PAC 12 and C-USA Leap Frog Valley in Conference Standings...

[jocoshock]

Hooray for Bracket Busters...

Wichita State and Creighton each won on Saturday but the rest of the conference was just 2-5 in this past weekend’s Bracket Busters. The Shockers are now ranked 19th in each of the Top 25 polls. However due to the improvement of the Pac-12 and Conference USA (largely because of the BPI) the Missouri Valley Conference dropped two spots from No. 8 to 10.

http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/49476/pac-12-conference-usa-make-jump-in-rankings

[1972Shocker]

Bracket Busters had nothing to do with our Valley brethren performing like ****. Plus you're assuming that without Bracket Busters these other Valley programs would have scheduled comparable teams on their own to replace BB opponents and would have been more successful in playing those opponents. That's a hard sell.

I don't think any Valley team had their Bracket Busted this year despite the poor performance. In fact, the Shocks and Bluejays both benefited. The Shocks seemed to get a very nice boost in national perception. So yes, you are right -- Hooray for Bracket Busters. Plus now we have Davidson on our home schedule in a couple of years.

If the Shocks take care of their own business and keep winning we will be just fine come selection Sunday.

[Shockeriffic]

The good news here is that these rankings are based off of ESPN's BPI and not RPI. The BPI was just created this year and I don't think anyone outside of ESPN is paying attention to it yet. According to real time RPI, the valley is still ahead of CUSA and the PAC-12.

[1972Shocker]

I'm not sure the selection/seeding committee even looks ast conference RPI in any case.

[WSUwatcher]

I'm not sure the selection/seeding committee even looks ast conference RPI in any case.

Supposedly they look at teams on their own merit and without regard to conference, although some on here are obviously skeptics. In any case, the final conference RPI rankings, for whatever they're worth, are all but set at this point with teams playing entirely within their own leagues. The Pac-12 will finish 10th; they're too far behind to move up. The Valley will almost surely finish 8th, holding a relatively slim lead over C-USA in 9th, and with no chance to gain enough to overtake the 7th place A-10.

[Rlh04d]

Regardless of which conference is better on average, I don't think there is a team in either league that matches up to WSU. By a pretty big margin.

My fiancé is a Washington alum, so I've seen a lot of PAC-12 games this season, and the conference is very weak. League leader Cal has been blown out in their only big games, including UNLV by 17. The PAC 12 not only hasn't beat a single top 25 team conference wide, I think the best win any team in their conference has had is Oregon State over Texas. Conference USA doesn't seem very strong this year, either. However they want to rank the conferences, I'd put money on WSU and Creighton to beat any team in either league come tourney time. Hell, I'd put money on MO State and NIU.

[RoyalShock]

After all we've been told by the committees and after all the mock selections that have gone on, anyone who still thinks conference standings or conference performance matters in the selection process are simply refusing to remove their tinfoil hat.

That said, I'm going to put my tinfoil hat on for a moment as I harp on how ESPN decided to present the MVC's BracketBuster performance. Using the same sentence quoted in the OP:

Wichita State and Creighton each won on Saturday but the rest of the conference was just 2-5 in this past weekend’s BracketBusters.

Let's think through this a moment. With 10 participating teams an event like this would be expected to produce a record of 5-5. The MVC only did one game below the expected outcome, finishing 4-6. But to make it look worse, their 5-loss mistake notwithstanding, they present the record without the WSU and CU wins, making the MVC look even worse.

I know the reality is that the MVC should have probably gone 6-4 or better, given how well it performed in the non-con relative to the other participating conferences. But one look at the conference standings would show that outside of WSU, CU and BU, everyone else would be unpredictable.

Maybe the intent was just to say the MVC let WSU and CU, who took care of business, down. But they could have presented it better.

[/tinfoilhat]

[Downtown Shocker Brown]

Royal, who didnt play. 2-5=7. WSU and CU = 9.

Perhaps the system is fine and theissue is idiots trying to implement it?

[RoyalShock]

Royal, who didnt play. 2-5=7. WSU and CU = 9.

Perhaps the system is fine and theissue is idiots trying to implement it?

You'd have to ask the ESPN writer. He clearly missed one of the losses.

[shock-it-to-me]

Now that we are 'comfortably in', I'll be thrilled if they put 5 Pac 10 teams in, the more of the mid-range BCS teams in the better at this point, because those are teams which will also probably be overseeded and which we will destroy. I would be much more fearful of getting matched up with an undervalued and underseeded non-BCS team in the first couple of rounds.

[1972Shocker]

Now that we are 'comfortably in'

I think we need two more wins to be comfortably in.

[dTm]

I think we need two more wins to be comfortably in.

You're making an attempt at humor right? What info could you possibly be looking at to come to that conclusion?

[Shockeriffic]

The ESPN writer only looked at Saturday games. UNI played on Friday. So his point makes even less sense.

[WuDrWu]

I think we need two more wins to be comfortably in.

I promise you we don't need 2 more wins. I don't think it will matter, but we don't need them.

[Snapshot9]

We need 2 more wins to have a protected seed!!! And we need to least be in the Championship Game in St. Louis.