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Top 4 finish

UR80sfan

UR80sfan

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Jan 28, 2018
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With U Mass losing their last game, the Spiders have a 4 game advantage over the teams tied for 5th place. With only 6 games to play we are almost guaranteed a top 4 finished. Kenpom currently predicts we will go 4-2 our last 6 games and finish in 2nd place behind Dayton.
 
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Top 4 finish is always helpful, and we are exceeding expecatations for sure. A top 4 does increase A10 tourney odds. But we have to get NCAA out of it. Now some will say I'm being too negative and just enjoy the games, anything we accomplish is icing and that's too much to ask. Well I do enjoy the games u can enjoy games and still think big picture results.

U can also recalibrate with expectations, that's common. We were due to exceed expectations, we've regularly underperformed in A10 relative to expectations in past. But we started 8-0 it was great and got us at least seeing NCAA at large as feasible, tho still hard, due to OOC. Still u start 8-0, possibly win A10 reg season, u have to find way into NCAA whether at large or auto bid. Anything else is a big let down.

Part of that is we would otherwise be 3 for 19 in NCAA under Moon. Not good enough. I harp on vcu record and Moon being worst rivalry coach of all time. It is true that we would think a little less of record if we didn't have just 3 NCAAs. If an outsider knew Moon was 8-25 all time vs in-city archrival VCU, they would probably think wow well he must be doing great otherwise & going to NCAAs w some regularity, have 6 or 7 NCAA berths in 19 years. Nope only 3.

I realize UR80sfan point is simply we're in great position for top 4. That's true, we are. So maybe this isn't the right thread idk. But I just think we should be focused on other things and the post prompted me.
 
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I am an NCAA or bust guy too. This team has been enjoyable to watch and root for, but an NCAA appearance makes it a great season. And helps validate Mooney in the short term. Not that it matters to PQ or the admin, but it gives fans like me hope that he can win in this portal/NIL era. Otherwise we are pretty much resetting again next year, with a few stellar left overs., a lot of young "potential" guys and need for impact players from the portal. Get to NCAA this year and that is two out of three, and Mooney rebuilt on the fly and showed he can win in this environment.
 
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Color me extremely surprised/impressed at Loyola being in the mix. I remember being incredulous that KenPom/Torvik were ranking them highly preseason, considering how bad they were last year. While their NET is still only middle of the pack around 100, they've obviously rounded into form nicely for conference play. They do have a pretty tough finish to the season with three of their final five being Q1/Q2 at the moment, so we'll see how they hold up down the stretch.
 
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SFspidur said:
Color me extremely surprised/impressed at Loyola being in the mix. I remember being incredulous that KenPom/Torvik were ranking them highly preseason, considering how bad they were last year. While their NET is still only middle of the pack around 100, they've obviously rounded into form nicely for conference play. They do have a pretty tough finish to the season with three of their final five being Q1/Q2 at the moment, so we'll so how they hold up down the stretch.
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Interesting, how they have performed last 6 weeks.

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I am somewhere in the middle. The initial goal EVERY year is to be in the top 4 of the A10 because the team has to be there to give itself the best chance of winning the A10 tournament. Unfortunately, winning the A10 tournament is the only realistic way of making to the NCAAs as the at large possibilities are always going to be very limited for an A10 team. Not saying it can’t be done, but the expectation of being able to get more than 2 teams in the dance is just a dream and getting 2 is nearly a stretch. Sure the conference is more competitive top to bottom, but its teams are simply not going to displace P6 conference schools.

In terms of how well Mooney is going to do in the new NIL and transfer portal is something that is too soon to tell. Next year is the last of the “Covid classes” and after that the numbers of available players will be lower. That is when you are really going to be able to tell if this “rebuild” type model is going to work for UR. Two years is a small sample size and the results have been better than I expected thus far.

Happy for the Spiders and hope they can truly exceed expectations by winning the regular season. Glad they have nearly put themselves in the best position to win the A10 tourney (top 4 nearly guaranteed). Definitely hope they do win and get another ticket to the dance. The chance looks as good as it possibly can get, so you have to hope they can take advantage. However, if they do I don’t feel like it is something that is sustainable. But I am up for being surprised.
 
RichmondNative said:
. Unfortunately, winning the A10 tournament is the only realistic way of making to the NCAAs as the at large possibilities are always going to be very limited for an A10 team.
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See Mountain West. Schedule and beat quad 1 teams. A10 is ONE spot below Mountain West in the Kenpom conference rankings. Need coaches and ADs that can leverage their relationships and even dream a little. We hear about Mooney and Bennett and other coaches, St. MARYS coach and Mooney. Yet we don't play St Mary's very often, or UVA either.
 
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spider23 said:
And to this point, we hear how hard scheduling is, and I believe it is. But some of these schools have dynamic AD'S that use relationships to get these games. We have Hardt.
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That’s why we have winning programs, because our A.D. is not doing a good job.
Your logic is wrong.
 
AnnapSpider said:
That’s why we have winning programs, because our A.D. is not doing a good job.
Your logic is wrong.
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I am talking about winning at basketball like a vCU , a St.Marys etc. That requires a motivated AD. Right now we are winning in a very cyclical manner, like any decent program. But even this year, if we scheduled better and won the top tier games we would be in better position for a bid. Hardt does not does his part imo to elevate and find games etc.
 
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He did get us the football game at Michigan State, but that did not help our basketball team. Ironically, it was JMU that got to go play there in basketball, and they won. That would be a decent W to have on our resume right now.
 
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I am not as familiar with how power rankings work in FCS football, does playing an FBS team help, hurt, or neutral to playoff profile? Serious question. In my experience, the games against FBS power teams (recalling a game vs NC State years ago) are a big opportunity for injuries. It is fun to beat a UVA, but I remember a game losing a couple top players.
But no, I would not agree with Annap that Hardt has built a bunch of top winning programs. We win sporadically. I believe LAX is a result of PQ, but football and hoops have been a struggle the past 10 years.

BUT - I do think we can win out in hoops this year in the regular season. I think if we can make the NCAA's that will show a Mooney revival and provide some momentum into the portal. Get the Bigelow and King recruiting videos all fine tuned to send out to the top 20 wing/stretch 4 prospects and dynamic scorers.
 
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The Top 4 finish in the A-10 as some type of metric for success has always confused me. First of all, the A-10 is not a 4 bid league. Secondly, it affords you one less game in the A-10 tourney and most likely that game is against a bottom feeder league team, a game that any "good" team should win anyway. I think the data is extremely mixed if playing a warm-up game is actually a help as it gets you used to playing in the arena, all of the sight lines, etc.. vs having a day off and then having to play a much better team in your first game.

In the grand scheme of things, top 4 A-10 is a nothing burger. I think some in our program have attached themselves to this metric because it seems like something "achievable". I don't hear Dayton and VCU outwardly stating, their goal at the start of the season is a Top 4 A-10 finish. Believe their goals are NCAA and that should be ours as well. NCAA or bust.
 
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Lot of ball to be played but to me we have 2 clear paths to the tournament. Win the next 6 regular season games and we’re in even if we lose to the 8/9 seed on Thursday in BK, which would probs be to a top ~120 team still so not horrific loss. We’d be the A10 reg season champ at 24-8 with a solid Q1 and Q2 record and no Q4 losses.

Or win 3 in a row in Brooklyn to win the auto bid. Brings up an interesting question, which path is harder? Winning 6 spread out games in a row vs mediocre competition, or winning 3 in a row against the hottest teams in the league? I think we are capable of either.

I do also think there’s a path where we lose at GMU (or vs VCU, please no) and get to Sunday and lose and possibly have a chance. But the first two paths are clear cut ways to get in
 
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Our biggest issue there is our nonconference resume is pretty bad… we beat no one of note. The committee would have to value the a10 pretty high; which doesn’t seem likely
 
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Agreed on non con resume. Didn’t totally DQ us from at large, but it required us to have an exceptionally good A10 record to have a chance. I think 16-2 qualifies as an exceptionally good record combined with no bad losses and a win over Dayton. Again I’m assuming a lot to say we win the next 6, but if we do…
 
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GKiller said:
Top 4 finish is always helpful, and we are exceeding expecatations for sure. A top 4 does increase A10 tourney odds. But we have to get NCAA out of it. Now some will say I'm being too negative and just enjoy the games, anything we accomplish is icing and that's too much to ask. Well I do enjoy the games u can enjoy games and still think big picture results.

U can also recalibrate with expectations, that's common. We were due to exceed expectations, we've regularly underperformed in A10 relative to expectations in past. But we started 8-0 it was great and got us at least seeing NCAA at large as feasible, tho still hard, due to OOC. Still u start 8-0, possibly win A10 reg season, u have to find way into NCAA whether at large or auto bid. Anything else is a big let down
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I feel the same way. If you had asked me in November if I would be happy with a top four spot in the conference I would have definitely taken it.

But now it's the middle of February, we are battling for first, I've seen what we are capable of - I'm not okay with just limping to the finish and getting a pat on the back for a nice little season. I want to see our name on selection Sunday.
 
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97spiderfan said:
The Top 4 finish in the A-10 as some type of metric for success has always confused me. First of all, the A-10 is not a 4 bid league. Secondly, it affords you one less game in the A-10 tourney and most likely that game is against a bottom feeder league team, a game that any "good" team should win anyway. I think the data is extremely mixed if playing a warm-up game is actually a help as it gets you used to playing in the arena, all of the sight lines, etc.. vs having a day off and then having to play a much better team in your first game.

In the grand scheme of things, top 4 A-10 is a nothing burger. I think some in our program have attached themselves to this metric because it seems like something "achievable". I don't hear Dayton and VCU outwardly stating, their goal at the start of the season is a Top 4 A-10 finish. Believe their goals are NCAA and that should be ours as well. NCAA or bust.
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Not a metric for success but the double bye is huge....top 4 finish is a means to help us achieve our yr end goals....conference title, NCAA, etc..semantics maybe but no way it's all the team is shooting for.
 
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97spiderfan said:
The Top 4 finish in the A-10 as some type of metric for success has always confused me.

In the grand scheme of things, top 4 A-10 is a nothing burger. I think some in our program have attached themselves to this metric because it seems like something “achievable”
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I used the wrong word in my earlier post. Instead of “goal” I should have said “expectation”. A top 4 finish should be an expectation every year and if the Spiders are consistently in the top 4 then they will consistently find themselves in the NCAAs as well (see 2007-2011). Counting this year, the Spiders will have seven top 4 finishes under Mooney. That is an underwhelming number. So top 4 isn’t the “goal”, but it is a significant stepping stone.
 
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SpiderDogg said:
Lot of ball to be played but to me we have 2 clear paths to the tournament. Win the next 6 regular season games and we’re in even if we lose to the 8/9 seed on Thursday in BK, which would probs be to a top ~120 team still so not horrific loss. We’d be the A10 reg season champ at 24-8 with a solid Q1 and Q2 record and no Q4 losses.

Or win 3 in a row in Brooklyn to win the auto bid. Brings up an interesting question, which path is harder? Winning 6 spread out games in a row vs mediocre competition, or winning 3 in a row against the hottest teams in the league? I think we are capable of either.

I do also think there’s a path where we lose at GMU (or vs VCU, please no) and get to Sunday and lose and possibly have a chance. But the first two paths are clear cut ways to get
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Are we on even one single analysts bubble team list right now? Im sorry but im not as optimistic as you are about at large chances..
 
97spiderfan said:
The Top 4 finish in the A-10 as some type of metric for success has always confused me. First of all, the A-10 is not a 4 bid league. Secondly, it affords you one less game in the A-10 tourney and most likely that game is against a bottom feeder league team, a game that any "good" team should win anyway. I think the data is extremely mixed if playing a warm-up game is actually a help as it gets you used to playing in the arena, all of the sight lines, etc.. vs having a day off and then having to play a much better team in your first game.

In the grand scheme of things, top 4 A-10 is a nothing burger. I think some in our program have attached themselves to this metric because it seems like something "achievable". I don't hear Dayton and VCU outwardly stating, their goal at the start of the season is a Top 4 A-10 finish. Believe their goals are NCAA and that should be ours as well. NCAA or bust.
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well, IIRC, winning 4 times in 4 days in the A10 had only happened a couple times (or maybe only once) before UR two years ago. So for a long while the top 4 desire was borne of the notion of the difficulty in winning the tournament from a 5 or below seed. And presumably that is the goal of all teams - most are not going into it just hoping to grab 2 wins and lock in an NCAA bid - usually only the top 1 or 2 A10 teams have that luxury, if at all, as this year proves. And to say getting a warm up game as the 5 seed helps - I disagree. I want the double bye and avoid a possible landmine game, and having to run a guy like Quinn out there for 35 minutes and then turn right around and do it again the next day. Top 4 means only 1 possibility b2b days of games, and that is the semifinals/title game. I'll take that as my b2b game days for sure.
 
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brooklyn brownstone said:
well, IIRC, winning 4 times in 4 days in the A10 had only happened a couple times (or maybe only once) before UR two years ago. So for a long while the top 4 desire was borne of the notion of the difficulty in winning the tournament from a 5 or below seed. And presumably that is the goal of all teams - most are not going into it just hoping to grab 2 wins and lock in an NCAA bid - usually only the top 1 or 2 A10 teams have that luxury, if at all, as this year proves. And to say getting a warm up game as the 5 seed helps - I disagree. I want the double bye and avoid a possible landmine game, and having to run a guy like Quinn out there for 35 minutes and then turn right around and do it again the next day. Top 4 means only 1 possibility b2b days of games, and that is the semifinals/title game. I'll take that as my b2b game days for sure.
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I agree the double bye is preferable for sure. The difference between a 4 and a 5 seed though is pretty small though. The reason that so few teams win 4 games in 4 days though has less to do with teams getting a bye and more to do with the best teams in the conference have the top seeds.
 
A bit interesting that the projections have Dayton with better odds to land the #1 seed, even though we hold the tiebreaker and they still have to play at Mason, at Loyola and vcu at home, whereas we only have vcu at home and at Mason. I might favor them as well, but our schedule is more favorable.
 
I don't know exactly how his models work, but Dayton obviously has a high rating, plus they're half a game up on us. KenPom projects them at 15–3 with us and Loyola at 14–4 and VCU at 12–6.
 
I doubt it. KenPom has them favored in all of their remaining games but cumulative probabilities suggest they have a 22% chance of doing so and the most likely outcome is that they lose one of them.

We are favored in all but the Mason game and are expected to drop two based on cumulative probabilities. He only gives us a 6% chance of running the table, or a 9% chance if you assume a win over URI to get us on equal footing with five games remaining.
 
Eight Legger said:
Yeah, if we were even with them I wonder if we would be the favorite?
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Idk either I like math but it’s a question for the real eggheads. but obv much closer. The game in hand with only 6 games left vs 5 has to skew a decent amount considering winning that individual extra game we’re only at what 70-75 % at best to win.
 
It seems he calculates the most likely outcome is:
Dayton to lose 1
VCU to lose 3
Loyola, UR, Bonnie’s, and UMass to lose 2 each

VCU is an underdog tonight, but I hear Cross has injured his hand…
 
Regarding having to win 4 games in 4 days, that will not be repeating this year. There is a break day on Friday during the A10 Tournament this year. So games will be on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday.
 
seeds 10-15 have to win 5 games in 6 days.
seeds 5-9 have to win 4 games in 5 days.
seeds 1-4 have to win 3 games in 4 days.
 
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