Games of Interest (2015-16 Edition)

[Slalomshocker]

WSU will draw the 8/9 winner followed by the 4/5 winner (SIU/UNI). 2 & 3 sit on the same side of the bracket, and ISUr and UE are locked in to those two slots, its just a matter of who wears what color. In my view, it played out best for WSU. WSUs bench will be the key to winning the title. IIRC ISUr doesnt go more than 7-8 deep and UE is lucky to remember to play their 6th man.

[Dave Stalwart]

WSU will draw the 8/9 winner followed by the 4/5 winner (SIU/UNI). 2 & 3 sit on the same side of the bracket, and ISUr and UE are locked in to those two slots, its just a matter of who wears what color. In my view, it played out best for WSU. WSUs bench will be the key to winning the title. IIRC ISUr doesnt go more than 7-8 deep and UE is lucky to remember to play their 6th man.

I see. I always get confused. If that's the case, then we will probably play a top 100 team in the finals if we get there. Winning two more in St. Louis may be enough to get Illinois State into the top 100, and Evansville would have to lose every game from here on out to fall out of the top 100. I guess I would just like to think that in the title game of your conference tournament, the team you face would not be potentially a bad loss and could hopefully be a decent win. It needs to be a resume boosting win. If #80 is going to be the best team in this conference, that's who I want to play.

[MadaboutWu]

It looks to me like Evansville should get the 2 seed since they have a home game against UNI Saturday while on the other hand, Illinois St has to play here on senior day. Even if they both lose, Evansville probably has the tie breaker for the 2 seed. They split head to head this year but UE has the higher rpi tie breaker. I want Illinois state on our side of the bracket so we can own them twice over the course of a week :)

Thanks for your breakdown. I think though the second tie-breaker is based on OOC SOS not rpi, so basically UE beats no one on that (and ISUr had a very good OOC SOS). UE will be a favorite to win senior night and end 13-5 though.

[shocktheheart]

Going to go off ESPN's bubble watch instead of Lunardi's bracket. Here is the link: http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/bubblewatch
Games tonight * team on bubble:
UConn*@ South Florida +13.5 Loss here would be disastrous. UConn RPI 38
Florida St*@ Duke -9 Florida St I would debate isn't even on the bubble. 16-11 and 6-9 in ACC with RPI of 71. Must win
Providence @ Seton Hall* -4 Seton Hall win would help Shox in regards to not a bad loss, but if you believe WSU is on the bubble you want a Providence win
Texas Arlington @ UALR* -7 24-3 RPI of 45, SOS 264. They win out and lose in conference tourney it will be interesting to see what happens with that SOS
Gonzaga* @ San Diego +15.5 Gonzaga RPI of 67 and SOS of 120 probably need to win out to WCC tourney to have a shot of at large
Santa Clara @ St. Mary's* -16.5 St. Mary's in drivers seat of WCC even though they have the same record as Gonzaga as they swept Gonzaga. 22-4 for St. Mary's and RPI of 57 need to win out till tourney
UC Riverside @ Hawaii* -16.5 I don't believe Hawaii is on the bubble even though they have only lost 3 games. Their SOS is 272 and RPI of 81

[Dave Stalwart]

Thanks for your breakdown. I think though the second tie-breaker is based on OOC SOS not rpi, so basically UE beats no one on that (and ISUr had a very good OOC SOS). UE will be a favorite to win senior night and end 13-5 though.

I'm not sure where I found it but I thought I read a thing somewhere that said they updated it to 1. head to head, and 2. plain old RPI in the event of a head to head tie

If that's true, then UE has already got it.

That's where I was coming from, but the thing I read may have been old or wrong or something.

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

Regarding the best scenario for squeezing the maximum number of MVC teams into the RPI top 100...

We already know Evansville and ISU are locked in to the 2/3 seeds and UNI and SIU are locked in as the 4/5 seeds.
We already know SIU can't finish top 100 without beating WSU in the MVC semis. No reason to root for SIU right now.
Let's assume WSU wins the next 4 and nobody gets a surprise RPI boost from beating the Shox.
Let's assume the 2/3 seeds take care of their quarterfinal matchups in St. Louis.

With those "best case" assumptions, here are estimated selection sunday RPIs utilizing rpiforecast's RPI Wizard:
UNI beats Evansville, goes 1-1 in St. Louis, loses to WSU in Semis. RPI - 84
UNI beats Evansville, goes 0-1 in St. Louis, loses to SIU in Quarters. RPI - 95
UNI loses to Evansvlle, goes 1-1 in St. Louis, loses to WSU in Semis. RPI - 96
EU beats UNI, goes 2-1 in St. Louis, loses to WSU in Finals. RPI - 72
EU beats UNI, goes 1-1 in St. Louis, loses to ISU in Semis. RPI - 78
EU loses to UNI, goes 1-1 in St. Louis, loses to ISU in Semis. RPI - 95
ISU goes 2-1 in St. Louis, loses to WSU in Finals. RPI - 91
ISU goes 1-1 in St. Louis, loses to Evansville in Semis. RPI - 102

Obviously, games played in other conferences will have some impact on these numbers, but these should be fairly accurate projections. I think we root for UNI to beat Evansville Saturday and then for ISU to beat Evansville in the Semis. Evansville should finish top 100 as long as they win their game on Friday in St. Louis. Fortunately, it looks like there are multiple paths to getting all 3 in the top 100. The key is for no upsets in the 2vs7 and 3vs6 matchups on Friday, and then for ISU to beat Evansville in the Semis.

If things go perfectly to plan, WSU will finish 6-2 vs top 100 MVC teams and be 7-7 against the top 100 overall with non con included. Hey Jerry Palm, maybe that garbage that you were spewing (WSU would be a historical outlier to get an atlarge bid with so few top 100 wins) wasn't so helpful after all. In fact, it was flat out wrong. 5 or 6 top 100 wins, should WSU fall in the Semis or Finals, isn't amazing, but its plenty to feel good about in terms of grabbing an atlarge bid if needed.

[Cdizzle]

It would take great finishes, but would not be unheard of for New Mexico St. or/and Nevada to finish in the Top 100 either.

[Dave Stalwart]

It would take great finishes, but would not be unheard of for New Mexico St. or/and Nevada to finish in the Top 100 either.

Regarding the best scenario for squeezing the maximum number of MVC teams into the RPI top 100...

We already know Evansville and ISU are locked in to the 2/3 seeds and UNI and SIU are locked in as the 4/5 seeds.
We already know SIU can't finish top 100 without beating WSU in the MVC semis. No reason to root for SIU right now.
Let's assume WSU wins the next 4 and nobody gets a surprise RPI boost from beating the Shox.
Let's assume the 2/3 seeds take care of their quarterfinal matchups in St. Louis.

With those "best case" assumptions, here are estimated selection sunday RPIs utilizing rpiforecast's RPI Wizard:
UNI beats Evansville, goes 1-1 in St. Louis, loses to WSU in Semis. RPI - 84
UNI beats Evansville, goes 0-1 in St. Louis, loses to SIU in Quarters. RPI - 95
UNI loses to Evansvlle, goes 1-1 in St. Louis, loses to WSU in Semis. RPI - 96
EU beats UNI, goes 2-1 in St. Louis, loses to WSU in Finals. RPI - 72
EU beats UNI, goes 1-1 in St. Louis, loses to ISU in Semis. RPI - 78
EU loses to UNI, goes 1-1 in St. Louis, loses to ISU in Semis. RPI - 95
ISU goes 2-1 in St. Louis, loses to WSU in Finals. RPI - 91
ISU goes 1-1 in St. Louis, loses to Evansville in Semis. RPI - 102

Obviously, games played in other conferences will have some impact on these numbers, but these should be fairly accurate projections. I think we root for UNI to beat Evansville Saturday and then for ISU to beat Evansville in the Semis. Evansville should finish top 100 as long as they win their game on Friday in St. Louis. Fortunately, it looks like there are multiple paths to getting all 3 in the top 100. The key is for no upsets in the 2vs7 and 3vs6 matchups on Friday, and then for ISU to beat Evansville in the Semis.

If things go perfectly to plan, WSU will finish 6-2 vs top 100 MVC teams and be 7-7 against the top 100 overall with non con included. Hey Jerry Palm, maybe that garbage that you were spewing (WSU would be a historical outlier to get an atlarge bid with so few top 100 wins) wasn't so helpful after all. In fact, it was flat out wrong. 5 or 6 top 100 wins, should WSU fall in the Semis or Finals, isn't amazing, but its plenty to feel good about in terms of grabbing an atlarge bid if needed.

I feel a second wind coming on! Our resume could hit a big boost if all these teams do the right things. They will. This is a year of destiny.

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

It would take great finishes, but would not be unheard of for New Mexico St. or/and Nevada to finish in the Top 100 either.

NMSU
Win next 5 - RPI 93
Win next 4 then lose in finals - RPI 106
The last 2 regular season games are on the road, but against really bad teams. Probably a 10-20% chance of MNSU sweeping the next 5 and finishing top 100

Nevada has a couple ways to finish top 100.
Win next 3, then lose in MWC Quarterfinals - RPI 99
Win 2 of next 3, make it to Finals and lose to SDSU - RPI 93
With an expected win total of 1.6 out of their next 3 (basically half way between 1 or 2 wins), they probably also have about a 10-20% shot at finishing top 100

[HenryMuto]

Someone should tell Arizona State the game started......Utah up 30-2 with 6 minutes left in the 1st half.......wow

[AndShock]

Someone should tell Arizona State the game started......Utah up 30-2 with 6 minutes left in the 1st half.......wow

And people think we suck against the zone...

[mjbaker84]

Someone should tell Arizona State the game started......Utah up 30-2 with 6 minutes left in the 1st half.......wow

44-10 at half

one AZ State guy had 8 of the points and like 13-14 rebounds alone

[WstateU]

44-10 at half

[ShockerFever]

"But you've only beaten Utah"

[WuDrWu]

It's time for Grayson Allen to get suspended, for multiple games. He's shown he'll cheap shot a defenseless player.

I don't see any difference between what he's done and the OSU kid.