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Yes, Nebraska is 14-10 overall, 6-6 in the Big Ten, and I realize that doesn't sound like much. But the Huskers have three top-50 RPI wins, and just three losses outside of the top 50, which means they have as many top-50 wins as Ohio State, Virginia, Louisville, Memphis and Connecticut (and one more than Kentucky), and fewer losses outside of the top 50 than North Carolina, Kansas State, Georgetown, Missouri, Xavier and Minnesota.


Seven of Nebraska's 10 losses are to sure-bet NCAA tournament teams.


An eighth came before Thanksgiving.


The other two came on the road in league play.


So, when I frame things like that, how far, really, is Nebraska from the bubble?


Again, the Huskers have just as many top-50 wins as Ohio State, Virginia, Louisville, Memphis and Connecticut (and one more than Kentucky), and they have fewer losses outside of the top 50 than North Carolina, Kansas State, Georgetown, Missouri, Xavier and Minnesota. Each of the schools listed in the previous sentence is either in Jerry Palm's latest projected bracket or featured in Tuesday's Bubble Watch here at CBSSports.com.


So Nebraska can't be far off, can it?


"Look at the details," Miles said. "All the bubble teams would be 14-10 with our schedule."


 


Gary Parrish loves us: http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/eye-on-college-basketball/24447438/nebraskas-body-of-work-is-better-than-its-record-probably-suggests


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Yes, Nebraska is 14-10 overall, 6-6 in the Big Ten, and I realize that doesn't sound like much. But the Huskers have three top-50 RPI wins, and just three losses outside of the top 50, which means they have as many top-50 wins as Ohio State, Virginia, Louisville, Memphis and Connecticut (and one more than Kentucky), and fewer losses outside of the top 50 than North Carolina, Kansas State, Georgetown, Missouri, Xavier and Minnesota.

Seven of Nebraska's 10 losses are to sure-bet NCAA tournament teams.

An eighth came before Thanksgiving.

The other two came on the road in league play.

So, when I frame things like that, how far, really, is Nebraska from the bubble?

Again, the Huskers have just as many top-50 wins as Ohio State, Virginia, Louisville, Memphis and Connecticut (and one more than Kentucky), and they have fewer losses outside of the top 50 than North Carolina, Kansas State, Georgetown, Missouri, Xavier and Minnesota. Each of the schools listed in the previous sentence is either in Jerry Palm's latest projected bracket or featured in Tuesday's Bubble Watch here at CBSSports.com.

So Nebraska can't be far off, can it?

"Look at the details," Miles said. "All the bubble teams would be 14-10 with our schedule."

 

Gary Parrish loves us: http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/eye-on-college-basketball/24447438/nebraskas-body-of-work-is-better-than-its-record-probably-suggests

 

This just proves the point that when national "experts" actually do their homework, NU looks better than they'd think at first glance. Unfortunately a lot of them aren't doing that.

 

We just have to keep winning to force them to take a closer look.  ;)

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Can anyone explain to me why anybody would hav La Tech in their bracket over NU?  I understand they are 20-5...but, they have the 233 ranked scheduled in the country.  Give me a break.  If NU wins the next two my guess is we will be in the majority of everybody's bracket.  I don't think there is a magic number but get to 19-20 wins and it will be tough to keep us out. 

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It's the W/L record. Katz or Parrish was on and said they don't look at conference record as much as you would think they look at w/l and who you won't and lost too. I think if we win these next two you will see us on all of the bubble lists.

We'll shoot... We could of beaten a bunch of nobody's to get our W/L record up there. Honestly I think when your W/L record is high and your SOS is 150+, they look at it more than other teams.

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Can anyone explain to me why anybody would hav La Tech in their bracket over NU?  I understand they are 20-5...but, they have the 233 ranked scheduled in the country.  Give me a break.  If NU wins the next two my guess is we will be in the majority of everybody's bracket.  I don't think there is a magic number but get to 19-20 wins and it will be tough to keep us out. 

 

Someone from Conference USA has to go to the tournament and they are the odds on favorite.

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Can anyone explain to me why anybody would hav La Tech in their bracket over NU?  I understand they are 20-5...but, they have the 233 ranked scheduled in the country.  Give me a break.  If NU wins the next two my guess is we will be in the majority of everybody's bracket.  I don't think there is a magic number but get to 19-20 wins and it will be tough to keep us out. 

 

Someone from Conference USA has to go to the tournament and they are the odds on favorite.

 

 

Yes but some have La Tech in as an At-Large team with UTEP winning the tournament.  Or...some have La Tech in the "last 4 out" over Nebraska. 

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I think it's soley our 14-10 record.  If we take care of business down the stretch and win the games we need to win, that will take care of itself.  If we can get to 19-20 wins people will have to start breaking down the resume and that's where we start to look better.

 

Right now IMO, people see the overall W/L record and haven't even given us a serious look yet.

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Although the NCAA committee doesn't solely look at number of wins in picking teams or solely at RPI, the RPI plays a key role.

 

And the biggest thing we can do is rack up wins because we can really affect our RPI by picking up wins down the stretch. Our winning percentage is 1/4 of the RPI calculation. The other 3/4 is based on strength of schedule (opponents' win pct and opponents' opponents' win pct), and that isn't going to change much at this point in the season. Our SOS will probably go down slightly over the final 6 games. So we need wins to affect that 1/4 that we can control.

 

At 14-10 we have a win pct of .571 and an RPI in the mid-50s. (These win pct numbers aren't exactly what's placed in the RPI formula because there may be some bonus points added, but they're close.) So if we had just flipped two games from losses to wins and were sitting at 16-8, we'd have a .667 win pct, which would be worth about .024 to our RPI, which would boost us into the mid-30s. Huge difference.

 

Because our win pct is not great right now, we can boost it quite a bit with wins. Most teams at this point in the season don't have that opportunity because they already have a win pct that's reasonably high. They'd have to go undefeated in their final 5 to 7 games to boost the RPI, but what happens more often is they go 3-3 and their RPI nosedives a bit, causing them to fall off the bubble.

 

If we go 4-2 the rest of the way, our win pct goes to .600 and our RPI gets a boost of about .007, which would get us to around #46 RPI (assuming everyone else stays in the same spot, which obviously won't happen, so this is a rough calculation). Go 5-1 and now we're at .633, which is worth about .015 and puts us around #37 RPI. So we just need wins right now to get that win pct higher.

 

And an opening round B1G tournament loss would be devastating to the RPI. Need to get at least 1 B1G tourney win to keep the win pct as high as possible. So maybe being the #5 seed wouldn't be all bad.  ;)

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I think it's soley our 14-10 record.  If we take care of business down the stretch and win the games we need to win, that will take care of itself.  If we can get to 19-20 wins people will have to start breaking down the resume and that's where we start to look better.

 

Right now IMO, people see the overall W/L record and haven't even given us a serious look yet.

 

It's that pesky "2.5 GPA" that is hurting Nebraska right now. Not only is the job market tough (68 teams), but they have the ability to be pretty selective. If we're evaluated solely on our "GPA", then we don't stand a very good chance. Boosting it to a 3.0 (more wins) might get us in more legitimate discussions.

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Can anyone explain to me why anybody would hav La Tech in their bracket over NU?  I understand they are 20-5...but, they have the 233 ranked scheduled in the country.  Give me a break.  If NU wins the next two my guess is we will be in the majority of everybody's bracket.  I don't think there is a magic number but get to 19-20 wins and it will be tough to keep us out. 

 

Someone from Conference USA has to go to the tournament and they are the odds on favorite.

 

 

Yes but some have La Tech in as an At-Large team with UTEP winning the tournament.  Or...some have La Tech in the "last 4 out" over Nebraska. 

 

 

They also project to 27 wins easily.  They're one upset away from being out of the tournament.  Teams like that have easier paths but less of a margin for error.

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throwback -- That's a solid breakdown of RPI and you are spot on. One reason the home games are so important is they only count for .6 wins. While a road win is 1.4 and a neutral court is one. Exact opposite for losses. It kills a team to lose at home. So we have 14 wins (11 home, 2 road, 1 neutral) for 10.40 RPI wins and 10 losses (7 road, 2 neutral and 1 home) for 7.60 losses. In theory, its almost exactly the same, but it breaks down that way in the RPI. It's why road wins can really give you a boost. 

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Words cannot describe how big that win was.  It was even bigger than any computer can tell us.  We had shown no ability at all to win a game against anybody worth a damn away from Lincoln.  And we were running out of time to do it.  And with Indiana and Illinois struggling, it would not have been considered a tremendous one either.  We may have been down to quarterfinal game in Big 10 Tourney to get it done.  Instead we did it.  Winning there is a top 20 road win by anyone this season.  We have one of those 20.  There is reason to believe we could win a game on a neutral court against anyone now(even though I don't necessarily think so).  Many teams don't have that proof that we now have. 

 

I am not sure exactly what we need to do, but it seems like 10-8 with one win would have us right in the mix.  9-9 with 2 tourney wins as well should put us in the conversation also.  It is going to be very tough to go 5-1 and win one game in tourney.  I don't see how we are left out if we do that.  Obviously it depends on other bubble teams, and conference tournies.  If we can beat Penn St. and Purdue, it will be time to start paying closer attention to those types of teams.  Had we lost at Michigan St, I am not sure 10-8 and a win would have had us all that close. 

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Words cannot describe how big that win was.  It was even bigger than any computer can tell us.  We had shown no ability at all to win a game against anybody worth a damn away from Lincoln.  And we were running out of time to do it.  And with Indiana and Illinois struggling, it would not have been considered a tremendous one either.  We may have been down to quarterfinal game in Big 10 Tourney to get it done.  Instead we did it.  Winning there is a top 20 road win by anyone this season.  We have one of those 20.  There is reason to believe we could win a game on a neutral court against anyone now(even though I don't necessarily think so).  Many teams don't have that proof that we now have. 

 

I am not sure exactly what we need to do, but it seems like 10-8 with one win would have us right in the mix.  9-9 with 2 tourney wins as well should put us in the conversation also.  It is going to be very tough to go 5-1 and win one game in tourney.  I don't see how we are left out if we do that.  Obviously it depends on other bubble teams, and conference tournies.  If we can beat Penn St. and Purdue, it will be time to start paying closer attention to those types of teams.  Had we lost at Michigan St, I am not sure 10-8 and a win would have had us all that close. 

Yeah I think you're spot on. 10-8/18-12 gives us a shot going into the B1G tourney - win at least one there and we're on the bubble, win 2 and we're in. 11-7/19-11 plus 1 B1G win puts us in. A 3-3 finish is a killer, as is an opening round B1G tourney loss. 

 

That win at MSU really changes the equation, giving us a leg up on other bubble teams - the committee loves those types of wins, especially among bubble teams. If they're bringing you in as an 11 or 12 seed, they want to have evidence that you can pull an upset away from home, since that's exactly what you'd have to do to advance.

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One more non-conference win would have us on the right side of the bubble right now. Think about it...we would be 15-9 with either:

 

A)  A good win vs UMASS

B)win vs UAB, which gets rid of a bad loss

C) Good win vs Creighton

D) Good win vs Cincy

 

we are SO SO SO SO close right now. Take care of business this week. All we can do right now

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One more non-conference win would have us on the right side of the bubble right now. Think about it...we would be 15-9 with either:

 

A)  A good win vs UMASS

B)win vs UAB, which gets rid of a bad loss

C) Good win vs Creighton

D) Good win vs Cincy

 

we are SO SO SO SO close right now. Take care of business this week. All we can do right now

This is why we should of went to the Don Haskins Invite in Texas!!!!! :) I kid I kid

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One more non-conference win would have us on the right side of the bubble right now. Think about it...we would be 15-9 with either:

 

A)  A good win vs UMASS

B)win vs UAB, which gets rid of a bad loss

C) Good win vs Creighton

D) Good win vs Cincy

 

we are SO SO SO SO close right now. Take care of business this week. All we can do right now

 

The funny thing about the past...? You can usually make up for things in the future. This works too:

 

A) Win vs Penn State

B) Win vs Purdue

C) Win at Illinois

D) Win vs Northwestern

E) Win at Indiana

F) Good win vs Wisconsin

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Lunardi updates his bracket.....Huskers not getting any attention.

 

Last Four In:

 

St. Joe

Providence

Gtown

BYU

 

First Four Out:

 

WVU

Richmond

Baylor

Okie Lite

 

Next four Out:

 

Oregon

Dayon

So Miss

La Tech

 

 

Can anyone please explain to me why a team like Gtown is getting so much love when NU's resume is arguably better?  Not to mention some of the other teams mentioned.  I realize this list is going to change 50 times within the next few weeks but give me a break. 

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