Thu 11/21 BE Game Thread (2 Games)

[stever20]

I'd also say in some ways it's not as early as it feels. Teams have 12-13 OOC games..
after tonight-
2 will have had 3 games(Creighton, Butler)
6 will have had 4 games
2 will have had 5 games(Providence, Seton Hall)

5 games is almost 40% of the OOC schedule. By Sunday-
Butler 4/12
Creighton 4/12
DePaul 4/13(with games Monday/Tuesday)
Georgetown 5/12
Marquette 4/13(with a game on Monday)
Providence 6/13(with a game on Monday)
Seton Hall 6/13
St John's 4/13
Villanova 4/13
Xavier 4/13(with a game on Monday)

So by next Tuesday, all will have played at least 30% of their OOC schedule, and 4 will have played at least 40%. I don't think folks realize just how front-loaded the OOC schedule is quite frankly!

[XUFan09]

I think I saw some folks saying that Indiana St might be a tourney team this year. Looking at Joe Lunardi, he had them as the 6th team out. That's hardly in the same class as a loss to Mercer or Northeastern.

Here is the SOS of our 5 undefeated teams:
Villanova 309
Xavier 280
Creighton 337
Providence 294
Butler 284

With those SOS, they better be undefeated!!!

We are 1-4 vs top 50 teams so far(add in DePaul losing to So Miss). And, 2 of the 3 key wins you're talking about are against 1-4 BC and 2-1 Vandy- both of whom finished sub .500 last year.

Waaaay too early to reference RPI or SOS. Even Kenpom isn't that good of a metric until another few games are played.

It's getting more and more accurate. Also- of the I guess 17 teams that those 5 have beaten- I can see Tennessee, St Joe's, and BC as the only ones in the top 100. That won't change. Of the 17 only 1 is a win away from home. It would be frankly more of a problem had any of them lost a game(with the 2-3 exceptions) than it is awesome that they won.

My issue isn't evaluating individual games (i.e. Xavier beat a good Tennessee team and Georgetown lost to a bad Northeastern team). Using numbers, though, is premature, as things like SOS and RPI need larger sample sizes. Where those top 100 teams are in the top 100 could fluctuate significantly. For example, Xavier beat Miami-OH, who isn't exactly good, and they dropped ten spots in the RPI (as a top 25 team, no less) and jumped nearly twenty spots in Kenpom (as a top 50 team). And outside the top 100, those fluctuations can be even greater, as this early on, one good win or a couple more bad losses can cause a team to leap or plummet in the rankings among other mediocre to bad teams.

tl;dr; It's not too early to evaluate team's performance but it's too early to rely on hard aggregate numbers.