2016 Bracketology

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

St Mary's will be RPI 42 with a loss. Current KenPom is 33. Sounds promising, although bubblicious, and then you find out...

THEY HAVE ONLY 8 WINS VS THE TOP 200!

If they lose tonight, St. Mary's will only be 8-5 vs the top 200. Not top 100. Top 200! 18 of their 26 wins are garbage 200+ teams. For comparison, WSU has 11 such wins.

For St. Mary's to get a bid, the committee better absolutely love Gonzaga, because winning 2/3 vs the Zags is really their only selling point. Possible they get into the play-in games, but WSU is so much more deserving.

With all of that said, yes, go St. Mary's, because Gonzaga would be in even worse shape if they lose tonight and finish 0-3 vs St. Mary's.

[kochHead]

No it wasn't. KenPom 56. RPI 60.

Yes. I remember this well because I went to Arch Maddness that year and we knew we had to win to get in.

[Kung Wu]

What was MSU's KenPom rating when they were left out of the dance with their 22 RPI?

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

What was MSU's KenPom rating when they were left out of the dance with their 22 RPI?

KenPom 28. Truly the biggest snub of all time.

[CBB_Fan]

Should note, Missouri State was left out despite their numbers for a few crucial reasons. #1, by large margin, was that they didn't schedule to be in tournament. It is one thing to not have enough wins, it is another to avoid any tough games in your non-conference and hope your conference carries your RPI. Missouri State's second best OOC opponent was #127, and most of their games were against teams 150+. They had barely a single game against the top 50, which they lost. If their wins and losses were more evenly distributed between OOC and conference they probably would have made it, but that year the selection committee decided to punish them for "exploiting" the system.

The second thing is exactly what that means. If they exploited the system, people thought their numbers weren't as good as they actually appeared. They didn't have the eye test. They were 2nd in the Valley, 2 games behind first (us), and they lost by double digits multiple times in conference, and twice by 20. Combine the margin of every loss we've had since Fred came back, and you'll see it doesn't even add up to 20, and really it is even closer than with OTs. They had a scoring margin of 5ish. We had a scoring margin of 22. We are a better team than our resume, even ignoring injuries (and especially including them).

And even then, Missouri State probably should have been in and is the biggest snub in NCAA history.

[XManCometh]

Gonzaga won. There's another At-Large hopeful team we have to compete against in Saint Mary's.

[ShockingButTrue]

It's a little reminiscent of KU fan logic.

One of my personal favorites...

For posterity.

[WillieJeffJeffries]

Should note, Missouri State was left out despite their numbers for a few crucial reasons. #1, by large margin, was that they didn't schedule to be in tournament. It is one thing to not have enough wins, it is another to avoid any tough games in your non-conference and hope your conference carries your RPI. Missouri State's second best OOC opponent was #127, and most of their games were against teams 150+. They had barely a single game against the top 50, which they lost. If their wins and losses were more evenly distributed between OOC and conference they probably would have made it, but that year the selection committee decided to punish them for "exploiting" the system.

The second thing is exactly what that means. If they exploited the system, people thought their numbers weren't as good as they actually appeared. They didn't have the eye test. They were 2nd in the Valley, 2 games behind first (us), and they lost by double digits multiple times in conference, and twice by 20. Combine the margin of every loss we've had since Fred came back, and you'll see it doesn't even add up to 20, and really it is even closer than with OTs. They had a scoring margin of 5ish. We had a scoring margin of 22. We are a better team than our resume, even ignoring injuries (and especially including them).

And even then, Missouri State probably should have been in and is the biggest snub in NCAA history.

The biggest reason...they weren't going to take 5 Valley teams....SIU, Creighton, Bradley and WSU made the tourn that year....I think thats right.

[WillieJeffJeffries]

BRACKETOLOGY
The NCAA Tournament bubble is a scary place, and these teams live there

Team Rankings has updated after last nights games and St Mary's is now on the 11 line at 86% to make tourney....WSU remains an 11 with 48% chance at an at-large. The Zags are on the 12 line as the AQ. Def was a game WSU wanted SMC to win...FWIW Vegas had the Zags as a 2 point fav which is why the selection committee should be made up of Vegas odds makers, it would make for a better tournament...

[WuShock16]

The biggest reason...they weren't going to take 5 Valley teams....SIU, Northern Iowa, Bradley and WSU made the tourn that year....I think thats right.

FIFY. UNI was in, not Creighton.

The Bradley-Creighton and Missouri State-UNI quarterfinal games at Arch Madness essentially became NCAA elimination games.

Speaking of which, here is an example of karma:
At the game in Omaha that year, a sCUm student held up a sign that read something to the effect of, "Wichita State: The Official Sponsor of the NIT." In Wichita, Creighton players taunted our students during warmups, pointing at the NIT banners. As it turned out, the Shockers won the conference and danced all the way to the Sweet 16. Creighton went to the NIT. Karma, folks!

[uniftw]

Anyone else notice the newest member is @uniftw ? And this story hits....click bait perhaps? Troll much? Who knows, just found it interesting.

I've lurked for a while, just wanted the ability to have a one stop "read first unread post" button.

Not affiliated with The Rag at all.

[Bluzrover]

"How the RPI shortchanges Wichita State's résumé" from Eamonn Brennan this afternoon, basically asking the question, "What if the résumé is wrong?"

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/bubblewatch

Well, for one thing, Jerry Palm's head explodes from all that unclouded thinking...

That was another objective and well written article for the good guys. I found the CBS Gary Parrish podcast to be a reasonable discussion as well. If you can take all of the emotion out of it (and, like most of SN, I too am still struggling with that part of it), the great thing about the discussion right now is that no one was talking about Wichita State like this four or five years ago. Certainly not defending the team and recognizing the fact this is a really, really good team like we're seeing today.

I'm as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs right now but have to love the fact that we are at the center of NATIONAL attention heading into Sunday's selection show.

And it's going to put an extra amount of pressure on the Shox to prove the doubters wrong once they start tournament play because I have no doubt we're going dancing.

[pinstripers]

Mark Adams @EnthusiAdams · 26m26 minutes ago

P5+Big East non-Conf schedule by %:
86.5% Home/Neutral gms
VS D1 Only: H/N%
Monmouth? 30.8%
Valpo? 36.4%
Wichita State? 72.7%
St Mary's? 90%

[pinstripers]

Jay Bilas @JayBilas · 58m58 minutes ago

All At-Large decisions should be made by the Committee at the end of the regular season. Champ Week should be about Automatic Bids only.

[Kel Varnsen]

Jay Bilas @JayBilas · 58m58 minutes ago

All At-Large decisions should be made by the Committee at the end of the regular season. Champ Week should be about Automatic Bids only.

I get sick of Bilas a lot, but I think I agree with this.