http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/bracketology

Another site also has BG going up against Louisville.

The other site has BG because they list them as the current conference leader. And while BG is tied with Akron and Toledo for 1st currently, they are 0-3 against them.

Neither makes any sense.

Joe Lunardi and Jerry Palm and any other bracket predictor out there doesn't really care who comes out of the MAC. It's just a placeholder for a one-bid league. They'll look at the standings and see who is at the top and plug them into the MAC slot. Right now, that's BG because they have the best winning percentage among the three teams at 8-3. Nobody who doesn't follow the MAC very closely doesn't care in the least that BG is 0-3 vs. Akron and Toledo. They have the "best" record so they must be the best (even if they lost to a D2 school)!

Or it could be because BGSUcks has the best RPI of the 3:

BGSUcks 53
Toledo 72
Akron 86

If toledo stays hot/ we dont drop more than 2 games down the stretch and win the MAC.... We will be that 12-13 seed. Doesnt matter what bracketology says unless we are vieng for a bubble... In that case bracketology is interesting. Now we sit and watch our team play basketball!

Everyone knows we had a tough OOC and lost some games we shouldnt have. Being hot matters to the committee though, and if we show we can win a competitive league like the MAC we will have a winnable game in the NCAA tourney. Goes for any team that wins the MAC this year.

(02-12-2015 08:26 PM)Rocket A Wrote:  Or it could be because BGSUcks has the best RPI of the 3:

BGSUcks 53
Toledo 72
Akron 86

The RPI is a good tool and is very useful, but it's just that, a tool. Too many times people treat it as the end-all, be-all in college basketball. Until this week, Kentucky was as low as fourth depending on which RPI calculation was being used. A team that has four losses and was destroyed by Kentucky was the unanimous best team in every RPI ranking. The actual game still matters a lot. Losing to a D2 program and going 0-3 against the teams you are tied with means a lot more than the RPI. But Lunardi, Palm, and company don't look that deep when it comes to one-bid leagues.

I used to read the Bubble Watch every single week/midweek or whenever it got published, regardless of whether one of my dogs was in the fight. To a lesser extent, the Bracketology too, though digging any deeper than school names on the numbered lines costs extra money, which I'd have no issues with if Espn was free, or if their website wasn't a walking paid advertisement on steroids. But it was just a good read and it got me excited about the tournament.

Last year we had a dog in the fight, kind of. We made the "other at-large contenders" list for a couple weeks but they made it quite clear that we hadn't beaten anyone and that would make it hard to justify including us as an at-large. Then we got destroyed by the Hurons and we were never mentioned again. But you know, we're sitting there at the end of the regular season at 26-5 and a 30-something RPI. How many such teams have ever been denied? I'd estimate 15 or fewer. I'm not saying he should say we belong in. I'm saying he should mention our name and suggest why we shouldn't be in.

I read the debut Bubble Watch for 2015 a couple weeks ago. From top to bottom. I get down to the bottom where the "other at-large contenders" are. There weren't any. He copped out and asked the readers to do the job he's being paid to do regarding the 'others'. So I'm done. I don't care anymore. The little s*** like that is what they do to manipulate the game to fit their needs. They do the same thing with the Heisman Trophy and the BCS/CF Playoff. They don't mention 'the others' because they don't want them and don't want to devote resources into covering them, even though 'the others' make up about half the field and are a gigantic reason everyone watches the opening weekend of the tournament. Because seriously, when it's time for the committee to take over, are they really going to go above and beyond who's being talked about to make up the remainder of the field? I don't think that's ever happened.

Last year we played 1 big name--Kansas. This year we played Duke and VCU...how is our RPI double what it was last season? Wasn't this schedule supposed to help our RPI? I know it's not the end of the season but I would have thought that the combo of Duke and VCU would equal a Kansas?

(02-13-2015 12:11 PM)Rocket Pirate Wrote:  

(02-12-2015 08:26 PM)Rocket A Wrote:  Or it could be because BGSUcks has the best RPI of the 3:

BGSUcks 53
Toledo 72
Akron 86

The RPI is a good tool and is very useful, but it's just that, a tool. Too many times people treat it as the end-all, be-all in college basketball. Until this week, Kentucky was as low as fourth depending on which RPI calculation was being used. A team that has four losses and was destroyed by Kentucky was the unanimous best team in every RPI ranking. The actual game still matters a lot. Losing to a D2 program and going 0-3 against the teams you are tied with means a lot more than the RPI. But Lunardi, Palm, and company don't look that deep when it comes to one-bid leagues.

Believe me, I know that RPI is just a tool. I was just suggesting how Lunardi came up with BGSUcks as the MAC rep in a 3 way tie. As another poster mentioned, it could be based on overall record.

I know it doesn't matter. The MAC is a 1 bid league.

Unfortunately, the selection committee seems to change their selection criteria to whatever favors the big boys. Now it is all about who have you beaten. Toledo had 1 chance at a marquee win last year. UT had maybe 2-3 chances this year. The Big Boys have somewhere between 10-12 opportunities for marquee wins. Everything is slanted to the big boys.

Yep. And I wasn't being critical of you with the RPI thing, I was being critical of the bracket people.

(02-13-2015 05:53 PM)bcunn3128 Wrote:  Last year we played 1 big name--Kansas. This year we played Duke and VCU...how is our RPI double what it was last season? Wasn't this schedule supposed to help our RPI? I know it's not the end of the season but I would have thought that the combo of Duke and VCU would equal a Kansas?

We havent played our toughest MAC teams on the road yet. Once we get Akron, CMU, WMU, and EMU on the road we will get a boost.

Last year our offensive quotient was off the charts while the defensive one was in the drain. Not quite the offensive spark kills our BPI plus some close losses to teams like Detroit at home, kent x2, Oakland, and WMU at home. Itll balance itself out though I think. If UT did make the tourney, theyd have neutral floor wins vs. good competition so those would boost the RPI late. We can afford one more loss down the home stretch to get a 12-13 seed IMO. 7-1 to end the year (two tourney games) good for 13-5 in regular season MAC play and 24-10 overall. That record wouldnt be shabby seeing we didnt get blown out by any team, and we did go out and play VCU, Oregon, and Duke.