Shockers and the NCAA Tournament

[flyingMoose]

It seems time to start this thread, so all the comments can be collected in one place.

The latest (through games of Sunday, 4 November) RPI has

33 Creighton
42 Wichita State
46 Northern Iowa.

There are thirty-three at-large bids available.

There is a thread on the Volley Talk board that projects the at-large bids based on using the RPI exclusively to determine those bids. It has not been updated for today's RPI, but the link points you to the current last page (page 3) of the thread. The highest RPI in a conference is assumed to receive the automatic bid with the rest of the teams in a conference eligible for at-large bids. Those teams finishing below (at?) .500 are not eligible for the NCAA Tournament no matter what their RPI might be.

There is another thread on that board in which Rich Kern projects the *final* regular season RPI, using Pablo to determine the winner of the matches remaining on a schedule. No conference tournaments are projected since those match-ups are not known. (But to me, it seems you could also project them on the same basis. Whatever.)

Using the projected final RKPI and ignoring the .500 issue for now, the last four in are Michigan, Arizona State, Northern Iowa and Northwestern. The first four out are Virginia Tech, Clemson, Shockers and NC State.

If we lose to Missouri State this Friday (and the RKPI projections are assuming a win), then we probably have to win the conference tournament to get in the NCAAs. But other teams have to play their schedule of course and upsets will cause the RKPI to shuffle.

[1972Shocker]

At this point I don't see the Shocks winning the MVC Tournament. Historically, the Shocks have not done well in the MVC Tournament even with stronger teams than we have this year.

I think the Shocks need wins over MSU, Drake and one win in the MVC Tournament just to stay on the bubble. IMHO anything less than that will keep us out of the NCAA Tournament. Add a win over Creighton at home to that mix then I think we have a fair shot at a bid.

I just don't know if we have that kind of performance left in the tank at this point.

[flyingMoose]

Those teams finishing below (at?) .500 are not eligible for the NCAA Tournament no matter what their RPI might be.

Whereas last year the criteria was "over .500", someone on VT who has seen the manual says that this year it is "at or above .500". Currently, Illinois is the only "high enough" RPI team that does not meet the criteria.

[flyingMoose]

In the postgame comments after the MSU win, Lambo said that he thought going into the weekend, winning two of the last three would put them in good position for the NCAA Tournament.

[1972Shocker]

In the postgame comments after the MSU win, Lambo said that he thought going into the weekend, winning two of the last three would put them in good position for the NCAA Tournament.

In the pregame show he said he thought they needed to win 3 of the next 4 including the 1st round of the MVC Tournament would put us in pretty good position for an NCAA invite. After the MSU win it's now 2 of the next 3. That would be Creighton and Drake next weekend at home and either SIU, ILS or MSU in Springfield.

It's looking more and more like our 1st round opponent in the Tournament will be the host Missouri State. About the only way I see that won't be the case is if MSU wins both its matches next week against Drake and Creighton.

Winning the next 3 would certainly polish up the ol' resume quite nicely and perhaps position us nicely inside the bubble.

[flyingMoose]

In the pregame show he said he thought they needed to win 3 of the next 4 including the 1st round of the MVC Tournament would put us in pretty good position for an NCAA invite. After the MSU win it's now 2 of the next 3. That would be Creighton and Drake next weekend at home and either SIU, ILS or MSU in Springfield.

Okay, I could have misheard.

[flyingMoose]

The latest (through games of Sunday, 4 November) RPI has

31 Creighton
42 Wichita State
44 Northern Iowa.

There are thirty-three at-large bids available.

Using the current RPI to award those bids, the last six teams in are Santa Clara, Shockers, NC State, Northern Iowa, Arizona and SDSU. Illinois has an RPI of 40, but their record is 11-15, making them ineligible for the Tournament.

The projected RKPI is not yet available.

[flyingMoose]

From a Rich Kern thread on VT:

Also, I will not be posting the Projected RKPI anymore this year. Unfortunately, the computation process messed up some of the files required for some of the presentations on my website and it took me quite a while last week to clean them up.


Also, the RPI from above is through games of Sunday, 11 November, but for some reason, when I try to edit that post, nothing appears in the box to be edited.

[flyingMoose]

For the curious: Q&A with NCAA Volleyball Selection Member

http://volleytalk.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=46782#

Perhaps you will have to be very curious.

[flyingMoose]

Delete of duplicated post.

[flyingMoose]

A VT thread that does some "Selection Committee" analysis:

http://volleytalk.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=47046

He has the Shocks in the tournament, not so much by Shocker positives, but by negatives of other bubble teams.

[shock10]

The selection committee is not good at what they do. So don't hold your breath. The Shockers should be in BUT. In 08 they were 29-0 in the regular season 29-1 on selection day and ranked #9. You would think the Shockers would host at a venue that had 3,000 fans +. BUT no they went to #1 Texas regional.

In 05 the Shockers were 28-3 and ranked 25 and NO at large bid. I say again don't hold your breath. THE SELECTION COMMITTEE IS NOT GOOD AT WHAT THEY DO.

[WuDrWu]

We probably shouldn't have been left out at 29-3 but our non-con that year was awful and we lost 3 of those matches. The Valley was not strong either. I'm not about to say we didn't get hosed, but some of it was explainable.

I feel very confident we're in. Our non-con SOS is very strong. Our last 10 is decent, we have quality wins and no bad losses. We won 14 times away from home. Our RPI is good. Compared to other bubble teams, removing the names, and we are in almost all the time. I don't think it hurts that KU is probably going to host and they need some close traveling teams. Just my .02

[flyingMoose]

We probably shouldn't have been left out at 29-3 but our non-con that year was awful and we lost 3 of those matches.

My recollection is that that the awful OOC schedule was exactly what Lambo was told when he asked,"Whassup with that?!" regarding the non-invite. Ever since, he has worked hard to have a decent OOC, this year's tournament over Labor Day being a prime example and possibly the best of the tournaments we have been a part of.

[flyingMoose]

Since my cable subscription does not include the "U" and the selection show is not part of ESPN3, is anyone aware of any online access to the selection show?