Bracketology

[Jason94]

I note this not because Lunardi has any sort of crystal ball, but because he is the epitome of conventional thinking in terms of who is on the bubble and who is not. But he now has Vanderbilt in the next 4 out line, along with MIchigan, UNC and Oregon. This is an improvement over the "also considered category he had us in prior to the loss to LSU.

This is consistent with the idea that those who are paying attention are starting to notice the fact that Vanderbilt is on fire right now and has collected 3 quad 1 wins and 3 quad 2 wins in the last 9 games. This also means that we now have beaten 7 teams that are in Lunardi's projected field, which is really big - we need to get to 8, which would mean that we need to get to Saturday, and knock off one more team, Bama, UK, UT or aTm to have a good shot of making the tournament. I don't think a win over a LSU or UGA would be sufficient, as it doesn't move the needle at the moment. But getting to 20 wins along with another win over a tournament team and adding an additional Quad 1 win would be huge and put us at over 50% chance of getting in (depending upon what happens elsewhere of course).

I think at this point we can ignore our own NET in terms of resume - it comes down to quality wins and bad losses now, and we are getting really close. 1 more quality win and we are probably in. If we get to Sunday I would say we are going to be almost locked in unless the team we played on Saturday is a fluke like a USC or Ole Miss.

Amazing work by the coaches and players to get to this point - this is about as improbable run as I have ever seen this late in the season.

[mathguy]

I hope so. I truly honestly believe based on past precedent with the NCAA that Saturday's game (if we get to play it) would be meaningless. If we aren't in on Saturday, then we won't be in Sunday (unless we force the committee's hand with an automatic bid).

Hopefully a a second win against UK is something that the committee would still be willing to consider, but I've gotten a strong sense of disdain for conference tournaments from the committee for going on two decades now.

[Jason94]

I hope so. I truly honestly believe based on past precedent with the NCAA that Saturday's game (if we get to play it) would be meaningless. If we aren't in on Saturday, then we won't be in Sunday (unless we force the committee's hand with an automatic bid).

Hopefully a a second win against UK is something that the committee would still be willing to consider, but I've gotten a strong sense of disdain for conference tournaments from the committee for going on two decades now.

Past precedent usually indicates that the Sunday game is meaningless, but the Saturday game can have major impact. If we got to Sunday it wouldn't matter anyway - another loss to a likely tournament level team wouldn't sink us and a win would put us in automatically anyway. If we were in what it would mean is that a win wouldn't likely affect our seeding.

[dallasdore]

There is no way on God’s green earth that some of these big ten teams like penn state or Michigan or Wisconsin should be considered over us. That would be a tragedy if teams like that got in over us. Overrated big ten teams are like giving the opponent a bye in the first round, whereas we wouldn’t be.

[mathguy]

Past precedent usually indicates that the Sunday game is meaningless, but the Saturday game can have major impact. If we got to Sunday it wouldn't matter anyway - another loss to a likely tournament level team wouldn't sink us and a win would put us in automatically anyway. If we were in what it would mean is that a win wouldn't likely affect our seeding.

As the closest to home example, getting to Sunday didn't help the Taylor/Tinsley team get a top 4 seed their senior year.

Even the Saturday games have seemed somewhat irrelevant for years on the committee who seem to have an attitude of "I we don't know where these teams stand after 30 games, a 31st isn't going to help us".

So until I see a change from the committee, I think any game we might play on Saturday is irrelevant to our tourney hopes. And in truth, I am at least a little concerned that a even a win on Friday night might go unnoticed.

[MrMemorial]

Team Ranking . com says if we win two in the SEC-t, that would mean almost 70% chance of being in the dance. I hope they are correct and I would love to share that optimism... but I just don't know about that.

[dore74]

My unsophisticated gut feeling is 20 wins and we’re in, 19 and we rely on the kindness of strangers while 18 we’ll get to host an NIT game or two or three.

Can’t help imagine how far we could have gone with Liam. Can’t get over the guts, spirit and effort of these guys dealing with losing him. Really hope these guys get to dance—they have all certainly earned it

[Dickeys Nightmare]

I note this not because Lunardi has any sort of crystal ball, but because he is the epitome of conventional thinking in terms of who is on the bubble and who is not. But he now has Vanderbilt in the next 4 out line, along with MIchigan, UNC and Oregon. This is an improvement over the "also considered category he had us in prior to the loss to LSU.

This is consistent with the idea that those who are paying attention are starting to notice the fact that Vanderbilt is on fire right now and has collected 3 quad 1 wins and 3 quad 2 wins in the last 9 games. This also means that we now have beaten 7 teams that are in Lunardi's projected field, which is really big - we need to get to 8, which would mean that we need to get to Saturday, and knock off one more team, Bama, UK, UT or aTm to have a good shot of making the tournament. I don't think a win over a LSU or UGA would be sufficient, as it doesn't move the needle at the moment. But getting to 20 wins along with another win over a tournament team and adding an additional Quad 1 win would be huge and put us at over 50% chance of getting in (depending upon what happens elsewhere of course).

I think at this point we can ignore our own NET in terms of resume - it comes down to quality wins and bad losses now, and we are getting really close. 1 more quality win and we are probably in. If we get to Sunday I would say we are going to be almost locked in unless the team we played on Saturday is a fluke like a USC or Ole Miss.

Amazing work by the coaches and players to get to this point - this is about as improbable run as I have ever seen this late in the season.

We are already in. Fourth-best record in the SEC. Huge close. Many signature wins. No way a fourth-place team in the SEC is not in.

Lunardi still has Miss State in with an 8-10 conference record, three games behind us and a recent loss to us. He is lost.

We are in. The rest is much ado about nothing.

[cc11316]

I have to admit that I am shocked but excited how VU has turned this season around and made themselves part of a legitimate conversation about an NCAA bid. I think the 2 wins in the SEC-T sounds like the most likely path to get into the tournament but wondering if they lose any points with the committee because Robbins is unable to play. I think if he were healthy, it's possible they would be considered a bigger threat to make a run and could even impact the Pomeroy rankings (which they are currently #82) which seem to be a factor.

[dallasdore]

I have to admit that I am shocked but excited how VU has turned this season around and made themselves part of a legitimate conversation about an NCAA bid. I think the 2 wins in the SEC-T sounds like the most likely path to get into the tournament but wondering if they lose any points with the committee because Robbins is unable to play. I think if he were healthy, it's possible they would be considered a bigger threat to make a run and could even impact the Pomeroy rankings (which they are currently #82) which seem to be a factor.

It used to be that the committee took into consideration a team's struggles without xyz star for a portion of their games. Do they still do this? If so, does the committee also take into account a team that is/would be going into the tournament without a star player who has helped them get to where they are?

Any insight?

[Obvious]

We’re a week away from finding out.

[docdore]

We’re a week away from finding out.

the committee (not lunicrous, et al) will do what the committee will do and there are always surprises. we certainly don’t need to lose to lsu again while dreaming of dancing.

[mathguy]

I have to admit that I am shocked but excited how VU has turned this season around and made themselves part of a legitimate conversation about an NCAA bid. I think the 2 wins in the SEC-T sounds like the most likely path to get into the tournament but wondering if they lose any points with the committee because Robbins is unable to play. I think if he were healthy, it's possible they would be considered a bigger threat to make a run and could even impact the Pomeroy rankings (which they are currently #82) which seem to be a factor.

It used to be that the committee took into consideration a team's struggles without xyz star for a portion of their games. Do they still do this? If so, does the committee also take into account a team that is/would be going into the tournament without a star player who has helped them get to where they are?

Any insight?

Yeah, but they used to also count that into the seeding if said player would miss the tournament. I don't want them to remember that Liam was missing for a midseason slump if it means reminding them he won't play in the NCAAs!!

[Jason94]

My unsophisticated gut feeling is 20 wins and we’re in, 19 and we rely on the kindness of strangers while 18 we’ll get to host an NIT game or two or three.

Can’t help imagine how far we could have gone with Liam. Can’t get over the guts, spirit and effort of these guys dealing with losing him. Really hope these guys get to dance—they have all certainly earned it

I think you are spot on. 20 wins differentiates us from other teams on the bubble IMO especially since it will likely include a win against UK. I would guess that very few teams on the bubble have 5 Quad 1 wins.

[Jason94]

Past precedent usually indicates that the Sunday game is meaningless, but the Saturday game can have major impact. If we got to Sunday it wouldn't matter anyway - another loss to a likely tournament level team wouldn't sink us and a win would put us in automatically anyway. If we were in what it would mean is that a win wouldn't likely affect our seeding.

As the closest to home example, getting to Sunday didn't help the Taylor/Tinsley team get a top 4 seed their senior year.

Even the Saturday games have seemed somewhat irrelevant for years on the committee who seem to have an attitude of "I we don't know where these teams stand after 30 games, a 31st isn't going to help us".

So until I see a change from the committee, I think any game we might play on Saturday is irrelevant to our tourney hopes. And in truth, I am at least a little concerned that a even a win on Friday night might go unnoticed.

You may be right - this is what I saw online.
https://mobile.twitter.com/MattNorlande ... 7332586498

I guess you can interpret it how you like, but it does seem like the committee is waiting until Saturday to make final determinations for who is in the field barring any automatic qualifiers who are not already in the field on Sunday.

IMO, the number of teams that the committee will be looking at on Friday and Saturday for the final spots will be down to a dozen or so, half of whom will have been eliminated from their conference tournaments. So it seems that if we hadn't been eliminated prior to Thursday (as in it doesn't matter what VU does short of winning the SEC-T) then it would be almost trivially easy to account for what we did on Saturday should we get that far, as there will only be a handful of games played on that day anyway, and even fewer that will have bubble implications.

[Obvious]

My unsophisticated gut feeling is 20 wins and we’re in, 19 and we rely on the kindness of strangers while 18 we’ll get to host an NIT game or two or three.

Can’t help imagine how far we could have gone with Liam. Can’t get over the guts, spirit and effort of these guys dealing with losing him. Really hope these guys get to dance—they have all certainly earned it

I think you are spot on. 20 wins differentiates us from other teams on the bubble IMO especially since it will likely include a win against UK. I would guess that very few teams on the bubble have 5 Quad 1 wins.

Two wins against Kentucky is a punched ticket. You cannot deny that.

[Jason94]

My unsophisticated gut feeling is 20 wins and we’re in, 19 and we rely on the kindness of strangers while 18 we’ll get to host an NIT game or two or three.

Can’t help imagine how far we could have gone with Liam. Can’t get over the guts, spirit and effort of these guys dealing with losing him. Really hope these guys get to dance—they have all certainly earned it

I think you are spot on. 20 wins differentiates us from other teams on the bubble IMO especially since it will likely include a win against UK. I would guess that very few teams on the bubble have 5 Quad 1 wins.

Two wins against Kentucky is a punched ticket. You cannot deny that.

I leave a small possibility that it would not be enough based on our experience in 2000. But logically the 2nd win against UK should be enough to vault us over a number of teams, and even possibly avoid the first four game.

[cc11316]

I wish they would just take the humans out of it altogether and open source the formulas so you could track the teams all year and would know all of the at-large teams in the order they are ranked. You would even be able to propose improvements by a pull request process. It seems the best of all worlds. Then again we can't even vote on-line these days, you have to electronically vote in a machine to print out a paper form and put it in a ballot box.

[mathguy]

Past precedent usually indicates that the Sunday game is meaningless, but the Saturday game can have major impact. If we got to Sunday it wouldn't matter anyway - another loss to a likely tournament level team wouldn't sink us and a win would put us in automatically anyway. If we were in what it would mean is that a win wouldn't likely affect our seeding.

As the closest to home example, getting to Sunday didn't help the Taylor/Tinsley team get a top 4 seed their senior year.

Even the Saturday games have seemed somewhat irrelevant for years on the committee who seem to have an attitude of "I we don't know where these teams stand after 30 games, a 31st isn't going to help us".

So until I see a change from the committee, I think any game we might play on Saturday is irrelevant to our tourney hopes. And in truth, I am at least a little concerned that a even a win on Friday night might go unnoticed.

You may be right - this is what I saw online.
https://mobile.twitter.com/MattNorlande ... 7332586498

I guess you can interpret it how you like, but it does seem like the committee is waiting until Saturday to make final determinations for who is in the field barring any automatic qualifiers who are not already in the field on Sunday.

IMO, the number of teams that the committee will be looking at on Friday and Saturday for the final spots will be down to a dozen or so, half of whom will have been eliminated from their conference tournaments. So it seems that if we hadn't been eliminated prior to Thursday (as in it doesn't matter what VU does short of winning the SEC-T) then it would be almost trivially easy to account for what we did on Saturday should we get that far, as there will only be a handful of games played on that day anyway, and even fewer that will have bubble implications.

Honestly, I find it obnoxious. If they can't actually consider all the games, then what they heck are they doing? Push the selection show back a day. Or the whole tournament back a week. It's kind of insulting to be honest.

[utahozzie]

I can’t think of a worse matchup than uk…and yes I’m aware what happened Wednesday…

if vandy were to face them and beat them they are a lock