Activity on the Bubble

[HoosierPal]

Bracket Matrix run this morning. Villanova a 1 seed, Creighton a 3, Xavier an 11, Providence 3rd out, Georgetown 4th out.

http://www.bracketmatrix.com/

[Bill Marsh]

RPI forecast for the conference tournaments is junk. They want to take a team that is 54 in the RPI right now(Providence) and drop them down to 69 if they lose a QF to a top 60 RPI team. It's not going to happen. 1 game doesn't make that huge of a difference, especially negatively.

Also, it's clear you aren't using RPI forecast for everything, because they have St John's at 1-1 being 56.5. Barely up from 58.

They don't WANT to do anything. It's how the numbers come out when you run them through the computer. You're treating it like it's their opinion. It's not.

How does your info about St. John's show that I'm not using RPI Forecast? I can't figure out that comment. I don't think you understand what the RPI Forecast is saying. When they have a projected rank, the number Is the midpoint of a range, the median, a rough estimate. It doesn't mean they'll be precisely at that number. That's why they have an overall rank as well as a projected rank. The 2 are often different. The only way to know exactly where PC would rank would be to run the numbers for every other team. Which is why I did that for teams on the bubble. But I wasn't going to do it all the way down to #69.

The fact that you're having trouble understanding what it's telling you doesn't make it junk.

[Bill Marsh]

i fooled around with some numbers this morning - before RPI Forecast had updated with yesterday's results and before any Sunday games were played today. I simply looked ahead to see what would happen if conference tournament games involving teams on the bubble played according to the calk. Of course I added in today's games with the favorites winning. If you were to try it yourself, you'll probably get slightly different numbers because you will be able to use an updated RPI Forecast, but just as an exercise, it's an interesting preview of what will be happening.

What happens is that a couple of teams fall off the bubble - Nebraska and Kansas State. If they lose, Xavier also falls off the bubble. Here' the RPI Forecast projected RPI ranking for teams on the bubble to fill in those 2/3 spots:

55.2 - Providence (assuming a win over St. John's)
56.3 - Missouri
56.4 - St. Mary's
59.7 - St. John's (assuming a win over Providence)
60.7 - Kansas State
60.9 - Georgetown (assuming a win over DePaul and a loss to Villanova)
61.0 - Nebraska
62.2 - Florida State
63.0 - Xavier (assuming a loss to Marquette)
73.8 - Cal

Not sure how your forecaster works, but I think the tires got blown off it. Nebraska was NCAA RPI 49 on Friday, and now beat Wisconsin. Even if they loose in the first round of the Big 10 tourney, no way then end up 61. They likely are in the NCAA. And Missouri is toast. After their blowout loss to TN, they are road kill.

Agree that Missouri is in trouble. Nebraska is not in yet. If they lose in the first round of the Big Ten tourney, they won't be #61, but they will be on the bubble. If a win over Wisconsin is all it would take to lock them in, then teams like Georgetown, Cal, Florida State, and Arkansas would be locks too. But they're not.

[milwaukeejedi1]

Article: Key games decide bubble, top seed

http://insider.espn.go.com/mens-college ... basketball

Key Points:

(Bubble Battle): "Xavier Musketeers: The Musketeers must win their late Thursday Big East quarterfinal against Marquette."

(Bubble Battle): "Big East tournament: Conveniently, St. John's and Providence square off in a Thursday afternoon quarterfinal (with the winner likely facing Villanova). The loser is out of the NCAA picture and we'll most likely see the winner at the First Four in Dayton, Ohio."

And the following will open up a bid: "The winner of Dayton-Saint Joe's [in the A-10 tourney] stays alive and probably earns an at-large while the loser heads to the NIT."

[stever20]

i fooled around with some numbers this morning - before RPI Forecast had updated with yesterday's results and before any Sunday games were played today. I simply looked ahead to see what would happen if conference tournament games involving teams on the bubble played according to the calk. Of course I added in today's games with the favorites winning. If you were to try it yourself, you'll probably get slightly different numbers because you will be able to use an updated RPI Forecast, but just as an exercise, it's an interesting preview of what will be happening.

What happens is that a couple of teams fall off the bubble - Nebraska and Kansas State. If they lose, Xavier also falls off the bubble. Here' the RPI Forecast projected RPI ranking for teams on the bubble to fill in those 2/3 spots:

55.2 - Providence (assuming a win over St. John's)
56.3 - Missouri
56.4 - St. Mary's
59.7 - St. John's (assuming a win over Providence)
60.7 - Kansas State
60.9 - Georgetown (assuming a win over DePaul and a loss to Villanova)
61.0 - Nebraska
62.2 - Florida State
63.0 - Xavier (assuming a loss to Marquette)
73.8 - Cal

Not sure how your forecaster works, but I think the tires got blown off it. Nebraska was NCAA RPI 49 on Friday, and now beat Wisconsin. Even if they loose in the first round of the Big 10 tourney, no way then end up 61. They likely are in the NCAA. And Missouri is toast. After their blowout loss to TN, they are road kill.

Agree that Missouri is in trouble. Nebraska is not in yet. If they lose in the first round of the Big Ten tourney, they won't be #61, but they will be on the bubble. If a win over Wisconsin is all it would take to lock them in, then teams like Georgetown, Cal, Florida State, and Arkansas would be locks too. But they're not.

Nebraska isn't playing in the 1st round, they are #4. They would play #5 Ohio St. That's not going to hurt them enough to put them really on the bubble unless a lot of other things happen.

[Bill Marsh]

Not sure how your forecaster works, but I think the tires got blown off it. Nebraska was NCAA RPI 49 on Friday, and now beat Wisconsin. Even if they loose in the first round of the Big 10 tourney, no way then end up 61. They likely are in the NCAA. And Missouri is toast. After their blowout loss to TN, they are road kill.

Agree that Missouri is in trouble. Nebraska is not in yet. If they lose in the first round of the Big Ten tourney, they won't be #61, but they will be on the bubble. If a win over Wisconsin is all it would take to lock them in, then teams like Georgetown, Cal, Florida State, and Arkansas would be locks too. But they're not.

They would play #5 Ohio St. That's not going to hurt them enough to put them really on the bubble unless a lot of other things happen.

It's not? I didn't know that was a fact. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that one.

[stever20]

[quote="Bill Marsh"]
How much do you think a loss to a top 25 team would hurt them? Answer is not much. That's the thing for a Nebraska- what it would take to undo what happened last night would be if they took a bad loss. Losing to Ohio St would not be that.

I mean- let's look at St Joe's. Their RPI dropped losing to #100 La Salle yesterday by 7 spots. That's a bad loss. Losing to a top 25 for Nebraska won't hurt anywhere near as much- but even if it did- it won't be enough to take them out now.

[Bill Marsh]

How much do you think a loss to a top 25 team would hurt them? Answer is not much. That's the thing for a Nebraska- what it would take to undo what happened last night would be if they took a bad loss. Losing to Ohio St would not be that.

I mean- let's look at St Joe's. Their RPI dropped losing to #100 La Salle yesterday by 7 spots. That's a bad loss. Losing to a top 25 for Nebraska won't hurt anywhere near as much- but even if it did- it won't be enough to take them out now.

I'm not saying that it would drop their RPI to a point to where the RPI would knock them out of the mix, but it would drop them down lower than where they are now, which would be putting them into bubble territory. Not saying that they would be out, but their record would be scrutinized, including bad losses to UAB, Penn State, and Purdue. I don't know how the conversations go in that room, but I assume there would be some discussion of their credentials.