Ranking the BEAST Relative to Expectations

[xusandy]

Almost all of us here should have a lot to be happy about as we go into conference play. Here's how I would rank our teams, just relative to my own preseason expectations:

Over-Achievers:
(1) X was not ranked in any major preseason poll, but they've gone undefeated in the non-conference, are ranked #6 in both major polls and are currently #1 in RPI. WOW!
(2) Providence was picked 5th in the preseason Big East poll, with questions about whether there was enough firepower around Dunn to enable them to be competitive. Now they're ranked in the AP top 10, with only 1 loss entering conference play. And Bentil is truly a BEAST beast. End of all doubts!
(3) Butler has two away wins against very solid top 25 teams, only 1 loss, and is now also ranked in the AP top 10. 90 pts. a game! Who, Butler? In fact, the BEAST is the only conference with 3 teams in the AP top 10. Yeah Baby!
(4) Seton Hall is 10-2,which is MUCH better than I thought they'd be at this point after their off-season player losses, and has computer rankings that will put them solidly in the discussion on Selection Sunday IF they win their share of conference games. Go Pirates!
(5) Depaul is "only" 6-6, but they're more competitive than expected, and after last night's game, I believe they can upset anyone in the league if they have a good night. And here I thought they were just hopeless cannon fodder. Hey guys, stop trashing Leitao; he's done pretty good so far.
(6) Marquette: In the preseason, there were plenty of folks saying Marquette had a loaded incoming class and could move way up this year. Anyone can be an optimist before any games are played! I held judgement at the time, but I'm now convinced: Wojo is a fine coach; Ellenson is for real, and he's a great complement to Fischer (30+ pts. per game combined!) Doubts erased!
(7) Creighton is clearly not the class of the league, but they have a solid winning record, top 100 computer rankings, have taken care of business against weak opponents, and have been competitive against good teams. Overall, I've been pleasantly surprised. Even more so than Depaul, I think Creighton can beat anyone in the league if they have a good game.

As Expected:
(8) St. John's is taking their lumps this year, as I think we all knew they would. But they do have 1 nice win (Syracuse) and better days lie ahead with their incoming talent.
(9) Villanova has not turned out to be the juggernaut I thought they would be in the non-conference, losing to both Oklahoma and Virginia, and exposing a weakness in the inside game in the process. But honestly, how disappointed can you be with a 9-2 team that's ranked in the top 20 in all human polls and has the league's best KenPom ranking (#7 this AM.) So until proven otherwise, Nova is still the team to beat in conference play; I just don't see them as virtually unbeatable any longer.

What a Bummer!:
(10) Georgetown is truly a schizophrenic team! The Hoyas have played well against good competition, but have turned around and lost to Radford, Monmouth, and UNC-Asheville. Yikes! Something truly stinks here, but I don't know if it's JTIII, or just a total lack of team chemistry. There's a ton of talent on this team that hasn't shown up so far, so I still think it's too early to write the Hoyas off as legit contenders in the BEAST. But man, what a disappointment so far.

Bottom Line: Wow! What a great conference season we have to look forward to. Barring total collapse, 4 of our teams (Xavier, Villanova, Butler, Providence) appear to be headed for really good seeds in March; 3 others might well get into the dance with lower seeds (Marquette, Seton Hall, Georgetown), and even Creighton looks like a pretty solid NIT team if they can beat Coppin (duh!) and win 6-7 conference games. Heck, even Depaul has a shot at the NIT, and so maybe, just maybe, St. John's will be the only BEAST team not playing on after the league tournament ends. Noe wouldn't that be satisfying?!

[stever20]

Agree with the big 4 of course......

the 3 others have a chance- but they all would need bare minimum 10 wins in conference play.

with Creighton/DePaul NIT- Creighton right now is 8-4. Coppin win would get them up to 9-4. If they go 7-11 in conference play, that's only 16-15. That used to be good enough for the NIT for a power conference team- but just isn't any longer. Same with DePaul- even moreso though..

Heck- Georgetown right now is 7-5. If they go only 9-9 in conference play and lose to UConn, they are 16-15 as well. And very possibly not even in the NIT. Georgetown will have a very narrow NIT band.

Have to remember with the NIT that it's now on merit and not just most popular. Also a lot hinges on the 1 bid conferences. If their conference champ loses in the conference tourney, they go automatically to the NIT.

[NovaBall]

Not sure what this relative to expectations means. Seems more of a way to give the lower teams some praise. I expected the Chicago franchise to be a bubble team this year as they have some good talent on that roster, they clearly are not, so I don't know how you have them ahead of other teams. Also, at the start of the season I think most nova fans would have had 9-2 penciled in as nobody expected to win at Virginia and the oklahoma game was going to be tough. bit they ran through the rest of their schedule, including the pre-season nit and some football 5 teams. I didn't expect St. John's to lose some of the games they lost, that's for sure. They are below expectations. Seton hall is where I expected them to be, that team is loaded.

I would grade the out o conference performance as follows:

A+ xavier
A Butler
A. Providence
B. Villanova
B- seton hall
C+. Marquette
C- creighton
C- georgetown
D depaul
D St. John's.

[Hoya Hoya Hoya]

Not sure what this relative to expectations means. Seems more of a way to give the lower teams some praise. I expected the Chicago franchise to be a bubble team this year as they have some good talent on that roster, they clearly are not, so I don't know how you have them ahead of other teams. Also, at the start of the season I think most nova fans would have had 9-2 penciled in as nobody expected to win at Virginia and the oklahoma game was going to be tough. So how have they been below expectations? I didn't expect St. John's to lose some of the games they lost, that's for sure. They are below expectations.

I would grade the out o conference performance as follows:

A+ xavier
A Butler
A. Providence
B. Villanova
B- seton hall
C+. Marquette
C- creighton
C- georgetown
D depaul
D St. John's.

Hoya's should have a F- grade for the abortions they have been putting on the court.

[Jet915]

I agree, Georgetown should be an F. Id probably move Depaul to C after yesterday.

[NovaBall]

I thoughts about giving gtown a D+. It was a close call. But they did beat last year's runner up and a ranked Cuse team, so they moved to C-

The GW and Cuse games are the only wins giving the bottom two passing grades, imo

[cu blujs]

Novaball, I don't know what your basis is, but the caption was "relative to expectations", not how has the season gone. Creighton returned only two guys who played significant minutes down the stretch last year, three if you add GG, although he was not the starter and played like 10 to 15 minutes. Our starting 5 includes three people who never played a game for CU prior to the start of the year (two transfers and a true freshman), and our ten deep includes four more who have never played a game for CU (IZ who hasn't made it through his first two seasons without a knee injury, and two more freshmen). That's 7 out of 10. None of those guys was a McDonald's AA or even a four or five star recruit. Yeah, they laid a stinker at Indiana, dropped one they shouldn't have one against ASU, and took a step back against Loyola, all while trying to figure out how to play together. But they played OU tougher than anyone has this year, hammered UMass and Rutgers, and have pretty well buried the lower tier teams they played. Its a C- only if someone had a ridiculous expectation that 7 of 10 kids who haven't played ball together are going to go 12-0. Outside of the Loyola game, they are probably right at, if not a little ahead of, where anyone who knew anything about the team would objectively have expected them to be going into the season.

[milksteak]

Almost all of us here should have a lot to be happy about as we go into conference play. Here's how I would rank our teams, just relative to my own preseason expectations:

Over-Achievers:
(1) X was not ranked in any major preseason poll, but they've gone undefeated in the non-conference, are ranked #6 in both major polls and are currently #1 in RPI. WOW!
(2) Providence was picked 5th in the preseason Big East poll, with questions about whether there was enough firepower around Dunn to enable them to be competitive. Now they're ranked in the AP top 10, with only 1 loss entering conference play. And Bentil is truly a BEAST beast. End of all doubts!
(3) Butler has two away wins against very solid top 25 teams, only 1 loss, and is now also ranked in the AP top 10. 90 pts. a game! Who, Butler? In fact, the BEAST is the only conference with 3 teams in the AP top 10. Yeah Baby!
(4) Seton Hall is 10-2,which is MUCH better than I thought they'd be at this point after their off-season player losses, and has computer rankings that will put them solidly in the discussion on Selection Sunday IF they win their share of conference games. Go Pirates!
(5) Depaul is "only" 6-6, but they're more competitive than expected, and after last night's game, I believe they can upset anyone in the league if they have a good night. And here I thought they were just hopeless cannon fodder. Hey guys, stop trashing Leitao; he's done pretty good so far.
(6) Marquette: In the preseason, there were plenty of folks saying Marquette had a loaded incoming class and could move way up this year. Anyone can be an optimist before any games are played! I held judgement at the time, but I'm now convinced: Wojo is a fine coach; Ellenson is for real, and he's a great complement to Fischer (30+ pts. per game combined!) Doubts erased!
(7) Creighton is clearly not the class of the league, but they have a solid winning record, top 100 computer rankings, have taken care of business against weak opponents, and have been competitive against good teams. Overall, I've been pleasantly surprised. Even more so than Depaul, I think Creighton can beat anyone in the league if they have a good game.

As Expected:
(8) St. John's is taking their lumps this year, as I think we all knew they would. But they do have 1 nice win (Syracuse) and better days lie ahead with their incoming talent.
(9) Villanova has not turned out to be the juggernaut I thought they would be in the non-conference, losing to both Oklahoma and Virginia, and exposing a weakness in the inside game in the process. But honestly, how disappointed can you be with a 9-2 team that's ranked in the top 20 in all human polls and has the league's best KenPom ranking (#7 this AM.) So until proven otherwise, Nova is still the team to beat in conference play; I just don't see them as virtually unbeatable any longer.

What a Bummer!:
(10) Georgetown is truly a schizophrenic team! The Hoyas have played well against good competition, but have turned around and lost to Radford, Monmouth, and UNC-Asheville. Yikes! Something truly stinks here, but I don't know if it's JTIII, or just a total lack of team chemistry. There's a ton of talent on this team that hasn't shown up so far, so I still think it's too early to write the Hoyas off as legit contenders in the BEAST. But man, what a disappointment so far.

Bottom Line: Wow! What a great conference season we have to look forward to. Barring total collapse, 4 of our teams (Xavier, Villanova, Butler, Providence) appear to be headed for really good seeds in March; 3 others might well get into the dance with lower seeds (Marquette, Seton Hall, Georgetown), and even Creighton looks like a pretty solid NIT team if they can beat Coppin (duh!) and win 6-7 conference games. Heck, even Depaul has a shot at the NIT, and so maybe, just maybe, St. John's will be the only BEAST team not playing on after the league tournament ends. Noe wouldn't that be satisfying?!

Based on what I picked in the preseason:

Overachievers:
Xavier (preseason 2nd)
Butler (preseason 3rd)
Providence (preseason 6th...oops)
Seton Hall (preseason 10th...double oops)

Meeting Expectations:
Villanova (preseason 1st)
St. John's (preseason 9th)
DePaul (preseason 8th)
Marquette (preseason 5th)
Creighton (preseason 7th)

Underachieving:
Georgetown (preseason 4th)

Also, in my quest to find my preseason rankings, I came across this poll: http://holylandofhoops.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4663&sid=adbe4e8cfb033b9065ae2145f2345c1b

Some of you ACTUALLY picked Providence to finish in dead last in the conference.

EDIT: Okay, one of you. Still...
EDIT: Forgot Creighton.

[DudeAnon]

Novaball, I don't know what your basis is, but the caption was "relative to expectations", not how has the season gone. Creighton returned only two guys who played significant minutes down the stretch last year, three if you add GG, although he was not the starter and played like 10 to 15 minutes. Our starting 5 includes three people who never played a game for CU prior to the start of the year (two transfers and a true freshman), and our ten deep includes four more who have never played a game for CU (IZ who hasn't made it through his first two seasons without a knee injury, and two more freshmen). That's 7 out of 10. None of those guys was a McDonald's AA or even a four or five star recruit. Yeah, they laid a stinker at Indiana, dropped one they shouldn't have one against ASU, and took a step back against Loyola, all while trying to figure out how to play together. But they played OU tougher than anyone has this year, hammered UMass and Rutgers, and have pretty well buried the lower tier teams they played. Its a C- only if someone had a ridiculous expectation that 7 of 10 kids who haven't played ball together are going to go 12-0. Outside of the Loyola game, they are probably right at, if not a little ahead of, where anyone who knew anything about the team would objectively have expected them to be going into the season.

We use gitmoblue's expectations as our metric here.

[Doge McDermott]

Novaball, I don't know what your basis is, but the caption was "relative to expectations", not how has the season gone. Creighton returned only two guys who played significant minutes down the stretch last year, three if you add GG, although he was not the starter and played like 10 to 15 minutes. Our starting 5 includes three people who never played a game for CU prior to the start of the year (two transfers and a true freshman), and our ten deep includes four more who have never played a game for CU (IZ who hasn't made it through his first two seasons without a knee injury, and two more freshmen). That's 7 out of 10. None of those guys was a McDonald's AA or even a four or five star recruit. Yeah, they laid a stinker at Indiana, dropped one they shouldn't have one against ASU, and took a step back against Loyola, all while trying to figure out how to play together. But they played OU tougher than anyone has this year, hammered UMass and Rutgers, and have pretty well buried the lower tier teams they played. Its a C- only if someone had a ridiculous expectation that 7 of 10 kids who haven't played ball together are going to go 12-0. Outside of the Loyola game, they are probably right at, if not a little ahead of, where anyone who knew anything about the team would objectively have expected them to be going into the season.

We use gitmoblue's expectations as our metric here.

Welp, then anything short of a National Championship for Creighton is underachieving then. The rest of you have to make it to the Final 4 though.