brutal stretch 2/27 to 3/5

[DuddingtonHoya]

This is got to be the hardest part of our schedule... Nova at home on Sunday, at UCONN on Wednesday, closing the season out with Providence at home on Saturday.

ouch.

but could be great preparation for the post-season.

[JimmyHoya]

'nova game is HUGE.

[jackdog74]

Which is why last night was so imortant. If we're already at 10 wins when we play Nova, we're a lock for the NCAA's. We will be able to use those three games to -- I can't believe I'm typing this -- work on a better seed in the Big Dance.

[thebin]

10-6 with no BET wins isn't a lock. Its probably a bit better than 50-50. 11-5 is a lock.

Maybe I am ignorant as to the ways of the selection committe- but I don't understand why people concern themselves with something as unknowable as our eventrual RPI or ranking when all you need to worry about it seems to me is your conference record. RPI be damned- if we win 11 BE games, which is looking very possible at this point, we are a lock. If we win 10 and win one or two in the BET, we are very likely to dance. That is all I worry about.

[MCIGuy]

thebin said:

10-6 with no BE wins isn't a lock. Its probably a bit better than 50-50. 11-5 is a lock.

Maybe I am ignorant as to the ways of the selection committe- but I don't understand why people concern themselves with something as unknowable as our eventrual RPI or ranking when all you need to worry about it seems to me is your conference record. RPI be damned- if we win 11 BE games, which is looking very possible at this point, we are a lock. If we win 10 and win one or two in the BET, we are very likely to dance. That is all I worry about.

Screw that. The pundits on TV have said Minnesota is a lock if they go 9-7 even though Minnesota had a very weak non conference schedule. The Big 10 is far weaker than the Big East so if Minnesota gets in why wouldn't the Hoyas. 10-6 should be the lock. The Hoyas strength of schedule is very good and the Hoyas' RPI is in the 30s unlike Notre Dame who were in trouble going into Syracuse because their RPI is in the 50s. The Big East is at worst the second best conference. GU goes 10-6 and they go dancing. Boston College went 8-8 in 2002 and went dancing because of its RPI. Hoyas at 10-6 should be in.

[MCIGuy]

By the way the brutal stretch occurred during the first half of the Big East schedule.

And the dude who does the bracketology nonsense on ESPN came on gameday last night and said that even though no one talks about the Hoyas they should be in.

[SirSaxa]

Maybe I should be accustomed to it by now, but frankly -- I am still astonished that we are even discussing our Hoyas and the NCAA tournament this year. This team lost 9 straight at the end of last year, and Esh was renewed! -- Then he opened his mouth to the papers and saved Hoya basketball.

No one - not even Megafan -- thought we'd be talking NCAA tournament this year. IF we do get in, I believe it will be three trips in 5 years as a HC for JT3.

He is NOT the BE COY.
He is the National COY.

And it is only going to get better.

[Churchwell]

Not to split hairs, but we've already had a brutal schedule:
1/5 @ then #12 Pittsburg
1/8 @ then # 9 UConn
1/11 home for Rutgers
1/15 @ Villanova

Okay, this was 10 days, not 7, but still scarier to me than Nova, @ UConn @ Providence

We also followed up on the above schedule with:
1/18 @ then #7 Syracuse
1/23 home for Notre Dame.

Could we lose all three of our final games? Sure. Are they critical to assure a tourney bid and/or strong seeding. Yup. A harder stretch than this team has faced this season? Not by a long shot.

[jerseyhoya34]

SirSaxa said:

Maybe I should be accustomed to it by now, but frankly -- I am still astonished that we are even discussing our Hoyas and the NCAA tournament this year. This team lost 9 straight at the end of last year, and Esh was renewed! -- Then he opened his mouth to the papers and saved Hoya basketball.

No one - not even Megafan -- thought we'd be talking NCAA tournament this year. IF we do get in, I believe it will be three trips in 5 years as a HC for JT3.

He is NOT the BE COY.
He is the National COY.

And it is only going to get better.

I don't like to get ahead of myself, but, if we make the Dance, how would JT3's coaching job rank up with other coaching jobs at GU? Is it the best performance ever in a single season? Reason why I ask is that Pete Carrill called the job that JT3 did at Princeton during his first year the best ever at Princeton.

[thebin]

MCIGuy said:

Screw that. The pundits on TV have said Minnesota is a lock if they go 9-7 even though Minnesota had a very weak non conference schedule. The Big 10 is far weaker than the Big East so if Minnesota gets in why wouldn't the Hoyas. 10-6 should be the lock. The Hoyas strength of schedule is very good and the Hoyas' RPI is in the 30s unlike Notre Dame who were in trouble going into Syracuse because their RPI is in the 50s. The Big East is at worst the second best conference. GU goes 10-6 and they go dancing. Boston College went 8-8 in 2002 and went dancing because of its RPI. Hoyas at 10-6 should be in.

I certainly hope you are right but I am not sure we are talking about the same things- you are saying they should be a lock at 10-6- which I agree with. But a "lock" by definition means that they WOULD get in not that they deserve to get in. Can you honestly say MCI that at 10-6 with no BET wins, you won't be AT ALL nervous about selection when it comes down to zero hour? Maybe you don't think its 50/50, maybe you think its more likely than that, but a lock?

[thebin]

Churchwell said:

Not to split hairs, but we've already had a brutal schedule:
1/5 @ then #12 Pittsburg
1/8 @ then # 9 UConn
1/11 home for Rutgers
1/15 @ Villanova

Okay, this was 10 days, not 7, but still scarier to me than Nova, @ UConn @ Providence

We also followed up on the above schedule with:
1/18 @ then #7 Syracuse
1/23 home for Notre Dame.

Could we lose all three of our final games? Sure. Are they critical to assure a tourney bid and/or strong seeding. Yup. A harder stretch than this team has faced this season? Not by a long shot.

Wait a minute, when the hell did we start worrying about the Friars at home? In 8 tries, they couldn't pull off one BE win. This has been mentioned twice now as some sort of a tough game. Sounds like some people really don't believe we are any good yet. YES, I know anyone can beat anyone in this league- but Providence- dead last in the league- at home, is considered part of a rough slate? WTF? Its roughly 2/3 or the way through the BE season, and we are 9 slots ahead of PC in the standings people!!! I am not saying there is no chance we lose that game, but it CANNOT be considered anything but a game where the Hoyas will be HUGE favorites.

[Eurostar]

Biggest games for us are @nd and Villanova. Big East will get at least 6 teams in, so it looks like worst case scenario one of us 3 is left out. If we sweep both ND and Villanova, we are in. Though, we will probably face one of them again in the Big East tournament after a bye or vs. 11.

[PopeJohn2]

imo, to make the tourney we need to of course beat wv, sj, and prov. BUT we need to win one of nd or nova or uconn. that give us 11 wins. at the moment i dont think we would been seen as having enuf quality wins to be considered a lock. if we dont win one, then i think we are on the bubble.

we need more quality wins. if we had beaten cuse at home (i.e. smaller feet) we would be a virtual lock already.

[EasyEd]

If we are only 10-6, that means we will have nine total losses so, unless we win the BE tournament, we will end up with 10 losses. I say we don't make the dance with 10 losses.

[MCIGuy]

thebin said:

I certainly hope you are right but I am not sure we are talking about the same things- you are saying they should be a lock at 10-6- which I agree with. But a "lock" by definition means that they WOULD get in not that they deserve to get in. Can you honestly say MCI that at 10-6 with no BET wins, you won't be AT ALL nervous about selection when it comes down to zero hour? Maybe you don't think its 50/50, maybe you think its more likely than that, but a lock?

I would be apprehensive but still confident. Much more confident than in 2002 when I knew the Hoyas weren't going dancing with a 9-7 record.

[MCIGuy]

easyed said:

If we are only 10-6, that means we will have nine total losses so, unless we win the BE tournament, we will end up with 10 losses. I say we don't make the dance with 10 losses.

What? Too many losses? Ask yourself if any of those losses have been bad. Temple (who is currently still at the top of the Atlantic 10 and has a killer RPI), Illinois (nuff said), Oral Roberst (going dancing), UConn, Syracuse (at Syracuse in overtime) and Boston College (at Boston College...nuff said again).

Now if the Hoyas end up losing to Notre Dame and UConn away and to a possibly ranked (and way high RPI team) Nova at home they still wouldn't have one bad loss amongst the bunch. That 2002 Boston College team had 8 lousy conference wins and more than 10 losses overall and they went to the Dance.

[Nevada Hoya]

If history repeats itself as far as JTIII getting the team playing its best come tournament time (and playing on the family gene pool), we should be prepared for that brutal stretch. Of course, I go by that old trite sports idiom of taking one game at at time. I think that is why we have been so successful this year. Each game that we have played is an entity in itself. In preparing for each game, I think JTIII views each game almost in isolation, trying to get the team to play its best in that particular game. Just my observations.

[lichoya68]

LOOK FOLKS ENOUGH OF THIS BRUTAL STRETCH STUFF.. THE NEXT GAME is always the next brutal strecth.. west va. will be brutal there are no gimmies one by one we need to show the world we can do this we have done this ALL BRUTAL STRETCHES FOLKS EVERYONE A STRETCH but thats why its so sweet we also can watch uconn adn the cuse mon and root for the cuse and nc and bc tues ouch that hurts but go bc you see they all with us have some brutal stretches too folks and we sit and watch and just need to cheer like for west va keeping pitt below us and that wonderful cuse comeback putting nd below us and the nd uconn game nd helping us to put uconn below us get the drift there are other games and so far they are fallin pretty good you see we sit and watch for a week we already got our seven wins finally they wil all be tough and our stretch is everyday but not to bad so far for the 11`th team in the big east lets laugh a little louder with each who woulda thought weed even be talking about the ncaas at this point who woulda thunk it go hoyas beat west va. and then one by one by one at least ;D

[SaxaCD]

I would think 10 losses with our usual RPI of around 150 or whatever would mean it would be tough to get in, but I think if we win 10 BE games this year, with the RPI and other weird computer numbers people look at, AND considering we beat Pitt, Nova an ND on the road, we'll be in. This will all be moot when we win more than 10 though, and after what we've seen so far, why not dream for a 3rd place BE finish!!

[GUHoya07]

We haven't beaten ND on the road yet, but I hope we do.