Games Of Note/Bubble Watch 2024

[royalfan]

49 minutes ago, hskr4life said:

Good judge will be how far Ind State drops tomorrow.  A Q4 home loss by more than 10.  Only dropped them 9 spots in Pom.

Would have thought it would be a bit more damaging than that. 

[Cookie Miller Wasn't Dirty]

2 hours ago, hskr4life said:

If Ind St wins out and loses conference championship game to Drake… mayyyybe two. But man.  A Q4 home loss in Feb hurts bad.  They have absolutely 0 room for error now and probably need help from others on the bubble.

 

They only fell 9 spots in Pom to 47.  Not a huge drop.  We’ll see what happens with result based metrics.

Yeah I don't see them having much hope now. Good comparison is FAU last year. They finished 2-1 in Q1, 4-2 in Q2, undefeated in Q3-Q4, had better metrics, and got a 9 seed.

 

ISU is 1-3 in Q1 with that one win being against Bradley (61). They are 4-0 in Q2 but UNI and Missouri State are dangerously close to Q3. Add tonight's Q4 loss and I think they're toast when it comes to an at-large bid. Or at the very least, if they're capable of being chosen ahead of us, it means we didn't finish strong.

[tcp]

One thing I haven't seen talked about much (if at all) is that the HUsker team is pretty old, implying at least that they're more mature than the normal college team. 

 

That might help them with the mental aspect of this stretch run, which will be significant. 

 

 

[Cookie Miller Wasn't Dirty]

9 hours ago, royalfan said:

No way would drop ten with close loss from what I can gather.  Been wrong many times before though.  Let’s hope we find out!

 

I stand corrected. I guess I was stuck a month in the past when they were a little more fluid. Just another aspect about these predictive metrics that I hate: everything is essentially etched in stone by February.

 

Indiana State down only 8 spots after losing a Q4 home game by 13. What the hell.
 

Texas A&M down only 6 spots after losing on a buzzer beater in Q3 home game. Vandy was on the cusp of Q4 before the win.

 

Butler, Cincinnati, and Nevada hardly budge for their Q1 home losses.

 

Oddly, Virginia moved down 9 spots after losing a Q2 home game to Pitt by 11.

 

I really wish they’d ditch these predictive metrics. Maybe they’re fun for fans to look at for gambling guides, but for evaluating a team’s resume they’re ridiculous. KPI and SOR should be the standard.

[hskr4life]

Big night for Huskers!  We moved… *checks notes*… down in the NET.  

 

Result based and predictive metrics remained relatively the same.

[royalfan]

There is a little bit of randomness involved day to day as there are certain areas of the rankings that are more bunched up in the actual numbers than others.  But to Cookies point, it is pretty hard to move quickly at this point.  I still hold out hope that the Purdue win will count as a whole lot more than a q1 win in reality.  The quads are a lazy imperfect tool based on arbitrary numbers.  

[hskr4life]

18 minutes ago, royalfan said:

There is a little bit of randomness involved day to day as there are certain areas of the rankings that are more bunched up in the actual numbers than others.  But to Cookies point, it is pretty hard to move quickly at this point.  I still hold out hope that the Purdue win will count as a whole lot more than a q1 win in reality.  The quads are a lazy imperfect tool based on arbitrary numbers.  

They do look at Quad 1A type wins a little differently when looking at the quad as a whole.  From what I gathered, that’s going to be a Top 15 home and Top 36 away win.  We used to have two of those until Wisco crapped the bed.

[hskr4life]

Results (2/13/24): 

• Big 10 Games
  • Michigan 68 @ Illinois 97
  • OSU 54 @ Wisconsin 62
• Non-Con Opponents Games
  • Duquesne 59 @ Dayton 75
  • Georgetown 72 @ Creighton 94
• Other Bubble Games
  • Marquette72  @ Butler 78
  • UNC 79 @ Syracuse 86
  • Iowa St 68 @ Cincinnati 59
  • Illinois St 80 @ Indiana St 67
  • St Johns 72 @ Providence 75
  • Texas A&M 73 @ Vandy 74
  • Drake 78 @ Evansville 75
  • LSU 80 @ Florida 82
  • UCF 88 @ BYU 90
  • Ole Miss 63 @ Kentucky 75
  • New Mexico 83 @ Nevada 82

 

Games To Watch (2/14/24): Interesting game in the B1G as it’s basically an elimination game for very fringe bubble teams in Iowa vs Maryland.  Good chance for Oregon St to pick up a win.  The Big East bubble is huge so pick your poison in Seton Hal vs Xavier.  A Xavier win would give them a huge road win, but they are further away from bubble.  A Seton Hall win basically keeps them in serious bubble contention.

• Big 10 Games
  • Michigan St @ Penn St
  • Iowa @ Maryland
• Non-Con Opponents Games
  • Oregon St @ Arizona St
• Other Bubble Games
  • Miami @ Clemson
  • Xavier @ Seton Hall

Edited February 14 by hskr4life

[Norm Peterson]

I like this Commissioner Gordon guy.

 

 

[49r]

Nebraska on the right and Michigan State on the left?

[hskr4life]

30 minutes ago, 49r said:

Nebraska on the right and Michigan State on the left?

Im thinking that too.  Its about 10 days old.

[hhcmatt]

The argument that cherry picked metrics should mirror each other isn't ever going to be a compelling one.

[Norm Peterson]

1 hour ago, hhcmatt said:

The argument that cherry picked metrics should mirror each other isn't ever going to be a compelling one.

 

It's pretty apparent that the argument that teams with similar resumes should be ranked similarly resonates pretty strongly with most people.

[hskr4life]

Should MSU lose tonight on the road, you might start to really see some people giving them the side eye as an NCAA “should be in” team.  They would be real bubbly.

[Nebrasketball1979]

7 minutes ago, Norm Peterson said:

 

It's pretty apparent that the argument that teams with similar resumes should be ranked similarly resonates pretty strongly with most people.

 

I think the point is that you can, within reason, make numbers tell whatever story you want.  I personally don't think there is really much, if any, discernible difference between our resume and Mich. St.  We obviously do not have history or Tom Izzo on our side.  However, we have a slew of blowout losses on the road (and one at home) that have drug down our predictive metrics significantly, which conveniently, aren't shown in the analysis above..  There is a reason why we're so much lower than Mich. St. in the predictive metrics and that's not influenced by any sort of built in bias against Nebraska in the algorithm.  The SOR metric is a result based metric which we perform much more favorably in due to our high end wins.

 

From what I've gathered from the "experts", the result based metrics are used heavily by the committee to decide which teams make the field while the predictive metrics are used more the help with seeding.

[hhcmatt]

19 minutes ago, Norm Peterson said:

It's pretty apparent that the argument that teams with similar resumes should be ranked similarly resonates pretty strongly with most people.

 

Feels like the take that all metrics should mirror those that favor Nebraska would not resonate strongly on a most people Michigan St board. 

[Norm Peterson]

6 minutes ago, hhcmatt said:

 

Feels like the take that all metrics should mirror those that favor Nebraska would not resonate strongly on a most people Michigan St board. 

 

True, but I bet if they were somehow on the outside looking in, their fans would be doing the same thing.

[hskr4life]

Could we win at UC Irvine and is it too late to schedule a road game?

 

 

[unl]

10 hours ago, hskr4life said:

Results (2/13/24): 

• Big 10 Games
  • Michigan 68 @ Illinois 97
  • OSU 54 @ Wisconsin 62
• Non-Con Opponents Games
  • Duquesne 59 @ Dayton 75
  • Georgetown 72 @ Creighton 94
• Other Bubble Games
  • Marquette72  @ Butler 78
  • UNC 79 @ Syracuse 86
  • Iowa St 68 @ Cincinnati 59
  • Illinois St 80 @ Indiana St 67
  • St Johns 72 @ Providence 75
  • Texas A&M 73 @ Vandy 74
  • Drake 78 @ Evansville 75
  • LSU 80 @ Florida 82
  • UCF 88 @ BYU 90
  • Ole Miss 63 @ Kentucky 75
  • New Mexico 83 @ Nevada 82

 

Games To Watch (2/14/24): Interesting game in the B1G as it’s basically an elimination game for very fringe bubble teams in Iowa vs Maryland.  Good chance for Oregon St to pick up a win.  The Big East bubble is huge so pick your poison in Seton Hal vs Xavier.  A Xavier win would give them a huge road win, but they are further away from bubble.  A Seton Hall win basically keeps them in serious bubble contention.

• Big 10 Games
  • Michigan St @ Penn St
  • Iowa @ Maryland
• Non-Con Opponents Games
  • Oregon St @ Arizona St
• Other Bubble Games
  • Miami @ Clemson
  • Xavier @ Seton Hall

Xavier down 20 basically the whole game. How many spots will they move up after this loss?

[Cookie Miller Wasn't Dirty]

Nice start. MSU wins. Clemson crushes Miami and likely their at-large hopes. UMass likely crushes Richmond’s at-large hopes.

 

I viewed Seton Hall Xavier as neutral. Seton Hall is closer to being in, but it’s also good nobody picks up a big road win as Seton Hall is crushing them. Xavier’s at-large chances are very slim now.

[hskr4life]

Results (2/14/24): Miami lost! Xavier is basically off the bubble! Oregon St is bad. Outside of that… B1G went as expected.

• Big 10 Games
  • Michigan St 80 @ Penn St 72
  • Iowa 66 @ Maryland 78
• Non-Con Opponents Games
  • Oregon St 61 @ Arizona St 79
• Other Bubble Games
  • Miami 60 @ Clemson 77
  • Xavier 70 @ Seton Hall 88

 

Games To Watch (2/15/24): Sneaky good bubble night on tap.  FAU is clearly in but can’t afford to slip up.  Wouldn’t mind that being a 1 bid league but we’d need FAU to lose 1-2 to ensure that.  Memphis and Zags on that cut line and playing in games that will only probably hurt and not help.  We could really use Grand Canyon to lose another to ensure they need to win conference.  Wash St gets a home game that won’t move the needle with a win while Utah is a road game that won’t move their needle with a win.  A loss greatly hurts both though.

• Big 10 Games
  • Northwestern @ Rutgers
  • Minnesota @ Purdue
• Non-Con Opponents Games
  • Hampton @ Stonybrook
  • Lindenwood @ SIUE
  • North Dakota @ Denver
  • UC Riverside @ Fullerton
• Other Bubble Games
  • Temple @ FAU
  • Memphis @ North Texas
  • Colorado @ UCLA
  • Gonzaga @ LMU
  • Utah Tech @ Grand Canyon
  • Cal @ Wash St
  • Pepperdine @ St Mary’s
  • Utah @ USC

 

[hskr4life]

Boo got hammered!  No call.  Rutgers over NW

[Cookie Miller Wasn't Dirty]

6 minutes ago, hskr4life said:

Boo got hammered!  No call.  Rutgers over NW

Saw that. Also Langborg was ejected early for a weak flagrant 2. Damn.

[Norm Peterson]

 

[REDZONEDAN]

5 minutes ago, Norm Peterson said:

 

Now bark like a dog.