stever20 wrote:With the way parity is going-don't think you can say 6 is a lock at all. Georgetown and St John's going to be real nervous all the way. Providence probably put themselves in that situation again tonight. Those teams lose just about 1 more game than they are supposed to- they could be on the outside looking in real quickly. Right now Georgetown projected 17-12, Providence 19-12, and St John's 18-12. 1 extra loss for those 3- Georgetown 16-13, PC 18-13, SJ 17-13- and none would be able to overcome that.
And even Xavier better watch their record.
I think 6 is a very good chance of happening. I'd say probably 60% chance.
20% chance 7 teams
15% 5 teams
5% 4 teams(if the matchups for the tourney are wrong and the better teams win knocking out teams).
Steve, let's take a second look . . .
I don't know where you are getting your projections, but these are the projections I'm finding on RPI Forecast after adjusting for the St. John's upset last night:
Georgetown - 17-12
Providence -- 19-12
St. John's ---- 20-10
Yes, everyone could lose another game, but they could also win another game unexpectedly. If we're talking right now, that's all academic because it's unknown.
Basically I'd like to put this in context rather than looking at the Big East in isolation. After all, the committee has to pick someone to get to 68, so it's all relative. Here are the projected records of some other teams that will be in consideration, based on RPI Forecast:
18-11 - Oklahoma State
19-12 - Florida
19-12 - NC State
18-11 - South Carolina
18-12 - Georgia
19-11 - UConn
What do they all have in common? They're all from power conferences like the Big Easy where SOS means as much or more than W/L. We've seen teams with better records get passed over in recent years because their SOS didn't match their W/L, starting with SMU last year.
Right now the best we have to go on is RPI Forecast. By that standard, the Big East is in line for 7 bids based on where things stand right now. Any number of scenarios might and will play out - just like last year when PC won the BE Tournament. So, it's very unlikely that things in March will be the same as they are right now. That might be better, they might be worse. We'll just have to let it play out.
As far as I'm concerned,t he BE will probably get 8 bids after DePaul surprises everyone and wins the BE Tournament.