Bubble Watch
- Thread starter vcl3
- Start date
You just unlocked the secret to how some of these teams jack up their RPI. Its all about playing the system. The problem with us is it might be hard to get some of those 100-150 type teams to play us and when the schedules are made sometimes you might think you are scheduling a decent team but they end up in the 300's.
Lol, go look at their schedule and get back to me. They have some pretty solid wins in there.
I think you're right. I'd be shocked as well. The committee hasn't been particularly kind to teams with the St. Mary/Wichita State profile.
I think we did that last year with NDSU, Buffalo, Chattanooga. Not sure the RPI is really important enough to risk bad losses to game it though. If you're a legit bubble team and play a bunch of 150-200 games, there's a good chance you lose one or two. Not so with the 250-350 level teams.
No matter which system you use to measure St. Mary's, there will be question marks. They are also #13 Kenpom which is why I wonder everybody is only pointing at RPI. Their SOS is what makes their position and seed questionable. They are solid, but perhaps should not be positioned high as their ranking would indicate. Looking at Kenpom record
Tourney level 2-3
#34 Dayton proj 8 seed
#57 Nevada proj 12 seed
---- 5-0
#75 BYU x2
#98 Stanford
#106 San Francisco x2
A good road record against average teams so that's a positive. No bad losses is also good, but there just isn't much else to go on. If you start looking at margins, they did well against non-tourney teams, but struggled against Gonzaga x2 and Texas-Arlington. Overall pretty clean, but not much meat.
Tourney level 2-3
#34 Dayton proj 8 seed
#57 Nevada proj 12 seed
---- 5-0
#75 BYU x2
#98 Stanford
#106 San Francisco x2
A good road record against average teams so that's a positive. No bad losses is also good, but there just isn't much else to go on. If you start looking at margins, they did well against non-tourney teams, but struggled against Gonzaga x2 and Texas-Arlington. Overall pretty clean, but not much meat.
I don't disagree but its not bad when UT Arlington is 40 in the RPI and that is the metric the committee relies on heavily.
I don't for a second think getting handled at home to UT Arlington is a positive or that St. Mary's is anything other then a 9-10-11. I am simply pointing out why people would have them "In" this year vs "Out" last year.
Bad metric or not a 40 RPI loss isn't a big deal.
Another thing that people are forgetting is we were given huge clues as to what the committee values when they released the Top 16 earlier in the season. They didn't have Wisconsin as a top 4 seed, and Wisconsin was 21-3 at the time if I remember correctly. They have a very low opinion of the Big 10, and while I don't think Lunardi is gospel, I think he has a point about the committee not putting 8 Big 10 teams in.
I just don't see a 10-8 ACC team getting left out. They are probably going to Dayton but they are in.
Ah. Lunardi has Syracuse above the Last 4 in line, so I don't think a loss to ranked Miami should drop them that far, but I could be wrong.
Yeah. I am just trying to play it safe. Need a big tourney from Clemson and Wake.
