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Post by nickpanther on Feb 2, 2016 16:05:37 GMT -6
bucky's bounced back from a bad start. if they can claw their way to 20 wins they'll get into the tourney. which would be a heck of a coaching job, given they were 7-5 when he took over.
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Post by BBFran on Feb 2, 2016 17:20:27 GMT -6
Actually 18 wins would make them a dead lock cinch, as that would put them at 10-8 in the Big Ten. They took two bad home losses (WIU and Marquette ) but their SOS is very good. But getting to 18 wins will not be easy. They still play AT Maryland, Michigan State, Iowa and Purdue. If they lose all of those, which is certainly possible and probably even likely, they would need to win the other five games on their schedule. All that said, Gard is doing a great job. They will be ferociously good next year if Nigel Hayes comes back, and even without him they will be trending up fast. Which is not to say I'm not looking forward to next year's game. We won't be showing up empty handed either.
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Post by PantherU on Feb 3, 2016 12:56:39 GMT -6
Actually 18 wins would make them a dead lock cinch, as that would put them at 10-8 in the Big Ten. They took two bad home losses (WIU and Marquette ) but their SOS is very good. But getting to 18 wins will not be easy. They still play AT Maryland, Michigan State, Iowa and Purdue. If they lose all of those, which is certainly possible and probably even likely, they would need to win the other five games on their schedule. All that said, Gard is doing a great job. They will be ferociously good next year if Nigel Hayes comes back, and even without him they will be trending up fast. Which is not to say I'm not looking forward to next year's game. We won't be showing up empty handed either. I dunno. Wisconsin isn't the only Big Ten team down this year. Lucky for them that Iowa and Purdue came out of nowhere! 10-8 will be a really hard job for Wisconsin. Of their remaining nine games in conference, only four are at home and the road games are at Maryland, Michigan State, Iowa, Purdue and Minnesota. Guess which road game is the only one they have a better-than-18% chance of winning according to RPIForecast? Say those games go as expected, and the Badgers go 1-4 on the road the rest of the regular season. They'd have to make a clean sweep of their home games to get to 10-8 - that means they'll have to beat Ohio State, Nebraska, Michigan and Illinois at the Kohl Center if they go 1-4 on the road. Michigan is going to be a really hard game, and Ohio State won't be a cake walk. They're going to have to do better than expected either on the road or at home to get to 10-8. Maybe they'll be 4-0 at home and 1-4 on the road, with the best W being over Michigan at the Kohl Center. That would give them four top-50 RPI wins. That sounds good, but then you remember that they've lost a whole lot of games against good teams. If it all shakes out as expected, they'll be 4-8 against the top 50. Not exactly a great resume for the selection committee. I think 10-8 should get them in the tournament. They're going to need a strong showing in the B1G Tourney to not be on the bubble, though.
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Post by ghostofdylan on Feb 3, 2016 14:29:29 GMT -6
Just as with us, I think that we should let the rest of the season play out and then make our assessment.
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Post by nickpanther on Feb 24, 2016 22:52:08 GMT -6
Wisconsin gets to 10 conference wins by knocking off Iowa. They're in the dance. We have to win the league tourney if we want to join them.
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Post by BBFran on Feb 25, 2016 10:43:03 GMT -6
And even for a Badger fan like me that grinds me. There are at least three or four teams in the Horizon that are as capable of winning a game or two in the NCAA tournament (or would be if fairly seeded) as the teams that get in at the end of the pack from the P5 conferences. Then look at the "high mid" leagues. The NBE is likely to get four and could even get five teams in. You're telling me that Providence, Butler or Creighton are any better than Oakland or Wright (or GB or us on a given night)? I don't buy it.
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Post by FTA1982 on Feb 25, 2016 11:40:34 GMT -6
On any given night they could compete, but outside of Valpo and MAYBE Oakland, it would be difficult to consistently win games in that league. Providence has 2 likely NBA players and Butler has guys like Rosey, Dunham and Martin who would be 1st team All Horizon.
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Post by BBFran on Feb 25, 2016 13:38:22 GMT -6
For having two NBA players Providence has been horribly inconsistent. As for Butler, they aren't nearly as good as they were under Stevens in the Horizon and we competed with them just fine. So much of the perception of leagues is baked in from non-conference schedules that are really unfair to mid-major programs that can't get games to prove themselves, particularly home games.
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Post by nickpanther on Feb 26, 2016 14:22:36 GMT -6
no its not fair, but again the only Horizon league team to make the dance more than once without winning the league tourney was Butler under Stevens. might had a more recent instance where a Horizon team got in without winning (2013 maybe?) but its rare. f I had my druthers i'd pit small conference finalists vs middle of the road power schools in the playin games, to settle things that way on the court.
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Post by nickpanther on Feb 26, 2016 14:26:40 GMT -6
as for us, in order have a shot at an at large we'd need to have a conference record like Valpos (14-2) that would, when combined with our 9-4 nonconference record put us at 23-6, and even then we'd be squarely on the bubble. going 9-7 in conference means no shot at an at large, our non-conference schedule isnt strong enough.
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Post by BBFran on Feb 26, 2016 14:45:09 GMT -6
Don't kid yourself, Nick. If Valpo loses in the HLT, they are looking at the NIT.
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Post by nickpanther on Feb 26, 2016 15:30:17 GMT -6
of course Fran, you're right. they may be 24-5 but they've only played 1 Top 25 school - Oregon and lost. Easy to rack up wins when you play the Rhode Islands of the world. and the NIT gives auto bids for league regular season champs who dont go to the Big dance, so Valpo, should they lose in the HLT, they'll go to the NIT.
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Post by gaseousclay on Feb 27, 2016 12:12:41 GMT -6
And even for a Badger fan like me that grinds me. There are at least three or four teams in the Horizon that are as capable of winning a game or two in the NCAA tournament (or would be if fairly seeded) as the teams that get in at the end of the pack from the P5 conferences. Then look at the "high mid" leagues. The NBE is likely to get four and could even get five teams in. You're telling me that Providence, Butler or Creighton are any better than Oakland or Wright (or GB or us on a given night)? I don't buy it. Thank God you didn't put this nonsense out there with your role on the radio. Providence rated 56 Butler 58 Creighton 87 Oakland 113 - let that sink in for a second Green Bay 143 - let that sink in for a second Wright State 158 - let that sink in for a second Providence's worst loss? Two teams in the 100's. Meanwhile Oakland has lost to Youngstown State (274th) and Northern Kentucky (283rd). The same is true with the other schools. You are laughable. You don't have to buy it, the rest of the world gets it.
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Post by BBFran on Feb 29, 2016 10:22:23 GMT -6
of course Fran, you're right. they may be 24-5 but they've only played 1 Top 25 school - Oregon and lost. Easy to rack up wins when you play the Rhode Islands of the world. and the NIT gives auto bids for league regular season champs who dont go to the Big dance, so Valpo, should they lose in the HLT, they'll go to the NIT. Valpo just finished with nailbiting wins against Milwaukee and GB. They will almost certainly be playing one of those teams again in the HLT semis. If they survive that, they will need to play OU or Wright -- which beat them twice already -- in the final. That's the typical kind of gauntlet even a great mid-major team needs to survive to get into the tournament, which is ridiculous. Anybody north of an idiot who watches college basketball could watch Valpo for five minutes and know they are an NCAA quality team irrespective of whether they win their conference tournament. So what's the problem? Simple; high majors won't play them -- or Milwaukee or Green Bay or Wright or Oakland -- on their home floor in the non-con. That severely damages the ability of such schools to get the kind of "quality wins" the NCAA committee looks for. It also bakes into the system a low conference RPI that is immutable once the non-con season ends. And the question is -- why? I was reminded of how one of the ESPN mopes was crying last year or the year before about how terrible it was for some barely .500 P5 school to be on the bubble. "Doesn't the committee know this impacts coaches' jobs!?" was his hysterical demand. What? So the P5 jobs are more important than Bryce Drew's or Greg Kampe's or Ben Jacobson's? And the answer from the networks would be "Yeah" because the networks are just like our local rag. They don't want to have to deal with a new narrative or new players. That's hard. So they invest all their money and time in the existing brand names. It's low hanging fruit, which is just how they like it. And the NCAA plays along because they are paid very, very well to play along.
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Post by nickpanther on Feb 29, 2016 11:18:26 GMT -6
well said Fran. We still have a college football-like gap in basketball, similar to the automatic qualifiers and non-automatic qualifiers in the BCS era,. If you are in one of the Big 5 conferences, and you have an ok record, you get chance after chance- see LSU- even if your record stinks overall. In conferences like the Horizon you'd have to win EVERY conference game to get an at large bid- and even that may not be enough - see Murray State. what should be done is the small conference regular season winners should get an auto bid, and if that team loses in the conference tourney they are still in, and it allows another conference team to go dancing. That means Horizon would send 2 teams. Ivy does it best. It sends its regular season winner to the dance. if there's a tie in the standings there's a 1 game playoff (or 2 games in case of a 3way tie) for the bid. Now I love the conference tourneys and I love the double bye setup the Horizon has. but I think that a team that handled its business in the regular season like Valpo should get in automatically. Sure that would take some spots from bubble teams but so what? thats not going to hurt teams like Wisconsin, who make it every year. they'll get in no matter what system you put in. it'll deny the 6th and 7th and 8th teams in the big conferences, and those teams normally are 1 and dones anyway. for every VCU that gets to the final 4 as a playin, theres 100 that flame out,
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