Bracketology - January 26, 2015

[billyjack]

Anyone else think Westbrook#36 is a tool?

Why? Because a VCU fan got on and made the ridiculous statement:
"VCU's half-court defense has improved tremendously since the 'Nova game, and I think we'd beat Nova convincingly today."

[lquarles]

Anyone else think Westbrook#36 is a tool?

Why? Because a VCU fan got on and made the ridiculous statement:
"VCU's half-court defense has improved tremendously since the 'Nova game, and I think we'd beat Nova convincingly today."

Not ridiculous, but realistic.

[admin]

Anyone else think Westbrook#36 is a tool?

Why? Because a VCU fan got on and made the ridiculous statement:
"VCU's half-court defense has improved tremendously since the 'Nova game, and I think we'd beat Nova convincingly today."

Not ridiculous, but realistic.

I allow some (not all) crazy talk on the board from non-BE fans. Frankly, you wouldn't believe how much I filter out. That said, we've already seen how this game played out. Villanova absolutely hammered VCU. If your hypothesis that VCU is much better now, I'd argue that you are basing that off of how the Rams have played against a weak A-10. How many Big East teams would have the same or better record as VCU's having played the same schedule this season?

[R Jay]

Anyone else think Westbrook#36 is a tool?

Why? Because a VCU fan got on and made the ridiculous statement:
"VCU's half-court defense has improved tremendously since the 'Nova game, and I think we'd beat Nova convincingly today."

Not ridiculous, but realistic.

Only realistic to you and some VCU or A-10 fans. The rest of the world is laughing hysterically at that statement.
You might be able to beat Nova 2 out of 10 tries, and the wins would be less than 7 point wins.

[GumbyDamnit!]

Villanova relies on the 3 pointer too much, and the biggest improvement in our half-court defense is closing out on shooters. So you can try to beat us inside all you want, it won't be enough to win the game.

We don't have an over reliance on 3's this year if you've watched more than one or two of our games. We can still shoot it, but we're much more about getting it inside to Ochefu and Pinkston or driving to the hoop and getting to the line. But I guess you'll disagree with than also, whatever, tell yourself whatever you what to believe, Nova isn't a good match-up for VCU.

Villanova's 3-point attempts in their last 7 games:

Creighton: 26
Georgetown: 23
Pennsylvania: 18
Xavier: 34!
DePaul: 29
St. John's: 23
Seton Hall: 24

That's not over relying?

Great post. You're so right. Maybe you should also include a big "!" next to 3FGM vs. Xavier. That would be 15! As in 15/34"!" or 44%!!! But you are right, we should ask a guard dominated team who has shot 41% from 3 as a team over those last 6 games you mention, to stop shooting the 3. That 1.24 pts per FG attempt obviously is hurting us. FWIW, our 3 pt reliant team is shooting considerably better than VCU anyway (47%-43%). So you guys keep hitting your 2's at 40-45% and we'll do the same from 3, and see who's offense generates more points.

[GumbyDamnit!]

What's really funny about questioning if Nova is too reliant on the 3 is when you find out that VCU attempts more 3's per game than Nova does. But don't let that little fact get in the way of your solid hoops knowledge.

[lquarles]

Great post. You're so right. Maybe you should also include a big "!" next to 3FGM vs. Xavier. That would be 15! As in 15/34"!" or 44%!!! But you are right, we should ask a guard dominated team who has shot 41% from 3 as a team over those last 6 games you mention, to stop shooting the 3. That 1.24 pts per FG attempt obviously is hurting us. FWIW, our 3 pt reliant team is shooting considerably better than VCU anyway (47%-43%). So you guys keep hitting your 2's at 40-45% and we'll do the same from 3, and see who's offense generates more points.

Once you face another team that can guard the 3, like Georgetown and Seton Hall did, and like VCU does now, bye bye 'Nova.

[lquarles]

What's really funny about questioning if Nova is too reliant on the 3 is when you find out that VCU attempts more 3's per game than Nova does. But don't let that little fact get in the way of your solid hoops knowledge.

I never said we didn't, did I? But we guard the 3 better than 'Nova does at this point, and I like the match-up with them. And we're better at scoring in other ways than in December. I'm not saying don't take the 3 when you get open looks, as we have, but 'Nova showed against GT that they tend to get desperate with the 3's. I saw them take a lot of contested 3's against GT.

[stever20]

How many Big East teams would have gone 7-3 vs top 100 teams right now, like what VCU has done? With all being actually top 75. Right now, the VCU SOS is #2 in the country. It's not like they have played all terrible teams except for the losses.

[DudeAnon]

RPI does give more credit to road wins, but doesn't punish for road losses as much.

let's look-
Butler- right now 15-6(.714) Home 10-1, road 3-3, neutral 2-2. RPI 14 SOS 7
Xavier- Right now 14-7(.667). Home 11-0, road 2-5, neutral 1-2. RPI 26 SOS 12

RPI own records- Butler 12.2-5.2(.701), Xavier 10.4-5(.675)

Part of Xavier's high RPI is they have no home losses. Those are big. Let's say for discussions sake they lost an extra home game, but won an extra road game...
Home 10-1 (6-1.4), road 3-4 (4.2-2.4), neutral 1-2. add that up and they are 11.2-5.8. (.659) .016 lower. That alone would be .004 in RPI lower. 2 spots in the RPI right now. However, the committee would be looking at Xavier a whole lot more favorably quite frankly because how you play away from home is factored in big time because that is where you play in the NCAA tourney.

Shouldn't they just adjust RPI to increase the weight of road wins more? It just seems crazy that there is no real metric for determining how the seeds will be determined.