USA Predicts . . .

[notkirkcameron]

Also, you have to admit in 2012 for instance, the schedule helped USF get into the tournament. USF was 12-6 in the schedule- they had 3 teams they played 2x. Villanova(5-13), Providence(4-14), and Pittsburgh(5-13). You can't tell me that if there was a round robin that USF gets into the tourney. 2012 is THE example of the non-double round robin schedule helping the Big East. And 2014 was the example of the round robin schedule hurting the Big East. You can't tell me that if Georgetown or St John's didn't have 8 games with Nova, Creighton, Xavier, and PC(Geo going 3-5, SJ going 2-6)- but instead like 5, but having 3 other games in conference- that most likely Georgetown and St John's are both in the tourney. Especially St John's.

Well, first off, in the 2012 Big East, there were 16 teams, so a double round robin would have been 30 conference games.

Second, I wouldn't go so far as to say the Big East schedule "helped" USF. They finished in a tie for FOURTH, but only made the play-in game, and frankly, there was some degree of shock that they even made that. This is in large part because the committee looked at their 12-6 Big East record and realized that they beefed up against the lesser teams of the conference that year. 10 of USF's 12 Big East wins came against the bottom 7 teams in the conference (Pitt, Villanova, and Providence twice, DePaul, St. John's, Rutgers, Seton Hall). At the time, USF was very much (correctly) looked at as a paper tiger, particularly considering they had lost to Old Dominion, Penn State, Southern Miss, and Auburn in the non-conference season. USF was eventually defeated by #13 seed Ohio University after beating perennial Tournament dog Temple in the Round of 64.

So addressing your main point, in other words, if I've understood you correctly, rather than have a league where anyone can beat anyone on any given night, it's better to add a couple suspect teams for the sake of creating a paper tiger like 2012 USF to squeak into the play-in game?

[redmen9194]

If simply having a larger conference got you more bids, the SEC would be getting a lot more than they have over the last few seasons. It's not quantity it's quality. The Big East put 40% of its membership in the dance - same number as the ACC which has five more teams. The Big East put four teams in - the same number as the SEC with 14 total teams. In 1991, the Big East was a nine team league that put in 7 teams - last season 7 of the 10 Big XII schools made it in. The Big East of old got a lot of bids because we generally did very well out of conference which boosted our rankings and allowed for a conference schedule that had a tremendous amount of ranked opportunities. If our ten schools get better, we won't need any additional schools.

[stever20]

If simply having a larger conference got you more bids, the SEC would be getting a lot more than they have over the last few seasons. It's not quantity it's quality. The Big East put 40% of its membership in the dance - same number as the ACC which has five more teams. The Big East put four teams in - the same number as the SEC with 14 total teams. In 1991, the Big East was a nine team league that put in 7 teams - last season 7 of the 10 Big XII schools made it in. The Big East of old got a lot of bids because we generally did very well out of conference which boosted our rankings and allowed for a conference schedule that had a tremendous amount of ranked opportunities. If our ten schools get better, we won't need any additional schools.

The thing is the ACC got NC State in part because they got to avoid playing UVA, Duke, and Syracuse 2x. They went 0-3 against those 3 in the regular season. The double round robin absolutely cost St John's last year. If instead of going 2-6 against Nova, Creighton, Xavier, and PC in regular season they go 4-4 against those 4 plus 2 other teams- St John's is in the tournament without a doubt. It's not even close.

Also- I'm sorry, but using 1991 as any sort of example is just foolish. College Basketball is light years different in 2014 compared to 1991. In 1991, Villanova got in the tournament with a 16-14 record. That just does not happen now.

[Bluejay]

I also disagree with stever's analysis.

I think it is entirely too simplistic too look only at conference w/l record when determining if a team should get into the tournament or not. I think a pretty compelling case could be made that it wasn't conference record that kept St Johns out or required Providence to win the conference tourney; it was the fact that they didn't didn't really beat ANY quality opponents in the nonon and lost every game they played against a quality noncon opponent. Using RPI figures for a moment,

*PC's best noncon win was against #98 (!!!) LaSalle
*PC's second best noncon win was against #104 Yale
(St John's only had a single noncon win against a top 100 opponent & zero top 50 or top 75 noncon wins)

*St John's best noncon win was against #80 San Fransisco
*St John's second best noncon win was against #127 Columbia
(PC only had one noncon win against the top 125 & zero top 50 or top 75 noncon wins)

You can't fail to beat anybody of any substance in the noncon and expect to slip into the tourney with a .500 conference record (especially when you only beat one or two top 50 teams in conference). This is especially true with the committee's added emphasis on noncon SOS and noncon resume the last couple of years.

It probably should be said that adding more patsies may not have helped St john's either, considering that they did have a loss to the only so-called patsy in the conference in DePaul.

[Amase2]

I also disagree with stever's analysis.

I think it is entirely too simplistic too look only at conference w/l record when determining if a team should get into the tournament or not. I think a pretty compelling case could be made that it wasn't conference record that kept St Johns out or required Providence to win the conference tourney; it was the fact that they didn't didn't really beat ANY quality opponents in the nonon and lost every game they played against a quality noncon opponent. Using RPI figures for a moment,

*St John's best noncon win was against #98 (!!!) LaSalle
*St john's second best noncon win was against #104 Yale
(St John's only had a single noncon win against a top 100 opponent & zero top 50 or top 75 noncon wins)

*PC's best noncon win was against #80 San Fransisco
*PC's second best noncon win was against #127 Columbia
(PC only had one noncon win against the top 125 & zero top 50 or top 75 noncon wins)

You can't fail to beat anybody of any substance in the noncon and expect to slip into the tourney with a .500 conference record (especially when you only beat one or two top 50 teams in conference). This is especially true with the committee's added emphasis on noncon SOS and noncon resume the last couple of years.

It probably should be said that adding more patsies may not have helped St john's either, considering that they did have a loss to the only so-called patsy in the conference in DePaul.

This post would make more sense if St. John's played either LaSalle or Yale last year. Maybe you confused the two schools.

[billyjack]

Good post, though you have the PC/SJU games flipped, plus point well taken about Yale (104), but Vermont (100) was better.

PC ooc had some opponents who almost completely underperformed (BC, Vandy, La Salle, Fairfield actually), which really hurt us.
We also had some killer close losses, any of which would have been great wins for us.

OOC Wins:
Boston College (206 RPI) was getting votes in pre-season polls. Their collapse totally hosed us.
Brown (232 RPI) is a local rivalry game. Expected them to be bad.
Marist (245 RPI) was awful and was a cupcake game.
Vermont (100 RPI) finished 1st in the America East, and had a 100 RPI, so no complaint with them.
Vanderbilt (121 RPI) was supposed to be better. The SEC sucks. Vandy's mediocre year hurt us.
La Salle (98 RPI) was a solid team, that was expected to finish higher in the A-10, coming off a great previous season. This hurt us a little.
Fairfield (288) was Ed Cooley's old team, so a nice game to schedule. They were supposed to be much better. This game hurt us.
Rhody (156 RPI) is improving, had some close losses to Saint Louis and St Joe's (and us), and won at LSU. Rivalry game, no complaints about them.
Yale (104 RPI) was an unexpectedly-decent RPI win.
Maine (333 RPI). Cupcake game against a worse team than Marist. Terrible team that killed our RPI. Wasn't expected to be this awful.

OOC Losses:
Maryland (76 RPI) would've been a good win. This was a close 4 pt loss in the USVI tourney finals. First post-Kris-Dunn game.
Kentucky (7 RPI) was a good loss. Close game til mid-2nd. No complaints here.
UMass (26 RPI) was an OT loss on the road that we couldn't close out, against a very good team. Very demoralizing loss. Would've been a great W.

[billyjack]

Following up the previous post:
PC's SOS last year was 61.
In comparison, Louisville's was 50.

Louisville's ooc wins were mostly awful, but unlike PC they were totally helped by mediocre opponents overperforming:
W Southern Mississippi (RPI of 29).
W UL-Lafayette (RPI of 89).
W Missouri State (RPI of 93).
W Western Kentucky (RPI of 129).

Louisville's 7 other ooc wins were:
College of Charleston, RPI 243.
Hofstra, RPI 276.
Cornell, RPI 329.
Hartford, RPI 235.
Fairfield, RPI 288.
UMKC, RPI 254.
Florida International, RPI 207.

So they had 7 awful wins, but were bailed out by freakin Missouri State, Southern Mississippi, UL Lafayette and Western Kentucky.

[muskienick]

So addressing your main point, in other words, if I've understood you correctly, rather than have a league where anyone can beat anyone on any given night, it's better to add a couple suspect teams for the sake of creating a paper tiger like 2012 USF to squeak into the play-in game?

The team I support just came from the A-10 a year ago. Why would we want to create a situation that mimics what we just left?

[Bluejay]

I also disagree with stever's analysis.

I think it is entirely too simplistic too look only at conference w/l record when determining if a team should get into the tournament or not. I think a pretty compelling case could be made that it wasn't conference record that kept St Johns out or required Providence to win the conference tourney; it was the fact that they didn't didn't really beat ANY quality opponents in the nonon and lost every game they played against a quality noncon opponent. Using RPI figures for a moment,

*St John's best noncon win was against #98 (!!!) LaSalle
*St john's second best noncon win was against #104 Yale
(St John's only had a single noncon win against a top 100 opponent & zero top 50 or top 75 noncon wins)

*PC's best noncon win was against #80 San Fransisco
*PC's second best noncon win was against #127 Columbia
(PC only had one noncon win against the top 125 & zero top 50 or top 75 noncon wins)

You can't fail to beat anybody of any substance in the noncon and expect to slip into the tourney with a .500 conference record (especially when you only beat one or two top 50 teams in conference). This is especially true with the committee's added emphasis on noncon SOS and noncon resume the last couple of years.

It probably should be said that adding more patsies may not have helped St john's either, considering that they did have a loss to the only so-called patsy in the conference in DePaul.

This post would make more sense if St. John's played either LaSalle or Yale last year. Maybe you confused the two schools.

D'oh! I did mix up the two; sorry about that! My point stands however.

[Bluejay]

Following up the previous post:
PC's SOS last year was 61.
In comparison, Louisville's was 50.

Louisville's ooc wins were mostly awful, but unlike PC they were totally helped by mediocre opponents overperforming:
W Southern Mississippi (RPI of 29).
W UL-Lafayette (RPI of 89).
W Missouri State (RPI of 93).
W Western Kentucky (RPI of 129).

Louisville's 7 other ooc wins were:
College of Charleston, RPI 243.
Hofstra, RPI 276.
Cornell, RPI 329.
Hartford, RPI 235.
Fairfield, RPI 288.
UMKC, RPI 254.
Florida International, RPI 207.

So they had 7 awful wins, but were bailed out by freakin Missouri State, Southern Mississippi, UL Lafayette and Western Kentucky.

Just for the record, I wasn't trying to bag on anybody's schedule. I was simply trying to point out that neither school had that successful of a noncon last year, so saying they didn't make the dance because of conference record didn't seem to be telling the entire story.