prhoya
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Feb 13, 2018 10:15:36 GMT -5
Post by prhoya on Feb 13, 2018 10:15:36 GMT -5
I don’t see how the poor OOC was helpful to Ewing either. For example, Mulmore and Kaleb did very well in the OOC and then were neutralized against better competition. How is that helpful to anyone? As a coach, I would think it’s hard to assess your team when they aren’t even challenged and they face an entirely different type of opponent suddenly once conference play starts. Respectfully disagree with your approach. Kaleb and Mulmore are cherry-picked examples. I can counter with Marcus and Pickett, who have taken their game to another level (cliché and all). Looking at Govan, I think the difference might be due to conditioning. He was playing too many minutes in the OOC and hit a wall in January. Instead of running him to the ground to the detriment of the team, I like that Pat has lowered his minutes considerably and it looks like Jessie is coming around for the stretch run. Looking at the guards, it's just an inconsistent bunch and Pat is playing whoever is best gameday and depending on the situation. It looks like collectively they are improving. Walker has not received a measurable opportunity. But, back to Kaleb and being "neutralized against better competition." I don't think it's true. Kaleb's confidence in his 3-pt shot is gone. He has not been the same since the NC A&T game. Kaleb's problem is in his head, not the competition. The kid shoots wide-open. The opponents back off to dare him to shoot. Remember Pat at the beginning of the season when everyone was talking about Kaleb's improvement? Pat said something like "if Johnson doesnt shoot, he sits." Well, now he isn't shooting and he isn't sitting, but that's because of the available roster. Kaleb is getting a lot of minutes because: (a.) for lack of options, he's the best defender to mark the opponent's hot shooter, and (b.) he does a lot of scrappy things that result in a lay-up, rebound, assist or steal. I hope his lack of confidence does not hurt his much improved FT%. It will be interesting to see how his minutes go next year if he is still the same player.
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EtomicB
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Post by EtomicB on Feb 13, 2018 10:20:12 GMT -5
I don’t see how the poor OOC was helpful to Ewing either. For example, Mulmore and Kaleb did very well in the OOC and then were neutralized against better competition. How is that helpful to anyone? As a coach, I would think it’s hard to assess your team when they aren’t even challenged and they face an entirely different type of opponent suddenly once conference play starts. Respectfully disagree with your approach. Kaleb and Mulmore are cherry-picked examples. I can counter with Marcus and Pickett, who have taken their game to another level (cliché and all). Looking at Govan, I think the difference might be due to conditioning. He was playing too many minutes in the OOC and hit a wall in January. Instead of running him to the ground to the detriment of the team, I like that Pat has lowered his minutes considerably and it looks like Jessie is coming around for the stretch run. Looking at the guards, it's just an inconsistent bunch and Pat is playing whoever is best gameday and depending on the situation. It looks like collectively they are improving. Walker has not received a measurable opportunity. But, back to Kaleb and being "neutralized against better competition." I don't think it's true. Kaleb's confidence in his 3-pt shot is gone. He has not been the same since the NC A&T game. Kaleb's problem is in his head, not the competition. The kid shoots wide-open. The opponents back off to dare him to shoot. Remember Pat at the beginning of the season when everyone was talking about Kaleb's improvement? Pat said something like "if Johnson doesnt shoot, he sits." Well, now he isn't shooting and he isn't sitting, but that's because of the available roster. Kaleb is getting a lot of minutes because: (a.) for lack of options, he's the best defender to mark the opponent's hot shooter, and (b.) he does a lot of scrappy things that result in a lay-up, rebound, assist or steal. I hope his lack of confidence does not hurt his much improved FT%. It will be interesting to see how his minutes go next year if he is still the same player. Do you really believe Picketts game has grown over the last 4 games because of the ooc schedule?
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lichoya68
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Feb 13, 2018 10:30:20 GMT -5
Post by lichoya68 on Feb 13, 2018 10:30:20 GMT -5
yes re pickett needed time to adjust and adjust he has GOOD OOC SCHEDULE imo we will see beat butler
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prhoya
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Feb 13, 2018 10:52:49 GMT -5
Post by prhoya on Feb 13, 2018 10:52:49 GMT -5
Do you really believe Picketts game has grown over the last 4 games because of the ooc schedule? Pickett's numbers were all over the place during the OOC. I don't think a weekend of the PK80 would have changed that. It was regular freshman adjustment for a talented kid.
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NIT?
Feb 13, 2018 11:09:33 GMT -5
Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Feb 13, 2018 11:09:33 GMT -5
Do you really believe Picketts game has grown over the last 4 games because of the ooc schedule? Pickett's numbers were all over the place during the OOC. I don't think a weekend of the PK80 would have changed that. It was regular freshman adjustment for a talented kid. In Pickett's case, I really don't think the schedule has had much to do with his development either way. Even though there were some games where Pickett scored a fair amount of points, his OOC generally was not very good and the beginning of his Big East season was not very good either. Basically, after being very inefficient overall (turning it over too much, low shooting percentage, not rebounding), he's turned it up during the last six games. I have no idea why that happened, but I find it hard to credit Pickett with improving because of the OOC given that he didn't show any marked improvement until we were already 18 games into the season and six games into the Big East schedule.
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Feb 13, 2018 11:16:31 GMT -5
Respectfully disagree with your approach. Kaleb and Mulmore are cherry-picked examples. I can counter with Marcus and Pickett, who have taken their game to another level (cliché and all). Looking at Govan, I think the difference might be due to conditioning. He was playing too many minutes in the OOC and hit a wall in January. Instead of running him to the ground to the detriment of the team, I like that Pat has lowered his minutes considerably and it looks like Jessie is coming around for the stretch run. Looking at the guards, it's just an inconsistent bunch and Pat is playing whoever is best gameday and depending on the situation. It looks like collectively they are improving. Walker has not received a measurable opportunity. But, back to Kaleb and being "neutralized against better competition." I don't think it's true. Kaleb's confidence in his 3-pt shot is gone. He has not been the same since the NC A&T game. Kaleb's problem is in his head, not the competition. The kid shoots wide-open. The opponents back off to dare him to shoot. Remember Pat at the beginning of the season when everyone was talking about Kaleb's improvement? Pat said something like "if Johnson doesnt shoot, he sits." Well, now he isn't shooting and he isn't sitting, but that's because of the available roster. Kaleb is getting a lot of minutes because: (a.) for lack of options, he's the best defender to mark the opponent's hot shooter, and (b.) he does a lot of scrappy things that result in a lay-up, rebound, assist or steal. I hope his lack of confidence does not hurt his much improved FT%. It will be interesting to see how his minutes go next year if he is still the same player. I appreciate your thoughts. On Govan, I really think it's less conditioning than the fact that he suddenly went from playing awful teams with short players to playing mostly top 50 teams. The difference in quality between top 50 teams and 300-350 levels is really huge. That said, he did play a ton of minutes in the OOC - and probably more than he had to. Given the OOC, I really wish Walker had gotten more opportunity to get minutes, but I recognize he's behind our best player (Derrickson), and that's going to limit his time, especially in Big East games. On Kaleb, you could be right - it could be in his head, the competition, or all of the above. He does still show occasional flashes that I like (like a few plays at the beginning of the Seton Hall game), he just hasn't been able to really get things together. In looking at his stats, his drop is even bigger than I thought. After shooting 48.1% from three OOC, he's shooting 13.3% in conference, and his turnovers have gone way up in conference too. The one area he's kept high is a high percentage on two point shots, but he just doesn't take that many. I hope Kaleb can get it together...There's going to be more competition for minutes there too next year, especially if Pickett keeps it up, and if LeBlanc can contribute from day 1.
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EtomicB
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Feb 13, 2018 11:22:12 GMT -5
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Post by EtomicB on Feb 13, 2018 11:22:12 GMT -5
Do you really believe Picketts game has grown over the last 4 games because of the ooc schedule? Pickett's numbers were all over the place during the OOC. I don't think a weekend of the PK80 would have changed that. It was regular freshman adjustment for a talented kid. Fair enough.. But you gave the impression that the ooc had a big impact on Pickett in your previous response to 2003..
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prhoya
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Feb 13, 2018 11:44:46 GMT -5
Post by prhoya on Feb 13, 2018 11:44:46 GMT -5
I appreciate your thoughts. On Govan, I really think it's less conditioning than the fact that he suddenly went from playing awful teams with short players to playing mostly top 50 teams. The difference in quality between top 50 teams and 300-350 levels is really huge. That said, he did play a ton of minutes in the OOC - and probably more than he had to. Given the OOC, I really wish Walker had gotten more opportunity to get minutes, but I recognize he's behind our best player (Derrickson), and that's going to limit his time, especially in Big East games. On Kaleb, you could be right - it could be in his head, the competition, or all of the above. He does still show occasional flashes that I like (like a few plays at the beginning of the Seton Hall game), he just hasn't been able to really get things together. In looking at his stats, his drop is even bigger than I thought. After shooting 48.1% from three OOC, he's shooting 13.3% in conference, and his turnovers have gone way up in conference too. The one area he's kept high is a high percentage on two point shots, but he just doesn't take that many. I hope Kaleb can get it together...There's going to be more competition for minutes there too next year, especially if Pickett keeps it up, and if LeBlanc can contribute from day 1. Thanks for yours. Govan has had pretty good games recently. His OOC minutes were crazy. Just three times did he play less than 30 minutes. But, Pat was reflecting himself on Govan with his comment "they're 20 year olds" and maybe that was the mistake. I still believe that he hit the wall, but is back. I'm glad to see that Pat is managing his pt differently, but I'm concerned for Marcus. Check Kaleb's drop. It started earlier. His numbers in November were astronomical and great in December up to the NC A&T game. Yes, I hope we get that November Kaleb tonight or soon thereafter.
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Feb 13, 2018 13:05:00 GMT -5
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Post by centercourt400s on Feb 13, 2018 13:05:00 GMT -5
Pickett's numbers were all over the place during the OOC. I don't think a weekend of the PK80 would have changed that. It was regular freshman adjustment for a talented kid. Fair enough.. But you gave the impression that the ooc had a big impact on Pickett in your previous response to 2003.. All we know is that Pickett has started improving at a high rate recently and that his whole journey this season has led to this point, including the OOC. Isn't it possible that Ewing giving him so many minutes and establishing him mentally as a starter during the OOC had a major impact on where he is today? You can't just discount a portion of the experience that shaped a player because you don't think the opponent was of high enough quality. If he got blitzed by higher quality opponents in a theoretical tougher OOC maybe he doesn't have the same confidence he has today or maybe he would not have gotten enough minutes and thus experience to be playing at the level he is now. Maybe the OOC as it happened was exactly what Pickett needed to be playing well in February. Maybe it wasn't. We don't and can't know. But it is certainly possible.
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Feb 13, 2018 13:51:33 GMT -5
Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Feb 13, 2018 13:51:33 GMT -5
The problem is that all of these scenarios are "what ifs" that make for lively debate, but ultimately have no real resolution, either way. It goes for the OOC as a whole. One side says we are improving now because of the OOC, we needed it for confidence, etc., whereas the other side says no, the OOC was still harmful because it didn't provide a challenge, etc. Ultimately, because the season only played out with one schedule, even if there are benefits or negatives from it, there's no way to know whether the alternative would have been better or worse.
What I will say is we are the only team that scheduled that way in the last 15 years, and plenty of coaches have taken over programs in distress and turned them around with a different approach. So to the extent the argument is "our guys needed this schedule," that presupposes that our team and coach are in some way different than every other program that has been in transition over the last 15 years.
Lastly, I will say that throughout this debate it hasn't been an "either/or," even though often people treat it that way. It's never been a binary choice between the 351st worst schedule or a top 20 OOC strength of schedule. I'm pretty sure most of us, including me, would not have advocated a top 20 type schedule. We are ultimately talking about smaller differences (let's say 200 OOC strength of schedule, or 150).
On that note, I have no idea what this has to do with the NIT, other than the fact that if we are on the NIT bubble, I think the schedule will work against our selection.
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sleepy
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Feb 13, 2018 14:16:11 GMT -5
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Post by sleepy on Feb 13, 2018 14:16:11 GMT -5
I also think people are forgetting our OOC results. Numbers wise our OOC was awful, but we were certainly challenged by some of the low competition we were facing. Its not as if we slept walked with 40 point victories night in and night out. We beat Jacksonville by 16, Coopin St by 16, Howard by 14, NC A7T by 9, North Texas by 12. There were a few 30 point victories in there but we were challenged more than our SOS will tell you.
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mdtd
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Feb 13, 2018 15:15:22 GMT -5
Post by mdtd on Feb 13, 2018 15:15:22 GMT -5
I also think people are forgetting our OOC results. Numbers wise our OOC was awful, but we were certainly challenged by some of the low competition we were facing. Its not as if we slept walked with 40 point victories night in and night out. We beat Jacksonville by 16, Coopin St by 16, Howard by 14, NC A7T by 9, North Texas by 12. There were a few 30 point victories in there but we were challenged more than our SOS will tell you. I've been keeping up with North Texas and they are a very solid team. There guards are really good and played some good teams well. They were solid when we played them too.
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mdtd
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Feb 13, 2018 15:17:44 GMT -5
Post by mdtd on Feb 13, 2018 15:17:44 GMT -5
As much as I wish your argument was the truth and it seemed to me in the JT3 years, it isn't really. Granted I'm a negative person and will go at anything if I think it should be changed especially with the sport I love. But looking at teams like Arkansas, Missouri, Louisville and more. They may have played 2 difficult teams, but they did not win. Georgetown for example, if we had scheduled Kansas instead of Maine (just for example sake) and we lost to Kansas that shouldn't help our resume and usually doesn't. It's about who you beat and those teams didn't beat anyone early in the year and are projected tournament teams. My Maryland example works in years past and frankly with them on the bubble this year, my argument should stand. If they go 2-2/3-1 (as I'd predict) then win one game in the B10 tournament vs. us going 4-1 and a win in the BE we'd have a significantly better resume with the quality of team in the conference. And they'd likely be in ahead of us which is ridiculous. And frankly on the game im watching now WVU/TCU the analyst said the new brackets were for attention and talked up the big ten. It is a huge pet peeve of mine, especially as a Hoya fan. Arkansas beat Oklahoma, Connecticut, and Minnesota in out of conference play. They have a loss to UNC. And in league play they've beat Tennessee. And frankly, they're far from a lock. Arkansas played a far superior OOC schedule to ours, both in terms of games they won and quality of play. We aren't even in the same ballpark. Again, my objection isn't that we played Maine, or even that we scheduled basically 8 or 9 of the worst teams in the country in Ewing's first year with a limited roster. It's that you can't schedule that way and expect a tournament berth in any league at .500. And for what it's worth I do think the BE is among the best leagues. This was a down year for both UCONN and Minnesota. I was angry when I found out we were not playing UCONN as it was obvious that they would be having a down year and would have been n entertaining game. And yeah, Arkansas was not an excellent example but still.
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NIT?
Feb 13, 2018 16:03:02 GMT -5
Post by bicentennial on Feb 13, 2018 16:03:02 GMT -5
Look, If this team in the next 3 weeks goes 5-0 with wins @ Butler, @ Villanova and wins over Seton Hall, Xavier, Providence and Marquette, we would absolutely be in the conversation for an NCAA spot despite our abysmal out of conference. We would also be at 9-9 in the BE. I am an optimistic fan but the combination of luck and progress that would be required for this to happen would be phenomenal. Even then if we choked in the BigEast Tournament we would not be in the NCAA tournament. This team has been very close all year to winning games against excellent teams when we have had the opportunity. The same could be said of JTIII's last two seasons. If we could win all the above except at Villanova and win three games not including the championship in the Big East tournament, I believe the NCAA tournament selection committee would have to consider our team for a selection. Obviously losing all 5 remaining regular season games then winning the tournament would also get us in but is also exceedingly unlikely. We are all glad that we beat Seton Hall. The formula is the asme as it has always been. Win the next game, each game and at the end of the season we will know where the chips have fallen.
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bamahoya11
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Feb 13, 2018 16:03:44 GMT -5
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Post by bamahoya11 on Feb 13, 2018 16:03:44 GMT -5
Arkansas beat Oklahoma, Connecticut, and Minnesota in out of conference play. They have a loss to UNC. And in league play they've beat Tennessee. And frankly, they're far from a lock. Arkansas played a far superior OOC schedule to ours, both in terms of games they won and quality of play. We aren't even in the same ballpark. Again, my objection isn't that we played Maine, or even that we scheduled basically 8 or 9 of the worst teams in the country in Ewing's first year with a limited roster. It's that you can't schedule that way and expect a tournament berth in any league at .500. And for what it's worth I do think the BE is among the best leagues. This was a down year for both UCONN and Minnesota. I was angry when I found out we were not playing UCONN as it was obvious that they would be having a down year and would have been n entertaining game. And yeah, Arkansas was not an excellent example but still. Any of those wins would likely be our second best win of the year. And it's not just Arkansas. Missouri, which you mention, got OOC wine over Iowa St, SJU, UCF, and them beat Tennessee, Kentucky, and Alabama in SEC play. They're not a lock. Louisville beat Indiana and Memphis, lost to numerous ranked teams, and played lower tier teams typically ranked 200-300 in Ken Pom. Georgetown has a staggering five (5) wins against the worst 20 teams in the country according to Ken Pom. That's over a third of our wins. Our best OOC win was against North Texas (169), and I think Richmond (185) may have been our only other top 200 win. To mount a credible NCAA bid with that schedule, I would suggest we would need something like a 12-6 or 13-5 record, really tough to do in this league. I'm not doing this to beat a dead horse, but to be clear that when we are serious about making the tournament we have to improve scheduling, even if that's just playing number 273 instead of number 343. As to the broader point on schedule and team development, I think this schedule helped the team at a macro level. I don't know that getting blown out by teams early would've done any good. It took this team time to learn the basics of Ewing's system, and it seems like that finally "clicked" to a point when we had the off week between Creighton and Xavier. I don't know if we would have gotten to that point had the team gotten discouraged earlier on. I hope the week off after this game tonight will also help us improve. And at least now the team has something to play for in an NIT bid, even if it's a reach.
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hoyainla
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Post by hoyainla on Feb 13, 2018 16:58:55 GMT -5
This board is hilarious these days I must say that. Trey makes a couple elementary plays at the end of a game and he's all of a sudden good and we get one decent win and we started up the NCAA and NIT talk. We have a 1% chance of making the NCAAT and that is winning the BE tourney. We have about a 3% chance of making the NIT and that would be winning at least 4 more games. The OOC did in our NIT chances. if we just replaces the MEACs and Maine with a bunch of North Texas and Mt. St. Mary's we would've been fine.
The argument of those in favor of the all time weak OOC was that the team would fall apart with a few losses to good teams and would likely lose to a few bad teams. We played a few of those just bad teams (Mt. St. Mary's, Richmond, North Texas) and didn't have any trouble. Our only bad loss on the year is to Depaul and quite frankly the only reason their numbers look bad is because they scheduled almost as bad as we did. They did not lose to a non power 5/6 team all year either. If your worry was a heartbreaking loss or a stomping defeat would kill the team well we have plenty of evidence that it didn't. This team has more heart breaking losses and one of the worse defeats in school history and they just bounced back from all of it for their best win of the season. This team was not prepared for Big East play in my mind. This team looks nothing like it did entering BE play and that is a good thing. The OOC is done and nothing can be done now so it is what it is, but to defend it knowing what we know now seems silly in my book. I think even Pat would admit that having an all time weak OOC is a bad idea. He's learning and thats all we can ask for.
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Feb 13, 2018 17:12:30 GMT -5
Look, If this team in the next 3 weeks goes 5-0 with wins @ Butler, @ Villanova and wins over Seton Hall, Xavier, Providence and Marquette, we would absolutely be in the conversation for an NCAA spot despite our abysmal out of conference. We would also be at 9-9 in the BE. I am an optimistic fan but the combination of luck and progress that would be required for this to happen would be phenomenal. Even then if we choked in the BigEast Tournament we would not be in the NCAA tournament. This team has been very close all year to winning games against excellent teams when we have had the opportunity. The same could be said of JTIII's last two seasons. If we could win all the above except at Villanova and win three games not including the championship in the Big East tournament, I believe the NCAA tournament selection committee would have to consider our team for a selection. Obviously losing all 5 remaining regular season games then winning the tournament would also get us in but is also exceedingly unlikely. We are all glad that we beat Seton Hall. The formula is the asme as it has always been. Win the next game, each game and at the end of the season we will know where the chips have fallen. Out of curiosity, I ran the numbers with RPI Wizard. If we went 4-1, losing to Villanova, going into the BET our RPI is 97, with 88 Strength of Schedule. Obviously, we have no idea what the bracket will look like in the BET yet. For arguments' sake, let's say we finish 8-10 and 7th in the BET. With the way the standings are, we'd likely play DePaul or St. John's. Let's say we play St. John's. Next round, we'd likely play the #2 team, which will likely be Xavier (unless Villanova falters). Then we'd play the winner of the 3/6 seed matchup, so let's say Creighton. If we won all those games and got to the BET final (beating St. John's, Xavier, Creighton), and then lost to Villanova in the BET final, our RPI would be 62, with a Strength of Schedule of 62. I was actually surprised our numbers were that high, but it illustrates what a huge difference beating 2 quality teams in the Big East Tournament would make. The problem is that even at RPI 62, Strength of Schedule 62, that's still on the extremely weak side of the bubble. But yes, enough to be in the discussion.
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sleepy
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Post by sleepy on Feb 13, 2018 17:30:35 GMT -5
This board is hilarious these days I must say that. Trey makes a couple elementary plays at the end of a game and he's all of a sudden good and we get one decent win and we started up the NCAA and NIT talk. We have a 1% chance of making the NCAAT and that is winning the BE tourney. We have about a 3% chance of making the NIT and that would be winning at least 4 more games. The OOC did in our NIT chances. if we just replaces the MEACs and Maine with a bunch of North Texas and Mt. St. Mary's we would've been fine. The argument of those in favor of the all time weak OOC was that the team would fall apart with a few losses to good teams and would likely lose to a few bad teams. We played a few of those just bad teams (Mt. St. Mary's, Richmond, North Texas) and didn't have any trouble. Our only bad loss on the year is to Depaul and quite frankly the only reason their numbers look bad is because they scheduled almost as bad as we did. They did not lose to a non power 5/6 team all year either. If your worry was a heartbreaking loss or a stomping defeat would kill the team well we have plenty of evidence that it didn't. This team has more heart breaking losses and one of the worse defeats in school history and they just bounced back from all of it for their best win of the season. This team was not prepared for Big East play in my mind. This team looks nothing like it did entering BE play and that is a good thing. The OOC is done and nothing can be done now so it is what it is, but to defend it knowing what we know now seems silly in my book. I think even Pat would admit that having an all time weak OOC is a bad idea. He's learning and thats all we can ask for. The board is hilarious most days. The only difference is that its overboard on the side of positivity these days as opposed to the last two years of over the top negativity. A very welcome change in my book.
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NIT?
Feb 13, 2018 17:59:28 GMT -5
Post by bicentennial on Feb 13, 2018 17:59:28 GMT -5
Look, If this team in the next 3 weeks goes 5-0 with wins @ Butler, @ Villanova and wins over Seton Hall, Xavier, Providence and Marquette, we would absolutely be in the conversation for an NCAA spot despite our abysmal out of conference. We would also be at 9-9 in the BE. I am an optimistic fan but the combination of luck and progress that would be required for this to happen would be phenomenal. Even then if we choked in the BigEast Tournament we would not be in the NCAA tournament. This team has been very close all year to winning games against excellent teams when we have had the opportunity. The same could be said of JTIII's last two seasons. If we could win all the above except at Villanova and win three games not including the championship in the Big East tournament, I believe the NCAA tournament selection committee would have to consider our team for a selection. Obviously losing all 5 remaining regular season games then winning the tournament would also get us in but is also exceedingly unlikely. We are all glad that we beat Seton Hall. The formula is the asme as it has always been. Win the next game, each game and at the end of the season we will know where the chips have fallen. Out of curiosity, I ran the numbers with RPI Wizard. If we went 4-1, losing to Villanova, going into the BET our RPI is 97, with 88 Strength of Schedule. Obviously, we have no idea what the bracket will look like in the BET yet. For arguments' sake, let's say we finish 8-10 and 7th in the BET. With the way the standings are, we'd likely play DePaul or St. John's. Let's say we play St. John's. Next round, we'd likely play the #2 team, which will likely be Xavier (unless Villanova falters). Then we'd play the winner of the 3/6 seed matchup, so let's say Creighton. If we won all those games and got to the BET final (beating St. John's, Xavier, Creighton), and then lost to Villanova in the BET final, our RPI would be 62, with a Strength of Schedule of 62. I was actually surprised our numbers were that high, but it illustrates what a huge difference beating 2 quality teams in the Big East Tournament would make. The problem is that even at RPI 62, Strength of Schedule 62, that's still on the extremely weak side of the bubble. But yes, enough to be in the discussion. And it would be a discussion even ESPN would have to take up and run with. While I am sure we are dreaming and a BET with 3 wins and a loss to Nova in the championship game is highly unlikely if we Beat Seton Hall, Butler, Providence, Xavier twice and Creighton all in the months of February and March, there would be no other teams on the bubble with better wins!
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EtomicB
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Post by EtomicB on Feb 13, 2018 18:15:49 GMT -5
This board is hilarious these days I must say that. Trey makes a couple elementary plays at the end of a game and he's all of a sudden good and we get one decent win and we started up the NCAA and NIT talk. We have a 1% chance of making the NCAAT and that is winning the BE tourney. We have about a 3% chance of making the NIT and that would be winning at least 4 more games. The OOC did in our NIT chances. if we just replaces the MEACs and Maine with a bunch of North Texas and Mt. St. Mary's we would've been fine. The argument of those in favor of the all time weak OOC was that the team would fall apart with a few losses to good teams and would likely lose to a few bad teams. We played a few of those just bad teams (Mt. St. Mary's, Richmond, North Texas) and didn't have any trouble. Our only bad loss on the year is to Depaul and quite frankly the only reason their numbers look bad is because they scheduled almost as bad as we did. They did not lose to a non power 5/6 team all year either. If your worry was a heartbreaking loss or a stomping defeat would kill the team well we have plenty of evidence that it didn't. This team has more heart breaking losses and one of the worse defeats in school history and they just bounced back from all of it for their best win of the season. This team was not prepared for Big East play in my mind. This team looks nothing like it did entering BE play and that is a good thing. The OOC is done and nothing can be done now so it is what it is, but to defend it knowing what we know now seems silly in my book. I think even Pat would admit that having an all time weak OOC is a bad idea. He's learning and thats all we can ask for. Well stated..
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