Bracketology thread for the next few weeks.
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@BeddieKU23 the early season Spartans yes. Lately not sure but in a season of losses piling up for so many I still am struggling with the possibility of them being a three seed. Of course two years ago I thought they got screwed by being given the two seed and then they lose to mid tenn so who knows!
By the way the Big 14 really screwed themselves up by expanding. You’re right about that and then they go out and play their tourney in two east coast locales the last two years.
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@wissox They are 3-4 in quadrant 1 games. Not good. Undefeated in all of their other quadrants, but the played nobody.
They played a total of 12 games in the first two quadrants. Including their conference tournament. That schedule is weak af. Even if they did play some top of the top teams. The rest of the schedule was sooooo bad. They played 9 quadrant 4 games. 9 dog crap teams.
For comparison:
KU played 24 games in quadrants 1 and 2. With a potential for 3 more in quadrants 1 and 2 with the conference tourney still yet to be played. And we have a record of 18-6 in those games. Only 4 quadrant 4 games played
Duke has played 19 games in quadrants 1 and 2 and are 13-6 in those games. Only 4 quadrant 4 games played.
Virginia played 16 games in the first two quadrants, going 14-2 in those games. They only played 5 quadrant 4 games.
Villanova played 18 quadrant 1 games and 4 quadrant 4 games.
Xavier played 18 quadrant 1 games and 4 quadrant 4 games.
UNC played 21 quadrant 1 games and 4 quadrant 4 games.
Purdue played 17 quadrant 1 games, and 9 quadrant 4 games.
Tennessee played 18 quadrant 1 games and 3 quadrant 4 games.
MSU played a very, very very bad schedule.
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If anyone wants to look at the “team sheets” the committee uses, here is the link.
https://extra.ncaa.org/solutions/rpi/Stats Library/March 4, 2018 Team Sheets.pdf
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You left two very’s off the very very very bad schedule. That is pretty putrid the way you put it.
But they beat all their bad teams. We beat all of ours too but did lose to some mediocre teams and I’m not sure MSU did. They lost to three solid tourney teams, one twice.
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@wissox Another stat that is on the team sheets is average RPI win and average RPI loss. What we have been talking about is exactly Michigan State.
- Average RPI Win Rank: 151
- Average RPI Loss Rank: 13
Exactly what we were talking about. You mentioned they played really good teams early in the season. And they lost those games. Ala, the RPI rank when they lost. But then, you see the flip side. Their wins at 151. What a weird season and schedule from Izzo.
I do think the Big 10 was disrespected this season and that hurts them a lot. We will see though. I wouldn’t want to face any of the Big 10 teams that made it.
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As per Jeff Sagarin KU Strength of schedule is #7, Michigan State is #69, according to KenPom #8 and #62…not close at all. KU does have a strong SOS, Michigan State does not. As I indicated before, it would not surprise me to see MSU as a 3 or even 4 seed; the price you pay for playing in a weak conference and a soft schedule. Nebraska is in the same boat and might not even make it to the tournament.
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Printed brackets are overrated. Go to a digital schedule that resets automatically.
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Interesting that most still have OSU out after they beat us Saturday, I personally think the loser of the OU OSU game Wednesday should be out. How OU is safely in at a 10 currently tho they spilt the season series with OSU while having the same conference record coupled with more bad losses.
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OU is in because Trae Young, first half of the season Trae Young that is, is a big draw, without him they are out.
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@JayHawkFanToo yep all about he viewership
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wissox said:
@BeddieKU23 the early season Spartans yes. Lately not sure but in a season of losses piling up for so many I still am struggling with the possibility of them being a three seed. Of course two years ago I thought they got screwed by being given the two seed and then they lose to mid tenn so who knows!
By the way the Big 14 really screwed themselves up by expanding. You’re right about that and then they go out and play their tourney in two east coast locales the last two years.
The Spartans are an interesting team. NBA talent, NBA size, elite coach. You don’t get 29 wins without being good. We’ve seen the good & bad of Michigan St in one recent game against Northwestern in which they were down 20+ at half and came back to win improbably.
Early season Sparty looked good as you mentioned, I suppose their biggest wins of the season were the B2B wins against UNC & Notre Dame. After that their best win is? Home by 3 points against Purdue was probably the last big impression they left . I’ve watched about 10 Michigan St games this season including the recent one’s and I don’t see a team that is playing better then a #3 seed. I see some individuals that look as if they are thinking ahead towards the next level. Besides having Jaren Jackson this is the same team that KU beat down in the 2nd round last year.
People that see their gaudy record might think a #3 seed is low for a team like Michigan St. If the committee follows through with the principles in seeding teams Spartan Nation will be happy to have a #3 seed because the schedule is dreadful. I think the AD for MSU has some work to do to clean up how they schedule.
I also think for comparison there are people looking at KU possibly being a #1 seed with 7 losses as outrageous. If its all about wins and losses I’d agree, 7 losses is a lot to reward a team a high seed. If they win the Big-12 tourney and get a #1 seed it will tie the record for the most losses given to a 1 seed in NCAA Tournament History. In a normal year KU would be lucky to stay on the #2 line. As we all know by now this isn’t a typical year in CBall. KU just has a really good resume that’s going to give them an edge with the committee, maybe even inflating their true seed line. I’ve seen some bracket sites listing KU as an over-seeded team. Our non-conference didn’t seem all that difficult on paper and the Big-12 didn’t look like it was going to have 7-8 tournament worthy teams but both have given KU a resume that’s as good as any in the country. What’s better the gaudy record or better resume?
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kjayhawks said:
Interesting that most still have OSU out after they beat us Saturday, I personally think the loser of the OU OSU game Wednesday should be out. How OU is safely in at a 10 currently tho they spilt the season series with OSU while having the same conference record coupled with more bad losses.
I agree. Oklahoma St has 6 wins against ranked teams. Must be their non-conference weighting heavily against them right now.
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Saint Mary’s lost in the semi’s to BYU. Saint Mary’s didn’t help themselves with seeding at all. A great record without great wins except @ Gonzaga.
BYU can steal a bid tonight against Gonzaga. Yoeli Childs went nuts last night scoring 33. Will have to do it again if they think they can beat Zaga. Zags won both meetings pretty comfortably during the regular season.
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Two more teams got in last night. Iona won the MAAC & UNC Greensboro won the Southern.
UNCG is an interesting team, won 27 games. They beat NC St who’s likely in and only gave up 60 to Virginia. Kenpom’s 31st ranked defense FYI which is 15 spots better then KU. Francis Alonso can really shoot the rock, over 100 3’s on the year.
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Tonight the Horizon League, CAA, Northeast, WCC & Summit League all have their finals.
South Dakota & South Dakota St battle for the 1 bid with their combined 53-13 records. We crushed South Dakota St in Allen earlier this year. South Dakota dropped close games to TCU & UCLA in non-conference. The loser will not dance…Should be a good one.
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@BeddieKU23 It seems that the opinion of KU and the quality of the wins again relies on the opinion of the quality of the Big 12. I mean, who did we beat in the non-con? Not one team in the top 25 as far as I can tell. Syracuse, TAM, UK all have had down or disappointing seasons. And we lost to UW and ASU who have slid back. They’re not even getting votes. The inflated value of the Big 12 is puzzling. I think we should slide into the two seed, and that fits our season about right.
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HighEliteMajor said:
@BeddieKU23 It seems that the opinion of KU and the quality of the wins again relies on the opinion of the quality of the Big 12. I mean, who did we beat in the non-con? Not one team in the top 25 as far as I can tell. Syracuse, TAM, UK all have had down or disappointing seasons. And we lost to UW and ASU who have slid back. They’re not even getting votes. The inflated value of the Big 12 is puzzling. I think we should slide into the two seed, and that fits our season about right.
The non-conference certainly wasn’t daunting. It’s ranked 22nd according to the RPI. We just minimized playing bad teams, only 4 outside the Top 100. Smart scheduling, KU knows what it takes to keep itself at the top.
The inflated value of the Big-12 can be attributed to the Round Robin Schedule. Teams get 2 cracks at KU, its the only reason Oklahoma St is even on the bubble line right now. So either the Big-12 conference is a genius for keeping at 10 teams or its just luck really. It’s helping the bubble Big-12 teams stay afloat. Just Iowa St having a bad season makes the conference look strong top to bottom and the middle is so cluttered you don’t even know who’s really any good.
However their are some atrocious Power 5 teams in the ACC, Pac-12, Big-10 & SEC so just because those conferences have strength in numbers doesn’t make them any better. Pitt didn’t even win a conference game. The bottom 4 in the Big-10 barely combined to win more conference games then KU did. About 50 mid-major schools could have beaten Cal this season. 8 teams in the SEC were 500 or less in conference play.
If we throw tournament success into the mix then of course the Big-12’s regular season success becomes a mute point. Not much we can do as fans, we hope KU wins the championship and the rest of the league does well to validate the conference overall.
I think more important if we are talking KU is did the 2017-2018 schedule prepare us for March? I think we are battle tested, we have no misconceptions of what this team is. Even if we are a #1 seed or a #2 seed I think most of the fan base knows this team will have to play its best ball to win every game after round 1. If we don’t we go home to a long and sulky off-season full of who’s leaving, transfer talk, recruiting, lineup projections that only carry us so far.
Our leaders have to shine bright now. This team goes as far as Devonte & Self can carry them.
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@HighEliteMajor 8 of the 13 non-con games were quadrant 1 or quadrant 2 games. SDSU was a great schedule. A Quadrant 2 home game.
Self and his staff have mastered the art of building a schedule that sets us up for situations like this. A 7 loss team still apparently in the drivers seat for the 4th #1 seed or the 1st #2 seed is a little bit crazy.
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Lunardi (thankfully never accurate) has #6 Gonzaga as a 5 seed in KU’s bracket and preseason #1 Arizona as KU’s 4 seed. Gonzaga as a 5 is grossly underseeded. Arizona is about right, but a tough draw with Ayton playing like he is. MSU and UNC as the 2/3 so get to the elite eight and it’s a more favorable matchup.
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@dylans Of the ones Lunardi has on the 4/5 line, I would like to avoid Florida, Ohio State and Wichita State at all costs. So I am ok with the current bracket. I think Doke could dominate the Gonzaga game, and I think he is about one of the only players that could hang with Ayton. Arizona is also a terrible Defensive team. The combo of Doke being able to guard Ayton combining with how poorly UA plays defensively is the type of matchup I like for us.
I would put Arizona on upset alert opening weekend tbh. Can’t play D. They get matched up with a slow-paced, defensive oriented team, and they will find themselves in a dog-fight. SDSU would give UA a run for their money.
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@Kcmatt7 I was just preparing my we got screwed in the bracket speech.
Match-ups matter more to this team than the last two years. If their guards can pressure our guards 10ft beyond the 3pt line we’re screwed.
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@BeddieKU23 @Kcmatt7 I have to admit, I need to look at the seeding criteria. You two seem to really be on top of this. And our coach is obviously on top of it.
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@dylans Lol exactly.
I’m hoping for the path of least resistance. Literally! At this point, I think our best chance to advance far is to play less athletic teams, and poor defensive teams.
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@HighEliteMajor Well they actually came out and defined a lot of things this year with the quadrants. And after the first bracket release, it looked as if they were actually following the said criteria.
They also make the “team sheets” readily available with the info on them which is super convenient when looking at brackets.
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dylans said:
Lunardi (thankfully never accurate) has #6 Gonzaga as a 5 seed in KU’s bracket and preseason #1 Arizona as KU’s 4 seed. Gonzaga as a 5 is grossly underseeded. Arizona is about right, but a tough draw with Ayton playing like he is. MSU and UNC as the 2/3 so get to the elite eight and it’s a more favorable matchup.
Unfortunately Gonzaga is seeded correctly I think. They might be more talented then a #5 seed and they have a great record (could be 30-4 after tonight) however playing in the WCC continues to do them no favors when their non-conference schedule doesn’t give them enough quality wins to overcome the conference they play in.
I saw recently they were in some preliminary talks about joining the Mountain West which would improve their metrics a bit. I think its time Gonzaga moved up, similar to what Wichita St just did this year. The talent Few is bringing in and developing is simply better then the competition they are playing.
Gonzaga in the non-conference beat Ohio St (before they got better) lost to Florida in 2OT, beat Texas in OT, beat Creighton who was #25 at the time, was crushed by Villanova, and crushed Washington (the game after KU lost to them in the Sprint Center). They split the H2H with Saint Mary’s who’s in a similar position, having a lot of wins but not a ton of quality wins.
I tend to think this Gonzaga squad is a bit underrated. They returned guys who contributed to last years F4 run which I think is important for them going anywhere. I would welcome the challenge playing them though, I think we would matchup okay with them
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@BeddieKU23 Gonzaga and St Marys need to move up in basketball. Do they even field football teams? So that’s a consideration for w/e conference they want to join.
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@dylans The Achilles Heal for this team was supposed to be depth, but I agree with you that we really struggle with teams that pressure the guards all the way out. We have a lot of trouble getting into any offense at all.
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dylans said:
@Kcmatt7 I was just preparing my we got screwed in the bracket speech.
Everyone here has their speech ready to go!
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Speaking of St. Mary’s, and Wichita, and MSU, this guy has us as a 1 seed and potential 2nd round against St. Marys, 3rd round with WSU, and either Duke or MSU as elite 8 competition. It’s been 3 long years since Duke has won a championship so the powers that be will be affecting the whistle in that elite 8 matchup I’m sure. I don’t think a team west of the Appalachians is going to win a championship ever again!
Here’s the link which I forgot in the original post. http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/college/ct-spt-ncaa-tournament-bracketology-20180305-story.html
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wissox said:
Speaking of St. Mary’s, and Wichita, and MSU, this guy has us as a 1 seed and potential 2nd round against St. Marys, 3rd round with WSU, and either Duke or MSU as elite 8 competition. It’s been 3 long years since Duke has won a championship so the powers that be will be affecting the whistle in that elite 8 matchup I’m sure. I don’t think a team west of the Appalachians is going to win a championship ever again!
Here’s the link which I forgot in the original post. http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/college/ct-spt-ncaa-tournament-bracketology-20180305-story.html
Wouldn’t mind St Mary’s as a 2nd round opponent. Londale is one of America’s best bigs and would be a good matchup for Doke/Mitch/Silvio. Their defense is ranked about 80 spots below KU’s so we’d have a really good chance of scoring on them.
Not an athletic team either which would favor KU even more
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@wissox Those 7,8,9 and 10s from non P5 schools are so much scarier than the p5 schools on those lines.
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Very few major programs have strong non-con schedules anymore. Unless you play another big school in one of the early season resort tournaments or like the one with Duke, KU and MSU, the chances of playing other major programs are slim. Major programs want to pad their records and small programs are willing to travel and take a pounding for a paycheck. I believe there is small program that played the first 20 games on the road and the paychecks funded the entire athletic department.
Computers rankings look strictly at numbers and don’t usually play favorites and they unanimously have the Big 12 as the top ranked conference.
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@JayHawkFanToo You could probably argue that we’re the top ranked conference because of the bottom of the conference. I wouldn’t call the top of our conference anything to get all excited about although OU, TTU and WVU have all had good moments this year.
If you could and if you have time, pull up the team that had the top ranked schedule and lets look at their opponents. It’d be interesting to see.
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Conferences are ranked based on the strengths of all team not just the ones at the top. KU, OU, TTU, WVU and I believe TCU have all been ranked in the top 10 at some point and Baylor and Texas have been in the top 20 with KSU also getting votes, so it is not like the conference does not have good teams. You can put the Golden State Warriors on the Big 10 and the conference would still not be good overall. I know you are a Big 10 fan but the conference is very weak overall this season and will likely end up with 4 out of 14 teams in the tournament while the Big 12 might have an historic 8 out of 10 teams.
I read where one of the better known analyst wrote…would you really like to have a Big 12 team, any team including ISU or OSU as your first opponent in the tournament? The answer was no…about what other conference can you say the same thing?
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According to the RPI, North Carolina has the #1 schedule of strength in the country. I didn’t include teams they played outside the Top 100 which was 8
Wins (RPI 1-50)
RPI DATE OPPONENT SCORE
29 Nov. 24 Arkansas* 87-68
13 Nov. 29 Michigan 86-71
9 Dec. 17 @ Tennessee 78-73
21 Dec. 23 Ohio State* 86-72
11 Jan. 16 Clemson 87-79
4 Feb. 8 Duke 82-78
46 Feb. 17 @ Louisville 93-76
37 Feb. 21 @ Syracuse 78-74
Wins (RPI 51-100)
RPI DATE OPPONENT SCORE
90 Nov. 15 Bucknell 93-81
72 Nov. 20 @ Stanford 96-72
78 Dec. 1 @ Davidson 85-75
97 Jan. 9 Boston College 96-66
65 Jan. 13 @ Notre Dame 69-68
52 Feb. 10 @ NC State 96-89
65 Feb. 12 Notre Dame 83-66
Losses (RPI 1-50)
RPI DATE OPPONENT SCORE
15 Nov. 26 Michigan State* 45-63
43 Jan. 3 @ Florida State 80-81
1 Jan. 6 @ Virginia 49-61
47 Jan. 22 @ Virginia Tech 69-80
11 Jan. 30 @ Clemson 78-82
25 Feb. 27 Miami 88-91
4 Mar. 3 @ Duke 64-74
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@JayHawkFanToo But given our conference’s history in the dance during these seasons where we’re the top ranked conference it doesn’t look like it after the first weekend of the tournament, so I guess, just to be the devil’s advocate, I guess teams might be saying sure, we’d love to play the big 12 in the madness of march. Of course two years ago, we’re within a last minute meltdown against 'Nova to having two Big12 teams playing each other in the FF and of course one of them in the finals, but that season is an anomaly right now rather than the rule.
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@BeddieKU23 Thanks Beddie! Pretty good list of teams there, but it also illustrates the reason why KU would benefit by having a tougher top half of the league.
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Teams dancing after last night.
Gonzaga put a beatdown on BYU which helped the bubble.
Wright St put an end to 12 win Cleveland St’s upset bid.
Charleston beat Northeastern in OT for a bid.
LIU Brooklyn upset Wagner in the final to steal a bid. LIU is 18-16 and a candidate for the first four.
South Dakota St beat South Dakota 97-87 in an exciting game that saw 102 points scored in the 2nd half. If South Dakota St catches a bad defensive team they can win a game.
Vermont made the final of the America East. Could be a 28 win team going into the tourney. Lost to Kentucky in Rupp by 4 in non-conference
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A true bubble game today at noon between Florida St & Louisville. Both teams need the win desperately to keep themselves within the field.
NC St can likely solidify a bid beating BC at 2pm
Arizona St must beat Colorado to keep its hopes alive. No team in the country has fallen further
7pm - OSU vs OU. KU’s oppponent tomm.
Notre Dame tonight can keep its hopes alive beating Virginia Tech. Because of the ACC’s 37 team league they did not play during the regular season.
Syracuse in normal fashion must beat UNC to keep on the bubble.
Later tonight Washington & Texas have must win games to stay alive.
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@BeddieKU23 How can teams in the same conference not play at all in bb? That is just stupid. Once makes a little sense, zero times is nuts.
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mayjay said:
@BeddieKU23 How can teams in the same conference not play at all in bb? That is just stupid. Once makes a little sense, zero times is nuts.
I misspoke they played once, Tech won the only meeting by 5
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@BeddieKU23 Shoot, I was enjoying thinking the ACC’s organization was even stupider than I had thought!
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@BeddieKU23 I felt like SDSU would be a bad matchup for a poor offensive team. KU absolutely beat their pants off just because we could shoot AND were more athletic than them. I think they would be scary to play if you struggled to score because they ARE going to score some points.
But I guess that’s what makes it so hard to predict the tourney
Literally couldn’t have more opposite opinions lol.
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@mayjay Of course it happens in college football a lot which is also just plain stupid. But those big time conferences have to preserve their traditional non conference games which fans are clamoring to see, such as Wisconsin-Wofford, or Nebraska-Louisiana Monroe, or Alabama-Citadel.
This is a little off topic, but I would love to see a college conference say, well this is just stupid so we’re going to make sure that each team in the league plays each other. You might have to do away with the league championship game, but the fans would love it.
College basketball conferences could do it too. The Big 10 would need 26 conference games to pull it off. So they play a few patsies to get up to the required 32-34 games, so what, that would be a great schedule in any of the power conferences. It might hurt KU because we already play a round robin schedule and would have a struggle to find non-conf games if the SEC is playing 26 league games. Not even sure how many teams are in the ACC, 16 I think, so there, might be kind of tough, but so what! Do it anyways. Do it for the fans who would much rather see their team play a conference team twice than a patsy once.
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LIU Brooklyn looked like a team you don’t want to play, for what it’s worth. They are better than their record. They have size and can rebound. If they come out hot, like they did last night, they are a good team. I’m pretty sure all 5 starters hit a 3 for them last night. That was the type of night they were having. Wagner went 6-32 from 3 or something close to that.
It was an entertaining game though that really came down to the last minute.
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mayjay said:
@BeddieKU23 Shoot, I was enjoying thinking the ACC’s organization was even stupider than I had thought!
Me tooo
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Kcmatt7 said:
@BeddieKU23 I felt like SDSU would be a bad matchup for a poor offensive team. KU absolutely beat their pants off just because we could shoot AND were more athletic than them. I think they would be scary to play if you struggled to score because they ARE going to score some points.
But I guess that’s what makes it so hard to predict the tourney
Literally couldn’t have more opposite opinions lol.
It was just my first thought that if they got matched up with a bad defensive team that maybe a team couldn’t stop them from scoring and it becomes a shootout which they like to play. But I see a bad offensive team being a good matchup for them as well. To me one of the three likely teams to win a first round game with UNC Greensboro & potentially Vermont
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@BeddieKU23 I absolutely would not want to play SDSU again. Daum is a legit nightmare matchup. PTSD kicking in already. Nightmares of UNI already coming back just thinking about it. Must. Stop.
Bracketville (best 5 year average) has them as a 12 seed. So naturally they will be a sexy pick to win.
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I don’t think the committee would want to rematch us against a team we already played non-con. Plus yeah they aren’t a 15 or 16 seed.
