Did we play like a tournament team?

[Jason94]

The committee has repeatedly said it was going to look at the entire body of work for a team. Let's look at whether we played like a tournament team in each game to see if by their criteria, they got it correct. I'm going to go by how we played in each game, not necessarily the outcome, as a lot of us are applying the look test. Note that all teams will struggle at times and have games where they don't play like a tournament team. So just because we didn't play well on a particular night doesn't mean that we weren't a tournament team on the whole. Similarly, most every team will play great on a given night, like LSU did against us. That doesn't mean that the team is on the whole worthy of making the tournament. But most tournament teams are consistently playing at that level. You can disagree with me here, but point to the actual play of the team. A tournament team can go into TBA, play great and still come out with a loss.

Memphis - No
So Miss - No
Temple - Yes
Morehead St. - Yes
St. Mary's - No
Fresno St. - Yes
VCU - No
Wofford - No
Pitt - Yes
Grambling St. - No
NCSU - No
Alabama A&M - No
SeLA - Yes
USC - No
Mizzou - Yes
UT - Maybe
Ark - Yes
Bama - No
UGA - Yes
UK - No
aTm - Yes
Bama - No
Ole Miss - No
UT - Yes
UF - Yes
USC - Yes
Auburn - Yes
LSU - No
UF - Yes
UK - Yes
MSU - Yes
LSU - Yes
UK - Yes
aTm - No

I have 18 times where we played like a tournament team and 15 times where we didn't, plus one time (at UT) where you could say we kept things respectable at UT. I'll push that into the Yes column because UT is very tough at home and we kept it to single digits.

This puts us at 19 times where we played like a tournament team, but 15 times where we did not. Of those 19 times, 9 times came in the last 11 games, as we played our best basketball by far. But that also implies that of the first 23 games, we played like a tournament team only 10 times.

Which gets to the point of the ratings metrics, which I think have us pegged pretty well. For those that watched the Southen Miss or Grambling State games, can any of you honestly say that we played well in those games? What about Wofford or Alabama A&M? Were these well played games where we were great but through some fluke the score just didn't reflect it? The problem is not that we got beat by 57 against Bama. The problem is that was just the worst example of several instances where we played quite poorly.

We can suggest that this outcome means that conference play or the SEC-T is meaningless, but should it be that the first 60% of the season be meaningless instead? Because that is what we would have to argue to suggest that we were screwed out of a spot.

I think the lesson here is that we can't simply sleepwalk our way through November and December and think that a good finish will be enough to get in. Our wins at the end were great and some of the most memorable wins we've had in at least a decade, but objectively, only the wins against UK were truly impressive wins (not the same as exciting or memorable wins). MSU was 4-6 on the road. Arkansas went 2-8. Auburn went 4-8. Even UT went 4-6 on the road. None of these wins were against dominant teams.

I think we had a great finish to the season which should give us a ton of confidence and hope for next season. We didn't make the tournament not because we didn't have enough talent, or figure out how to play well, but because we didn't take care of business in the first two months of the season. That is a much smaller problem than not having enough talent or depth, which is what we've been dealing with for the previous three seasons. We had a strong case for a tournament bid, but it wasn't a slam dunk case, and the committee was consistent about what it was looking for and we fell short of that criteria. I'm disappointed, but it is difficult to be angry when we spent the last 12 games in a near must-win situation. Next year I'm confident we won't dig ourselves in such a big hole.

[Dickeys Nightmare]

The committee has repeatedly said it was going to look at the entire body of work for a team. Let's look at whether we played like a tournament team in each game to see if by their criteria, they got it correct. I'm going to go by how we played in each game, not necessarily the outcome, as a lot of us are applying the look test. Note that all teams will struggle at times and have games where they don't play like a tournament team. So just because we didn't play well on a particular night doesn't mean that we weren't a tournament team on the whole. Similarly, most every team will play great on a given night, like LSU did against us. That doesn't mean that the team is on the whole worthy of making the tournament. But most tournament teams are consistently playing at that level. You can disagree with me here, but point to the actual play of the team. A tournament team can go into TBA, play great and still come out with a loss.

Memphis - No
So Miss - No
Temple - Yes
Morehead St. - Yes
St. Mary's - No
Fresno St. - Yes
VCU - No
Wofford - No
Pitt - Yes
Grambling St. - No
NCSU - No
Alabama A&M - No
SeLA - Yes
USC - No
Mizzou - Yes
UT - Maybe
Ark - Yes
Bama - No
UGA - Yes
UK - No
aTm - Yes
Bama - No
Ole Miss - No
UT - Yes
UF - Yes
USC - Yes
Auburn - Yes
LSU - No
UF - Yes
UK - Yes
MSU - Yes
LSU - Yes
UK - Yes
aTm - No

I have 18 times where we played like a tournament team and 15 times where we didn't, plus one time (at UT) where you could say we kept things respectable at UT. I'll push that into the Yes column because UT is very tough at home and we kept it to single digits.

This puts us at 19 times where we played like a tournament team, but 15 times where we did not. Of those 19 times, 9 times came in the last 11 games, as we played our best basketball by far. But that also implies that of the first 23 games, we played like a tournament team only 10 times.

Which gets to the point of the ratings metrics, which I think have us pegged pretty well. For those that watched the Southen Miss or Grambling State games, can any of you honestly say that we played well in those games? What about Wofford or Alabama A&M? Were these well played games where we were great but through some fluke the score just didn't reflect it? The problem is not that we got beat by 57 against Bama. The problem is that was just the worst example of several instances where we played quite poorly.

We can suggest that this outcome means that conference play or the SEC-T is meaningless, but should it be that the first 60% of the season be meaningless instead? Because that is what we would have to argue to suggest that we were screwed out of a spot.

I think the lesson here is that we can't simply sleepwalk our way through November and December and think that a good finish will be enough to get in. Our wins at the end were great and some of the most memorable wins we've had in at least a decade, but objectively, only the wins against UK were truly impressive wins (not the same as exciting or memorable wins). MSU was 4-6 on the road. Arkansas went 2-8. Auburn went 4-8. Even UT went 4-6 on the road. None of these wins were against dominant teams.

I think we had a great finish to the season which should give us a ton of confidence and hope for next season. We didn't make the tournament not because we didn't have enough talent, or figure out how to play well, but because we didn't take care of business in the first two months of the season. That is a much smaller problem than not having enough talent or depth, which is what we've been dealing with for the previous three seasons. We had a strong case for a tournament bid, but it wasn't a slam dunk case, and the committee was consistent about what it was looking for and we fell short of that criteria. I'm disappointed, but it is difficult to be angry when we spent the last 12 games in a near must-win situation. Next year I'm confident we won't dig ourselves in such a big hole.

Yes, we did.

[Nashmann]

I think the biggest reason we didn't make it was that Liam was hurt. JMO

[UltimateVUFan]

Jason, this might be the most subjective analysis I’ve ever seen you make. I would like your statistically-based analysis on a few of these assessments, since you are very much a numbers guy, and you, yourself, stated above that others are using the “look test.” So far that is the analysis you’ve provided on these games.

- Memphis: 9-point loss to a dangerous NCAAT team that: only lost 8 games all year; beat Auburn and TX A&M; only lost to Bama by 3 on the road; and won the AAC tourney, knocking off #1 Houston by 10. (Of note, in this - the first game of the season - Memphis played a 9-man rotation. I applaud Stackhouse for playing 12 guys. Sure, they lost, but getting young guys PT early is important. How critical have many of us been of the recent roster retention woes? Going deep into the roster in the early games was a relatively consistent trend.)
- St. Mary’s: 10-point neutral floor loss to a NCAAT 5-seed that is currently ranked #19
- VCU: 5-point road loss to a NCAAT team in which Stackhouse was ejected for getting after the refs for a screw job
- NC State: 4-point neutral floor loss to a NCAAT team
- @UT: “maybe”? UT beat Bama by 11 in TBA. VU kept the final margin to 9 (I know you pushed this to a “yes” in your reflection, but how it started as a “maybe” is part of why I say you, yourself, seem to be using the eye test)
- Ole Miss at home: I say “maybe” - this was the game immediately following the Bama debacle. A win is a win in the SEC, and the team could've easily packed it in after that Bama loss. Ole Miss also played some close games against top SEC teams. Sure, MOV could’ve been better, but how many teams that made the tournament could you say the exact same thing about multiple of their conference wins?

I think you could easily slide some of the games you’ve mentioned into the category of playing well enough against what, in hindsight, was a pretty challenging schedule against NCAAT caliber competition. Many teams that made the cut, including in the SEC, didn’t have a 10-11 record against Quad 1 & 2 teams (or even close, especially when you consider that all 11 losses were Quad 1).

One can also ask how much of the early season struggles might have been avoided had Stackhouse stick with a tighter roster of veteran players. But then, you’d be more likely to see a lot of young guys unhappy with their role and hitting the portal. He opted to experiment with rotations and get PT for everyone to avoid this and find the right team chemistry that would result in the amazing run we all witnessed to close the season. I think what this boils down to for most of us who have expressed vehement dissatisfaction with the team’s omission is a fundamental disagreement with what the selection committee is looking for. At the end of the day, it shouldn’t be about running up the score on easy competition in the beginning of the season at the expense of failing to develop or play your young guys who aren’t fully ready for prime time. It should be about what type of team you have developed by March. VU is clearly playing like a tournament team in March. Yet, it is being punished for challenging itself with a pretty brutal overall schedule early and having exactly 3 slip-ups on the entire season. (Southern Miss, Grambling, @LSU)
That’s just a sad state of affairs for the game, in my opinion. VU could - and did - beat a large number of teams that made the Dance at-large. They played like a tourney team when it mattered the most, which is at the end of the season.

[Foreverhopeful]

I don't think we sleepwalked. I think Stack was trying to figure out the best lineups and the players were still learning the schemes. Silly Stack- he thought you could actually use the pre-season to do such things. (sarcasm)

[vandy05]

You have to take accountability for what happened early in the year. And that accountability doesn't involve pointing at other teams and trying to say that we are better than them (as I personally have been guilty of doing). Real accountability is knowing that our full body of work just wasn't up to snuff. I truly do think we were likely one win away. It was also a tough year to get off the bubble with so many bubble teams making noise in their conference tournaments.

The committee has worked hard to minimize recency bias in their determinations. 10 years ago, maybe this kind of season gets us in. But the early part of the season really hurt us.

[Golddore68]

In our last 11 games we definitely played like a tournament team.

We got hot right at the right time and other than a bad game at LSU and running out of gas against Texas A&M, we were practically unstoppable.

It reminds me of Vanderbilt‘s first baseball CWS title. It’s a different sport, but that team struggled at times during the season and didn’t win the SEC tournament IIRC, but when the CWS started they were unstoppable. They went on the winning streak and beat “better” (on paper) teams to win the NC.

[mathguy]

Jason, this might be the most subjective analysis I’ve ever seen you make. I would like your statistically-based analysis on a few of these assessments, since you are very much a numbers guy, and you, yourself, stated above that others are using the “look test.” So far that is the analysis you’ve provided on these games.

- Memphis: 9-point loss to a dangerous NCAAT team that: only lost 8 games all year; beat Auburn and TX A&M; only lost to Bama by 3 on the road; and won the AAC tourney, knocking off #1 Houston by 10. (Of note, in this - the first game of the season - Memphis played a 9-man rotation. I applaud Stackhouse for playing 12 guys. Sure, they lost, but getting young guys PT early is important. How critical have many of us been of the recent roster retention woes? Going deep into the roster in the early games was a relatively consistent trend.)
- St. Mary’s: 10-point neutral floor loss to a NCAAT 5-seed that is currently ranked #19
- VCU: 5-point road loss to a NCAAT team in which Stackhouse was ejected for getting after the refs for a screw job
- NC State: 4-point neutral floor loss to a NCAAT team
- @UT: “maybe”? UT beat Bama by 11 in TBA. VU kept the final margin to 9 (I know you pushed this to a “yes” in your reflection, but how it started as a “maybe” is part of why I say you, yourself, seem to be using the eye test)
- Ole Miss at home: I say “maybe” - this was the game immediately following the Bama debacle. A win is a win in the SEC, and the team could've easily packed it in after that Bama loss. Ole Miss also played some close games against top SEC teams. Sure, MOV could’ve been better, but how many teams that made the tournament could you say the exact same thing about multiple of their conference wins?

This is largely my opinion here. And don't forget we had a halftime lead @UT!

[commadore]

You have to take accountability for what happened early in the year. And that accountability doesn't involve pointing at other teams and trying to say that we are better than them (as I personally have been guilty of doing). Real accountability is knowing that our full body of work just wasn't up to snuff. I truly do think we were likely one win away. It was also a tough year to get off the bubble with so many bubble teams making noise in their conference tournaments.

The committee has worked hard to minimize recency bias in their determinations. 10 years ago, maybe this kind of season gets us in. But the early part of the season really hurt us.

AND MISSISSIPPI STATE'S WAS? BOVINE FECES.

[vandy05]

You have to take accountability for what happened early in the year. And that accountability doesn't involve pointing at other teams and trying to say that we are better than them (as I personally have been guilty of doing). Real accountability is knowing that our full body of work just wasn't up to snuff. I truly do think we were likely one win away. It was also a tough year to get off the bubble with so many bubble teams making noise in their conference tournaments.

The committee has worked hard to minimize recency bias in their determinations. 10 years ago, maybe this kind of season gets us in. But the early part of the season really hurt us.

AND MISSISSIPPI STATE'S WAS? BOVINE FECES.

I have a lot of beef with their inclusion over our own, but that's my exact point. Accountability is not pointing at other teams. Its looking inward at what we didn't do in order to put ourselves in a position to have to rely on the committee's good will. If we take care of business another time or two, its not an issue.

[commadore]

So twice in 20 years we have been excluded from the tourney. 10%. At what point does it become a pattern. Not a conspiracy guy, but dang it sure looks like they always look the other way when it is us or "Big Public U."