stever20 wrote:adoraz wrote:Short term maybe a bad day for the league (although SJU still has a chance at a bid, just no room for error). Long terms? Today was a good day.
These teams like Georgetown and St. John's need to win some of these. The coaches are just starting and need to show recruits they can win. Neither school wants another rebuild and both have a lot of potential.
Also, in St. John's case, their RPI OOC is 15. Their current RPI is 67. So if anything, their losing really helped the league a lot. You can't consider losing to them a bad loss. Ponds being out or injured the majority of the time was a gift to the rest of the teams (aside from Marquette who has to play him both times fully healthy).
if St John's made it now- they'd bare minimum need to win out regular season to get to 17-13 and then get a game in the BET. Doing that would give Providence, Marquette both losses that probably kill their chances, and gives Seton Hall yet another loss- if SH loses to both Nova and Xavier- that's 9 conference losses for Seton Hall and puts the Pirates in some danger of missing the tourney should they lose 2 of 3 to DePaul, Providence, and Butler(certainly possible). plus gives Butler another loss at a time where Butler needs wins to try to get out of the 7-8 line. But I'd make the case that short term- today was good for the BE because Nova and Xavier both won solidifying their #1 seeds. X may now be able to lose again to Nova and still get a #1 seed. That's huge.
long term- I 100% agree with you. Georgetown looks so much better than before and St John's looks like they're maybe finally turning the corner.
Eh I personally think due to Pond's injury they could afford one more regular season loss and MAYBE make it. The selection committee takes into account how you finish, RPI, close losses, big wins, injuries, and more that would help SJU. Right now their RPI is 63 on ESPN, worse elsewhere. Believe it or not, the RPI is just one below Marquette's. I don't think SJU will win 4/5 or 5/5 anyways, so I don't want to derail this thread with that. But yes, I agree it'd be really tough and basically no room for error. If you were at CA like I was yesterday, the fans were more excited than I've ever seen them play an unranked team. Last week vs Xavier the arena was literally half empty. If we actually do make it to the point of winning that much, then I'd be happy to debate this more. Would make for an extremely interesting bubble case, but one game at a time.
And yes, I meant to mention Nova and X winning as huge for the league. Sure, if either lost then Creighton/Butler probably would be ranked Monday. However, I think Fox cares more about Villanova/Xavier remaining in the Top 5 rather than having an additional team or two in the Top 25.