Saturday Feb 28 games

[xsteve1]

Congrats to Nova you have one heck of a team and an excellent coach. I hope you guys carry the BE to the Final Four.
As for my team I almost want to apologize to the league for how mediocre our program has been the last two year's. Xavier, 4-5 years ago was really good almost elite. Hope we can get back to that level in the next couple of years to make this league better.

[gavitspeaks]

Congrats to Nova you have one heck of a team and an excellent coach. I hope you guys carry the BE to the Final Four.
As for my team I almost want to apologize to the league for how mediocre our program has been the last two year's. Xavier, 4-5 years ago was really good almost elite. Hope we can get back to that level in the next couple of years to make this league better.

Apology accepted Steve

[TheBall]

Congrats to Nova you have one heck of a team and an excellent coach. I hope you guys carry the BE to the Final Four.
As for my team I almost want to apologize to the league for how mediocre our program has been the last two year's. Xavier, 4-5 years ago was really good almost elite. Hope we can get back to that level in the next couple of years to make this league better.

There is something to be said about going dancing in your down years though.

[TheBall]

That was terrible execution around the basket by Creighton in the final possession. How do,they miss those lay ups?

[Hall2012]

Pirates perhaps got a little lucky with no call at the end, but I'll take it. If any team desperately needed to catch a break it was this one.

We've lost 5 straight games where we've been leading with less than a minute to go...

You came in having won 3 of 5. We came in having lost 6 straight and 10 of 12 since being ranked in the top 20

[Omaha1]

I'll be honest- that one sucked. I know CU isn't very good, but it just seems like the late game bounces have consistently gone against us this year. Hopefully we can win one of these last two and end the year on a bright note.

[Steve Lavin]

Very proud of my Johnnies. The entire program including the fans needed this so badly for so long. Finally we will not be sweating on selection Sunday or watching other programs play in March. I have to admit I am one of the program's and Lavin's biggest critics, but they made me proud today. I was so happy I couldn't even get on the train and go home, so I went to tons of bars and got home at 10 PM. Can't even tell you how many people on the train and all over the city were giving me high fives and yelling "Go Johnnies!" as I walked by. When this team is relevant, it's a beautiful thing.

This team appears to now have gone from 14 or 15 to 17 to 20 to 20+ wins year after year. Back to back 20+ win seasons are nothing to sneeze at. That year we won 17 games we were on the bubble until Harrison got suspended for the rest of the year. Last year when we won 20 we were on the bubble but faded down the stretch. This year we finally punched our ticket.

I'd also like to say that two G'Town fans ended up sitting next to me and I came away impressed. We were both discussing the conference and how fun the rivalry was. After the game I shook hands with them and wished them luck. Nice guys. There was 1 G'Town fan though who was fat with a beard and a beer in his hand screaming at the top of his lungs when G'Town scored (the rare times). I had fun toying with him during the blowout. Today, MSG was 80% SJU fans 20% G'Town fans. Very happy. And don't worry G'Town, you guys are in. So is Xavier. 6 teams. Wow.

[Bill Marsh]

Yes, Steve, you are moving the goal posts:

Goal Post #1 - "like it or not, RPI is still a significant part of the selection process."

Even if the lose their last 3 games, Xavier projected RPI IS 48, good enough to put just about any team in. But when Xavier meets Goal Post #1, you introduce:

Goal Post #2 - "Regardless of the RPI, the committee will never give a bid to an 18-14 team."

The problem with RPI Wizard is that uses only the regular season games for everyone else. That obviously isn't the case. I used RPI Forecast with the RPI that they said would be with EVERYONES Conference tourney included. That's a HUGE difference.

No, it doesn't use only the regular season. I told you that I plugged in a loss in a first round tournament game.

You keep making the same mistake with RPI Forecast, thinking that a 61.9 literally means that. It doesn't. Unless you can see what everyone else's projection is, you don't know what it means all by itself. RPI Forecast doesn't pick winners and losers of games. They project probabilities. 61.9 is simply the statistical midpoint of a range of possibilities.

[Bill Marsh]

Nothing against nova, but it would be nice if X ever played a full 40 minutes. It's a sign of an undisiplined team and a coach over his head. Chris Mack is the worst type of coach just good enough you can't fire them not good enough for another team to watch. Oh how I wish that the original big east would have fell apart before sean miller went to Arizona

Villanova's simply a better team. With another coach, the result would be the same.

[Edrick]

That's just incorrect. Basketball (or any other sport) is not deterministic. What determines who is 'best' is who's distribution of results is typically better than other teams distribution. Of course Xavier intersects Providence that would result in wins, the percentages wouldn't even be that low. Most of the league is like that. The odds are obviously astronomical but the 'best' team in the conference could finish 0-18. Let's just say for this that they would win 8 of 10 vs the average team (generous), that means the odds of going 0-18 is just .2^18

Not deterministic. Stop thinking like that.