Updated for 3/6 games.

Oklahoma and Minnesota are likely safe now with their victories, despite losing conference records. Utah State avoid a road scare at Colorado State. Impressive to win on the road in a big let down game after beating Nevada.

Updated records for 3/7 games.

Big 12 is going to make a mockery of making the tournament. So many barely .500 or worse teams that will get in due to wins despite a slew of bad losses (Texas, Baylor, probably TCU). Oklahoma lost a lot but at least they kept their losses to good teams. Doesnt make them worthy of competing for a title, but that ship sailed a long time ago.

St Mary's upset Gonzaga last night, probably the first official bid stealer. Hopefully that pushes out an Indiana/Ohio State/Texas/NC State/Clemson type of team and not a Belmont/UNCG/Lipscomb type, though I think we all know the reality.

(03-13-2019 06:20 AM)dan10 Wrote:  St Mary's upset Gonzaga last night, probably the first official bid stealer. Hopefully that pushes out an Indian/Ohio State/Texas/NC State/Clemson type of team and not a Belmont/UNCG/Lipscomb type, though I think we all know the reality.

Yes, we know the reality. Too bad UNCG didn't beat Wofford.

(03-13-2019 09:34 AM)Zorch Wrote:  

(03-13-2019 06:20 AM)dan10 Wrote:  St Mary's upset Gonzaga last night, probably the first official bid stealer. Hopefully that pushes out an Indian/Ohio State/Texas/NC State/Clemson type of team and not a Belmont/UNCG/Lipscomb type, though I think we all know the reality.

Yes, we know the reality. Too bad UNCG didn't beat Wofford.

Yeah, Wofford really should have laid down if they wanted to help their conference out in a superior year than they ever had. I can't blame them for wanting a title either. It is damn hard in any conference to run the table, but they did.

Selection Sunday my most hated day of the year seeing mediocre power 5 schools selected over deserving mid majors

(03-13-2019 10:44 AM)dan10 Wrote:  

(03-13-2019 09:34 AM)Zorch Wrote:  

(03-13-2019 06:20 AM)dan10 Wrote:  St Mary's upset Gonzaga last night, probably the first official bid stealer. Hopefully that pushes out an Indian/Ohio State/Texas/NC State/Clemson type of team and not a Belmont/UNCG/Lipscomb type, though I think we all know the reality.

Yes, we know the reality. Too bad UNCG didn't beat Wofford.

Yeah, Wofford really should have laid down if they wanted to help their conference out in a superior year than they ever had.

Well, I can’t name one team that would lay down in a championship game of any kind from intramurals to NBA.

If they did, they’d be hamstringing themselves with a bad seed. The last thing the NCAA wants to do is give Wofford a decent seed. A loss there would’ve given them all the justification they’d want to drop ‘em and make it easier for P5 teams with more fan followings (and money to be made) to get the better seeds and advance. As much as true basketball fans love to see Cinderella teams go on runs, it hurts the NCAA money machine when teams like Wofford take down big teams and reduce the amount of fans watching games once their teams are out. It’s all about the money.



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I dont think Wofford is going to get a good seed regardless, but you are right, they would have purposely dropped them into an 8/9 game even though they should be solidly a 6 seed, borderline 5

Reading ESPN's Bubble Watch is painful. All of this talk about "They have to select 68 teams" is really an inappropriate shot at the deserving mids. They are talking about these middling majors that have 2-3 Q1 wins on the season over an insane number of chances and are eliminated from their tournaments, while basically saying a team like UNCG who has 2 Q1 wins and 0 losses outside of Q1 is not looking good. It is baffling.

UNCG is 60th in the NET and 30th in the RPI. Furman is 42nd in the NET and 56th in the RPI. I'm not saying this will be what the Selection Committee does, but the fact that one is 60th in the NET and the other is 56th in the RPI could be used to justify leaving both out. The NET could be bad for Belmont. Belmont and Murray State are both better in the RPI than the NET, and the Ohio Valley is 24th in the Conference NET and 20th in the Conference RPI.

In the CAA, Northeastern is 33 spots worse in the NET than the RPI, Hofstra is 28 spots worse in the NET, and the other teams combined are 7 spots worse. The CAA is ranked 18th in both and in the Sagarin, but in the Sagarin it's tied with the Horizon League below it when rounded to two decimal places.

A few years ago, W&M was in the Top 30 of the RPI without being in the Bubble Watch. Given what the Selection Committee does, I can't blame ESPN or other sites. Unfortunately, there's a big difference between who you think the best teams are and who you think is most likely to get in. I wonder if somebody can take the RPI or NET and make an arbitrary adjustment to favor teams in the top conferences so it will predict the at-large bids better than any one measure that exists.

I read about how weak North Carolina State's schedule is. They played the second easiest out of conference schedule. As a result, their SOS is 121st. To compare, when George Mason went to the Final Four their SOS on Selection Sunday was 79th. CAA Tournament winner UNC Wilmington also had a better SOS than North Carolina State has now. I wanted to check Old Dominion's SOS when they got an at-large bid the next season. Unfortunately, the NCAA has information as of Selection Sunday for 2006 and 2008, but not 2007. When VCU went to the Final Four in 2011, their SOS on Selection Sunday was 78th. The CAA's three teams that season all had a harder SOS on Selection Sunday than Cincinnati, who was in the Big East then.

Actually NC State's is worst in DI at 353. An overall SOS of 121 is awful from a power conference, however on Kenpom I see their SOS at 59, which is still not good from the ACC who plays almost all of their games as Q1 games.

Nobody knows how the NET will look in the selection process. Furman has their Villanova win helping their NET tremendously. UNCG has more Q1 wins but all are SoCon games. But having 0 losses outside of Q1 should be rewarded especially when you only have 6 losses on the season. There are power teams with more Q1 losses that will make the field than UNCG. Leaving UNCG out because they lost 3 times to Wofford would be like leaving Virigina out because they lost 3 times to Duke. That sounds like a completely unfair comparison on paper, but Duke is #3 in the NET, Wofford is #13. Hard to hold any of those 3 losses against them.

I use Warren Nolan. Different sites have different SOS. I agree with your point about UNCG.

Rhode Island beat VCU 75-70, so all other things equal that will knock Belmont out of Joe Lunardi's bracket. Rhode Island was the 8 seed and VCU was the 1. It's the third consecutive season Rhode Island beat VCU in the A10 Tournament.

Edit: Joe Lunardi doesn't have UNCG in or in the first eight out, but CBS Sports's Jerry Palm has them in. Buffalo leads Central Michigan by 1 with 2:03 left. If Buffalo doesn't win the MAC Tournament, that will take an at-large bid away from the bubble.

Edit: Buffalo won 85-81. CBS Sports Network said they have an 11 game winning streak, and this was their 30th win, which extendeds their team record and tied the MAC record.

A10 was a bid stealer, Pac12 was a bid stealer last night. They will likely now get 3 bids, when they deserve 1

It's really annoying because in my opinion ASU is the best team in the P12. Would love to seem them leave out Wash but that seems unlikely.

The Selection Committee chose one more mid-major than Joe Lunardi. Lunardi had 67 teams correct, with TCU in the First Four. TCU missed out and Belmont made the First Four, with the other three mid-majors of UNC Greensboro, Furman, and Lipscomb out. St. John's is 73rd in the NET and will play the last First Four game against Arizona State, who is 63rd. Using the NET this season and the RPI in previous seasons, St. John's must be one of the worst at-large teams ever. Pac-12 Tournament winner Oregon got a 12 seed. Without checking, I wonder if this is the first time a team in the First Four didn't have the worst seed in their conference.
The 16s in the First Four are from one bid conferences, and the bubble teams are normally from conferences with their tournament winner and all their other teams seeded 10th or better. The Big Ten led with 8 teams, while the Big 12 had the highest percentage with 6 of 10.

Oregon should have been a 13, they got rewarded as a champ of a power conference.

St Louis got too high of a seed as well for not having that great of a season.

Utah State got rewarded for no reason, though they really were screwed more than helped by pitting them as an 8 so they face a 1 seed, should they win

St John's should have been left out, they just did not have the metrics to reward them. So many poor losses and a poor NET and an atrocious NCSOS. Guess that was the bone for the power conferences, like Belmont was the bone for the mids.

Overall I actually thought this was one of their better efforts. They really did not purposefully pit mids against mids and actually gave them chances against power conference teams. Heck they even put a 5/12 game against to power conferences, which does not happen often. Now it is the mids turn to win these games and show they can beat these teams.

Also Cincy, Wofford, Nevada and Buffalo were not given terribly nice seeds for being ranked teams, in Cincy's case they won a borderline power conference. Could even include Villanova who did win a power conference.

Hofstra got a 7 seed in the NIT. Ouch.

Oregon had a better NET than 12 seed Liberty and every 13 seed. Going by the NET this season and the RPI on Selection Sunday last season, the 12s and 13s are worse than last season. Here are the average ranks:

12s: 41.75 last season, 48.25 this season
13s: 58.5 last season, 80 this season

Last season Buffalo was 25th and got a 13 seed. This season the top 28 seeds, meaning all 1s through 7s, were the top 28 in the NET. Utah State is 29th in the NET, so an 8 seed is what they deserve based on that. Unrelated to their sports, I saw a YouTube video where a building had a map of the inside of the building. In addition to campus maps, depending on the size and shape of the building it could also be useful to have maps of the inside, and Hofstra didn't have that. I had a class where I came on the first day saw on the door that the class got moved to a far away building, and I knew how to get to the building, but it was hard to find within the building. I had to guess left or right, and a secretary asked me what I was looking for. It turned out to be in a unique room that had two doors that came from different places, and the other door was where I should have gone.

Edit: Here are the NET seeds and actual seeds for Cincinnati, Wofford, Nevada, Buffalo, and Villanova:

Cincinnati: NET 7, actual 7
Wofford: NET 4, actual 7
Nevada: NET 6, actual 7
Buffalo: NET 4, actual 6
Villanova: NET 7, actual 6

Buffalo and Wofford, who are from one-bid conferences, got worse than they deserve. Cincinnati and Nevada, who are from conferences that always or often get multiple bids, were close enough that it would be like an election poll within the margin of error.

Hofstra goes to North Carolina State was the top NET team out in 33rd, but is 97th in the RPI. They started with three wins over horrible teams by a combined scored of 300-153, and margin of victory is in the NET but not the RPI. The difference between a 6 and a 7 is that Hofstra can't host in the Second Round, but at least it will be travel that can be done by bus to Georgetown or Harvard. If Hofstra wins twice, their Quarterfinal will be in North Carolina or Tennessee, and with the Final Four at MSG, Hofstra will not play any games in another time zone all season unless they win twice and Lipscomb (in the Central Time Zone in Nashville) beats Davidson and UNC Greensboro or Campbell. Hofstra got an NIT 3 seed in 2006 with the second best RPI out.

For those keeping track at home:

4 team qualified with a losing conference record (Oklahoma, St John's, Minnesota, Ohio State)

4 teams qualified with a .500 conference record (Seton Hall, Iowa State, Iowa, Florida)