GUJook97
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
Posts: 5,445
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Post by GUJook97 on Mar 11, 2019 18:38:16 GMT -5
UNCG looks like the better team tonight.
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Post by Ranch Dressing on Mar 11, 2019 18:39:26 GMT -5
UNCG looks like the better team tonight. Not good.
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Post by tribeninerhoya on Mar 11, 2019 19:04:14 GMT -5
UNCG looks like the better team tonight. Not good. Despite that- only a 4-point lead at half. Both of these teams look good. The top 4 or so of the SoCon were all pretty impressive this year.
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GUJook97
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
Posts: 5,445
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Post by GUJook97 on Mar 11, 2019 19:59:55 GMT -5
Entertaining game.
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Post by BeantownHoya on Mar 11, 2019 20:11:17 GMT -5
Thank you Wofford...
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Post by RockawayHoya on Mar 11, 2019 20:13:21 GMT -5
Striking things about this Wofford UNCG game:
Team speed from both sides. Honestly while these guys are athletic, the effort level is extremely high. No one takes a play off.
Ability to adapt. They've made mention multiple times about how UNCG has confused Wofford with varying defensive looks. Must be nice to have a staff that can prepare his team to do so.
Easy to see now why UNCG has been in the at large discussion. That's a tough team.
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GIGAFAN99
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 4,487
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Mar 11, 2019 20:20:17 GMT -5
Striking things about this Wofford UNCG game: Team speed from both sides. Honestly while these guys are athletic, the effort level is extremely high. No one takes a play off. Ability to adapt. They've made mention multiple times about how UNCG has confused Wofford with varying defensive looks. Must be nice to have a staff that can prepare his team to do so. Easy to see now why UNCG has been in the at large discussion. That's a tough team. They're tough but...they lost by an aggregate 71 points against Wofford in three games. Would be shocked if they're not NIT.
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Post by tribeninerhoya on Mar 12, 2019 7:25:36 GMT -5
Striking things about this Wofford UNCG game: Team speed from both sides. Honestly while these guys are athletic, the effort level is extremely high. No one takes a play off. Ability to adapt. They've made mention multiple times about how UNCG has confused Wofford with varying defensive looks. Must be nice to have a staff that can prepare his team to do so. Easy to see now why UNCG has been in the at large discussion. That's a tough team. They're tough but...they lost by an aggregate 71 points against Wofford in three games. Would be shocked if they're not NIT. I think they will be in the NIT simply because of the name on the jersey, which is a shame (even though we benefit from it, it doesn't make it right). There are a lot of teams that would lose to a top-20 team by that much and make the tournament (hell, NCSU only scored 24 in one game). UNCG has lost six games now, Wofford thrice, @furman, @kentucky, and @lsu. The teams they've lost to have lost a total of 21 games (Wofford 29-4, Kentucky 26-5, LSU 26-5, Furman 25-7). They also only lost once at home all year (to Wofford). They're a strong team and probably should be considered for at large. The SoCon probably deserves as much as three bids (Furman, UNCG, and Wofford) if they had different names on their jerseys, they have a shot at two bids, and they're likely to only get one. Shame, because I'd rather see them in the tourney than a lousy NCSU team, etc.
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Post by hoyalove4ever on Mar 12, 2019 7:51:21 GMT -5
Striking things about this Wofford UNCG game: Team speed from both sides. Honestly while these guys are athletic, the effort level is extremely high. No one takes a play off. Ability to adapt. They've made mention multiple times about how UNCG has confused Wofford with varying defensive looks. Must be nice to have a staff that can prepare his team to do so. Easy to see now why UNCG has been in the at large discussion. That's a tough team. I live in Greensboro and have seen UNC-G place twice this year; they are indeed a very solid team that is very close to an at-large squad. Miller is a legitimate high-major athlete, and they have a number of guys who would be decent role players at the high-major level. They are extremely well coached and play hard. I expect them to play in the NIT for a chance at a thirty-win season.
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Post by franklinhoya on Mar 12, 2019 7:58:14 GMT -5
Our biggest selling point to the committee is our record against top teams, as defined by the Quadrant system we are told the committee will use. Here are the standards for the various Quadrants:
Quadrant 1 - Home vs NET 1-30, Neutral vs NET 1-50, Away vs NET 1-75) Quadrant 2 - Home vs NET 31-75, Neutral vs NET 151-100, Away vs NET 76-135) Quadrant 3 - Home vs NET 76-160, Neutral vs NET 101-200, Away vs NET 136-240)
However, our Q1 record (currently 5-6) is in some jeopardy, since a few of our Q1 wins are close to falling to Q2, so root for these teams to win this week:
Win - Home vs Villanova (currently they are 25, need to stay above 30) Win - Away vs Providence (currently 74, need to stay above 75) Win - Away vs St. Johns (currently 66, need to stay above 75) Win - Away vs Butler (currently 63, need to stay above 75)
One the opposite side, here are some Q1 losses that could fall to Q2, so root against these teams:
Loss - Home vs Marquette (currently 29, need to fall below 30) Loss - Away vs Xavier (currently 71, need to fall below 75) Loss - Away vs Seton Hall (currently 62, need to fall below 75)
We don't have any Q2 results (currently 5-4) that are even close to moving to Q1.
We do have quite a few Q2 results that could fall to Q3 (currently 2-2), which I am not sure really matters all that much, but are listed here (and some directly contradict desired results above):
Win - Home vs Providence (currently 74, need to stay above 75) Win - Home vs Xavier (currently 71, need to stay above 75) Win - Home vs Seton Hall (currently 62, need to stay above 75) Loss - Home vs Butler (currently 63, need to fall below 75) Loss - Home vs St. Johns (currently 66, need to fall below 75)
Hopefully we can win 3 games to make these numbers irrelevant.
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Post by RockawayHoya on Mar 12, 2019 8:07:38 GMT -5
Our biggest selling point to the committee is our record against top teams, as defined by the Quadrant system we are told the committee will use. Here are the standards for the various Quadrants: Quadrant 1 - Home vs NET 1-30, Neutral vs NET 1-50, Away vs NET 1-75) Quadrant 2 - Home vs NET 31-75, Neutral vs NET 151-100, Away vs NET 76-135) Quadrant 3 - Home vs NET 76-160, Neutral vs NET 101-200, Away vs NET 136-240) However, our Q1 record (currently 5-6) is in some jeopardy, since a few of our Q1 wins are close to falling to Q2, so root for these teams to win this week: Win - Home vs Villanova (currently they are 25, need to stay above 30) Win - Away vs Providence (currently 74, need to stay above 75) Win - Away vs St. Johns (currently 66, need to stay above 75) Win - Away vs Butler (currently 63, need to stay above 75) One the opposite side, here are some Q1 losses that could fall to Q2, so root against these teams: Loss - Home vs Marquette (currently 29, need to fall below 30) Loss - Away vs Xavier (currently 71, need to fall below 75) Loss - Away vs Seton Hall (currently 62, need to fall below 75) We don't have any Q2 results (currently 5-4) that are even close to moving to Q1. We do have quite a few Q2 results that could fall to Q3 (currently 2-2), which I am not sure really matters all that much, but are listed here (and some directly contradict desired results above): Win - Home vs Providence (currently 74, need to stay above 75) Win - Home vs Xavier (currently 71, need to stay above 75) Win - Home vs Seton Hall (currently 62, need to stay above 75) Loss - Home vs Butler (currently 63, need to fall below 75) Loss - Home vs St. Johns (currently 66, need to fall below 75) Hopefully we can win 3 games to make these numbers irrelevant. I'm a little confused as to why we would want a Q1 loss to fall to Q2. Isn't that worse for us? I think I'd almost rather the committee see we played as many Q1 games as possible to emphasize SOS. Also, I'm not sure we really want to root for a team like SJU to win; they are in direct competition with us for one of the last spots in the field. If anything, that's the most important thing: we need some teams currently projected as in to fall out of the field so we have a spot to take if we win a few games.
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Post by RockawayHoya on Mar 12, 2019 8:13:26 GMT -5
Think a Gonzaga win vs. St. Mary's tonight pushes the Gaels off the bubble for good. Obviously no debate if the opposite happens. Need the Zags to take care of business.
Also thought it was interesting last night during the Gonzaga-Pepperdine telecast that they talked about how Gonzaga openly admits that they try to blow teams out to make their Kenpom rating better. Said Few and his staff looked back and had a lot of trouble finding teams that were not ranked in the top 20 nationally in defensive efficiency that ended up making the Final Four. Then, they pointed out to their team that being ranked in the 50s in that metric was not good enough. Especially with NET now being the formula of choice for the committee, I think more and more teams will shift to a similar line of thinking moving forward. Can't take your foot off the gas pedal anymore.
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Post by franklinhoya on Mar 12, 2019 8:16:55 GMT -5
I am not sure if 5-6 vs Q1 teams is better than 5-5 vs Q1 teams, but I could see it either way. I was just looking at this from the Quadrant perspective. In all likelihood, our win @sju is probably safely in Q1, since it is unlikely they would fall 9 spots in the NET ratings with a loss. In my opinion, as long as we outlast them in the BE tournament, we would move ahead of them on the bubble. So a win by SJU on Wednesday and a win by us/loss by them on Thursday would be fine with me.
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Post by aleutianhoya on Mar 12, 2019 8:52:38 GMT -5
I am not sure if 5-6 vs Q1 teams is better than 5-5 vs Q1 teams, but I could see it either way. I was just looking at this from the Quadrant perspective. In all likelihood, our win @sju is probably safely in Q1, since it is unlikely they would fall 9 spots in the NET ratings with a loss. In my opinion, as long as we outlast them in the BE tournament, we would move ahead of them on the bubble. So a win by SJU on Wednesday and a win by us/loss by them on Thursday would be fine with me. There's no question in the committee's eyes that the more Q1 games you play versus Q2 games (all results otherwise being equal) the better. Q1: 5-6; Q2: 6-4 is better than Q1: 5-5; Q2 6-5. The difference is marginal obviously. But that's absolutely the way it should be. If you're going to lose games, you want them to be to the best possible teams. So...Q1 losses are better than Q2 losses.
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Post by RockawayHoya on Mar 12, 2019 8:59:04 GMT -5
Just as an example, this is the 2nd ranked bracket on the Matrix the last 5 years: bracketville.wordpress.com/bracketology/Think this illustrates our current situation pretty well. Would think that we have a stronger profile than the high ranking mid majors who didn't win out (Furman, UNCG, Belmont). Florida and Texas have too many overall losses relative to wins to garner consideration unless they go on a better run than we do. Creighton probably ahead of us at the moment due to sweeping us and a much stronger SOS. St. John's pretty close to the cut line due to their recent dive... and maybe close enough to fall out entirely with a bad Q3 loss to Depaul tomorrow. Clemson and NC St. are the last 2 teams in and the loser almost definitely falls out tomorrow. Ditto for Indiana-Ohio St. (4th and 5th to last teams in). There will be a spot for us to grab if we win the next 2 provided teams like Gonzaga, Buffalo and VCU can take care of business in their conference tournaments.
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Post by aleutianhoya on Mar 12, 2019 9:14:36 GMT -5
Striking things about this Wofford UNCG game: Team speed from both sides. Honestly while these guys are athletic, the effort level is extremely high. No one takes a play off. Ability to adapt. They've made mention multiple times about how UNCG has confused Wofford with varying defensive looks. Must be nice to have a staff that can prepare his team to do so. Easy to see now why UNCG has been in the at large discussion. That's a tough team. I live in Greensboro and have seen UNC-G place twice this year; they are indeed a very solid team that is very close to an at-large squad. Miller is a legitimate high-major athlete, and they have a number of guys who would be decent role players at the high-major level. They are extremely well coached and play hard. I expect them to play in the NIT for a chance at a thirty-win season. I think they'll be in the NIT. I'm a firm proponent of the smaller schools getting ample consideration. But I just don't see it with them -- or frankly with the other contenders (Furman, Belmont). Just to take UNC-G as the example (and they may have the best argument among those contenders): They got a decent crack at Q1 teams and went 2-6. That's not horrible at all. It's certainly not disqualifying. But it's not a stat that helps them because this wasn't a situation where they didn't get to play any of those games. I feel bad for teams that try to schedule some major conference teams and the ones they do schedule stink in that given year...that's not the small school's fault. Or I feel bad for the small school that simply can't get on a major conference team's schedule. That's not their faultult either. It's unfair that many of UNC-Gs were on the road (and it's unfortunate that the major conference teams they scheduled happened to be very, very good) but that's life. They had a crack against a bunch and they didn't win enough to make it noteworthy. So...given that....what else do they have? Not much. 17 of their wins were Q4. I don't hold the 10 or so of those that they played in conference against them...nothing they can do about that. But they certainly could have bumped up just a few of their Q4 games to Q3-type games (or Q2). When you know a bunch of teams in your conference stink, you have to try to schedule the Davidsons or the Charlestons or the Radfords to make up for it. They didn't do it. I get that they may not have thought they were going to be as good as they were (and, heck, they probably couldn't have predicted that two other teams in their league were going to be so good, which helped their numbers). But you can't assess any of that in hindsight. (N.B.: If I were czar of the world, I'd somehow give teams extra credit for in-conference road wins (and give less of a demerit for in-conference road losses). It's incredibly hard for even a good team to go on the road in its conference, even if they're much better than their opponent, and win all the time. I know Gonzaga somehow does it! But they're not just good....they're really, really good. These conference coaches and teams know you so well and you play so many of those games. You're bound to slip up at some point. The smaller conference teams are disproportionately hurt by that.)
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Post by aleutianhoya on Mar 12, 2019 9:23:17 GMT -5
Just as an example, this is the 2nd ranked bracket on the Matrix the last 5 years: bracketville.wordpress.com/bracketology/Think this illustrates our current situation pretty well. Would think that we have a stronger profile than the high ranking mid majors who didn't win out (Furman, UNCG, Belmont). Florida and Texas have too many overall losses relative to wins to garner consideration unless they go on a better run than we do. Creighton probably ahead of us at the moment due to sweeping us and a much stronger SOS. St. John's pretty close to the cut line due to their recent dive... and maybe close enough to fall out entirely with a bad Q3 loss to Depaul tomorrow. Clemson and NC St. are the last 2 teams in and the loser almost definitely falls out tomorrow. Ditto for Indiana-Ohio St. (4th and 5th to last teams in). There will be a spot for us to grab if we win the next 2 provided teams like Gonzaga, Buffalo and VCU can take care of business in their conference tournaments. From his (and your) mouth to God's ears. With apologies to those who are sick of seeing these posts, it sure is fun to be thinking about....
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Post by tribeninerhoya on Mar 12, 2019 9:28:38 GMT -5
I live in Greensboro and have seen UNC-G place twice this year; they are indeed a very solid team that is very close to an at-large squad. Miller is a legitimate high-major athlete, and they have a number of guys who would be decent role players at the high-major level. They are extremely well coached and play hard. I expect them to play in the NIT for a chance at a thirty-win season. I think they'll be in the NIT. I'm a firm proponent of the smaller schools getting ample consideration. But I just don't see it with them -- or frankly with the other contenders (Furman, Belmont). Just to take UNC-G as the example (and they may have the best argument among those contenders: They got a decent crack at Q1 teams and went 2-6. That's not horrible at all. But it's not a stat that helps them because this wasn't a situation where they didn't get to play any of those games. It's unfair that many of those were on the road (and it's unfortunate that the major conference teams they scheduled happened to be very, very good) but that's life. They had a crack against a bunch and they didn't win enough to make it noteworthy. So...what else do they have? Not much. 17 of their wins were Q4. I don't hold the 10 or so of those that they played in conference against them...nothing they can do about that. But they certainly could have bumped up just a few of their Q4 games to Q3-type games (or Q2). When you know a bunch of teams in your conference stink, you have to try to schedule the Davidsons or the Charlestons or the Radfords to make up for it. I get that they may not have thought they were going to be as good as they were (and, heck, they probably couldn't have predicted that two other teams in their league were going to be so good, which helped their numbers). But you can't assess any of that in hindsight. So should NCSU get in? They went 2-8 against the top quadrant and 10 of their wins came against Q4. 3-2 against Q3. They've beaten three ( THREE!) total teams with winning records. They have a couple of terrible losses to Wake Forest and Georgia Tech. Should they be in even if they manage to get that elusive fourth win against a team with a winning record? FYI - their SOS is around 145-150 (anchored by a solid 353rd out of 353 ranked non-conference SOS). UNCG's for reference is 110-115 (anchored by an NCSOS of 138th). The ACC is a lot weaker than people realize simply because they have three great teams. Pitt, Georgia Tech, Notre Dame, Boston College, Miami, and Wake Forest are all absolutely garbage. I'd argue that NCSU and Clemson are, as well (though Clemson has beaten 5 teams with winning records). Edit to add: You also can't predict whether a team is going to be Q4 or Q3 (or, hell, even Q2) with any real accuracy - like you said, can't assess that in hindsight.
Second Edit: If anyone is curious, we have 12 wins over teams with winning records.
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Post by RockawayHoya on Mar 12, 2019 9:36:10 GMT -5
Just as an example, this is the 2nd ranked bracket on the Matrix the last 5 years: bracketville.wordpress.com/bracketology/Think this illustrates our current situation pretty well. Would think that we have a stronger profile than the high ranking mid majors who didn't win out (Furman, UNCG, Belmont). Florida and Texas have too many overall losses relative to wins to garner consideration unless they go on a better run than we do. Creighton probably ahead of us at the moment due to sweeping us and a much stronger SOS. St. John's pretty close to the cut line due to their recent dive... and maybe close enough to fall out entirely with a bad Q3 loss to Depaul tomorrow. Clemson and NC St. are the last 2 teams in and the loser almost definitely falls out tomorrow. Ditto for Indiana-Ohio St. (4th and 5th to last teams in). There will be a spot for us to grab if we win the next 2 provided teams like Gonzaga, Buffalo and VCU can take care of business in their conference tournaments. From his (and your) mouth to God's ears. With apologies to those who are sick of seeing these posts, it sure is fun to be thinking about.... LOL, I hear you. Just to be able to have the conversation in the 2nd week of March is a welcome change from recent years. I also use this example as a means of pointing out that while guys like Jerry Palm and Joe Lunardi have been in the business for many years now and are consistently cited by many posters on this board, they're also not as accurate as the average bracketologist on the Matrix. Of the bracketologists who have been included on the Matrix the last 5 years, Lunardi ranks 68th and Palm 82nd out of 127. While their commentary is sometimes insightful, they're just one of many opinions (much like the one I used as an example above). For a much less biased view, viewing the Matrix as a whole is much more beneficial.
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Post by aleutianhoya on Mar 12, 2019 9:45:53 GMT -5
I think they'll be in the NIT. I'm a firm proponent of the smaller schools getting ample consideration. But I just don't see it with them -- or frankly with the other contenders (Furman, Belmont). Just to take UNC-G as the example (and they may have the best argument among those contenders: They got a decent crack at Q1 teams and went 2-6. That's not horrible at all. But it's not a stat that helps them because this wasn't a situation where they didn't get to play any of those games. It's unfair that many of those were on the road (and it's unfortunate that the major conference teams they scheduled happened to be very, very good) but that's life. They had a crack against a bunch and they didn't win enough to make it noteworthy. So...what else do they have? Not much. 17 of their wins were Q4. I don't hold the 10 or so of those that they played in conference against them...nothing they can do about that. But they certainly could have bumped up just a few of their Q4 games to Q3-type games (or Q2). When you know a bunch of teams in your conference stink, you have to try to schedule the Davidsons or the Charlestons or the Radfords to make up for it. I get that they may not have thought they were going to be as good as they were (and, heck, they probably couldn't have predicted that two other teams in their league were going to be so good, which helped their numbers). But you can't assess any of that in hindsight. So should NCSU get in? They went 2-8 against the top quadrant and 10 of their wins came against Q4. 3-2 against Q3. They've beaten three ( THREE!) total teams with winning records. They have a couple of terrible losses to Wake Forest and Georgia Tech. Should they be in even if they manage to get that elusive fourth win against a team with a winning record? FYI - their SOS is around 145-150 (anchored by a solid 353rd out of 353 ranked non-conference SOS). UNCG's for reference is 110-115 (anchored by an NCSOS of 138th). The ACC is a lot weaker than people realize simply because they have three great teams. Pitt, Georgia Tech, Notre Dame, Boston College, Miami, and Wake Forest are all absolutely garbage. I'd argue that NCSU and Clemson are, as well (though Clemson has beaten 5 teams with winning records). Edit to add: You also can't predict whether a team is going to be Q4 or Q3 (or, hell, even Q2) with any real accuracy - like you said, can't assess that in hindsight.
Second Edit: If anyone is curious, we have 12 wins over teams with winning records. No, they shouldn't. In my view. I agree completely on assessing the schedule. The best you can do is make an educated guess. Wofford is in anyways obviously. But if they were a bubble team and someone complained about their Q1 wins it would be absurd to not somehow account for the fact that they went to South Carolina and won. That's a Q2 win, and you can't magically make it 11, but you can't really punish them because they scheduled a team I'm sure they thought would be very good and they stunk (relatively). The point is that you have to stop least try to schedule the right way.
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