hhctony

Dear Kansas: We need you again. Notre Dame (78) at Duke (4) Nebraska (65) at Wisconsin (135) Northwestern (100) at Michigan (38) Kansas (7) at Kansas State (56)

Last time I updated this was on page three, so... Tonight's game temporarily a Tier 2 game and Illinois has dropped to a Tier 4 home game (need them in top 160). Most other teams are decently in their tier at this point. The road Wisconsin game and the home Illinois game could flip back and forth. Would be nice is Iowa can keep their RPI at 160 or better. Losers. Edited to show games through January 28. Nebraska currently 65 in RPI. Tier 1 (0-5): Michigan State (22), Creighton (28), Kansas (7), Purdue (8), Ohio State (24). REMAINING: none. Tier 2 (3-3): St. Johns (103), UCF (71), Boston College (73), Northwestern (100), Penn State (112), Michigan (38). REMAINING: vs. Maryland (59), at Minnesota (98), at Wisconsin (135). Tier 3 (5-0): Minnesota (98), Long Beach State (168), Wisconsin (133), Rutgers (194), Iowa (152). REMAINING: at Illinois (164), vs. Indiana (114), vs. Penn State (112). Tier 4 (8-0): Eastern Illinois (278), North Texas (204), North Dakota (209), Marist (326), UTSA (268), Delaware State (351), Stetson (300), Illinois (164). REMAINING: vs. Rutgers (194)

Sometimes you schedule based on previous teams being decent and then it backfires. What'd you like to avoid is those 250+ games. I don't think this is an overall conference thing to be honest. Only Rutgers was really bad and that's bringing us down a little, but most of what's brining us down conference-wise is we didn't beat anybody.

Last Four Byes USC: 17-6 (8-2) / 8 games remaining / 2 ranked teams remaining Conference record. Defeated Middle Tennessee in non-conference. Marquette: 13 -8 (4-5) / 9 / 0 won at Wisconsin and vs. LSU in non-conference. Defeated ranked Seton Hall. Texas A&M: 13-8 (2-6) / 10 / 1 Living on non-conference resume for another week, but need some wins. Beat Penn State, USC, West Virginia, Oklahoma State. Houston: 16-4 (6-2 ) / 10 / 2 defeated Wake, Arkansas, Providence in non-conference. Wichita State in conference. Last Four In Boise State: 18-4 (8-2) / 8 / 1 Not much here. Won at Oregon. Loyola-IL a decent win. Nice conference record. SMU: 15-7 (5-4) / 9 / 2 Beat Arizona, USC and Boise. By now you can see how that Russian 3 at PBA is killing us. NC State: 15-7 (5-4) / 9 / 1 Beat Arizona, Penn State, Duke, at Carolina. Syracuse: 15-6 (4-4) / 10 / 4 Maryland, UConn and Buffalo could all be better wins than any we have in the non-conference. First Four Out Missouri: 13-8 (3-5) / 10 / 0 Beat Iowa State, UCF and St. John's, but gonna need some wins. Virginia Tech: 15-6 (4-4) / 10 / 4 Washington (neutral), at Mississippi, Iowa, North Carolina. Western Kentucky: 15-6 (7-1) / 10 / 0 Living off Purdue and SMU. Washington: 15-6 (5-3) / 10 / 2 Kansas (neutral), USC. Next Four Out Maryland: 15-8 (4-6) / 8 / 2 Butler. But, we start to see teams we can overcome with wins... Notre Dame: 13-8 (3-5) / 10 / 3 LSU, Wichita State. Lost five in a row and next two at Duke (tonight) and at NC State. South Carolina: 13-8 (4-4) / 10 / 4 Comparable to us. Wins v Kentucky and at South Carolina better than anything we have. Georgia: 12-8 (3-5) / 10 / 5 St. Mary's, Marquette, GT, Temple. Most of those better than anything we have. But, they need to start winning, too.

238 according to the RPI. Rutgers played 11 non-conference games, one against Seton Hall (19, RPI), the next best Stony Brook (228, loss). Best non-conference win was Central Connecticut State (245). Four wins are sub-300. Just awful.

Penn State still 114 in the RPI but with better wins than us (and, of course, worse losses). Need to be ahead of them in the standings and beat them in Lincoln.

So many games today. Saturday's will be tough getting all of them on here so I think I'll skip RPI and just get them in here best I can. NC State at UNC Texas Tech at South Carolina Baylor at Florida Duquesne at URI (we basically want URI to be the only A10 team) Ole Miss at Texas (hate to see the Horns get hot, but tough slate left) Georgia at Kansas State Oklahoma at Alabama (root for Lon here, Bama stacking up decent home wins) St. John's at Butler (will the Red Storm win a Big East game?) Miami at Florida State (8-11 seed profiles from these two) Rutgers at Penn State (I think we'd like that damn Penn State game in Lincoln to be a big one) Syracuse at Pitt (Orange can't lose this one) RELATED: Kevin Stallings is terrible. Tennessee at Iowa State (hmmmmmm) TCU at Vanderbilt (hmmmmmm) Texas A&M at Kansas (run them out of the gym, Bill) Utah at Arizona (the Utes have won three straight and it'd be nice if that ended at any time) Oklahoma State at Arkansas LSU at Auburn (no need for LSU to win this one) Kentucky at West Virginia (ahh, the Devil will be in attendance with his two favorite coaches) Virginia Tech at Notre Dame (brought to you by Bubblicious) Wake Forest at Louisville (can Louisville even be in the tournament? I forgot) Colorado at Arizona State (Devils are human again) Georgetown at Creighton (be nice to the Jays be a top-four Big East team since they are on our schedule) Missouri at Mississippi State (bubbly) Stanford at UCLA (Bruins could start losing any time) All I got....

By playing in a middle of the road conference, playing about five or six really good teams in the non-conference and losing, and then winning a whole bunch of ROAD games in said conference. The Bulls have five road wins, none against a team with an RPI higher than 130. Lastly, avoid the bottom 100 of the NCAA. Their "worst" win is 265; we have four worse than that.

Will be a light night tonight, but.... Wisconsin (135) at Michigan State (28) Buffalo (27, still proving you can manipulate the RPI) at Ohio (210).

Just a kind of comparison to Nebraska, I bolded some key games for them above.

It is. I edited the post, but it didn't seem to take in your quote.

Posted this on the wrong thread last night, so thanks to @hskr4life for moving over. Here is the slate for tonight. Purdue (10) vs. Michigan (38) Uconn (85) vs. SMU (53) Middle Tennessee (23) vs. UTSA (268) Ohio State (14) vs. Penn State (133) Arizona (17) vs. Colorado (66) Wichita State (29) vs. UCF (67) Arizona State (30) vs. Utah (62) UCLA (64) vs. California (176) Saint Mary's (36) vs. BYU (73) Portland (232) vs. Gonzaga (57)

Edited to show games through January 24. Nebraska currently 61 in RPI. Tier 1 (0-5): Michigan State (26), Creighton (28), Kansas (9), Purdue (10), Ohio State (14). REMAINING: none. Tier 2 (3-3): St. Johns (96), UCF (67), Boston College (70), Northwestern (102), Penn State (133), Michigan (34). REMAINING: vs. Maryland (52), at Minnesota (100). Tier 3 (5-0): Minnesota (100), Long Beach State (169), Wisconsin (133), Illinois (158), Rutgers (189). REMAINING: at Wisconsin (138), vs. Iowa (143), at Illinois (158), vs. Indiana (111), vs. Penn State (133). Tier 4 (7-0): Eastern Illinois (278), North Texas (204), North Dakota (209), Marist (326), UTSA (268), Delaware State (351), Stetson (300). REMAINING: vs. Rutgers (189)

We need Michigan to play well and into Tier One territory. That'd be nice.

Matty! Nice. I kind of lean Palmer to Jaron Boone, myself. I guess because they wear the same digits.

Selection committee games for today, January 24th. Rutgers (180) vs. Nebraska (70) Xavier (4) vs. Marquette (46) Florida State (41) vs. Georgia Tech (142) Syracuse (43) vs. Boston College (69) Florida (26) vs. South Carolina (56) Fordham (274) vs. Rhode Island (10) Miami (FL) (21) vs. Louisville (15) Pitt (160) vs. NC State (96) Illinois (171) vs. Indiana (95) Missouri (38) vs. Auburn (9) Cincinnati (25) vs. Temple (47) USC (39) vs. Stanford (91) Boise State (33) vs. San Jose State (306) Wyoming (74) vs. Nevada (12)

For Kansas State, 5-6 would be a pretty respectable finish heading in the Big 12 Tournament. Puts them at 20-11 (but probably a better resume than Nebraska). For Texas, 5-6 would be insane (I think 4-7 could be there final 11). Even at 5-6, they'd be 18-13 overall (8-10 Big 12). For Marquette, could go 6-5 which would get them 19-11 (10-8 Big East) but to do that, they'd have to beat St. John's, Georgetown and DePaul on the road.

Games of interest, January 23, RPI in parenthesis Arkansas (32) at Georgia (51) Providence (36) at Villanova (2) Clemson (6) at Virginia (4) Oklahoma State (92) at Texas Tech (8) Vanderbilt (141) at Tennessee (12) Kansas (7) at Oklahoma (11) Alabama (26) at Ole Miss (102) Creighton (35) at St. John's (81) Northwestern (127) at Minnesota (75) Texas A&M (33) at LSU (101) Mississippi State (76) at Kentucky (19)

Maybe both.

Would anyone care to see a "Selection Committee" Games of Interest thread that would be updated daily? I figure we just as well go "all-in" on the tournament talk and would be willing to put this together if others had interest.

A few things I'd add. 1. We need lay back on the "bad loss" thing to any team on the road in the Big Ten. Would it be great to win at Rutgers and Illinois? Darn straight. But, let's remember that Rutgers beat Seton Hall and their six league losses are as follows: Michigan State (twice), @ Minnesota, @ Purdue, @ Michigan and vs. Ohio State. Just throwing it out there. Also, we beat Illinois by 1 at home, so I reckon if you lose to them in Champaign it wouldn't be a huge surprise. That said, if we want to dance, we need to win some. 2. Our best scenario is to NOT LOSE at home. We need to beat both Indiana and Maryland (who will be compared to us on the big board) and for sure the other three games (Penn State, Iowa, Rutgers). In my mind, the home games are more non-negotiable than the road games. Any two road games would be fine, to be honest. Winning on the road in conference play is a difficult task. 3. I still think our road to the NCAAs is 21 wins (in any combination). Which, to me, means if we win all of our home games and even just one road game down the stretch but get one at MSG we could be in really good shape.

St. John's certainly is a quandary. They need to win some games. Also, we played them with their second best player who is out for the season with injury. I don't know if that matters to the committee, but they were in the top-20 in the RPI when he went out. I still like Nebraska's number is 21 and there are a bunch of ways to get to 21.

Bump for updated post...

I am hoping to do some more research on this with the new tiers for the Selection Committee this year, but as we speak, here is what our "resume" would look like. I'll try to keep this post as current as possible. Edited to show games through January 22. Nebraska currently 67 in RPI. Tier 1 (0-5): Michigan State (27), Creighton (35), Kansas (7), Purdue (10), Ohio State (15). REMAINING: at Minnesota (75). Tier 2 (4-3): St. Johns (81), UCF (57), Boston College (66), Minnesota (75), Northwestern (123), Penn State (135), Michigan (38). REMAINING: at Wisconsin (133), vs. Maryland (52). Tier 3 (2-0): Long Beach State (167), Wisconsin (133). REMAINING: at Rutgers (179), vs. Iowa (150), at Illinois (172), vs. Indiana (91), vs. Penn State (135). Tier 4 (8-0): Eastern Illinois (277), North Texas (202), North Dakota (207), Marist (326), UTSA (276), Delaware State (351), Stetson (291), Illinois (172). REMAINING: vs. Rutgers (179) Obviously, the tiers will fluctuate as the season continues to move on. Michigan getting in Tier 1 territory would be a nice bonus. And, of our 10 remaining games we only have four that are currently in Tier One or Tier Two. It will be interesting to see how the committee looks at your tier records this year. The good thing our team has now, is zero bad losses. It would be nice if we could keep it that way and win at Rutgers and at Illinois. I'm not overly concerned about losing to Ohio State (but, it sure would be a heck of a resume builder) because that's an easy one to overcome.

I've been following KenPom a bit more this year and bought a subscription. What I find lacking in his analysis is how much he relies on the previous season data. I think it finally is out the window about 20 games into the season, which seems odd to me.