The Holy Land of Hoops

CBS Sports (4 Big East Bids) -- http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/bracketology -- pretty cool feature where you can compare teams' resumes (team vs. team comparison)

SI (4 Big East Bids) -- http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/colleg ... -syracuse/

NBC Sports (3 Big East Bids) -- http://collegebasketballtalk.nbcsports. ... r/related/

ESPN (4 Big East Bids) -- Joe L. updated his for insiders -- 4 Big East (Villanova, Creighton, Georgetown, and Xavier) with Butler being 9th Out -- http://insider.espn.go.com/mens-college ... basketball

NBC- they say 3, but Xavier is in the bracket as well...

So 4 for all the brackets. Exactly what we should expect to see...

stever20 wrote:NBC- they say 3, but Xavier is in the bracket as well...

So 4 for all the brackets. Exactly what we should expect to see...

Sounds about right. Xavier's trending upwards too in terms of efficiency statistics (they were 69th heading into the UC game and now they're 29th). The 7-game winning streak helps too. The next five games will really tell the tale:

Marquette
@Creighton
Georgetown
@DePaul
@Providence

Can they hold serve at home against a solid team and a good team? Can they somehow steal a win in Omaha (okay, not betting on this one)? Can they go on the road and secure wins against weaker teams in the conference? If they can somehow make it through this 4-1 (6-1 on the conference season), that would be fantastic. The latter half of the season involves much tougher road games, while the easier games are all at home until the last two home games of the year, Creighton and Villanova.

Georgetown has been pretty steady throughout the season, but they have a decent road challenge in front of them:

@Providence (for Xavier and Georgetown, this is a winnable game but the Friars are no pushovers)
@Butler
@Xavier

Butler can't easily afford another home loss, but Georgetown could really use the insurance in a coin-flip game.

yeah, I'm afraid if one of the top 4 were to get in trouble it may be Georgetown. For one, still have a tough OOC game with Michigan St left.

Looking at RPI forecast...
19-11(what we're currently projected)- we're at 38.8

If we lose 1 more game(going 10-8 in conference)- we're only 48.3. That is leaving a lot of danger if we lost rd 1 of the BET- especially with only then a 18-13 record. Teams with that record typically don't make the tourney.

I think Xavier has a lot more wiggle room quite frankly. At 21-10- current projection- 38.4. 20-11- 47.3. I just think at 20-11- with a 1st rd BET loss, 20-12- they still have a really good shot to make the tourney.