The waiting is the hardest part

[Jason94]

So our regular season ends with a record of 20-14. Considering where we came from this is a tremendous comback, and as has been typical for us in the past, we've simply run out of gas when it comes to our third game in three days (2004, 2011, 2013, 2017 and this season) when not having the extra bye. aTm is also a very tough opponent, who has a coach who is excellent, and has been able to turn his team around from rough starts the last two seasons, similar to what CJS has done. We fought to get the game out of a blowout, though we never were able to get back into it, we were not embarrassed and did not give up.

So where does that leave us in terms of a NCAA tournament at large bid? Obviously, when watching this team it looks like a tournament team to me, but I haven't seen every single one of the other teams that would be vying for a bid against us, so I cannot say definitively that they do not look like tournament teams. I also think that this is the issue with the look test - how many of the committee members would have watched enough of our games as well as the games of the other teams that are also on the bubble to use that as a reliable tool? Since I don't know the answer to that question I'm going to look at some very simple metrics that are available to everyone - wins against Quad 1/2 teams, Losses against Quad 3/4 teams and record in the last 10 games. The teams I will limit this look at will be the teams that Lunardi has as his last 4 byes, last 4 in, first 4 our and next 4. Because while he may not really have the order correct, most everyone does agree that these 16 teams are on the bubble.

Team Q 1W Q2W Q3L Q4L .500 VU? VU+?
Boise St. 3 9 2 0 2 0 0.5
Providence 3 3 1 0 -2 1 1
Utah St. 2 9 0 2 4 1 2
Rutgers 4 6 4 0 -4 1 1
MSU 4 4 1 0 2 1 1
Pitt 4 3 1 1 2 2 2
NCSU 1 7 0 0 0 -1 0
ASU 5 4 0 1 2 1 1
Ok. St. 6 4 1 0 -2 -1 -1
Clemson 4 3 2 2 0 4 3.5
Nevada 4 3 2 0 2 2 1.5
Vandy 5 5 2 1 6 N/A N/A
Wisconsin 5 6 1 0 -2 -2 -1
UNC 1 6 0 0 0 -1 0
Oregon 2 7 1 0 2 -1 0
Michigan 2 6 0 1 0 0 1

This is a little difficult to follow for a crude spreadsheet I created but cannot figure how to format correctly, but it is a simple table of Q1 and Q2 win totals, Q3 and Q4 losses, games above .500 for each of the bubble teams. For the last two columns, the first is a comparison of each team's "resume" to Vandy's, with 1 point given to Vandy if it has a better resume, and -1 if it has a worse resume. The second does the same thing but puts more emphasis on Q1 wins and Q4 losses, as well as how a team is playing now, giving only .5 points for Q2 and Q3 wins and losses respectively.

If you see a positive number in the 5th or 6th column, then Vandy's resume is better, if it is negative then it is worse. If it is zero then it is close to the other school.

Takeaways:

Our resume is clearly better than Clemson, Pitt and Nevada regardless of how you look at it, either having each factor as equal, or putting more weight on big wins and bad losses and last 10. If any of those teams get in ahead of us we would rightfully be pissed.

Our resume is better than Utah St, MSU, Providence, Rutgers and ASU, regardless of whether you weigh things equally or give different weights to more critical games. Note that all of those teams are "in" according to Lunardi FWIW.

The only teams that have better resume's than us are Wisconsin and OK State, mainly because they have avoided bad losses. Our resume could be perceived as worse than NCSU, UNC and Oregon on the basis of bad losses, depending upon how much you care about Quad 3 losses. If you weight them less heavily than other things then our resumes are pretty close overall.

Note that the first 5 columns are objective - they look at how each did performed. The last two categories get into value judgements - if you really think that Quad 1 wins are important, then our resume looks better than most of the teams on this list, and if you are valuing how hot a team is, we are at the top. But if you think avoidance of bad losses is important, then that does drop us down a bit. If you think that NET is important beyond providing a basis for the quality of each schedule and context for how difficult each game is, then we are not looking so good.

In conclusion, I think our resume is very strong compared to the group of other teams that are generally thought to be the teams vying for the last few spots. But I cannot speak for how much the committee will collectively weigh each metric and our resume is not clearly better than enough of these teams to have me completely confident that we will be included. I think we have done enough, but I admit to not being an objective observer.

[Jason94]

I apologize for the formatting of the table - if anyone can help with getting excel into this forum I can provide something that looks better.

[mathguy]

It's like I said below ... if you want to make our resume more similar to other teams on this list, flip our Grambling and So. Miss losses to wins ... and also flip our UT and Miss St wins to losses.

Then we'd have fewer Q1 wins, but would get rid of the pesky bad losses.

But shouldn't strong wins mean more than bad losses?

[AuricGoldfinger]

[dore74]

hoping we had avoided this after beating UK but...looks like we gonna have to rely on the kindness of strangers...

[commadore]

Still don't understand how Miss St, Auburn, and ark gets in ahead of us.

[mathguy]

Still don't understand how Miss St, Auburn, and ark gets in ahead of us.

THAT'S WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING!!!!!

[Jason94]

Still don't understand how Miss St, Auburn, and ark gets in ahead of us.

Pretty much what Math said. But also, head to head in these instances aren't particularly useful, because we beat them all at home. I would not want to be placed behind a school due to a head to head loss (like say, NCSU, which despite beating up head to head down't have an obviously better resume depending on what you value.

I think our strongest argument at this point is that we have better wins than most of the bubble teams, our bad losses were early in the season, and we have played better than a large portion of the field lately, which is more indicative of how good a team we are. I think it is a compelling argument, but it comes down to what the committee values and how strongly they penalize teams based on bad losses, which is our reality.

[Mcflash]

Studying all the predictions this morning, I see Vandy as a Last Four Out consensus. Several Last Four Ins have Mississippi State and Pittsburgh, both of whom we beat. I also see Arkansas and Auburn in as locks, two teams we beat and who--along with Mississippi St.--finished with losing records in the SEC below us. We won two games in the SEC tournament without our best player, had to play a third game in three days with very little rest between games( Late game against KY Friday night, afternoon game Saturday, all with a diminished roster), beat KY twice, UT and Florida on the road when they had Colin Castleman. All these other teams went one and done in the tournament. We won 10 of 11 until yesterday. We lost to a team who would have beaten any team in the country the way they played.

I wonder if the committee will look at these things or if they'll jump into Lunardi's rowboat. I think Vandy has a puncher's chance of getting in with all this on their side.

But they won't.

[Jason94]

Studying all the predictions this morning, I see Vandy as a Last Four Out consensus. Several Last Four Ins have Mississippi State and Pittsburgh, both of whom we beat. I also see Arkansas and Auburn in as locks, two teams we beat and who--along with Mississippi St.--finished with losing records in the SEC below us. We won two games in the SEC tournament without our best player, had to play a third game in three days with very little rest between games( Late game against KY Friday night, afternoon game Saturday, all with a diminished roster), beat KY twice, UT and Florida on the road when they had Colin Castleman. All these other teams went one and done in the tournament. We won 10 of 11 until yesterday. We lost to a team who would have beaten any team in the country the way they played.

I wonder if the committee will look at these things or if they'll jump into Lunardi's rowboat. I think Vandy has a puncher's chance of getting in with all this on their side.

But they won't.

Again, we beat Pitt, MSU, Ark and Auburn all at home in the only contests between the two teams, and outside of Ark, each game was close. That is why placing too much emphasis on head to head is not likely to be done. How would we have fared against all those team on a neutral court or on the road? Those scores suggest we would have lost at least two of those four games. This is a very Vandy biased analysis, which will not be what the committee will likely do. The wins will be looked at positively in our favor, but not be looked at negatively for the teams we played. The only teams that would get gigged would be UK, who lost to us at Rupp, which will be considered a Quad 3 loss for them.

[Versus75]

.............. WINS .. LOSSES ............
Team ........ Q1 Q2 .. Q3 Q4 .. VU? .. VU+?
Boise St. ... 3 - 9 .. 2 - 0 ... 0 ... 0.5
Providence .. 3 - 3 .. 1 - 0 ... 1 ... 1
Utah St. .... 2 - 9 .. 0 - 2 ... 1 ... 2
Rutgers ..... 4 - 6 .. 4 - 0 ... 1 ... 1
MSU ......... 4 - 4 .. 1 - 0 ... 1 ... 1
Pitt ........ 4 - 3 .. 1 - 1 ... 2 ... 2
NCSU ........ 1 - 7 .. 0 - 0 .. -1 ... 0
ASU ......... 5 - 4 .. 0 - 1 ... 1 ... 1
Ok. St. ..... 6 - 4 .. 1 - 0 .. -1 .. -1
Clemson ..... 4 - 3 .. 2 - 2 ... 4 ... 3.5
Nevada ...... 4 - 3 .. 2 - 0 ... 2 ... 1.5
Vanderbilt .. 5 - 5 .. 2 - 1 .. N/A .. N/A
Wisconsin ... 5 - 6 .. 1 - 0 .. -2 .. -1
UNC ......... 1 - 6 .. 0 - 0 .. -1 ... 0
Oregon ...... 2 - 7 .. 1 - 0 .. -1 ... 0
Michigan .... 2 - 6 .. 0 - 1 ... 0 ... 1


Kinda late, I know, as the Selection Show is about to start.

Also, I deleted the ".500" column since I didn't understand how you calculated the results.