that sucked, but wasn't a complete surprise

[Jason94]

As someone noted, the NCAA's seeding of aTm as a 7 seed was bad news for us. This meant that they were looking at the entire body of work, and not placing any particular emphasis on how teams had done recently, which was not what we wanted to see, but consistent with what the committee has stated.

There was an interview with one of the committee members following the announcement and what he said about the selection of Houston over Kansas as a #1 and the ommission of OKSU was also telling. He noted that Houston deserved a #1 because while Kansas had more Quad 1 wins, Houston had been more consistent throughout the season and been very competitive in their losses. As for OKSU, they had a good number of Quad 1 wins (more than we did), but the committee noted that they had only gone 6-12 against Quad 1 opponents and their not being able to do more with all those opportunities was something they looked poorly upon. They also took into account injuries, which is why they didn't penalize Houston for their loss to Memphis. Consistency was rewarded, which is why aTm got a 7 seed despite looking like one of the best 10 teams since January. In Nov and Dec they were really bad, and that was taken into consideration.

As how this is relevant to us, I'd say the fact that we were not competitive in a number of games didn't help our cause. We had a number of double digit losses where we were not really in the game at any point, and while we won a few games without Robbins, we also lost 3 of 4 in his earlier absence, not counting the 2nd Bama game and were not competitive in two of those games.

The committee had relatively low seeds for Ark, Aub, MSU, and Pitt, which were four of the bigger wins we had, but each of those wins were at home, so the head to head argument was not a particularly strong one.

I know a lot of people were mad at the NET, but the NET did tell a story of how we played as a whole. For half the season we were not a particularly good team. That we turned things around was one of the best rides we've had since 2007, but the committee was going to look at the entire body of work, and the last 6 weeks were not enough to erase some really bad play on our part. The arc of the season made for a better story, but our overall resume was one of a bubble team, and in this case it popped.

I think next season the coaching staff and team will treat the non-conference games with much more urgency, as that was the difference this season.

[fldore]

Yep. This preseason mentality needs to end. Stack has shown he can develop players and improve as the season goes on. But he needs to get the team playing better earlier and to make sure we win the games we're supposed to win. It's still a subjective process and obviously they value the full body of work. Gerting hot for a month and a half isn't good enough.

[Obvious]

As someone noted, the NCAA's seeding of aTm as a 7 seed was bad news for us. This meant that they were looking at the entire body of work, and not placing any particular emphasis on how teams had done recently, which was not what we wanted to see, but consistent with what the committee has stated.

There was an interview with one of the committee members following the announcement and what he said about the selection of Houston over Kansas as a #1 and the ommission of OKSU was also telling. He noted that Houston deserved a #1 because while Kansas had more Quad 1 wins, Houston had been more consistent throughout the season and been very competitive in their losses. As for OKSU, they had a good number of Quad 1 wins (more than we did), but the committee noted that they had only gone 6-12 against Quad 1 opponents and their not being able to do more with all those opportunities was something they looked poorly upon. They also took into account injuries, which is why they didn't penalize Houston for their loss to Memphis. Consistency was rewarded, which is why aTm got a 7 seed despite looking like one of the best 10 teams since January. In Nov and Dec they were really bad, and that was taken into consideration.

As how this is relevant to us, I'd say the fact that we were not competitive in a number of games didn't help our cause. We had a number of double digit losses where we were not really in the game at any point, and while we won a few games without Robbins, we also lost 3 of 4 in his earlier absence, not counting the 2nd Bama game and were not competitive in two of those games.

The committee had relatively low seeds for Ark, Aub, MSU, and Pitt, which were four of the bigger wins we had, but each of those wins were at home, so the head to head argument was not a particularly strong one.

I know a lot of people were mad at the NET, but the NET did tell a story of how we played as a whole. For half the season we were not a particularly good team. That we turned things around was one of the best rides we've had since 2007, but the committee was going to look at the entire body of work, and the last 6 weeks were not enough to erase some really bad play on our part. The arc of the season made for a better story, but our overall resume was one of a bubble team, and in this case it popped.

I think next season the coaching staff and team will treat the non-conference games with much more urgency, as that was the difference this season.

It was good to see us win without Liam. A lot of optimism for next season.

[Mcflash]

So, for the sake of the precious NET, we need to play inferior opponents in the pre-conference and run the score up on them, and then go 8-10 in the conference, lose our first SEC tournament game, have a record of 20-11 and be sitting pretty on Selection Sunday.
Sounds like a plan to me!

[Jason94]

So, for the sake of the precious NET, we need to play inferior opponents in the pre-conference and run the score up on them, and then go 8-10 in the conference, lose our first SEC tournament game, have a record of 20-11 and be sitting pretty on Selection Sunday.
Sounds like a plan to me!

No, we need to not suck in our non-conference schedule. We weren't beating Bama A&M by only 8 or Wofford by only 3 because we were acting humanely, it was because we weren't playing good basketball. And we lost to Southern Miss by 12 at home. And at the end So Miss was not a tournament team, and certainly not a team we should be losing by 12 to at home.

The way we played in non-conference games our net would have been bad regardless of how our schedule was set up, because we only played really well against a couple of teams. The vast majority of the games we played well below our capabilities, as evidenced by the ending of the season. This is not the fault of the NET, it is a reflection of how poorly we played.

Was it the NET's fault we turned the ball over 19 times against Grambling State at home? We somehow managed to not turn the ball over near that many times against teams like UT and UK on the road. I noted at the end of the nonconference season that it had been a disaster, and this is what I meant by that. It wasn't because we had scheduled too many difficult teams, it was a perfectly reasonable schedule for as good of a team as we expected to be. Playing a couple of 11 seeds (Pitt and NCSU) at home and at a neutral site game. Play a 8 seed Memphis at home, play a 12 seed on the road (VCU) and play a 5 seed at a neutral site game. It isn't like we scheduled Kansas, Houston or Purdue on the road. We should have won 2 or 3 of those games but barely won 1, and were not competitive in two others.

[UltimateVUFan]

So, for the sake of the precious NET, we need to play inferior opponents in the pre-conference and run the score up on them, and then go 8-10 in the conference, lose our first SEC tournament game, have a record of 20-11 and be sitting pretty on Selection Sunday.
Sounds like a plan to me!

THIS! This is the reason the NET is flawed. There is no argument anybody can give me that can reasonably justify VU’s omission from the tourney this year. They played one of the toughest schedules in the country and in the SEC itself, yet finished tied for 4th and made the tournament semis. That alone should merit beating out AT A MINIMUM Mississippi State. Ludicrous.

[mathguy]

Just gonna repeat this:

Auburn is 9-10 vs. Quad1&2, with 3 Q1 wins 20-12 (10-8 SEC)
Arkansas is 7-11 vs. Quad1&2 with 3 Q1 wins 20-13 (8-10 SEC)
Miss St. is 7-11 vs. Quad1&2 with 4 Q1 wins 21-12 (8-10 SEC)
Vandy is 10-11 vs. Quad1&2 with 5 Q1 wins 20-14 (11-7 SEC)

We had essentially the same win loss record as these teams. With more quad 1 wins. And more Quad 1&2 wins. And a better winning percentage against Quad 1&2 teams. And head to head wins (albeit at home). And better conference records. Even though we had to play UT, UK, and Bama twice each.

Forget about the rest of the bracket. Ranking us as the #9 SEC team simly does not make sense.

[Twenty-one]

What I don’t really like about the net is that margin of victory/defeat seems to be a critical component. First of all, I think it takes skill to win close games and not luck. There is coaching element that can help in close games as well as ball handling and free throw shooting. Secondly, if I have say a 6 point lead late, then I may not push to win by 15+ but rather be a little more patient and focus on just getting the win.

Furthermore, if I’m down 8 or so late then I can continue to foul in the remote chance of a comeback win, but it could certainly increase the margin of defeat and thus affect the net potentially. It just seems flawed a bit.

As for early season as opposed to late season, it seems in the age of the transfer portal it stands to reason that a team may be searching for its identity early while adjusting to new personnel and possibly drop a winnable game. But as the season progresses and gives the team a chance to gel then you may get drastically different results. In all of these cases it would be difficult for a metric like the Net to account for these things. So I don’t think losing to teams in November or early December should count as much as those late. It seems it would make for a stronger tournament if those results counted lesd

[cc11316]

So, for the sake of the precious NET, we need to play inferior opponents in the pre-conference and run the score up on them, and then go 8-10 in the conference, lose our first SEC tournament game, have a record of 20-11 and be sitting pretty on Selection Sunday.
Sounds like a plan to me!

No, we need to not suck in our non-conference schedule. We weren't beating Bama A&M by only 8 or Wofford by only 3 because we were acting humanely, it was because we weren't playing good basketball. And we lost to Southern Miss by 12 at home. And at the end So Miss was not a tournament team, and certainly not a team we should be losing by 12 to at home.

The way we played in non-conference games our net would have been bad regardless of how our schedule was set up, because we only played really well against a couple of teams. The vast majority of the games we played well below our capabilities, as evidenced by the ending of the season. This is not the fault of the NET, it is a reflection of how poorly we played.

Was it the NET's fault we turned the ball over 19 times against Grambling State at home? We somehow managed to not turn the ball over near that many times against teams like UT and UK on the road. I noted at the end of the nonconference season that it had been a disaster, and this is what I meant by that. It wasn't because we had scheduled too many difficult teams, it was a perfectly reasonable schedule for as good of a team as we expected to be. Playing a couple of 11 seeds (Pitt and NCSU) at home and at a neutral site game. Play a 8 seed Memphis at home, play a 12 seed on the road (VCU) and play a 5 seed at a neutral site game. It isn't like we scheduled Kansas, Houston or Purdue on the road. We should have won 2 or 3 of those games but barely won 1, and were not competitive in two others.

I'm all for owning your faults and learning lessons as to try not to repeat them in the future but ... shouldn't it be weighed much heavier how you ended than how you performed in November and December. I get the season is 4 months long and essentially in two parts but if you are part of a P5 conference with an 11-7 record tied for 4th best in a conference of 16, it seems it should be enough. Even if you lost to Prarie View A&M on November 5th, would you lose to them now is the question.

I just hope I live long enough to not see old guys sitting in a room discussing teams they may or may not have watched recently and rely on technology and objective criteria. Most SEC power polls had Vandy as the 6th best team in the conference and it likely may have been higher than that so to watch Auburn, Arkansas and MSU all go as 9 and 11 seeds is disheartening. Let's see the draw in the NIT and if the players are wanting to win that tournament.

[buffy]

I disagree with the whole body of work thing. An at large team should be able to earn their way in late. You still need enough wins (19 or 20), but good or bad basketball at the end should trump whatever you did in December. The SEC deserved 5 teams, and we were one of them. Auburn and Arkansas were trash down the stretch. They'll be trash in the tournament also.

[dore74]

Buffy, the logic of your points is overwhelming. Hopefully the NCAA will give it consideration going forward.

The problem with adapting to your view is that using a mechanical metric like the NET give the committee a "formal process" it can point to in order to take the heat off itself. And the fact of the matter is that 90% of the selections made sense--so the 5-10% of the bad selections are in the noise. Bureaucracy at its finest--the NCAA at the top of its game

[vu2003rpl]

The net rating sucks… In theory, you could play the top 25 teams… All on the road and lose by single digits every time… And still be ranked in the top 30. While posting a 0-25 record.

That’s absurd.

[admin]

It sucks not be in the NCAA but we have a lot to be thankful for. We are in the second-best tourney where we can play up to five games. I couldn't see us winning the NCAA but I could see us winning the NIT. Even one or two more games is gold as we can develop young players. We should also be thrilled about the job that Stack has done at Vandy. We have a winning head coach again. He was amazing how he talked after the win over UK a couple of days ago. What young basketball star would not want to play for someone like Stackhouse? We are getting better facilities for basketball. That should help attract good players too. I need to go to bed.

[Jason94]

The net rating sucks… In theory, you could play the top 25 teams… All on the road and lose by single digits every time… And still be ranked in the top 30. While posting a 0-25 record.

That’s absurd.

That is possible, but extremely unlikely. But you could likewise have a team that played the top team in each of the worst 5 conferences 6 times at home, beat them all by a point and finish with an RPI in the top 10. Which system do you think would be identifying the better team? Which team do you suppose would win head to head on a neutral court?

You can game any system however you want, but in your scenario, the team was just crazy unfortunate to play a bunch of really good teams on the road and lose closely to all of them. But to do that it is very likely that this team had to be pretty darn good, they just didn't benefit from any home games and didnt have any of the games go their way (which mathematically tremendously unlikely). OTOH, a reasonably average team could figure out how to beat the likes of Grambling State by a point or two on their own home court 25+ times. Lots of teams do that anyway. What doesn't happen a lot is that a team can go on the road and play a team like UT or UK really close. If they could then our win wouldn't have meant that much.

[commadore]

The net rating sucks… In theory, you could play the top 25 teams… All on the road and lose by single digits every time… And still be ranked in the top 30. While posting a 0-25 record.

That’s absurd.

That is possible, but extremely unlikely. But you could likewise have a team that played the top team in each of the worst 5 conferences 6 times at home, beat them all by a point and finish with an RPI in the top 10. Which system do you think would be identifying the better team? Which team do you suppose would win head to head on a neutral court?

You can game any system however you want, but in your scenario, the team was just crazy unfortunate to play a bunch of really good teams on the road and lose closely to all of them. But to do that it is very likely that this team had to be pretty darn good, they just didn't benefit from any home games and didnt have any of the games go their way (which mathematically tremendously unlikely). OTOH, a reasonably average team could figure out how to beat the likes of Grambling State by a point or two on their own home court 25+ times. Lots of teams do that anyway. What doesn't happen a lot is that a team can go on the road and play a team like UT or UK really close. If they could then our win wouldn't have meant that much.

What ever happened to a win is a win is a win.

[Obvious]

We have multiple threads with the same people debating the same thing lol

[commadore]

We have multiple threads with the same people debating the same thing lol

Multiple people debating one person who keeps on saying we didn't deserve to be there.

[FayetteDore]

Including Page 2, I count separate 17 threads bitching about the omission and offering various explanations, criticisms & defenses, often repeating the same thing. I guess everyone has to have their 15 minutes of fame.

[TwoSaints]

Yep. This preseason mentality needs to end. Stack has shown he can develop players and improve as the season goes on. But he needs to get the team playing better earlier and to make sure we win the games we're supposed to win. It's still a subjective process and obviously they value the full body of work. Gerting hot for a month and a half isn't good enough.

Some of that should come naturally next year with a more veteran lineup (particularly if Jordan Wright decides to return)..

[bornadore57]

I hope this (that sucked, but wasn't a complete surprise) is not a NEW thread after tonight's game with Yale, about the game.

Lot's to overcome. Disappointment of not getting into the NCAA's; loss of Stute; lingering fatigue from a three-game SEC tournament run; limited number of Vandy students at the game due to Spring Break; and a very good Yale team.

It's the start of a new season and I'm hoping for a few more games. Go 'Dores.