Sun 3/2, DePaul (3-13) at St John's (8-8), 12pm CBS-SN.

[HoosierPal]

Well then you are changing the RPI from when we beat them vs. now. When we beat PC, G'Town, Marquette, etc. then what were their RPI's at the time? SJ has "work" to do, but not "a lot". After every SJ win it seems people say "great, now you need 3 more". No. It's the end of the season. The Big East is a major conference and it's an absolute grinder. Alabama? Really? They have 2 teams worth their weight in salt in that conference. Everyone else sucks. Alabama is 12-17 (6-10) and in 11th place in a terrible SEC. Temple was awful this year…huh? 7-21 (2-14) dead last. Minnesota is 7-10 in conference. Lol…are you really serious with these comparisons? SJ is easily in over all of the teams you mentioned. SJ is 19-11 (9-8) in a very good conference. The other teams you mentioned are not even close to the bubble wtf?

Exactly my point. Strength of schedule is W-A-Y out there on the criteria used by the Dance Team. YES, those teams I listed are terrible. That was my point. They have better SOS than St. Johns, yet have no chance at dancing. It's who you beat, not who you schedule.

But hey, whatever makes you feel better is fine with me. I'm not going to loose any sleep over whether St. Johns makes the NCAA or not. If SOS gives you a good feeling, go with it.

[SJHooper]

Well then you are changing the RPI from when we beat them vs. now. When we beat PC, G'Town, Marquette, etc. then what were their RPI's at the time? SJ has "work" to do, but not "a lot". After every SJ win it seems people say "great, now you need 3 more". No. It's the end of the season. The Big East is a major conference and it's an absolute grinder. Alabama? Really? They have 2 teams worth their weight in salt in that conference. Everyone else sucks. Alabama is 12-17 (6-10) and in 11th place in a terrible SEC. Temple was awful this year…huh? 7-21 (2-14) dead last. Minnesota is 7-10 in conference. Lol…are you really serious with these comparisons? SJ is easily in over all of the teams you mentioned. SJ is 19-11 (9-8) in a very good conference. The other teams you mentioned are not even close to the bubble wtf?

Exactly my point. Strength of schedule is W-A-Y out there on the criteria used by the Dance Team. YES, those teams I listed are terrible. That was my point. They have better SOS than St. Johns, yet have no chance at dancing. It's who you beat, not who you schedule.

But hey, whatever makes you feel better is fine with me. I'm not going to loose any sleep over whether St. Johns makes the NCAA or not. If SOS gives you a good feeling, go with it.

I already said I don't think we ultimately make it. It's just for argument's sake. And do you really think I meant look at SOS alone and nothing else? Of course not. SOS in ADDITION to the 21-12 (11-8) if they win their next 2. In addition to #47 BPI. In addition to the hot streak.

This all would have been meaningless if SJ had its full team against Nova losing by only 3, but hey that's SJ basketball. We can always climb high with the top in sight, but we can never reach the peak and get over it. Wouldn't be shocked if this team did worse next year. If we don't make the tourney I think that shows the winning streak was just a law of averages to balance out the 0-5 start and not the real talent showing.

[billyjack]

Ok,
First, the Top-50 win by St John's is actually against a Top 10 team.
It isn't like Pitt, whose Top-50 win is against #45 Stanford.

Second, they have 1 win vs Top-50, but 4 vs Top-70.
And 7 vs the Top-100... plus they won at Georgia Tech, which resides in the Greatest Conference Ever.

Third, the use of the term "Big Fox" network makes the person look like a troll. Not sure what that term is supposed to mean? Is Fox demanding things of us? Is it our schedules, which aren't welded into Thursdays and Saturdays only, like the Northeast-10 schedule? I honestly don't understand your beef.

[HoosierPal]

Ok,
First, the Top-50 win by St John's is actually against a Top 10 team.
It isn't like Pitt, whose Top-50 win is against #45 Stanford.

Second, they have 1 win vs Top-50, but 4 vs Top-70.
And 7 vs the Top-100... plus they won at Georgia Tech, which resides in the Greatest Conference Ever.

Third, the use of the term "Big Fox" network makes the person look like a troll. Not sure what that term is supposed to mean? Is Fox demanding things of us? Is it our schedules, which aren't welded into Thursdays and Saturdays only, like the Northeast-10 schedule? I honestly don't understand your beef.

Not sure where you are coming from. SJHooper and I were having a discussion on the value of Strength of Schedule.

Where did Pitt come from in this discussion? And Georgia Tech? Care to throw in Rutgers?
If you want to go Top -70, please read my comments to SJHooper. Already covered.
If you don't think Fox controls this affair, well that's okay. You can think what you want. We all know (well some of us do) for 5 big ones, whatever Fox says goes. Heck, I'm all for putting the Fox Logo onto everyone's uniforms. It's coming sooner or later, so let's be the trend setter.
What is the Northeast-10 schedule? I didn't follow that one. We're just a bunch of Hoosiers here in Indy.
What does a troll look like?

[billyjack]

Ok,
First, the Top-50 win by St John's is actually against a Top 10 team.
It isn't like Pitt, whose Top-50 win is against #45 Stanford.

Second, they have 1 win vs Top-50, but 4 vs Top-70.
And 7 vs the Top-100... plus they won at Georgia Tech, which resides in the Greatest Conference Ever.

Third, the use of the term "Big Fox" network makes the person look like a troll. Not sure what that term is supposed to mean? Is Fox demanding things of us? Is it our schedules, which aren't welded into Thursdays and Saturdays only, like the Northeast-10 schedule? I honestly don't understand your beef.

Not sure where you are coming from. SJHooper and I were having a discussion on the value of Strength of Schedule.

Where did Pitt come from in this discussion? And Georgia Tech? Care to throw in Rutgers?
If you want to go Top -70, please read my comments to SJHooper. Already covered.
If you don't think Fox controls this affair, well that's okay. You can think what you want. We all know (well some of us do) for 5 big ones, whatever Fox says goes. Heck, I'm all for putting the Fox Logo onto everyone's uniforms. It's coming sooner or later, so let's be the trend setter.
What is the Northeast-10 schedule? I didn't follow that one. We're just a bunch of Hoosiers here in Indy.
What does a troll look like?

The first time I heard the term "Big Fox", it was coming from your keyboard, about 2 days ago. You were complaining about Butler getting 8 days off or something, blaming it on Fox, and complaining that games are played on random nights of the week (i guess you want it regimented like the Northeast-10, which plays Thurs and Saturday... i dont know because you never explained), and that I guess was making you confused, and again you were blaming it on Fox. You then used the "Big Fox" term repeatedly in this thread... I have no idea what negative demands Fox has made towards us. Is it bad that 95% percent of our games are televised nationally.

Then you started busting Hooper's stones about Top-50 wins, etc... kind of a random, meaningless stat that you've latched onto, while at the same time you've ignored Strenght of Schedule, or mocked it. You're also dismissing Top-100 wins. So you're cherrypicking your favorite stats. If you look at other NCAA lock teams, like Pitt, you'll see that St John's has better wins. You refuse to look at this because it doesn't fit your goal of ripping St John's.

If you want to be our resident website scold and a troll, then fine. Enjoy yourself.

[SJHooper]

I guess you can pick out 1 stat and run with it. Hey, Babe Ruth hit a ton of homers in his day! But you know what? His 40 yard dash time was awful! Other players had much better 40 yard dash times.

Not to compare SJ in any way to a Babe Ruth level, but you get my point. Maybe you should unfocus your microscope and look at the other bubble teams. No one is really that amazing. What do you want, 7-0 vs. top 50, 7-0 vs. top 100, #1 RPI, #1 SOS, #1 BPI, and the most appealing uniforms? You don't have to be perfect to make the tourney.

[stever20]

St John's if they win the next 2 but then lose in the SF- 21-12.... The projected RPI is still only 57.9. I'm sorry but that's fringe bubble at best. Right now, they are 5-9 vs the RPI top 100(and would be 7-10 with a SF BET loss). You can act like that fact doesn't matter but it really does. You say they're 9-8 in the Big East. 5 of those 9 wins are vs Seton Hall, DePaul, and Butler- went 5-1 vs those teams- but then only 4-7 vs the other 6.

Also St John's SOS is not 25th now after today(don't think they ever were that high- RPI forecast had their current SOS entering today as 33). Warren Nolan has them at #46. Yes, playing DePaul can hurt you that much.

Also a major point. It is a field of 68, but really for us a field of 48ish. The other 20 are the auto 1 team bids.

Finally- top 50 does matter. The committee doesn't get records broken down top 53 or top 54. It's top 50. I suppose if someone was #51 they may say something. But just looking at things, don't think the others are going to be in that 51-53 spot even.

[SJHooper]

St John's if they win the next 2 but then lose in the SF- 21-12.... The projected RPI is still only 57.9. I'm sorry but that's fringe bubble at best. Right now, they are 5-9 vs the RPI top 100(and would be 7-10 with a SF BET loss). You can act like that fact doesn't matter but it really does. You say they're 9-8 in the Big East. 5 of those 9 wins are vs Seton Hall, DePaul, and Butler- went 5-1 vs those teams- but then only 4-7 vs the other 6.

Also St John's SOS is not 25th now after today(don't think they ever were that high- RPI forecast had their current SOS entering today as 33). Warren Nolan has them at #46. Yes, playing DePaul can hurt you that much.

Also a major point. It is a field of 68, but really for us a field of 48ish. The other 20 are the auto 1 team bids.

Finally- top 50 does matter. The committee doesn't get records broken down top 53 or top 54. It's top 50. I suppose if someone was #51 they may say something. But just looking at things, don't think the others are going to be in that 51-53 spot even.

You are really splitting hairs now. You can't take a winning Big East record and make that negative in any way. You must be joking. 5 of those 9 wins are vs. this team or that team. Blah blah. What do you think happens? Better teams feed off the bad teams and get fat. How many of the Cuse/UNC/Duke wins came vs. GT, VT, Miami, ND, etc? How many of the Florida/Kentucky wins came vs. pathetic teams? A ton. How many of the Wichita State wins came against subpar teams? Almost all if not every single one.

The committee doesn't only look at top 50 wins. They look at top 100 as well and that's what you leave out because SJ has a decent enough record there. If you really want to be technical, SJ really only has 1 bad loss all year: DePaul. Our worst loss is still against a major conference opponent. A lot of other teams can't say that. We avoided our typical Northeastern, Niagara, Asheville upset this season. Penn State is a damn solid team if anyone's watched them. They beat Ohio State and nearly took down Wisconsin. They are not a joke anymore. I think the G'Town blowout is also not being granted. Even in a down year, it's still G'Town...they are still very tough and we throttled them. We handily beat Marquette, beat a very fiesty PC team that very well make the tourney, beat #12 Creighton who throttled Nova twice, etc. Just because these teams are not ranked does NOT mean they aren't good wins. That's something many of you are ignoring.

Really the only major dent in our resume is the beginning of the season when we went 0-5 and included a loss to DePaul, PSU, etc.

[Bill Marsh]

St John's if they win the next 2 but then lose in the SF- 21-12.... The projected RPI is still only 57.9. I'm sorry but that's fringe bubble at best. Right now, they are 5-9 vs the RPI top 100(and would be 7-10 with a SF BET loss). You can act like that fact doesn't matter but it really does. You say they're 9-8 in the Big East. 5 of those 9 wins are vs Seton Hall, DePaul, and Butler- went 5-1 vs those teams- but then only 4-7 vs the other 6.

So, I guess what St. John's has to do is win through the tournament and get to the BE finals. Simple. Problem solved.

[SJHooper]

St John's if they win the next 2 but then lose in the SF- 21-12.... The projected RPI is still only 57.9. I'm sorry but that's fringe bubble at best. Right now, they are 5-9 vs the RPI top 100(and would be 7-10 with a SF BET loss). You can act like that fact doesn't matter but it really does. You say they're 9-8 in the Big East. 5 of those 9 wins are vs Seton Hall, DePaul, and Butler- went 5-1 vs those teams- but then only 4-7 vs the other 6.

So, I guess what St. John's has to do is win through the tournament and get to the BE finals. Simple. Problem solved.

I really think winning vs. Marquette plus 1 BET game gives them a good chance of getting in. Getting to the finals and lock it up.

But as I've said, in no way do I expect us to make the tourney after all the heartbreak this program has dealt its fans for so long. This team just isn't used to going to the tourney and it shows. I think we lack the killer instinct to take the games opponents try to give us like Nova, PC, etc. Plus we needed to beat Xavier at home. We had to. With our backs up against the wall we put up a dud even though Obekpa was hurt we had the players to do it.

If we beat Marquette and take at least 1 in the BET it will come down to this: will the committee allow the 0-5 start to keep SJ out? Or will they look at the more recent schedule and all the top 10 teams we played right along with all game? Something tells me they care more how you finish than months ago how you started. Our job is to put ourselves in the position to be selected. I will be shocked if we win our next 2.