Cookie Miller Wasn't Dirty

Let's say they lose two of their final four: @KU, KSU, @Bay, ISU. RPI Forecast has them around 38th. Things would definitely get interesting if they lost their first Big XII tourney game.

I agree it’d feel slightly inauthentic, but is an 11 vs 11 game all that much different than an 8 vs 9 game? It’d count in the record books and I’d count it in my book as well. And if we lose the 6 vs 11 game? I guess we’d just have a new goal for next year: reach the round of 32.

I still think conference standings and conference records are next to meaningless. I agree with you when you say they'll probably be brought up, but I don't think it's a major talking point. You're right, I got to the point where I was speaking in absolutes on that topic when I shouldn't have. My gripe is that yesterday you came out and basically said, "Ha! All you metrics guys are wrong! They talk about more than metrics!" First of all, I've never claimed that they only care about metrics, and if you've interpreted me that way then you've interpreted me inaccurately. I know that much more is discussed. And secondly, the irony is that the "metrics guys" have actually shown that you were wrong when you said 12 conference wins or 20 total wins or whatever would certainly be enough. When we said, "No no, we're going to need at least 22 wins, probably 23," we got laughed at. But now that's proving to be closer to the truth than what you claimed, yet you come out and say all of these metrics guys were wrong. Do you really think 20 wins puts us on the bubble? That would mean we finish the season 0-4. I think you'll be the only one in that state on the edge of his seat on Selection Sunday if that happens.

Haha. It was my way of saying I'm tired of arguing, but I still disagree. Glad you're not taking it personally.

Haha. I haven’t once said any of those things. I’ve been hammering home the fact that our lack of impressive wins (not a metric!) is the most damning aspect of our resume, and because of that we’d probably need 23 wins to get in. I’ve said 22 wins with an RPI in the 50s and our lack of impressive wins will have us on the bubble, but IMO probably out. Which you mocked because “there’s no way a 12 win 4th place B1G team would get snubbed.” Please show me where I said that our Non-Con SOS would kill us. I did say our Non-Con performance will do us no favors. Please show me where I said all Quad games count the same. I’ve said that I do think the quads will have an impact in the decisions, and that a winless Q1 will not be a good look. Please show me where I said our conference performance doesn’t matter. I’ve said that specifically, conference record and conference standings are not used in the selection process, but of course your conference games matter because they help form the whole resume. It seems that you’ve been twisting what I say to fit this mental image of a “metric-only guy” you have of me.

I thought 12 conference wins would make us a no-brainer. Shouldn't that mean only one more win?

@Swan88 gets off to accusing posters of being Jays fans.

I actually thought of the same thing. We can't be too mad about KU since we did have the Illinois buzzer beater. If we would have lost to U of I, we'd be about 66th.

Man, something crazy I just noticed is that USC (50) jumped 8 spots in RPI to 42nd after winning a home game against Oregon (80) last night. We won a home game against Maryland (59) and jumped up two spots.

This. Although this is one aspect of RPI that I don't mind. I'm okay with the fact that a win vs Kansas combined with a loss vs Delaware State is of the same value as a loss vs Kansas combined with a win vs Delaware State. To answer @khoock 's question, we would be approximately 36th in RPI if we would have beaten Kansas. What a difference one shot makes. We'd easily be in right now and probably a 7 or 8 seed. And similarly, if instead we kept the KU game as a loss, but changed one of our road losses to a win we'd be in 43rd.

I agree that we probably wouldn't have won that game, so the UCF loss probably wasn't as disastrous as it could have been. As for the bolded piece, I've never heard of anything like that. Pretty sure both games would count.

Assuming we lost to WVU and beat St. John's, our RPI would be about 0.0104 points better, which would put us into 41st. So yeah, that's a significant impact. It would have actually decreased slightly if we were to lose to St. John's, though. We'd be 55th. So it depends if you think we would have beaten them in the rematch.

Well considering the committee created them, yes I do think they matter. But again, even if they don't matter, big wins DO matter... there's no doubt about that. That's all I'm really arguing here. Quadrants don't have to be relevant for what I'm saying to be true.

Maybe not 3 percent. But my point is that we should be rooting for the teams I listed. I think the one spot that Michigan would occupy is far less important than us having an impressive win. Michigan finishing in Q1 would jump us up multiple spots in the bubble hierarchy. Not to mention Michigan would have to collapse at this point to not make it. And if that happened, we wouldn't have a single win against a tournament team.

Haha thanks. I didn't join till last month. Had an account on here years ago, but left and couldn't remember my screen name when I came back.

Even if you ignore the quadrants, it's still vital to have a quality set of wins. We would still want Michigan, Maryland, Boston College, and Northwestern to win as much as possible down the stretch to improve our four best wins. Same with Penn State (assuming we beat them next weekend). Making those wins look impressive is far more important than the microscopic bump we'd get in RPI from a team we played twice beating a team we played once. It's a 0.0006 difference. That's very unlikely to even move us one spot in the rankings.

This sentence sounds like my girlfriend when she says, "Why even watch the game? You can see who wins later." It's fun as a fan to go along for the ride. It's at least a decent estimation of where we currently stand, and it gives the fans (and even the team) an idea of what we need to do to get in. If you don't like it, nobody is forcing you to pay attention to it.

Putting Maryland in automatically disqualifies one's opinion.

This is comforting. Thanks for posting OP.

To be fair, his updates are projecting what he thinks the field would be if the selections were made today. He's not projecting how teams will finish the season. Given that, I think it's interesting to see where the people who are in-the-know have us. The thing is, these guys are no better than you and I would be if we put in the time to analyze it like they do. And recently, I probably have lol. But for those that don't, it is a good tool to get a glimpse of where we're at. This Nebraska team is a perfect example... without the Bracketologists, the majority of our fanbase would assume we'd easily be in right now simply based on our record. But with them, we know we're on the bubble.

New Lunardi update still has us as the second team out. Lunardi Logic: St Bonaventure beating La Salle is more impressive than Nebraska beating Maryland. Oh... and Syracuse moved up one spot after losing at home to NC State.

I acknowledged that in my original post. But yes, I'll edit my statement to say that 7 of our 11 wins are against the bottom feeders. And yes, the committee doesn't only use computers to make their choices. Everyone knows that. Like you, I hope that our first win against Minnesota is recognized for what it is.

I never said they suck more than any teams have sucked before. I simply said that we have five teams that I deem to be pretty bad, whereas the other major conferences have between zero and four. Illinois - Winning at home against DePaul doesn't disprove what I said. I said the teams I listed are on or below their level. So I would expect Illinois to win that game at home. The Missouri game was a nice upset. But they also lost to UNLV, NMSU, and Wake Forest. Wisconsin - I'm not comparing anyone to Western Kentucky. I don't think they're that good, and they will not get an at-large bid with their resume so we don't need to worry about them. Wisconsin is terrible this year and if you don't see that then I guess there's no point in continuing this discussion. Minnesota - The good Minnesota has not been around since December. They're not good anymore. Rutgers - Nice win against Seton Hall. They also lost to Stony Brook and Hartford. Iowa - Agree, Iowa sucks! What major conference team that I didn't list in my last post would you consider to be worse than any these five?

Nice, thanks. The worst part about updating my spreadsheet was entering all the ratings. I'll just provide upcoming schedules, records, and significant wins/losses from now on.

100% agree