Would not take it.
Bracketology
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Would not take it.
ILL in IA
- Iowa City
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.
ILL in IA
- Iowa City
Illinois basketball and my kids have left me with nothing but snark and sarcasm.
On bracket matrix, we are also the last at large team in right now, play-in perdition.
i think we are in 19 of 29 brackets posted there in the last 2 days, between a 9 and a 12 seed.
Directly in our rearviwew are Michigan, KState, OK St, Wake, Marquette, Cal Houston and Georgia.
Directly in front of us are Rhode Island (who lost last night), Tx Tech, Miami, NC St., TCU, Arkansas, Seton Hall and Iowa State. North of that are Northwestern, and MSU at 9 seeds and IU at an 8.
http://bracketmatrix.com/
of course every game is winnable and loseable in this conference right now...on Massey.com (I havent paid kenpom this year), except for @Purdue, the range of our remaining win percentages is 38%-70%, whch I find pretty staggering. the range of predicted point spreads are:
+6 PSU
+5 IA
+4 @RUT
+2 MSU
+2 MD
+1 NU
+1 MIN
-1 @PSU
-1 @NEB
-3 @IA
-4 @Mich
-5 WIS
-6 @NU
-10 (@Purdue)
i think we are in 19 of 29 brackets posted there in the last 2 days, between a 9 and a 12 seed.
Directly in our rearviwew are Michigan, KState, OK St, Wake, Marquette, Cal Houston and Georgia.
Directly in front of us are Rhode Island (who lost last night), Tx Tech, Miami, NC St., TCU, Arkansas, Seton Hall and Iowa State. North of that are Northwestern, and MSU at 9 seeds and IU at an 8.
http://bracketmatrix.com/
of course every game is winnable and loseable in this conference right now...on Massey.com (I havent paid kenpom this year), except for @Purdue, the range of our remaining win percentages is 38%-70%, whch I find pretty staggering. the range of predicted point spreads are:
+6 PSU
+5 IA
+4 @RUT
+2 MSU
+2 MD
+1 NU
+1 MIN
-1 @PSU
-1 @NEB
-3 @IA
-4 @Mich
-5 WIS
-6 @NU
-10 (@Purdue)
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.
frozenrope9190
- Aurora, IL
Does anyone get the feeling that 12-6 is gonna win the damn division? With probably a 4 way tie or something?
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
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.
I think that someone will end up 14-4, but I think a 3-way tie for second at 12-6 sounds plausible. I also keep thinking that despite our inconsistency we could easily get on a run and wind up 12-6 or 11-7. Lots of parity this year. Our defense is bad and we lack athleticism and ball handling, but we've got lots of shooting and size.
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.
I'm as big a analytics guy as you can find. KenPom should be the committee chairman as far as I'm concerned.
But, I will concede that there is something nice and clean about RPI. A win is a win and a loss is a loss and there is nothing more to worry about. Win = happy. Loss = sad. But if efficiency, pace, rate stats, and margin of victory suddenly started playing into the selection process in a very defined way, it would change the way a game is watched and analyzed. A win is no longer a win if it's a squeaker against a lowly ranked team. A loss suddenly becomes a win when you keep it close on the road against a great team. Not sure how I feel about that.
But, I will concede that there is something nice and clean about RPI. A win is a win and a loss is a loss and there is nothing more to worry about. Win = happy. Loss = sad. But if efficiency, pace, rate stats, and margin of victory suddenly started playing into the selection process in a very defined way, it would change the way a game is watched and analyzed. A win is no longer a win if it's a squeaker against a lowly ranked team. A loss suddenly becomes a win when you keep it close on the road against a great team. Not sure how I feel about that.
Illini1221
Peru,IL
One of the reasons I prefer RPI and SOS. Kenpom has Ohio State ranked ahead of us. That makes absolutely zero sense.
Advanced metrics would do us no favors.
Foggy Notion
- San Francisco
I agree. There is not much difference between a 20-point win and a 40-point win (both teams usually stop playing a real game at some point during a blowout), but their is a huge difference between a one-point win and a one-point loss.
Matrix updated, we're still one of the last teams in, but are included on 42 of 63 brackets.
Illini1221
Peru,IL
Lunardi has us as one of his next four out. Really punished us for the home loss. That being said, some of these other bubble teams look as bad as us after looking at their resumes. Very weak bubble this year so far.
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.
Maybe, but it depends on how many wins you think it'll take to get us in.
Considering our insanely high SOS ranking and decent RPI, after its all said and done with the BTT and including the McKendree win (does that for sure not count towards our final record in the eyes of the committee?), if we have 19 wins do we get in? What about 20? I think 21 is almost a sure bet.
What if we get 7 more conference wins and lose our only BTT game? Theres too many possibilities that could happen to call any game a must win, as long as theres a shot at 20 wins.
It doesn't count. Only games vs D1 opponents are considered.
And again, # of wins needed depends on who they are against. A win over Wisconsin adds much more to the resume than beating Penn St.
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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 the expansion was due to adding another conference, wasn't it? They didn't want to reduce the number of at large teams so they added more instead. So technically it added 3 very mediocre teams and 1 really bad team.
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.
True. The bubble is always weak. Good team are always solidly in the tournament. The bubble always consists of mediocre teams. This is exactly the reason that the Illini have a better shot at the tournament then people think. They still have to play better but they are not dead yet.
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