UR with our opportunities still in front of us.

 

[WebSpinner]

Vault, at least i held back on laying the infamous, shall we say notorious, mortal lock, on you.