As embarrassing as it may sound............I'll take it! Sums up the last decade in one sentence.
Would not take it.
As embarrassing as it may sound............I'll take it! Sums up the last decade in one sentence.
You telling me you don't have any analytical data to support the game you had a dream about predicting our future 2/12 months from now?Lunardi has us as the last team in according to his latest projection. I had an epiphany last night while watching the game and wanted to share. Having followed Illinois basketball the last twenty years, and believing that I understand how our sports fortunes/luck tends to play out I firmly believe that the following scenario will play out this season. We are destined for a "first four" game, we will sit exactly on the bubble all year and just slide in. It is just such an Illinois thing to do. Then, in that play-in game, we will come out of the gate playing absolutely terrible, and our opponent will make every shot they take for the first 10 minutes. We will go down big, miss bunnies, and get in foul trouble. Then, when it is almost too late to matter, we will start defending and making shots and will furiously rally to get it close, then run out of gas as our opponent makes all their free throws when we foul and chase and will lose by 10. Think the Western Kentucky game in 2008. No analytical basis for this belief, I just feel that this is Illinois basketball.
You telling me you don't have any analytical data to support the game you had a dream about predicting our future 2/12 months from now?
I bet you're fun at parties.
There's a fundamental problem.
Analytical statistics that report on the quality of teams are garbage (no better than the RPI, and very possibly worse) if margin of victory is not taken into account. However, accounting for margin of victory in something in "official" use by the selection committee essentially compels coaches (whose very livelihoods are determined by NCAA berths and seeding) to run up the score as much as possible, whenever possible. And people get mad about that.
We've been through this before in football.
Does anyone get the feeling that 12-6 is gonna win the damn division? With probably a 4 way tie or something?
Doesn't this happen already? Maybe not intentionally running up the score. But there's plenty of 20, 30, 40 point games early on in the basketball season.
Human evaluators don't tend to pay a ton of attention to those games. Computer models see everything, and reward you for leaving your starters in up 20 against Central Connecticut State.
Very weak bubble this year
Currently on 5 of 82 brackets, with a handful of 11/12 seeds. To say @PSU is a must-win seems like an understatement.
including the McKendree win (does that for sure not count towards our final record in the eyes of the committee?)
I don't mean to make fun, but at some point people need to understand that these "weak" resumes are just what bubble teams look like and have always looked like. People have marveled at what a weak bubble it is every single season I've been a college basketball fan.
I think when they expanded the tournament to 68 teams, it made a difference in how crappy the bubble was. The top teams and conference tournament winners take up a lot of bids, so the expansion meant 4 more very mediocre teams made it in. So I disagree.
I think when they expanded the tournament to 68 teams, it made a difference in how crappy the bubble was. The top teams and conference tournament winners take up a lot of bids, so the expansion meant 4 more very mediocre teams made it in. So I disagree.
That's true, but that was in (delayed) response to the increase in the number of small conferences getting automatic bids, in a Division 1 over ever-increasing size.
The broader point is that literally every year people talk about the soft bubble, going back to the 64 and 65 team eras. The winning percentage and conference records of the 11 and 12 seed type teams never really change.