I think we scheduled appropriately. No one knew Maryland would be terrible. And Iâm not sure it wouldâve been beneficial to play a bunch of top teams and potentially get smoked with our totally new roster. Couldâve impacted confidence for the long term. Had we lost a couple games earlier this season against good teams, rather than beating a couple bad teams, then I think weâd be in the same seeding position. I doubt we wouldâve beat any top 20 teams in November or December
12 Likes
There isnt really consensus on bracket matrix over the last 3 seed. Alabama, Gonzaga and Virginia all are a 3 in a chunk of brackets. Purdue still clinging to a 3 in a lot of brackets but I suspect theyll drop if they dont win 2 games this week.
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Everybody knew before the season started that our schedule was behind Duke/UNC/NC State/Louisville preseason. You may be right that it was the right strategy to take an easier non-con, but even if Maryland/Texas/Ohio State lived up to preseason expectations it still wouldâve been a tier or two below
2 Likes
kenpom had Maryland projected in the 30s and Dayton in the 50s. I dont think any of the main non con opponents materially outperformed expectations and I do wonder if those two teams being worse than expected (Maryland by a lot) ends up being the difference between a 3 seed and a 4 seed.
that saidâŚpossible that a better dayton or Maryland team would have won
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This is how I see it. Our resume metrics are going to end up ahead of our predictive metrics. Hard to say that scheduling a weaker non-con capped our resume potential in this case.
Eyeballing things here, but from consulting WABWatch ( WAB Watch ) we had a total potential WAB of +10.80 in the regular season, whereas the other teams around us were in the +12-14 range.
Now, in a universe where we had the predictives of a 2-seed, we might be feeling that lower WAB ceiling more acutely.
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Yeah I guess I donât really see what benefit weâd be seeing now if we had played a couple current top 15 teams back in November and December and almost surely lost. But maybe even somewhat close losses wouldâve helped us. We played well @Texas in the first couple months of the season but outside of that performance, I really donât think we looked like we couldâve competed with a good team
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virginia more or less made up for the lower wab ceiling by winning more games, though. if virginia doesnt get a 3 it wont be because of a low wab ceiling - it will be because they dont have any wins against a top 4 seed.
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Agree - Iâm basically seeing two separate threads:
-
noncon was appropriate given our team
-
feels like we are being punished because we had no good games between Duke and whatever the next one was
1 and 2 canât coexist in one brain.
It was either an appropriate schedule and the downside was that our seed might suffer.
Or we ARE being punished** correctly
** I donât even love this term. Itâs an odd fit. Committee is ranking teams.
And yeah, itâs not all our fault. Some of it is the ACCs fault for making us play these random ass non ACC teams rather than Miami on the road, Duke at JPJ, UNC in chapel hill, Clemson at all. Etc.
Itâs buzzâs fault for being such a mediocre coach (and kenpoms fault for apparently not knowing that)
Itâs butler and northwestern fault for being so mediocre
Itâs Brad Brownell fault for okey doking us
Itâs UMESâs fault for once again failing to produce a top 100 hoops team.
Itâs our fault for thinking by playing Queens we were playing like a team of playground legends, rather than some team from Charlotte.
Etcetera etcetera
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I think the narrative would be slightly different if we didnât blow it against Carolina. Going 0-2 against Duke and UNC doesnât help when your OOC resume lacks high profile wins. I would argue that our performances against Louisville, Miami, SMU, State, etc. are comparable to a home win over UNC but thatâs not how people think.
3 Likes
Still cant believe we didnt play clemson this season.
Also, I think @ Louisville is being slept on as a big win. My understanding is that when the committee is judging the quality of a win, they look at the opponentâs efficiency rankings. Louisville is 13th in NET! A Road win over # 13 is a huge win. Only question is whether the committee dives down into the nitty gritty enough to even know about the Brown injury. Theres no way theyre doing that for every game though and feels like something they would only do in order to get a result they want (i.e. to âpunishâ virginia).
The NCAA publishes WAB and NET. Those should be the metrics it focuses the most on. UVA is 10th and 14th in those metricsâŚwhich averages to #12. Should be the last 3 seed as of today, imo.
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ACC teams are in the awkward position where the conference is good enough that you donât need to schedule a murderers row OOC slate to boost your resume (like Gonzaga does) but at the same time you donât end up getting as many opportunities for resume building wins as teams in the B1G, B12, and SEC do.
The ACC is much better than last year and there are plenty of Q1/Q2 opportunities during conference play. The problem is a that lot of the Q1 games are road games against top 75 teams instead of home games against top 30 teams. Those other 3 conferences had way more home Q1 opportunities than we did (in addition to the road opportunities). At the end of the day, it ends up being okay but when you start really digging into resumes, teams like ours are at a bit of a disadvantage.
5 Likes
Louisvilleâs NET ranking includes a bunch of games where Brown didnât play so would be insane for them to discount that win.
4 Likes
Checked the new on3 bracket and of course weâre already paired up with Northern Iowa as our 13 seed. They are 20 spots better in kenpom (70th currently) than the next best 13 seed (Utah Valley) and about 45 spots better than Liberty and NDSU who are the other two 13 seeds
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Big reason why a 3 seed would be so big, thereâs legit top 100 teams in the 13 ranks
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Worse still is that it has the game in Portland. I really want to avoid the west coast trip. If we could get the first weekend in Greenville or Philadelphia, the fan travel would be much better.
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right, heâs missed 1/3 of their season and I donât think itâs a situation where theyre like top 5 with him and top 40 without him and it averaged to 13th.
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3 seeds are historically the most successful seed line relative to expectation, while 4 is the middle of the road.
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Would also suggest adjusting for how these 13 seeds are playing lately (last 4-6 weeks). A lot of them look better as the season went on.
THE ALL TIME SEED-VS-SEED RECORDS IN THE FIRST ROUND:
| SEED VS. SEED. | W-L | PCT. |
|---|---|---|
| 1 vs. 16 | 158-2 | .988 |
| 2 vs. 15 | 149-11 | .931 |
| 3 vs. 14 | 137-23 | .856 |
| 4 vs. 13 | 127-33 | .794 |
| 5 vs. 12 | 103-57 | .644 |
| 6 vs. 11 | 98-62 | .613 |
| 7 vs. 10* | 97-62 | .610 |
| 8 vs. 9 | 77-83 | .481 |
10 Likes
Regarding Bama, whatâs seared in my brain is the shellacking we gave Texas in Austin, who then went into Tuscaloosa and punked Bama a month later.
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