2016 Bracketology

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

Fever and Jamar vs Shockernet. I love it!

There is no freaking way WSU is on the bubble this year at 27-6. NO. FREAKING. WAY.

[ShockerFever]

A 6 or 7 loss WSU with 1 good win and 1-2 bad losses is leaving it up to the committee. And I know we all trust the committee to do the right thing.

They specifically stated the injury situation was going to be considered. There's 2 All-American seniors. There's a recent history and tradition. There's a name brand. There's hundreds of teams that are losing to sh*t teams every other week.

WSU doesn't have a lot of wiggle room to work with, but they are a legitimate at-large team at the moment and will continue to be, even with another loss or two to Top 150 RPI teams.

[shoxlax]

Anything above 8 losses and we start to sweat-below that, zero worries.

[shoxlax]

I'm sure Jamar can point to Gonzaga a few years ago on maybe two different occasions making it as an at large with
8 or 9 losses. Some of those were really bad losses too


On another note I'm not sure I've ever liked Jamars posts when on the same thread with Fever

[Cdizzle]

They specifically stated the injury situation was going to be considered. There's 2 All-American seniors. There's a recent history and tradition. There's a name brand. There's hundreds of teams that are losing to sh*t teams every other week.

WSU doesn't have a lot of wiggle room to work with, but they are a legitimate at-large team at the moment and will continue to be, even with another loss or two to Top 150 RPI teams.

Who specifically stated that? Somebody that talked to somebody? Cause those same people said they would consider Syracuse's record with/without Boeheim.

[WSUwatcher]

The contrarians and nay sayers will find any little thing they can to twist around and use as a negative.

Very true -- we have a large contingent that thinks the sky is falling every time they see a plastic bag up in the air blowing around.

Take a deep breath, everyone. The sky is not falling. The sky is not falling. The sky is not falling...

[OregonShocker]

Here's analysis from SI: http://www.si.com/college-basketball...-fred-vanvleet

[_kai_]

Which analyst was it that said he specifically talked to the head of the selection committe and he said that Wichita State will not be judged on their resume prior to Fred's return. Was it Andy Katz?

Either way, this team is not being evaluated on anything except after Florida. During that time, the team has one loss, in OT, on the road at Seton Hall on a Sunday afternoon. Not only does WSU have just 1 loss, they're DESTROYING teams. Absolutely destroying teams, and this is all during a period where Fred, Final Four as a freshman Fred, undefeated regular season Fred, says that this team isn't close to peaking. I think he knows a little bit with personal experience of seeing when a team peaks. WSU handed UNI their worst home court loss in history with a team that hasn't peaked. WSU just embarrassed Evansville on their home court.

For Wichita State to miss the tournament this year you'd have to have something catastrophic like losing 3 straight to Drake, NMSU & Missouri State. I think WSU has the ability to weather one bad loss for the remainder of the season and still at-large it. God forbid they lose a couple to a sub 250 rpi and I think people can put some weight behind WSU isn't an at-large team.

[OregonShocker]

Pretty sure it was Andy during a "don't panic, WSU" post.

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

I'm sure Jamar can point to Gonzaga a few years ago on maybe two different occasions making it as an at large with
8 or 9 losses. Some of those were really bad losses too

2011 Gonzaga - #11 Seed
KenPom - 35
RPI - 56
24-9
2-4 vs KP top 50
4-3 vs KP 51-100
18-2 vs KP 100+

Gonzaga received the auto-bid that year. Usually the last at large team receives a 12 seed, so as an 11, it appears that Gonzaga's resume would have been good enough for an at large bid if needed.


2016 WSU
KenPom - 12
RPI - 33
16-5
1-3 vs KP top 50
3-2 vs KP 51-100
12-0 vs KP 100+

If WSU finishes 10-2 down the stretch and 26-7 overall, they will have a better KenPom, better RPI, better overall W/L record, similar top 50 and top 100 numbers, and better 100+ numbers. All of that is without even looking at how shorthanded WSU was early in the year.

27-6 is absolutely not on the bubble, and 26-7 probably still gets in, BEFORE accounting for injuries.

Cheer up folks. WSU is safely in. Period.

[WSUwatcher]

So we know that JH4P believes the Shocks are a safe bet for the tournament unless something really weird and untoward happens between now and Selection Sunday. And although I'm not going to go through and click on View Post to see all the back and forth and confirm, as best I can tell Fever believes the same thing.

Here's the bottom line: when Jamar and Fever both believe the sky isn't falling, or for that matter when Fever and I both believe the sky isn't falling (although I hesitate to point that out, lest it cause him to change his mind), then by golly, the sky IS NOT FALLING.

[Cdizzle]

Who ever said the sky was falling?

[HenryMuto]

This guy has Wichita State as an 8 seed (Kentucky as a 6 seed)

http://www.sbnation.com/college-basketball/2016/2/2/10888262/bracketology-college-basketball-maryland-virginia-oklahoma-florida

[Shocker-maniac]

I'm not trying to be a contrarian, or agitate or anything along those lines. If we all must hug and only agree all the time then I'm out of line. Otherwise, I'm sharing my opinion and I certainly hope I'm wrong.

I just believe that we have very little wiggle room.We have one top 50 RPI win with absolutely no opportunity to get another one for the rest of the regular season. According to Eisenberg, we have "the resume of a mid-major bubble team." Lunardi tweets that we may be an at large team. Maybe beating Evansville changes Lunardi's opinion, I don't know. Let's not forget Missouri State with an RPI ranking of 20'ish was snubbed by the committee a few years back.

In my previous post I stated that we are playing at an elite level we just don't have the resume to go with it. And this was my main point that is thanks to the Valley conference. Being in this conference we have to hit the ground running and win our non-conference games because in most years the Valley will not help us with resume building wins. In years that we have injuries or a team with a bunch of newcomers that take a while to coalesce and play at a winning level we are not going to be helped by our conference in most seasons.

So we have very little margin for error. Teams in better conferences can make up for slow starts with resume building wins over their conference foes. We don't have that luxury.

[bighouse]

This guy has Wichita State as an 8 seed (Kentucky as a 6 seed)

http://www.sbnation.com/college-bask...lahoma-florida

Oregon a 2 seed? nuf said