Keeping an eye on the national rankings

[sevelev711]

If we win out, and lose a game in STL we are in. 100%, no offense to Cole Blair's tweet Wednesday night. The problem is that we aren't going to do that and have lost 2 games we shouldn't have.

We should have more margin of error than we actually do thanks to the BS NET

See that's the thing for me, we did in fact have some margin of error. It's used up. And it's used up to two teams that it absolutely should not have been used up against. Pouring over all the stuff out there, we might have one more non-Arch Madness loss left, if the bubbles burst in our favor. Three games of wiggle room in an 18 game schedule, and the problem is that we used two of those losses in the first half of the schedule, and it was arguably the easier half.

Oh well, it happened. Now we need to hope for a massive run and for some other teams to lose in the way we need to.

[Gboom23]

Maybe it's the purple glasses, but I'd say we could lose at Indiana St or at Loyola, lose Sunday in STL, and still be in honestly. As long as we don't get killed any game. We've lost 3 games by a total of 13 points. If the committee really looks at every detail they'll see we had the lead, or a shot to take the lead in the last minute of every loss. When you look into the details of the whole season and how close every loss really was, it really sucks that we're only a bubble team right now.

Agree 100%. Need to run off 6 straight until we get to the @ Loyola game, which should be doable. 4 of those are at home. 1 at Evansville, and if we lose to Evansville we don't deserve to be in the tourney. And 1 at Valpo, which could be troublesome. 15-3 should get us in. I think we would really be sweating at 14-4 and need to win in STL at that point.

[CyCarp]

If we win out, and lose a game in STL we are in. 100%, no offense to Cole Blair's tweet Wednesday night. The problem is that we aren't going to do that and have lost 2 games we shouldn't have.

We should have more margin of error than we actually do thanks to the BS NET

Maybe it's the purple glasses, but I'd say we could lose at Indiana St or at Loyola, lose Sunday in STL, and still be in honestly. As long as we don't get killed any game. We've lost 3 games by a total of 13 points. If the committee really looks at every detail they'll see we had the lead, or a shot to take the lead in the last minute of every loss. When you look into the details of the whole season and how close every loss really was, it really sucks that we're only a bubble team right now.

[beef50677]

Random NET observations. Liberty dropped 26 spots to 50 by losing a one point road game for their 2nd loss. So it could be worse, and makes me thankful for our strong OOC schedule.

Also, UNI is comfortably ahead of the Hawkeyes in RPI (23 vs 42), but much behind them in NET (51 vs 21). I WONDER why NET is the new preferred metric?

A lot of it has to do with their own winning percentage. And this would affect their RPI the same way. Going from one loss to two, their winning percentage just plummeted from .944 to .895.

UNI's OOC isn't that strong, it's average - in the 130's. Compared to Liberty's (320ish) it's strong. The Panthers schedule strength is going to go the way of Colorado, West Virginia and then whatever help they can get out of South Carolina, Northern Colorado and wherever the separation happens within the Missouri Valley.

[DownGoesKansas]

If we win out, and lose a game in STL we are in. 100%, no offense to Cole Blair's tweet Wednesday night. The problem is that we aren't going to do that and have lost 2 games we shouldn't have.

We should have more margin of error than we actually do thanks to the BS NET

[OhNewby]

http://www.bracketmatrix.com/

Still has us in as an 11 seed. That implies we'd be in as at large. A lot a season left for everyone, we're not even close to out of picture.

[UNI Ka-Bullseye]

Random NET observations. Liberty dropped 26 spots to 50 by losing a one point road game for their 2nd loss. So it could be worse, and makes me thankful for our strong OOC schedule.

Also, UNI is comfortably ahead of the Hawkeyes in RPI (23 vs 42), but much behind them in NET (51 vs 21). I WONDER why NET is the new preferred metric?

[sevelev711]

...That's a lot of ground to make up. Meanwhile, I'd take that Lunardi bracket no questions asked. Minnesota, then LSU, then (in all likelihood) Florida State? That'd be as favorable a path to the sweet 16 as we would get.

[enkamania]

Dave over at Bracketville has us in a lot of trouble. Here are the bubble teams he has ranked ahead of us and their net rankings.

Xavier	60
Richmond	54
Georgetown	55
Rhode Island	52
Arizona State	62
Alabama	37
Mississippi St	53
Tennessee	59
Pittsburgh	74
Syracuse	66
Purdue	46
Washington	48
Utah	77
Georgia	75
Saint Louis	69
Virginia	65
St. John’s	79
Utah State	73
Cincinnati	56
Oregon State	78
Northern Iowa	51

[rhoho]

When is the last time 2 mvc teams were projected to be in the tourney?

[DownGoesKansas]

Lunardi just put his update out. Play-in game against Minnesota.

Side Note: Minnesota finally won a road game last night after they beat Ohio State. Ohio State is a 7 seed despite losing 6 of 7 games.

Yay P5!!!!

[UNIAlum2010]

Lunardi just put his update out. Play-in game against Minnesota.

Side Note: Minnesota finally won a road game last night after they beat Ohio State. Ohio State is a 7 seed despite losing 6 of 7 games.

[BCPanther]

Like I mentioned before, we're in WAY better shape than Belmont was last year. We're fine if we keep winning games.

I'm going to be so sad when we knock Porter and his little stompy feet right back out of the bracket on Sunday...

[CyCarp]

A bit surprising to me, Lunardi still has us in - 1 of the last 4 right now. Let's go on another nice winning streak now...

[UNI Ka-Bullseye]

We dropped 15 spots in (yesterday’s) NET to 51, roughly the same number of spots dropped as Memphis who lost by 40 at Tulsa and SLU who lost at Davidson. It will take several games to recover, but not as catastrophic as I originally feared.