Bracketology for today....

[UnderParPanther]

Interesting in the nitty gritty that we got left off the list of Bubble Teams or teams most likely to be selected to the NIT list. We were 20th or 21st yesterday. We are 4-0 w/ 3 road wins against this list.


Florida St
Purdue
Oklahoma St
Appalachian St
Mississippi St
Alabama
Clemson
Mississippi
Massachusetts
Bradley
DePaul
Akron
New Mexico St
Iowa
Michigan
Providence
Santa Clara
Hofstra
Arkansas
Utah St
Bucknell
George Washington
Fresno St
Missouri
Kent St
Houston
Western Kentucky

[UNIChippewa]

Win against Bradley on Friday and I think we're in for sure.

[Newsbreaker]

We are not currently a lock for anything, and I think we're still playing our way onto the NIT bubble. Our SOS isn't very good, and we had some bad losses.

We have to win two in STL, and then hopefully we'll be in one tournament or the other.

[panther2317]

You're right News...name me a team on that list that doesn't have a bad loss this season. Also, the only 'bad loss' we have in conference is to Indiana State on the road and that's even questionable because Purdue and Butler lost there too.

[UNIAlum95]

Drake at home isn't a bad loss? Are you sure about that. I can promise if you are reviewing teams and you see that UNI lost TWICE to the last place team, it's a bad loss.

[Khan4Cats]

We did not lose twice to the last place team, we split with Indiana State. We lost twice to Drake, who finished in a tie for 7th. We were a .500 team in conference from pretty much all aspects. .500 against the top 4 teams, .500 against the bottom 4, .500 against the conference champs, .500 against the last place team. Would have liked to have done better against the bottom, but we still control our fate.

An interesting note from the MVC webpage:
The Valley's 57 wins from it's 7-10 seeds is among the national best. In fact, following Saturday's (Feb. 24) games only five conferences had as many as 50 victories from its bottom four in the standings. The SEC's last four teams have 61 combined victories, followed by the MVC (57) and ACC (57), while the Mountain West (52) and Big Ten (50) also have 50 or more wins from their "bottom-four" teams.

I think this will be taken into account by the committee(s) when looking at bids, which is why I believe we could be on the bubble for the NCAA's with a run to the title game and that we are already a lock for the NIT, just competing Friday with Bradley for the chance to move up.

[panther2317]

What I'm saying is that Drake isn't a bad loss in our league this year. They are a much improved team and have some nice non-conference wins to their credit too. Home losses always suck, but as much as it stung to lose to Drake, we need to make sure people know it's not a horrible loss...like losing to Iona or a non-Division 1. Drake is 16-14 and plays in the 6th best conference in the country...they're not horrible.

[BCPanther]

Excellent Post 2317...

[Matt Trump]

What I'm saying is that Drake isn't a bad loss in our league this year. They are a much improved team and have some nice non-conference wins to their credit too. Home losses always suck, but as much as it stung to lose to Drake, we need to make sure people know it's not a horrible loss...like losing to Iona or a non-Division 1. Drake is 16-14 and plays in the 6th best conference in the country...they're not horrible.

C'mon. Losing to Drake AT HOME is a bad loss.

[jman2004]

Drake is definately a bad loss, especially twice. So was Illinois State and so was Indiana State. All games we could've won, all to lower teams in our conference. Yes, we all agree that the Valley was tough, but the fact remains that there were some games that we should've had. Those games were bad losses, in my eyes, and probably in the committee's eyes.

[General_Panther]

Here is what Fox Sports has on their Projections for the Missiouri Valley Conference. I copied and pasted this right off of the article so here it is:

Missouri Valley (Projection: 3)
Locked In: Southern Illinois, Creighton.
On the bubble: Missouri State, Bradley.
Commentary: Missouri State (20-9) has a 37 RPI and a 12-6 conference record, finishing two games ahead of Bradley (19-11, 45 RPI), which has a 10-8 league record, but is 1-7 against the Top 50.

Interesting to see if this would change when we beat Bradley on Friday. Probably not though, no one ever gives UNI any love until it's too late.

[Hime_Peterson]

Drake went 1-8 on the road in the Valley this year.

Of those 8 losses, they only came within single digits in one of them.

That was not a good loss for UNI.

[BCPanther]

A win over BU, a fairly convincing win over SIU and a really close loss to CU (only team we can lose to) gets us into the conversation. I don't know if it puts us over the hump or not, but gets us into the conversation...

I do think that we are an "NIT Lock" at this point...

[Newsbreaker]

Drake is a bad loss...in fact, to anyone outside MVCWorld, Drake is TWO bad losses. Indiana State is a bad loss as well. Unfortunately, in selecting tournament teams, they look for reasons to exclude, rather then reasons to include, you. We've given a lot of reasons, and our last 10 record sucks.

We need at LEAST one win in STL to even think about the NIT. Two and we move to a strong bubble/weak "lock"...three and it doesn't matter.

[Schack]

NIT bracket projections:

http://tcaa.puretecmo.com/nit06.html