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Nebraska Bubble Watch


Donkey

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Something interesting - last year, 24 teams had 10 or more Q1+Q2 wins. 23 of them made the NCAA.

 

This year, it's 33 teams right now at 10+ Q1+Q2 wins, and we'll probably add 2-4 more to that number. Not sure if that's because of using NET this year instead of RPI or exactly why that's going on. There's no way 31 or 32 of those 33 are getting NCAA invites.

 

So 12 wins may end up being the magic number - right now, 21 teams are at 12+ Q1+Q2 wins and a few more will probably join them (hopefully us).

 

Also will be interesting to see how the committee handles the Big East. They have 6 teams with 10+ Q1+Q2 wins (the blue team isn't one of them), but 4 of the 6 have NET ratings of 60 or higher. Seton Hall has an NET rating of 62, but has 6 Q1 wins and 12 total Q1+Q2 wins. They're probably in, but they will want to win tonight to feel safe.

 

Indiana also has 6 Q1 wins, but only 8 Q1+Q2 wins overall. They're probably out, but only 20 teams have managed at least 6 Q1 wins, so it's tough to ignore Indiana's big wins.

 

Just some weird numbers to sort through this season, maybe even weirder than last year, for the bubble teams. Hope we can make the committee's job even harder by picking up a couple more wins ... or make it a lot easier by getting 3 more wins. ?

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This is pretty darn exciting and rewarding as a fan and for most of the fan base that has stuck with this team.  I will throw my two cents in but agree with a lot of what's already been written today.  I do think a win tomorrow and Saturday gets us in the conversation.  I don't necessarily agree that tomorrow is a play in game.  I think there are a few black marks against our resume.  The first is the lack of wow factor in our Q1 wins.  A lot of pundits think Indiana is on the wrong side of the bubble so here are Indiana's six Q1 wins for comparison purposes:

 

@ Mich State (Net #8)

vs Mich St. (NET #8)

vs. Wisconsin (Net #15)

vs. Louisville (Net #21)

vs. Marquette (Net #29)

@ Penn State (Net #49)

 

Compare this to our Q1 wins:

 

(N) Maryland (Net #26)

@ Clemson (Net #35)

@ Indiana (Net #51)  

 

Not all Q1 wins are created equally and I think that is a problem for us.  Currently our 3 wins above are arguably weaker than Indiana's top 3 for sure, and potentially top 4.  I don't believe any of our Q1 wins scream "Wow".  I'm not really sure Wisconsin does for me either.  What is going for us though is that all of our Q1 wins are on a neutral site/road.  Add a Wisconsin and add a Mich St. and now I think we are firmly in the conversation with 5 neutral/road Q1 wins.  I suspect there wouldn't be any other "bubble" teams that could boast that.

 

The other big black mark is the inescapable 6-14 conference record.  I know, I know,...conference record is not on the team sheets.  However, these are still people selecting teams and while I do think they rely too heavily on analytics at times (or in those times when Nebraska is left out of the tournament ?), our conference record will almost undoubtedly be brought up conversationally.  Would those conversations make it difficult in the minds of certain committee memebers to justify Nebraska's inclusion in the field...who knows but I think it's possible.

 

The positives...I do think the committee, despite all of them denying this, do like a good story (i.e. Trae Young and Oklahoma last year).  Nebraska and their six scholarship players and lack of a NCAA tourney win is quite the underdog/cinderalla story.  This story will gain national traction tomorrow with a win against Wisconsin - you can expect the Jerry Palm's and Joe Lunardi's to start talking about Nebraska and their resume and they will be debating whether or not we are worthy for consideration on the bubble or just a potential bid stealer.  Remember, the NCAA and the NCAA tournament is still an entity and tournament designed to exploit teams/star players to make them as much money as humanly possible! 

 

We also will have a pretty good NET ranking if we beat Wisconsin and either Mich. St. or Ohio St. - probably somewhere around 40, maybe a hair better which would likely be better than most of the bubble teams.

 

All of this is fascinating and I am thoroughly enjoying this ride.  Here's to hoping we make all of this a moot point and just go out and win the whole damn thing!

 

 

 

 

 

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2 minutes ago, Nebrasketball1979 said:

 

Not all Q1 wins are created equally and I think that is a problem for us.  Currently our 3 wins above are arguably weaker than Indiana's top 3 for sure, and potentially top 4.  I don't believe any of our Q1 wins scream "Wow".  I'm not really sure Wisconsin does for me either.  What is going for us though is that all of our Q1 wins are on a neutral site/road.  Add a Wisconsin and add a Mich St. and now I think we are firmly in the conversation with 5 neutral/road Q1 wins.  I suspect there wouldn't be any other "bubble" teams that could boast that.

Noticed this is actually on the team sheets, they split the Quads into, well in half. So you have "high" Quad wins, and "low" Quad wins. So when committee members look at our sheet they'll notice our "high" Quad 1 list is a little bare - and with Maryland as #26 they miss the "high" Quad 1 win by 1 spot. This probably means very little - but I for sure noticed they went out of their way to differentiate them. 

 

My honest opinion. 1 win = Bubble out. 2 wins and things get very interesting. 

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Interesting take here... they're #64 in the NET (we're 52 going into today, not updated yet to include today's win) and we also now have 10 Q1/Q2 wins. Beating Marquette (#29 x 2) and Villanova (#25) has them in. I would hope, if that's the criteria he's using, we are also in the conversation at least...

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St. Johns will be very interesting. They were 12-1 in non-con, but their 2 best non-con wins were VCU (NET 31) and at Rutgers (NET 100).

 

Plus they got swept by Providence, Xavier, and DePaul - 3 teams that aren't even on the bubble right now. (Maybe Xavier)

 

Their NET is bad because when they lost, they were beaten badly. 10 of their 11 losses were by 8+ points.

 

Does the committee value their big in-conference wins more than their awful non-con SOS & awful in-conference losses? I would hope they're not in, but their resume is the 4th best in the Big East. (Xavier could jump them with a win tomorrow.)

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6 minutes ago, ladyhusker said:

Interesting take here... they're #64 in the NET (we're 52 going into today, not updated yet to include today's win) and we also now have 10 Q1/Q2 wins. Beating Marquette (#29 x 2) and Villanova (#25) has them in. I would hope, if that's the criteria he's using, we are also in the conversation at least...

I have had little respect for St Johns all year, Non Con SOS is 219. They've played 13 Quad 3-4 games this season (We've played 7).

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One variable we have that will go over pretty well is our neutral site record, currently 4-1. We've only lost one neutral game so far, and that was to the #7 team in the country (until tonight). 

 

If we can beat badgers, that 5-1 is going to look pretty nice, even with another loss. 

 

Hey, it's a sliver to hang a hat on if we're looking for some random edges in our favor. 

 

And actually, I don't know how the OSU game was counted, but that was a neutral site game, too (technically). The kind of thing a committee person may say, "well, there's also OSU, too". 

Edited by tcp
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Up 3 spots in the NET ranking to #49 and ahead of several bubble teams:  Indiana, Ohio St, TCU, Creighton to name a few.  Even 8 spots ahead of Minnesota.  A win today likely puts us up around #45.  It's interesting that Penn St. at 14-18 is at #47 which hopefully tells the committee just how dang tough and stacked the BIG was this year.

 

https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/basketball-men/d1/ncaa-mens-basketball-net-rankings

 

 

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